Category Archives: Technology

Meta sued by 33 states over claims youth mental health endangered by Instagram

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Complaint filed in California accuses company of knowingly inducing children and teenagers into addictive social media use

The attorneys general of dozens of US states are suing Instagram and its parent company Meta over their impact on young users, accusing them of contributing to a youth mental health crisis through the addictive nature of their social media platforms.

Filed in federal court in Oakland, California, on Tuesday, the lawsuit claims Meta, which also operates Facebook, has repeatedly misled the public about the substantial dangers of its platforms and knowingly induced young children and teenagers into addictive and compulsive social media use.

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Australian federal police tested controversial facial recognition search engine, FOI documents reveal

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Exclusive: The AFP told Senate estimates it is now aware the PimEyes and FaceCheck.ID platforms may have been tested for operational purposes on around 10 occasions

The Australian federal police have tested a controversial facial recognition search engine, possibly for operational use.

Documents obtained by Guardian Australia under freedom of information laws show hundreds of connections between AFP devices and the website PimEyes between 1 January and 4 August this year.

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China launches tax investigations into Apple iPhone maker Foxconn

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Tax audits and land use inquiries follow company founder announcing run for Taiwan presidency

China’s tax authorities have launched multiple investigations into the company that makes the iPhone, months after its billionaire founder announced he would run in Taiwan’s presidential elections.

Foxconn faces tax audits of its operations in China, as well as investigations into land use in two Chinese provinces, according to reports by local media.

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Sunak’s global AI safety summit risks achieving very little, warns tech boss

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Big tech firms attempting to ‘capture’ meeting of heads of government, says Connor Leahy

One of the executives invited to Rishi Sunak’s international AI safety summit next month has warned that the conference risks achieving very little, accusing powerful tech companies of attempting to “capture” the landmark meeting.

Connor Leahy, the chief executive of the AI safety research company Conjecture, said he believed heads of government were poised to agree a style of regulation that would allow companies to continue developing “god-like” AI almost unchecked.

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Instagram apologises for adding ‘terrorist’ to some Palestinian user profiles

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Parent company Meta says bug caused ‘inappropriate’ auto-translations and was now fixed while employee says it pushed ‘a lot of people over the edge’

Meta has apologised after inserting the word “terrorist” into the profile bios of some Palestinian Instagram users, in what the company says was a bug in auto-translation.

The issue, which was first reported by 404media, affected users with the word “Palestinian” written in English on their profile, the Palestinian flag emoji and the word “alhamdulillah” written in Arabic. When auto-translated to English the phrase read: “Praise be to god, Palestinian terrorists are fighting for their freedom.”

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Nokia to cut up to 14,000 jobs after profits plunge

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Finnish telecoms group aims to cut costs as demand for mobile network equipment slumps

Nokia has announced plans to cut up to 14,000 jobs over the next three years as it slashes costs after a worse-than-expected slump in demand for its mobile network equipment.

The Finnish technology company said the plans to cut 16% of its 86,000-strong global workforce were part of efforts to cut costs by €1.2bn by the end of 2026. The cuts were announced as the company revealed a 70% drop in third-quarter profits, which fell to €133m (£116m) compared with €428m a year earlier.

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Fears of employee displacement as Amazon brings robots into warehouses

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Digit will begin its time on the floor by shifting empty tote boxes amid concerns humans will be shifted out of jobs

Amazon is experimenting with a humanoid robot as the technology company increasingly seeks to automate its warehouses.

It has started testing Digit, a two-legged ​r​obot that can grasp and lift items, at facilities this week. The device is first being used to shift empty tote boxes.

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Netflix says password crackdown working as it adds 8.8 million new users

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Streaming company announces plans to increase prices as profits rise, even as Hollywood strikes threaten to affect programming

Netflix announced its global crackdown on password sharing was working and unveiled plans to increase prices as it announced its latest quarterly results on Wednesday.

The streaming media company added 8.8 million new subscribers over the last three months, far better than expected and up from 2.4 million in the same quarter last year. The increase came even as a strike by Hollywood actors and writers threatened to affect the rollout of new shows.

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Finland faces growing Russian online threat, Finnish security services say

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Official at Finnish intelligence service says espionage attempts have increased since Ukraine invasion

Finland has had increased online espionage attempts from Russia since Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, security services have said.

Supo, the Finnish security and intelligence service, said the country faced various threats from Russia, including cyberattacks and disinformation.

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X, formerly Twitter, rolls out US$1 annual fee for new users in New Zealand and the Philippines

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Platform owned by Elon Musk says subscription trial is aimed at combating bots on the service

X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, has begun rolling out a US$1 annual charge to new users in New Zealand and the Philippines in a move the service owned by Elon Musk says is aimed at combating bots.

Fortune first reported the subscription plan, which costs US$1 a year for access to key functions including tweeting, replying, retweeting and liking. After Fortune’s report, X revealed the details.

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Vodafone-Three merger could add up to £300 a year to mobile bills, says union

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Tie-up is a ‘terrible deal for Britain’ that also poses risks for national security, Unite claims

Mobile phone bills could rise by as much as £300 a year as a result of the merger of the UK operations of Vodafone and the owner of Three, a trade union has said.

Unite has been a vocal critic of the proposed deal, which would create the UK’s largest mobile operator, and said that it is a “terrible” deal that also poses risks for national security.

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Former FTX executive says he was ‘embarrassed and ashamed’ of its excess

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Nishad Singh testifies at Sam Bankman-Fried trial about millions spent by failed crypto exchange on celebrity partnerships

The jury at Sam Bankman-Fried’s fraud trial on Monday saw a photograph of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange founder with the singer Katy Perry and the actor Orlando Bloom at the 2022 NFL Super Bowl, as prosecutors sought to bolster their case that the failed crypto mogul squandered customer money on efforts to boost his stature.

Prosecutors displayed the image as Nishad Singh, FTX’s former director of engineering, testified about how the company spent hundreds of millions of dollars on celebrity partnerships and marketing in early 2022, months before the exchange declared bankruptcy amid a wave of customer withdrawals.

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Meta’s settlement talks with Kenyan content moderators break down

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Facebook parent company and two subcontractors face court hearing over unfair dismissal allegations

Settlement talks have collapsed between Facebook’s parent company, Meta, and Kenyan content moderators over a lawsuit alleging unfair dismissal, a tech rights group working with the plaintiffs has said.

The 184 moderators sued Meta and two subcontractors earlier this year after they allegedly lost their jobs with one of the subcontractors, Sama, for organising a union. They say they were then blacklisted from applying for the same roles at a second firm, Majorel, after Facebook changed contractors.

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Quantum physicist Michelle Simmons awarded PM’s top science prize over computing work

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The 2018 Australian of the year was recognised for her work on super-fast technology in the field of atomic electronics

The quantum physicist and 2018 Australian of the year, Prof Michelle Simmons, has been awarded the top honour at the prime minister’s prizes for science.

Simmons, of the University of New South Wales, was recognised on Monday night for her work in creating the field of atomic electronics.

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Africa’s ‘optimist-in-chief’ on the continent’s renaissance: ‘Don’t just believe me, believe the data’

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In an exclusive interview, Akinwumi Adesina, head of the African Development Bank, says the outlook is good for a continent with the workers of the future and the best investment opportunities

Africa holds the future workforce for the ageing economies of the west, according to one of the continent’s leading financial figures, who also said it was time to ditch the myths around corruption and risk.

In an exclusive interview before this weekend’s World Bank meetings in Morocco, Akinwumi Adesina said there was a resurgence of belief in Africa’s economic prospects and attacked negative stereotyping, adding that there was “every reason to be optimistic”.

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Researchers use AI to read word on ancient scroll burned by Vesuvius

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University of Kentucky challenged computer scientists to reveal contents of carbonised papyrus, a ‘potential treasure trove for historians’

When the blast from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius reached Herculaneum in AD79, it burned hundreds of ancient scrolls to a crisp in the library of a luxury villa and buried the Roman town in ash and pumice.

The disaster appeared to have destroyed the scrolls for good, but nearly 2,000 years later researchers have extracted the first word from one of the texts, using artificial intelligence to peer deep inside the delicate, charred remains.

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Boss of world’s largest cinema chain victim of catfish blackmail plot

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Adam Aron duped into sending explicit photos to ‘Mia’, fake ballet dancer created by US woman who pleaded guilty to cyberstalking

The boss of the world’s largest movie theatre chain sent sexually explicit messages and photos to a woman who then tried to blackmail him for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Adam Aron, the chief executive of AMC Entertainment, which also owns the Odeon chain in Europe, exchanged messages for weeks last spring with an individual he believed was a ballet dancer with whom he had previously been in a romantic relationship.

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How Israel-Hamas war disinformation is being spread online

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Case of footage from set of Palestinian film being repurposed to make false claims is far from one-off

The video shows a young boy in a black T-shirt apparently lying in a pool of blood on the ground. Above him is a camera, with a man shouting directions near him. Two men in kippahs, the Jewish skull caps, and men in green military fatigues similar to Israel Defence Forces (IDF) uniforms are gathered around him.

The clip has been viewed about 2m times on X, formerly known as Twitter. It was shared by a verified user with the caption: “Video showing Israel attempting to create fake footage of deaths.”

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Caroline Ellison testifies Sam Bankman-Fried told her to illegally divert FTX funds

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Former Alameda Research CEO says ex-boyfriend largely blamed her for company’s financial collapse

Sam Bankman-Fried’s fraud trial entered its sixth day on Wednesday with more testimony from Caroline Ellison, his ex-girlfriend and the former CEO of the hedge fund associated with his collapsed cryptocurrency exchange. She testified that, during last year’s cryptocurrency crash, Bankman-Fried directed her to illegally appropriate FTX customers’ money.

When downturn began in May 2022, Ellison worried that the walls could soon come down on Alameda Research. Many of the hedge fund’s lenders had open-term loans, which meant they could call them – and ask for their money back – at any point. The crash left Alameda in the lurch after the value of its crypto assets evaporated. The two had broken up in early 2022. Ellison said she was avoiding social settings and one-on-one conversations with him when the crash began.

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Social media urged to act on violent content after Hamas attack

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UK minister calls urgent meeting to discuss coverage as X comes under scrutiny over disinformation claims

The UK technology secretary has summoned social media executives to demand the removal of violent content from their platforms related to the Hamas attack on Israel.

Michelle Donelan called the meeting as the European Union criticised Elon Musk’s X platform about coverage of the Israel-Hamas conflict on its platform including fake news and the use of repurposed historical footage.

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