Facebook Pledged To Suspend Political Donations, Then Quietly Funneled $50,000 to GOP Group Pushing Voter Suppression Laws
By: Popular Info April 5, 2021 On January 11, Facebook announced that “following last week’s awful violence” it was suspending donations from its political committee “for at least the current quarter, while we review our policies.” But campaign finance records obtained by Popular Information reveal that, 44 days later, Facebook donated $50,000 to the Republican […]
Scientists Create Online Games To Show Risks Of AI Emotion Recognition
By: The Guardian April 4, 2021 It is a technology that has been frowned upon by ethicists: now researchers are hoping to unmask the reality of emotion recognition systems in an effort to boost public debate. Technology designed to identify human emotions using machine learning algorithms is a huge industry, with claims it could […]
Facebook Data on 533 Million Users Re-emerges Online for Free
By: Bloomberg April 3, 2021 The personal data of more than half a billion Facebook Inc. users reemerged online for free on Saturday, a reminder of the company’s ability to collect mountains of information and its struggles to protect these sensitive assets. The leak includes personal information on 533 million Facebook users, such […]
The Truth Behind The Tories’ Northern Strongholds
By: The Economist April 3, 2021 Michael finn, the design director of Barratt Developments, Britain’s biggest home builder, does not like the term “estates”. It sounds “very 1960s and very concrete”, he says. “We build places.” That is not the only change. Barratt homes come with more storage space than they used to, he […]
Supreme Court Sides with Facebook in Text Message Dispute
By: abcnews April 2, 2021 WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday sided with Facebook in a lawsuit over unwanted text notifications it sent, rejecting a claim that the messages violated the federal ban on robocalls. The high court’s ruling for the Menlo Park, California-based social media giant was unanimous. Democratic lawmakers […]
Governments Have Identified Commodities Essential to Economic and Military Security
By: The Economist March 31, 2021 Cut deep into the desert rock of southern California are the jagged tiers of an open-pit mine. Mountain Pass is North America’s only mine of rare-earth metals, used in everything from fighter jets to the drive-trains of electric cars. In 2015 Mountain Pass shut, unable to compete with […]
Trust In Tech Craters
By: Axios March 31, 2021 Trust in tech — including companies specializing in AI, VR, 5G and the internet of things — fell all around the world last year, the Edelman Trust Barometer found in a massive survey of 31,000 people in 27 countries. Driving the news: The study, provided first to Axios, […]
Microsoft Wins $21B Army Contract To Supply HoloLens Augmented Reality Headsets
By: Fox Business March 31, 2021 The Pentagon awarded a long-term contract to Microsoft to build more than 120,000 augmented reality headsets for the U.S. Army, officials said on Wednesday. Microsoft will produce Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS) headsets equipped with its HoloLens technology. The contract is worth up to $21.88 billion over a 10-year period, according […]
US Threatens Tariffs on UK Exports Over Digital Services Tax
By: The Guardian March 29, 2021 The Biden administration has warned it could slap 25% tariffs on British exports to the US after the UK levied a digital services tax on major technology companies. The price of clothing and footwear, ceramics, beauty products and furniture exports to the US could rise by a quarter, according to a […]