Year: 2023

Year: 2023

Australia Bans TikTok on Government Devices
04/04/2023 iNews,iTechnology iMaster

Australia said Tuesday it will ban TikTok on government devices, joining a growing list of Western nations cracking down on the Chinese-owned app due to national security fears.    Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus said the decision followed advice from the country’s intelligence agencies and would begin “as soon as practicable”.    Australia is the last member of the

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Virgin Orbit Files for Bankruptcy, Seeks Buyer
04/04/2023 iNews,iTechnology iMaster

Virgin Orbit, the satellite launch company founded by Richard Branson, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and will sell the business, the firm said in a statement Tuesday.    The California-based company said last week it was laying off 85% of its employees — around 675 people — to reduce expenses due to its inability to secure sufficient funding.   

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Germany Could Block ChatGPT if Needed, Says Data Protection Chief
04/03/2023 iNews,iTechnology iMaster

Germany could follow in Italy’s footsteps by blocking ChatGPT over data security concerns, the German commissioner for data protection told the Handelsblatt newspaper in comments published on Monday. Microsoft-backed MSFT.O OpenAI took ChatGPT offline in Italy on Friday after the national data agency banned the chatbot temporarily and launched an investigation into a suspected breach

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NASA to Reveal Crew for 2024 Flight Around the Moon
04/03/2023 iNews,iTechnology iMaster

NASA is to reveal the names on Monday of the astronauts — three Americans and a Canadian — who will fly around the Moon next year, a prelude to returning humans to the lunar surface for the first time in a half century.    The mission, Artemis II, is scheduled to take place in November 2024 with the four-person

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Congolese Student’s Device Makes Science Fiction Reality
04/03/2023 iNews,iTechnology iMaster

A student in Congo has developed a tool that allows people to control or move objects using their brain signals. Andre Ndambi visited the department of engineering at the University of Kinshasa and has this story narrated by Salem Solomon. Jean-Louis Mafema contributed. …

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Twitter Pulls ‘Verified’ Check Mark From Main New York Times Account
04/03/2023 iNews,iTechnology iMaster

Twitter has removed the verification check mark on the main account of The New York Times, one of CEO Elon Musk’s most despised news organizations. The removal comes as many of Twitter’s high-profile users are bracing for the loss of the blue check marks that helped verify their identity and distinguish them from impostors on

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Dutch Refinery to Feed Airlines’ Thirst for Clean Fuel 
04/02/2023 iNews,iTechnology iMaster

Scaffolding and green pipes envelop a refinery in the port of Rotterdam where Finnish giant Neste is preparing to significantly boost production of sustainable aviation fuel.  Switching to non-fossil aviation fuels that produce less net greenhouse gas emissions is key to plans to decarbonize air transport, a significant contributor to global warming.  Neste, the largest

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Italy Temporarily Blocks ChatGPT Over Privacy Concerns
04/01/2023 iNews,iTechnology iMaster

Italy is temporarily blocking the artificial intelligence software ChatGPT in the wake of a data breach as it investigates a possible violation of stringent European Union data protection rules, the government’s privacy watchdog said Friday. The Italian Data Protection Authority said it was taking provisional action “until ChatGPT respects privacy,” including temporarily limiting the company

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Namibia Looks East for Green Hydrogen Partnerships
04/01/2023 iNews,iTechnology iMaster

The administrator of the National Energy Administration of China, Zhang Jinhua, on Friday paid a visit to Namibia President Hage Geingob. The visit is aimed at establishing cooperation in the area of green hydrogen production. Namibia is positioning itself as a future green hydrogen producer to attract investment from the globe’s leading and fastest growing

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Call for Pause in AI Development May Fall on Deaf Ears
03/31/2023 iNews,iTechnology iMaster

A group of influential figures from Silicon Valley and the larger tech community released an open letter this week calling for a pause in the development of powerful artificial intelligence programs, arguing that they present unpredictable dangers to society. The organization that created the open letter, the Future of Life Institute, said the recent rollout

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Is Banning TikTok Constitutional?
03/31/2023 iNews,iTechnology iMaster

U.S. lawmakers and officials are ratcheting up threats to ban TikTok, saying the Chinese-owned video-sharing app used by millions of Americans poses a threat to privacy and U.S. national security. But free speech advocates and legal experts say an outright ban would likely face a constitutional hurdle: the First Amendment right to free speech. “If

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Russia Using TikTok to Push Pro-Moscow Narrative on Ukraine
03/31/2023 iNews,iTechnology iMaster

New data is suggesting at least some U.S. adversaries are taking advantage of the hugely popular TikTok video-sharing app for influence operations. A report Thursday by the Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD) finds Russia “has been using the app to push its own narrative” in its effort to undermine Western support for Ukraine. “Based on

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Chinese Hacking Group Highly Active, US Cybersecurity Firm Says
03/31/2023 iNews,iTechnology iMaster

A Chinese hacking group that is likely state-sponsored and has been linked previously to attacks on U.S. state government computers is highly active and focusing on a broad range of targets that may be of strategic interest to China’s government and security services, a private American cybersecurity firm said in a report Thursday. The hacking

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Blinken Urges Democracies to Use Technology to Help Citizens
03/30/2023 iNews,iTechnology iMaster

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday urged democracies around the world to work together to ensure technology is used to promote democratic values and fight efforts by authoritarian regimes to use it to repress, control and divide citizens. Blinken made the comments as he led a discussion on “Advancing Democracy and Internet Freedom

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Tech Leaders Sign Letter Calling for ‘Pause’ to Artificial Intelligence 
03/30/2023 iNews,iTechnology iMaster

An open letter signed by Elon Musk, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and other prominent high-tech experts and industry leaders is calling on the artificial intelligence industry to take a six-month pause for the development of safety protocols regarding the technology. The letter — which as of early Thursday had been signed by nearly 1,400 people

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Biden Says GOP Policies Would Surrender Tech Economy to China
03/29/2023 iNews,iTechnology iMaster

President Joe Biden said Tuesday that Republicans’ ideas for cutting the budget could undermine U.S. manufacturing and help China dominate the world economy.  Speaking at a semiconductor maker in North Carolina to highlight his own policies, Biden is trying to shape public sentiment as he faces off with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., about raising

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Curbed by US Sanctions, Huawei Unveils New 4G Smartphones
03/28/2023 iNews,iTechnology iMaster

At a March 23 product launch in Shanghai, Chinese tech giant Huawei unveiled its signature P60 series of smartphones with high-end cameras and its Mate X3 series mobile phones equipped with folding screens. There were demonstrations. There were speeches. But something was missing from the Huawei offerings: 5G, which gives phones the speedy internet access

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Ford Battery Plant Using Chinese Tech Raises Alarms in Congress
03/28/2023 iNews,iTechnology iMaster

Ford Motor Company’s plan to create batteries for the rapidly expanding electric vehicle (EV) market could encounter congressional speed bumps because of the carmaker’s plan to use technology created by a Chinese company with ties to the communist government. Ford executive chairman William Clay Ford Jr. announced in February that the company would spend $3.5

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Twitter Celebs Balk at Paying Elon Musk for Blue Check Mark
03/27/2023 iNews,iTechnology iMaster

William Shatner, Monica Lewinsky and other prolific Twitter commentators — some household names, others little-known journalists — could soon be losing the blue check marks that helped verify their identity on the social media platform.  They could get the marks back by paying up to $11 a month. But some longtime users, including 92-year-old Star

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Twitter: Parts of its Source Code Leaked Online
03/27/2023 iNews,iTechnology iMaster

Some parts of Twitter’s source code — the fundamental computer code on which the social network runs — were leaked online, the social media company said in a legal filing on Sunday that was first reported by The New York Times.  According to the legal document, filed with the U.S. District Court of the Northern

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US House Speaker Says Lawmakers to Move Forward with TikTok Bill 
03/26/2023 iNews,iTechnology iMaster

U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy said on Sunday lawmakers will move forward with legislation to address national security worries about TikTok, alleging China’s government had access to the short video app’s user data. In the United States, there are growing calls to ban TikTok, owned by China-based company ByteDance, or to pass bipartisan

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Intel Co-Founder, Philanthropist Gordon Moore Dies at 94
03/25/2023 iNews,iTechnology iMaster

Gordon Moore, the Intel Corp. co-founder who set the breakneck pace of progress in the digital age with a simple 1965 prediction of how quickly engineers would boost the capacity of computer chips, has died. He was 94. Moore died Friday at his home in Hawaii, according to Intel and the Gordon and Betty Moore

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