Year: 2023

Year: 2023

US Sues SpaceX for Discriminating Against Refugees, Asylum-Seekers
08/24/2023 iNews,iTechnology iMaster

The U.S. Justice Department is suing Elon Musk’s SpaceX for refusing to hire refugees and asylum-seekers at the rocket company. In a lawsuit filed on Thursday, the Justice Department said SpaceX routinely discriminated against these job applicants between 2018 and 2022, in violation of U.S. immigration laws. The lawsuit says that Musk and other SpaceX

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AI Firms Under Fire for Allegedly Infringing on Copyrights
08/24/2023 iNews,iTechnology iMaster

New artificial intelligence tools that write human-like prose and create stunning images have taken the world by storm. But these awe-inspiring technologies are not creating something out of nothing; they’re trained on lots and lots of data, some of which come from works under copyright protection. Now, the writers, artists and others who own the

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US Seeks to Extend Science, Tech Agreement With China for 6 Months
08/23/2023 iNews,iTechnology iMaster

The U.S. State Department, in coordination with other agencies from President Joe Biden’s administration, is seeking a six-month extension of the U.S.-China Science and Technology Agreement (STA) that is due to expire on August 27. The short-term extension comes as several Republican congressional members voiced concerns that China has previously leveraged the agreement to advance

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How AI Can ‘Resurrect’ People
08/23/2023 iNews,iTechnology iMaster

In 2023, a new way to use AI has come online. Some companies are using the tool to make lifelike avatars of people, even those who have died.  Maxim Moskalkov reports. Camera: Andrey Degtyarev. …

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India Lands Craft on Moon’s Unexplored South Pole
08/23/2023 iNews,iTechnology iMaster

An Indian spacecraft has landed on the moon, becoming the first craft to touch down on the lunar surface’s south pole, the country’s space agency said. India’s attempt to land on the moon Wednesday came days after Russia’s Luna-25 lander, also headed for the unexplored south pole, crashed into the moon.   It was India’s second

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Kenyan Court Gives Meta and Sacked Moderators 21 Days to Pursue Settlement  
08/23/2023 iNews,iTechnology iMaster

A Kenyan court has given Facebook’s parent company, Meta, and the content moderators who are suing it for unfair dismissal 21 days to resolve their dispute out of court, a court order showed on Wednesday. The 184 content moderators are suing Meta and two subcontractors after they say they lost their jobs with one of

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Meta Rolls Out Web Version of Threads 
08/22/2023 iNews,iTechnology iMaster

Meta Platforms on Tuesday launched the web version of its new text-first social media platform Threads, in a bid to retain professional users and gain an edge over rival X, formerly Twitter. Threads’ users will now be able to access the microblogging platform by logging-in to its website from their computers, the Facebook and Instagram

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Europe’s Sweeping Rules for Tech Giants Are About to Kick In
08/22/2023 iNews,iTechnology iMaster

Google, Facebook, TikTok and other Big Tech companies operating in Europe are facing one of the most far-reaching efforts to clean up what people encounter online. The first phase of the European Union’s groundbreaking new digital rules will take effect this week. The Digital Services Act is part of a suite of tech-focused regulations crafted

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Meta to Soon Launch Web Version of Threads in Race with X for Users
08/21/2023 iNews,iTechnology iMaster

Meta Platforms is set to roll out the web version on its new text-first social media platform Threads, hoping to gain an edge over X, formerly Twitter, as the initial surge in users waned. The widely anticipated web version will make Threads more useful for power users like brands, company accounts, advertisers and journalists. Meta

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Biden Administration Announces More New Funding for Rural Broadband Infrastructure
08/21/2023 iNews,iTechnology iMaster

The Biden administration on Monday continued its push toward internet-for-all by 2030, announcing about $667 million in new grants and loans to build more broadband infrastructure in the rural U.S. “With this investment, we’re getting funding to communities in every corner of the country because we believe that no kid should have to sit in

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Russia’s Luna-25 Crashes Into Moon 
08/20/2023 iNews,iTechnology iMaster

Russia’s Luna-25 spacecraft has crashed into the moon. “The apparatus moved into an unpredictable orbit and ceased to exist as a result of a collision with the surface of the moon,” Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, said Sunday. On Saturday, the agency said it had a problem with the craft and lost contact with it.

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Russia Fines Google $32,000 for Videos About Ukraine Conflict
08/17/2023 iNews,iTechnology iMaster

A Russian court on Thursday imposed a $32,000 fine on Google for failing to delete allegedly false information about the conflict in Ukraine. The move by a magistrate’s court follows similar actions in early August against Apple and the Wikimedia Foundation that hosts Wikipedia. According to Russian news reports, the court found that the YouTube

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Texas OKs Plan to Mandate Tesla Tech for EV Chargers in State
08/16/2023 iNews,iTechnology iMaster

Texas on Wednesday approved its plan to require companies to include Tesla’s technology in electric vehicle charging stations to be eligible for federal funds, despite calls for more time to re-engineer and test the connectors. The decision by Texas, the biggest recipient of a $5 billion program meant to electrify U.S. highways, is being closely

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Musk’s X Delays Access to Content on Reuters, NY Times, Social Media Rivals
08/16/2023 iNews,iTechnology iMaster

Social media company X, formerly known as Twitter, delayed access to links to content on the Reuters and New York Times websites as well as rivals like Bluesky, Facebook and Instagram, according to a Washington Post report on Tuesday. Clicking a link on X to one of the affected websites resulted in a delay of

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In Seattle, VP Harris Touts Administration Efforts to Boost Clean Energy
08/16/2023 iNews,iTechnology iMaster

Vice President Kamala Harris marked the one-year anniversary of the Inflation Reduction Act by touting the Biden administration’s commitment to mitigating the climate crisis. Natasha Mozgovaya reports from Seattle. …

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Google to Train 20,000 Nigerians in Digital Skills
08/16/2023 iNews,iTechnology iMaster

Google plans to train 20,000 Nigerian women and youth in digital skills and provide a grant of $1.6 million to help the government create 1 million digital jobs in the country, its Africa executives said on Tuesday.  Nigeria plans to create digital jobs for its teeming youth population, Vice President Kashim Shettima told Google Africa

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Fiction Writers Fear Rise of AI, Yet See It as a Story
08/13/2023 iNews,iTechnology iMaster

For a vast number of book writers, artificial intelligence is a threat to their livelihood and the very idea of creativity. More than 10,000 of them endorsed an open letter from the Authors Guild this summer, urging AI companies not to use copyrighted work without permission or compensation. At the same time, AI is a

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Chinese Surveillance Firm Selling Cameras With ‘Skin Color Analytics’
08/12/2023 iNews,iTechnology iMaster

IPVM, a U.S.-based security and surveillance industry research group, says the Chinese surveillance equipment maker Dahua is selling cameras with what it calls a “skin color analytics” feature in Europe, raising human rights concerns.  In a report released on July 31, IPVM said “the company defended the analytics as being a ‘basic feature of a

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Virgin Galactic Flies Its First Tourists to the Edge of Space
08/10/2023 iNews,iTechnology iMaster

Virgin Galactic rocketed to the edge of space with its first tourists Thursday, including a former British Olympian who bought his ticket 18 years ago and a mother-daughter duo from the Caribbean. The space plane glided back to a runway landing at Spaceport America in the New Mexico desert, after a brief flight that gave

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China to Require all Apps to Share Business Details in New Oversight Push
08/10/2023 iNews,iTechnology iMaster

China will require all mobile app providers in the country to file business details with the government, its information ministry said, marking Beijing’s latest effort to keep the industry on a tight leash.  The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said late on Tuesday that apps without proper filings will be punished after the

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US Launches Contest to Use AI to Prevent Government System Hacks
08/09/2023 iNews,iTechnology iMaster

The White House on Wednesday said it had launched a multimillion-dollar cyber contest to spur use of artificial intelligence to find and fix security flaws in U.S. government infrastructure, in the face of growing use of the technology by hackers for malicious purposes.   “Cybersecurity is a race between offense and defense,” said Anne Neuberger,

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US to Restrict High-Tech Investment in China
08/09/2023 iNews,iTechnology iMaster

U.S. President Joe Biden is planning Wednesday to impose restrictions on U.S. investments in some high-tech industries in China. Biden’s expected executive order could again heighten tensions between the U.S., the world’s biggest economy, and No. 2 China after a period in which leaders of the two countries have held several discussions aimed at airing

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