CNN By Brian Fung, CNN A threat by Facebook owner Meta to remove news content from its platforms appears to have been averted — for now — after US lawmakers omitted an antitrust bill it opposed from the text of an annual defense spending bill released late Tuesday evening. Meta had warned on Monday that
Continue ReadingBy Brian Fung, CNN Apple and Google’s continued hosting of TikTok on their app stores, despite US national security concerns about the short-form video app, reflects the tech giants’ “gatekeeper” power and should be made part of any antitrust reviews the app stores may face, a member of the Federal Communications Commission wrote to the
Continue ReadingCNN By Brian Fung, CNN Apple and Google’s continued hosting of TikTok on their app stores, despite US national security concerns about the short-form video app, reflects the tech giants’ “gatekeeper” power and should be made part of any antitrust reviews the app stores may face, a member of the Federal Communications Commission wrote to
Continue ReadingBy Samantha Murphy Kelly, CNN Business Imagine if Siri could write you a college essay, or Alexa could spit out a movie review in the style of Shakespeare. OpenAI last week opened up access to ChatGPT, an AI-powered chatbot that interacts with users in an eerily convincing and conversational way. Its ability to provide lengthy,
Continue ReadingCNN By Jennifer Korn, CNN BlocPower, a Brooklyn-based clean energy company, is bringing eco-friendly, all-electric heating and cooling systems to older buildings in lower income communities, with the goal of reducing carbon footprints and energy bills. Backed by investors like Goldman Sachs’ Urban Investment Group and Microsoft’s Climate Innovation Fund, BlocPower brings all-electric smart technology
Continue ReadingBy Jennifer Korn, CNN BlocPower, a Brooklyn-based clean energy company, is bringing eco-friendly, all-electric heating and cooling systems to older buildings in lower income communities, with the goal of reducing carbon footprints and energy bills. Backed by investors like Goldman Sachs’ Urban Investment Group and Microsoft’s Climate Innovation Fund, BlocPower brings all-electric smart technology to
Continue ReadingBy Juliana Liu, CNN Business Apple supplier Foxconn says it is “gradually” restoring production capacity at its sprawling campus in central China, which has been hit by Covid-19 restrictions and worker protests since October. The “epidemic situation” at the facility, known as iPhone City and normally home to hundreds of thousands of workers, has been
Continue ReadingCNN By Donie O’Sullivan, CNN Twitter announced late Monday that it was disbanding its “Trust and Safety Council,” according to an email the company sent to the council’s members that was obtained by CNN. The company said in the email that it was “reevaluating how best to bring external insights into our product and policy
Continue ReadingBy Samantha Murphy Kelly, CNN Business In 2015, the same year Apple introduced its smartwatch, a Kickstarter campaign launched for a very different kind of wearable device: a wellness-tracking gadget called the Oura Ring. Seven years later, the Apple Watch is the most popular wearable device while other similar products from Google and Samsung also
Continue ReadingBy Brian Fung, CNN For days, Twitter owner Elon Musk had teased a massive bombshell disclosure based on internal company documents that he claimed would reveal “what really happened” inside Twitter when it decided to temporarily suppress a 2020 New York Post story about Hunter Biden and his laptop. But on Friday, instead of releasing
Continue ReadingBy Oliver Darcy, CNN New Twitter owner Elon Musk declared last month that “hate speech impressions” had dramatically fallen on the platform since he took over. It was a remarkable claim, given that Musk has executed mass layoffs and chased away hundreds of employees, draining the company of much-needed resources to enforce content moderation policies,
Continue ReadingBy Rob McLean, CNN Business Kanye West’s Twitter account was suspended early Friday morning after Elon Musk said it violated the platform’s rules on inciting violence. “I tried my best. Despite that, he again violated our rule against incitement to violence. Account will be suspended,” Musk tweeted in a reply. CNN could not confirm which
Continue ReadingCNN By Rob McLean, CNN Business Kanye West’s Twitter account was suspended early Friday morning after Elon Musk said it violated the platform’s rules on inciting violence. “I tried my best. Despite that, he again violated our rule against incitement to violence. Account will be suspended,” Musk tweeted in a reply. CNN could not confirm
Continue ReadingBy Brian Fung, CNN The rapper formerly known as Kanye West will no longer be acquiring Parler, the alternative social media platform favored by conservatives including some far-right extremists, the company announced on Thursday. West has legally changed his name to Ye. The decision to abandon the deal was mutual, Parler tweeted. In a statement,
Continue ReadingBy Jackie Wattles, CNN Elon Musk — the SpaceX founder, Tesla CEO, and, most recently, Twitter owner — hosted a flashy event on Wednesday night for yet another one of his companies: Neuralink, the startup proposing implants that connect your brain to a computer. The event showcased a video that Musk said showed a monkey
Continue ReadingBy Clare Duffy, CNN Business Enterprise tech giant Salesforce said Wednesday that its co-CEO and Vice Chair Bret Taylor will step down from his roles. Salesforce co-founder Marc Benioff, who had been co-CEO alongside Taylor, will continue running the company and serving as board chair, the company said in a news release. Taylor had worked
Continue ReadingBy Brian Fung, CNN A top European Union official warned Twitter owner Elon Musk on Wednesday that the social media platform must take significant steps to comply with EU content moderation laws, and that European officials will be monitoring closely for compliance. Twitter has “huge work ahead” to meet its obligations under the Digital Services
Continue ReadingBy Catherine Thorbecke, CNN Business Amazon CEO Andy Jassy on Wednesday said an “uncertain” economy pushed the e-commerce giant to move forward with rare and wide-ranging layoffs after having gone on a significant hiring spree for much of the pandemic. “We had the lens of a very uncertain economic environment, as well as our having
Continue ReadingBy Catherine Thorbecke, CNN Business DoorDash on Wednesday said it will lay off about 1,250 corporate employees after growing its team too quickly during the pandemic, making it the latest tech company to cut staff in recent weeks. The cuts represent about 6% of DoorDash’s staff, according to a company spokesperson. DoorDash CEO Tony Xu
Continue ReadingCNN By Brian Fung, CNN Business Twitter owner Elon Musk’s dictatorial management style risks driving the company headlong into unforced business blunders, content moderation disasters and the degradation of core platform features that help keep vulnerable users safe, according to a former top Twitter official who led the company’s content moderation before abruptly resigning this
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