List of All Articles with Tag 'tech'

Twitter’s new chief Linda Yaccarino has sent her first memo to employees which echoes Elon Musk’s goal for the company to be a “global town square”. “From space exploration to electric vehicles, Elon knew these industries needed transformation, so he did it,” Ms Yaccarino, who led global ad sales for NBCUniversal in her previous stint, wrote. “More recently it has become increasingly clear that the global town square needs transformation – to drive civilization forward through the unfiltered exchange of information and open dialogue about the things that matter most to us,” she added in the memo. The longtime advertising executive is expected to oversee Twitter’s ads business that has crumbled since Mr Musk took over the company in October last year. Meanwhile, the Tesla titan said he would be overseeing Twitter’s product and engineering teams. Reiterating Mr Musk’s goal of a “Twitter 2.0”, Ms Yaccarino said the company is on a mission to become “the world’s most accurate real-time information source and a global town square for communication”. “That’s not an empty promise .... That’s our reality,” she said in the memo, which was also shared with some tweaks on her official Twitter account. “Have you ever been talking with someone particularly insightful and thought, you should have the freedom to speak your mind?.... We all should,” the new Twitter chief wrote. Ms Yaccarino told Twitter employees that they now had “the opportunity to reach across aisles, create new partnerships, celebrate new voices, and build something together that can change the world”. Since the Tesla and SpaceX chief’s takeover of Twitter, the platform’s ad revenue in the US plunged by over half. The New York Times reported last week that the social media company made $88m worth of ad sales between April and May this year – marking a 59 per cent drop from the same period last year. Within weeks of the “free speech absolutist” taking over Twitter, several key executives at the social media giant were fired, and controversial people like Donald Trump and Andrew Tate were allowed to return to the platform. Following many of his moves reflecting a change in content moderation policy on the platform, several high profile brands said they would stop advertising via Twitter. Following Mr Musk’s $44b takeover deal, Twitter’s value plunged, with the Tesla titan saying in March that the company was worth $20bn. In April, the multibillionaire said Twitter was “roughly breaking even”, adding that “almost all advertisers have come back or said they are going to come back”. Then last month, the Tesla titan said he would be stepping down as Twitter’s chief to focus on overseeing product, software and sysops as company’s chief technology officer. Ms Yaccarino, who seems to be selected based on her connections with the advertising world, would be the company’s new chief. “It’s rare to have the chance to put a new future into the hands of every person, partner, and creator on the planet. That’s exactly why I’m here – with all of you,” she wrote in the memo. Read More Elon Musk is hilariously shut down by his ‘favourite’ podcast Elon Musk refuses to pay Twitter’s Google bill, leaving site in peril Elon Musk responds to bizarre AI images of him as baby Elon Musk is hilariously shut down by his ‘favourite’ podcast Twitter is a troll’s playground — and Elon Musk wants to make life even easier for them What to know about Twitter's new CEO Linda Yaccarino

By Lisa Pauline Mattackal and Medha Singh It's a rough time to be an altcoin. Insecurity reigns. A

By David Shepardson (Reuters) -The Federal Trade Commission asked a court to temporarily block Microsoft Corp's acquisition of Activision Blizzard

Artificial intelligence (AI) and other new technologies could worsen inequality and leave some communities poorer than before if not used for the “public good”, Sir Keir Starmer is set to warn. The Labour leader, who will offer his own vision for how to address fast-paced technological changes at a tech conference on Tuesday, is also expected to question whether the Prime Minister is actually doing enough to make the UK a world leader in AI. Sir Keir, whose appearance at the London Tech Week conference follows Rishi Sunak’s own speech on Monday, will raise the legacy of the de-industrialisation of recent decades to warn that the same mistakes cannot be made again as technology advances. The Labour leader is expected to argue that while the UK has a unique opportunity to lead the world in this area, it will require partnerships with business for the “public good”. This moment calls for Labour values, of working in partnership with business, driving technology to the public good, and ensuring people and places aren't left behind Sir Keir Starmer's expected speech He will say: “Our country is facing a choice about who benefits from the huge disruption that tech will bring. “Will it be those who already hold wealth and power, or will it be the starter firms trying to break in and disrupt the industry, the patients trying to book an appointment with their GP, the worker using technology to enhance and improve their role.” Sir Keir will argue that despite the UK’s success in science and research, a lack of certainty from the Conservatives and a missing industrial strategy are ensuring that the country’s advantages are being wasted. Discussing AI, he is also expected to say: “The question facing our country is who will benefit from this disruption? Will it leave some behind, as happened with de-industrialisation across vast swathes of our country? “Or can it help build a society where everyone is included, and inequalities are narrowed not widened?” “This moment calls for Labour values, of working in partnership with business, driving technology to the public good, and ensuring people and places aren’t left behind. “Labour would take a whole-economy approach, recognising that tech is not just a sector, but every job and every business must become digital if we are to address the UK’s productivity problem. “Diffusing the latest technology across our economy and public services will be as important as supporting the latest unicorns.” Sir Keir will tell the tech industry audience that Labour would make the harnessing of new technologies central to government. “I will harness technology as the great accelerator of our five missions for Government, working in partnership with business to face the future and deliver growth, prosperity and opportunity across the UK,” he will say. “We will form a new agenda on digital skills, through our ‘growth and skills’ levy to ensure people are equipped for the jobs of the future. “Labour’s industrial strategy, combined with good regulation, will secure and create good jobs, and responsible and ethical development of new technology.” Mr Sunak has long been enthusiastic about the opportunities of AI and wants the UK to be home to a global AI regulator. Promoting his planned major summit on the issue in the autumn, Mr Sunak on Monday also warned measures are needed to protect against the “extreme risks” AI could pose. But Labour has accused the Government of already being behind and its white paper on AI already out of date. “I do say to him, it’s all very well having these ambitions, but if they’re not matched with actions at home, we won’t have credibility on the world stage,” Mr Starmer will say. Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live Ukrainian schoolboy to buy home for his mother after selling Minecraft server Legislation needed to protect data from AI ‘ghostbots’, say researchers Banking app feature allows economic abuse survivors to mute malicious messages

COPENHAGEN Denmark aims to raise the age limit for the collection of personal data from children by tech

Oracle Corp. reported quarterly revenue that topped estimates, signaling the software maker’s cloud business is benefiting from heightened

Google is set to be hit with a formal antitrust complaint from the European Union that could pave

Most of Reddit has now gone “dark” in protest against the management of the online forum. The controversy began when Reddit announced that it would start charging for access to its API, the technology that allows other developers access to its data. Some of those developers immediately announced that the pricing was so high that it would make their apps unsustainable – and one, widely-respected client Apollo, has since said it will have to shut down. That set off outrage across Reddit. While that initially focused on the decision to start charging for access to its data, it has since grown, with many users suggesting that they are generally dissatisfied with the way the site is being managed. What has happened to Reddit? On June 12, many of the world’s biggest subreddits went “dark”. That meant setting their privacy settings to private, so that only anyone who is already a member can see them. For anyone who tries to visit those forums and is not a member – which includes most of those on Reddit, including many of its biggest – they will see a message that it has gone private and is therefore not available. In a widely circulated message explaining the outage, users explained that it was intended as a protest. Some will return on 14 June, after 48 hours of darkness, it says, but others might opt to never come back again if the problem is not addressed. That is because “many moderators aren’t able to put in the work they do with the poor tools available through the official app” the message reads. “This isn’t something any of us do lightly: we do what we do because we love Reddit, and we truly believe this change will make it impossible to keep doing what we love.” Why did Reddit change its policy? All of this began because Reddit announced that it would start charging for access to its API. Many of its users – including Christian Selig, the developer of the Apollo app that is at the centre of much of the controversy – say that this is reasonable. Reddit’s data is used by sites such as Google and to train artificial intelligence systems, for instance. And at the moment, Reddit is not paid for that usage, despite the fact that it costs the company (which is not profitable) to host that data. But it was the pricing and the way it was rolled out that caused such controversy. Mr Selig said that the pricing would cost his app $2 million per month, which is much more than storing the user data is thought to cost Reddit, and he and others were given only 30 days to respond. Which Reddit forums are part of the blackout? Almost all of them. The latest numbers suggest that 7259, out of 7806, of the site’s subreddits are currently unavailable to the public. Of the seven subreddits that have more than 30 million subscribers, all but one – r/pics – have been made private. A full, live list that shows both the subreddits that are down and the overall impact of the protest can be found on this tracking page. How can this happen? Reddit is unusual among social networks in that it depends heavily on its users, who administer the forums and moderate the content that appear on them. That saves it a lot of money – Meta, for instance, spends vast sums on ensuring that problematic content does not appear on Facebook and Instagram – and means that those users feel as if they should be listened to when it comes to such issues. It also means that they are able to take decisions that the management of Reddit might not like them to, including turning those subreddits private. Some 30,000 moderators are thought to be running the subreddits that are involved in the protest, and working together has given them considerable power to grind the site to a halt. Read More Reddit down amid major protest Popular Reddit app Apollo shuts down as site’s users revolt against it Millions of Reddit users face a blackout over pricing revolt Elon Musk refuses to pay Twitter’s Google bill, leaving site in peril Apple’s headset is not the most important thing it announced this week Mark Zuckerberg reveals what he thinks about Apple’s headset – and it’s not good

The Federal Trade Commission plans to file in federal court to prevent Microsoft and Activision-Blizzard from closing their $69 billion merger, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Thousands of popular Reddit communities dedicated to topics ranging from Apple Inc to gaming and music locked out

Reddit has stopped working for millions of users around the world. The mass outage comes amid a major boycott from thousands of the site’s administrators, who are protessting new changes to the platform. On 12 June, popular sub-Reddits like r/videos and r/bestof went dark in retaliation to proposed API (Application Programming Interface) charges for third-party app developers. Among the apps impacted by the new pricing is popular iOS app Apollo, which announced last week that it was unable to afford the new costs and would be shutting down. Apollo CEO Christian Selig claimed that Reddit would charge up to $20 million per year in order to operate, prompting the mass protest from Reddit communities. In a Q&A session on Reddit on Friday, the site’s CEO Steve Huffman defended the new pricing. “Some apps such as Apollo, Reddit is Fun, and Sync have decided this pricing doesn’t work for their businesses and will close before pricing goes into effect,” said Mr Huffman, who goes by the Reddit username u/spez. “For the other apps, we will continue talking. We acknowledge that the timeline we gave was tight; we are happy to engage with folks who want to work with us.” In response to the latest outage, one Reddit user wrote on Twitter: “Spez, YOU broke Reddit.” Website health monitor DownDetector registered more than 7,000 outage reports for Reddit on Monday. Some users were greeted with the message: “Something went wrong. Just don’t panic.” Others received an error warning that stated: “Our CDN [content delivery network] was unable to reach our servers.” The Independent has reached out to Reddit for further information about the issues. More to follow. Read More Popular Reddit app Apollo shuts down as site’s users revolt against it Millions of Reddit users face a blackout over pricing revolt Elon Musk refuses to pay Twitter’s Google bill, leaving site in peril Elon Musk refuses to pay Twitter’s Google bill, leaving site in peril Apple’s headset is not the most important thing it announced this week Mark Zuckerberg reveals what he thinks about Apple’s headset – and it’s not good

Astronomers believe they might have found the source of the brightest explosion ever in space. The record-breaking explosion recorded in October 2022 was the most powerful ever seen, leaving equipment and instruments struggling to measure it as it pointed directly at planet Earth. The bright gamma-ray burst is officially called GRB 221009A and when it first went off, scientists were left scrabbling to point telescopes in its direction to record it. The explosion has affectionately been nicknamed BOAT, standing for “brightest of all time”, and was caused by the death of a large star located 2.4 billion light-years away – relatively close in terms of space activity. The star collapsed into a black hole after ejecting its outer envelope, causing this huge, bright explosion comprised of gamma rays, producing not only a narrow structured jet but with an additional outflow of gas. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter This “exceptionally rare event” surprised astronomers, who had not predicted the existence of gas, and certainly provides plenty of new information around the question of how black holes form. The study’s lead author and astronomer from George Washington University, Brendan O'Connor, explained: “GRB 221009A represents a massive step forward in our understanding of gamma-ray bursts, and demonstrates that the most extreme explosions do not obey the standard physics assumed for garden variety gamma-ray bursts.” He continued: “GRB 221009A might be the equivalent Rosetta stone of long GRBs, forcing us to revise our standard theories of how relativistic outflows are formed in collapsing massive stars.” The huge and long-lasting blast measured up to 18 teraelectronvolts which is a staggering record for a gamma-ray burst, leaving scientists to hypothesise that it was a supernova. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.