Category Archives: Technology

Elon Musk considers ‘slight’ Twitter fee for commercial users

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Government users may also be charged, says billionaire, who has agreed to buy platform for $44bn

Elon Musk has said Twitter may charge a “slight” fee for commercial and government users, in the latest hint of the changes the world’s richest person could introduce after he completes his takeover of the social media platform.

“Twitter will always be free for casual users, but maybe a slight cost for commercial/government users,” Musk said in a tweet. In another tweet, he added: “Some revenue is better than none!”

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Over 200 Spanish mobile numbers ‘possible targets of Pegasus spyware’

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Data leak reveals scale of potential surveillance by NSO Group client believed to be Morocco

More than 200 Spanish mobile numbers were selected as possible targets for surveillance by an NSO Group client believed to be Morocco, according to the data leak at the heart of the Pegasus project.

Details of the scale of the apparent targeting came as Spain’s highest criminal court opened an investigation into how the mobile phones of the prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, and the defence minister, Margarita Robles, came to be infected with Pegasus spyware last year.

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‘Supersonic ballet’: helicopter briefly catches falling rocket

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Rocket Lab test successfully hooks booster in midair before having to drop it into South Pacific

A space company has briefly managed to catch a falling rocket using a helicopter and a hook in a test described by its chief executive as “something of a supersonic ballet”.

The test was part of Rocket Lab’s attempts to find relatively low-cost ways of recovering rockets for multiple missions to space.

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Spanish prime minister’s phone ‘targeted with Pegasus spyware’

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Minister for presidency says ‘illicit’ targeting will be investigated by Spain’s highest criminal court

The Spanish government has said the mobile phones of the prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, and the defence minister, Margarita Robles, were both infected last year with the Pegasus spyware that its manufacturers claim is available only to state agencies.

In a hastily convened press conference on Monday morning, Félix Bolaños, the minister for the presidency, said Sánchez’s phone was targeted in May and June 2021, while Robles’s was targeted in June 2021. Data was extracted from both phones.

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Russia’s trolling on Ukraine gets ‘incredible traction’ on TikTok

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US social media researcher says authentic-seeming accounts have hundreds of thousands of followers

Russia’s online trolling operation is becoming increasingly decentralised and is gaining “incredible traction” on TikTok with misinformation aimed at sowing doubt over events in Ukraine, a US social media researcher has warned.

Darren Linvill, professor at Clemson University, South Carolina, who has been studying the Kremlin-linked Internet Research Agency (IRA) troll farm operation since 2017, said it was succeeding in creating more authentic-seeming posts.

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California tech titan’s Senate run has one target: Tesla’s self-driving software

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Dan O’Dowd has bankrolled his own campaign to take a swing at what he calls Elon Musk’s ‘amazingly terrible’ technology

Dan O’Dowd is hardly the first California tech titan to bankroll his own campaign for high political office. What makes him unusual is that he has no interest in winning the US Senate seat he is vying for, or even in challenging the other candidates competing in the 7 June primary.

O’Dowd, a software entrepreneur with a 40-year history of working on military, aerospace and other commercial contracts, is running, rather, out of frustration at his fellow tech entrepreneur, Elon Musk, whom he accuses of endangering road safety with a driver assistance software package he’s put in his Tesla electric cars.

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‘Cheering section’ for violence: the attacks that show 4chan is still a threat

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The Washington DC shooting was the most recent to spawn out of the extremist culture of unregulated ‘chan’ message boards

When police in Washington DC burst into a fifth-floor apartment building on 22 April in search of a man who allegedly had shot four people at random, they found Raymond Spencer dead by his own hand, a cache of guns and ammunition, and a poster with an ironic white supremacist meme.

The poster invoking the meme, popular on the extremist online forum 4chan, was a stark reminder that this attack blamed on Spencer, 23, was only the most recent mass casualty attack to spawn out of the ugly extremist culture of unregulated internet message boards such as 4chan.

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Facebook moderators call on firm to do more about posts praising Bucha atrocities

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Company insists any content glorifying violence against Ukrainians not allowed, but moderators say lack of guidance means they feel forced to leave up some content

Facebook moderators have called on the company to let them take action against users who praise or support the Russian military’s atrocities in Bucha and across Ukraine.

Almost a month after evidence of widespread murder and mass graves was uncovered by Ukrainian forces taking the suburb of Kyiv, the social network still has not flagged the atrocity as an “internally designated” incident, the moderators say.

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Elon Musk sells $8.5bn-worth of Tesla shares after Twitter deal

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Carmaker’s shares fell this week over concerns CEO would offload stock to help fund takeover of platform

Elon Musk has sold $8.5bn (£6.8bn) worth of shares in Tesla as the world’s richest man raises cash after reaching a deal to buy Twitter.

The Tesla chief executive has committed $21bn of his own money to the funding package for acquiring the social media platform, which he agreed to buy for $44bn on Monday. Since then Musk has sold 9.6m Tesla shares, or about 5.6% of his stake in the business, according to filings with the US financial regulator.

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ACLU helped draft article at heart of Depp v Heard case for $3.5m donation, court hears

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American Civil Liberties Union’s general counsel testifies that at least $500,000 came from fund connected to Elon Musk

The ACLU helped Amber Heard draft the Washington Post article accusing Johnny Depp of abuse after the organization was promised a $3.5m donation from her divorce – though at least $500,000 of it eventually came from a fund connected to Tesla founder Elon Musk, jurors in the Depp-Heard defamation trial heard on Thursday.

The American Civil Liberties Union’s general counsel, Terence Dougherty, testified that the organization decided to propose Heard as an ambassador for the group after Heard pledged the sizeable donation over 10 years.

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Elon Musk engages with tweets criticising Twitter staff

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Acquisition agreement allows Musk to tweet about deal but not to disparage firm or its representatives

Elon Musk has engaged with tweets criticising Twitter employees despite promising not to “disparage” the company or its representatives while he completes the deal to acquire the social media platform.

The world’s richest man agreed to restrictions on his tweets as part of a 95-page agreement covering his $44bn acquisition filed on Tuesday.

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Twitter takeover: EU and UK warn Elon Musk must comply or face sanctions

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EU commissioner raises hate speech concerns as UK draws attention to penalties in online safety bill

The UK and EU have warned that Twitter must comply with new content rules or face sanctions that range from fines to a total ban, as concerns were raised that hate speech will increase on the platform under the ownership of Elon Musk.

The world’s richest man has agreed a $44bn (£34bn) deal to buy the social media network, which will hand control of a platform with 217 million users to a self-confessed “free speech absolutist”.

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Alphabet revenue falls short as YouTube and TikTok battle for users

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Supply issues, inflation and war in Ukraine fuel Google parent company’s first-quarter struggles

Alphabet’s first quarter revenue fell below analysts’ expectations on Tuesday, as the company confronts supply chain problems, inflation concerns, and fallout from the war in Ukraine.

In its quarterly earnings report, Google’s parent company said it had made a quarterly profit of $16.436bn, or $24.62 per share, missing expectations of $25.76 per share.

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Could Elon Musk’s Twitter plans prove a costly mistake?

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Analysis: Experts warn against reinstating banned accounts and neglecting moderation

Welcome back Donald Trump, Katie Hopkins, David Icke and Alex Jones? These are just some of the Twitter accounts that could be reinstated if the platform’s new owner-in-waiting, “free speech absolutist” Elon Musk, practices what he preaches.

All of those accounts have been permanently suspended from the platform for infractions that include, most notoriously, the former US president’s alleged support for the Capitol riot on 6 January last year. Their reinstatement now appears to be back in play given that the world’s richest man has agreed a $44bn (£35bn) takeover of the platform that banned them and has stated that “free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy”.

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Jeff Bezos questions China’s influence over Elon Musk’s Twitter

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Amazon founder raises concerns after Tesla boss strikes $44bn deal to buy social media platform

Jeff Bezos has questioned whether China will lean on Elon Musk’s Tesla business to quell criticism of Beijing on Twitter.

The world’s second richest man posted a tweet raising concerns over potential Beijing influence on Twitter several hours after the Tesla chief executive, and current holder of the No 1 wealth spot, reached a $44bn (£34bn) deal with the Twitter board to buy the influential social media platform.

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Elon Musk, world’s richest man, reaches deal to buy Twitter for $44bn

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Tesla chief executive will gain control over social network he has criticized over its handling of ‘free speech’

Elon Musk has reached a $44bn deal to buy Twitter in a takeover that will give the world’s richest man control of a social network with more than 200 million users.

The sale will put the Tesla chief executive in charge of a company that he has frequently criticized, claiming it has not lived up to its potential as a platform for “free speech”.

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Amazon labor organizers push for second union victory in New York

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About 1,500 eligible workers at LDJ5 sorting center on Staten Island vote in union ballot, after recent success at JFK8 warehouse

Amazon workers in New York will go to the polls again as labor activists push to unionize a second facility in the US following their surprise recent victory over the tech giant.

About 1,500 eligible workers at an LDJ5 Amazon sorting center in Staten Island, New York, begin voting in a union election on Monday, in a process that will continue through 29 April. Ballot-counting starts on 2 May.

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Could Anglesey’s tidal energy project drive a new energy revolution?

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Experts say Wales has huge potential for generating renewable marine power, yet, so far, ambitious schemes have been ignored

On the stunning and craggy coastline of Holy Island in north Wales, work has started on a construction project to generate energy from one of the world’s greatest untapped energy resources: tidal power.

The Morlais project, on the small island off the west of Anglesey has benefited from £31m in what is likely to be the last large grant for Wales from the European Union’s regional funding programme. It will install turbines at what will be one of the largest tidal stream energy sites in the world, covering 13 square miles of the seabed.

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Meta investors brace for a difficult quarter after stocks nosedive

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After losing a record $230bn in market value due to a disappointing earnings report in February, analysts are hoping to see progress

Meta experienced a historic nosedive in value earlier this year amid a major rebrand and shake-ups to its business model – and investors are bracing for another difficult quarter.

Meta lost a record $230bn in market value after a disappointing earnings report in February, in which it revealed Facebook had recorded its first-ever drop in daily user numbers.

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Twitter uses Earth Day to announce ban on climate denialism ads

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The platform has been a source of a growing wave of climate misinformation and said denialism ‘shouldn’t be monetized’

Twitter chose Earth Day to announce it will ban advertisements that deny the scientific consensus on climate crisis.

“We believe that climate denialism shouldn’t be monetized on Twitter, and that misrepresentative ads shouldn’t detract from important conversations about the climate crisis,” the company declared on Friday.

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