Alphabet, Google’s parent company, has announced plans to seek external investment for its GFiber internet service business. GFiber provides high-speed internet and Wi-Fi connectivity in select markets across the United States. 

Securing outside funding will enable GFiber to significantly accelerate its expansion efforts to additional cities.

Steady Customer Growth, But Big Metro Areas Untapped

Despite Alphabet’s goal in 2008 to boost internet speeds 100-fold through advanced fiber-optic technology, GFiber has faced an uphill battle in gaining market share. It has operated in only 15 states since launching in Kansas City in 2012. 

GFiber competes against telecommunications giants like Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T, which have long-established national networks. Over the past six years, GFiber has achieved an impressive milestone by tripling its customer base, indicating steady growth. 

However, Alphabet declined to disclose the total number of subscribers. In 2023 alone, GFiber secured agreements to bring services to over 25 additional cities nationwide.

Despite its progress, GFiber has yet to penetrate some of the largest metropolitan areas in the country.

It does not currently provide internet access in six of the ten most populous U.S. cities, including New York. Expanding into these densely populated regions represents a massive opportunity for GFiber to significantly increase its market share and customer base.

In a report by Reuters, alphabet’s president and chief financial officer, Ruth Porat, emphasized the company’s strategic vision. He stated that this next step of raising external capital will enable GFiber to scale its technical leadership, expand its reach, and provide better internet access to more communities.

However, Alphabet has not disclosed the specific amount of funding it seeks to raise for GFiber or its target valuation.

Part of Alphabet’s Broader “Other Bets” Growth Strategy

GFiber is part of Alphabet’s “Other Bets” portfolio, encompassing its businesses outside of Google. These ventures are typically in earlier research, development, and commercialization stages.

Other Bets include companies like Verily (healthcare technology) and Waymo (self-driving cars), which have successfully secured investments from external partners.

According to Alphabet’s 2023 annual report, its Other Bets division collectively generated $1.5 billion in revenue, primarily from internet and healthcare services, but incurred a net loss of $4.1 billion as it invests heavily in growth and innovation.

Ruth Porat recently stated that Alphabet aims to “sharpen its investment focus” and capitalize on compelling technological breakthroughs across its Other Bets portfolio. 

The company’s “moonshot factory” division, X, also seeks external capital to spin off more projects.

Alphabet has recently joined other major tech firms in implementing job cuts to streamline operations and reduce costs. However, the company has not confirmed whether GFiber’s capital raise is directly linked to its broader restructuring and cost optimization efforts.

The post Alphabet Seeks External Capital to Accelerate GFiber Growth appeared first on The Tech Report.

The notable Bitcoin analyst Michael van de Poppe has predicted an explosive run for altcoins in the coming days. According to the market watcher, Altcoin has the potential to generate more than $600 million inflow in the future.

With such a massive drive, he expects the global crypto market to hit a $2.2 trillion capitalization in no time.

Meanwhile, today, February 6, the market cap is around $1.66 trillion. 

Bitcoin Analyst Shows Optimism In The Growth Of The Crypto Market Cap

The Bitcoin analyst took to the X platform to lay out his thoughts on an upcoming trend in the market. He based his forecast on the prevailing market dynamics and the cumulative circulating funds.

In his analysis, van de Poppe pointed out that the crypto market is currently undergoing a consolidation stage. 

This reflects when the market is retracing its trend and preparing to launch a more considerable momentum. Further, the analyst indicated his optimism for a better performance.

He believed the market was currently at its lowest cycle and could only move upward.

In line with his expectations, van de Popped mentioned that the global crypto market will reach the $2.2 trillion mark.

He stated:

Very likely that we’ll see a continuation from here; the momentum and trend are extremely strong. Continuation towards $2.2T coming from Altcoins.

Total market capitalization of #Crypto is consolidating.

Very likely that we'll see a continuation from here, the momentum and trend are extremely strong.

Continuation towards $2.2T coming from #Altcoins. pic.twitter.com/99CDW1qAKm

— Michaël van de Poppe (@CryptoMichNL) February 5, 2024

As of today, February 6, the market cap is $1.66 trillion. As such, it will record a growth increase of 32.53% to reach the prediction. Additionally, the analyst included a chart to show an expected trajectory that befits the growth.

According to the chart, weekly patterns specify the market’s opening and closing points. 

Also, the graph highlights the pivotal points in trends after the last recorded market peak. Further, the chart showed that a successful entry into the $1.87 trillion region of the market would represent a confirmation of its potential movement to the $2.2 trillion threshold.

Recall that the crypto market last grew to $2.2 trillion by the end of 2021. This period aligned with the highest point of the previous bull season before the bears became dominant.

Altcoins Expected To Pioneer The $2.2T Crypto Market Cap

Alternative cryptocurrencies, known as altcoins, have gained more attention recently. Due to the higher value of Bitcoin, many investors have been adopting altcoins as their preference.

So analyst van de Poppe believed that altcoins have a significant role in his forecast.

He mentioned that they will champion the growth of the global market cap to reach $2.2 million. He predicted that altcoins would garner at least $600 billion to boost the market influx very soon.

Surprisingly, other prominent crypto personalities have shared similar posts on the role of altcoins in bull runs. 

Recently, stock investor Jelle mentioned that altcoins would be the most significant investment opportunity in the crypto space. He noted that they kick off a massive increase within the next few weeks.

A few more weeks of sideways, before the real #altcoins fun starts.

My bags are packed. Let's go. pic.twitter.com/SmPhljXFBY

— Jelle (@CryptoJelleNL) February 5, 2024

The post Bitcoin Analyst Predicts A $600 Billion Altcoin Drive, Pushing Global Market Cap To $2.2T appeared first on The Tech Report.

Samsung Electronics Chairman Jay Y. Lee was recently acquitted of charges related to accounting fraud and stock manipulation by a Seoul court. Released on Monday, February 5, the unexpected verdict came contrary to the expectations of legal analysts who had anticipated a suspended sentence.

The ruling may grant Lee more flexibility in steering the affairs of South Korea’s largest conglomerate.

Details of the 2015 Merger Case and Latest Ruling

In 2015, Lee Jae-Yong., and 13 other former Samsung executives allegedly pushed through the merger of two affiliates—Samsung C&T and Cheil Industries— without consulting the shareholders. 

Before the merger, Cheil was under the Lee family and other related entities, not Samsung C&T, a prominent Samsung Electronics stakeholder (Samsung’s flagship unit). 

In the lawsuit, filed in the Seoul District Court, prosecutors demanded a five-year jail term, while Lee pleaded not guilty to the charges. The Samsung chief argued that he and the concerned executives engineered the merger, believing it would benefit the shareholders.

After their review, the three judges presiding over the case said the two companies’ boards agreed to push through with the merger.

One of the judges, Park Jeong-je, told the court that there was no basis to conclude that Lee Jae-yong engineered the merger to strengthen his management rights or aid his succession within Samsung.

In the end, the court acquitted all 14 defendants in the case. This ruling will ensure that Lee, who was convicted and slammed a 30-month jail sentence for bribery in 2017, does not return to jail after serving 18 months.

In a related case, the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) tribunal ordered the South Korean government to pay U.S. hedge fund Elliott $108.5 million for the National Pension Service’s approval of the 2015 $8 billion merger. 

Implications of Lee Jae-Yong’s Acquittal on Samsung

Commenting on the development, Kim Ki-chan, a business professor at the Catholic University of Korea, said the legal issues had hindered Samsung’s innovation and job creation for nearly a decade.

Lee’s legal problems had contributed to an administrative and risk-averse culture at Samsung Electronics.

The latest verdict prevents Lee from returning to jail and marks the resolution of legal issues dating back to 2016. Lee’s lawyer, Kim You-jin, expressed gratitude for the court’s “wise decision.”

While the ruling represents a win for Samsung, it faced criticism from Park Yong-jin, a lawmaker for the main opposition Democratic Party, who deemed Lee’s succession unfair.

Park Yong-jin argued against protecting conglomerate heads in the interest of a fair market economy. Notably, big South Korean firms such as Samsung are still under the control of their founding families, who are responsible for most of the nation’s economic success.

The Lee family and related partners possessed a 20.7% stake in Samsung Electronics as of September 2023. Meanwhile, following the latest court ruling, Samsung C&T stock rose by 5% before leveling off.

The post Soel Court Discharges 2015 Merger Case Fraud Charges Against Samsung Chief Lee Jae-Yong appeared first on The Tech Report.

Snap, the social media giant behind popular instant messaging app Snapchat has revealed its plans to lay off around 10% of its workforce.

The announcement came on Monday, just a day before the company reported its results for the fourth quarter of 2023. Notably, the previous quarter saw Snap report a net loss of $368m (£294m).

Considering the social media giant reported having 5,000 employees in November 2023, it’s expected to cut approximately 500 jobs.

The job cuts are necessary to “reduce hierarchy” and support the company’s growth, Snap explained in the SEC filing where it announced the layoff.

The spokesperson also emphasized the company’s prioritization of supporting the laid-off employees and its gratefulness towards their contribution.

Severance and other related costs will account for most of it, the company revealed, adding that $45 million to $55 million of it will likely be future cash expenses.

According to Snap, the company will be incurring most of these costs in the first quarter of 2024. However, some of them might extend to the second quarter due to local laws and other factors.

Expert Expresses Concern Over Snap’s State of Business

According to Jasmine Enberg, Insider Intelligence’s principal social media analyst, the job cuts don’t “bode well” for the state of the social media giant’s business ahead of its earnings announcement.

Pointing to Meta’s latest earnings report, which indicates a major surge in users, a tripling of year-on-year quarterly profits, increased ad sales, and lower costs, Enberg said that this would be a tough feat for Snap to follow.

The social media analyst also went on to add that the layoffs might be an attempt to garner goodwill with investors, who rewarded Meta’s cost-cutting measures and ongoing attempts to increase efficiency.

Compared to Meta, Snap’s advertising revenues have been recovering at a slower rate from the digital ad slowdown too. While Snap tried to expand its portfolio beyond Snapchat and even experimented with augmented reality (AR) glasses, it failed to find a market for its other products.

In 2023, the company eventually closed a division dedicated to offering AR services to its customers.

It’s worth noting that the latest wave of layoffs comes just months after the previous one in November 2023, which was small-scale and saw less than 20 roles being cut. However, in August 2022, the company laid off a whopping 20% of its workers. 

Rising Tech Layoffs

Layoffs.fyi, which keeps track of job cuts in the tech sector, reports that the industry saw more than 232,000 layoffs last year.

This trend continued in January 2024, as more than 25,000 roles were cut from the tech sector. Giants like Amazon, Microsoft, eBay, Unity, and Discord laid off thousands of employees even after a surge in stock market indices.

Experts have linked these layoffs to the increased use of AI in the tech sector. Apart from this, companies are now moving towards optimum resource utilization and doing away with non-value-adding roles to improve their ROI rates. The job market is at an interesting crossroads as of now.

The post Snapchat’s Parent Company to Lay off 10% of Its Workforce appeared first on The Tech Report.

A manipulated video of Joe Biden that was recently circulated on Facebook will not be taken down because it doesn’t violate Meta’s content policy, no matter how incoherent those policies are.

The 7-second video was first posted on the platform last spring and shows the president inappropriately touching his adult granddaughter.

In reality, he was accompanying her to the ballot to cast her vote. And after she was done, he pinned an “I Voted” sticker on her chest and kissed her cheeks.

But the way it’s edited with the sticker being removed, it looks like he was touching her repeatedly and inappropriately. What’s even more shameful, is the video had the caption “sick pedophile”

Now this would seem outrageous and a clear cause for removal to most of us. But owing to Meta’s poorly drafted policies, nothing can be done about this deepfake video.

What Exactly Is This Policy?

In matters of manipulated media, Meta has two rules that content has to follow in order to qualify for removal. First, it has to be modified by Artificial Intelligence or it has to be completely fake i.e. showing the person doing something they didn’t do.

But in this case, Biden did place the sticker on his granddaughter, hence the clip fulfills neither of these conditions.

What’s worse, this policy also doesn’t cover manipulated audio. So the Oversight Board that reviewed the case said that while Meta was right to not remove the video, it seriously needs to work on its policies.

Right now, it has very limited coverage. Plus, AI isn’t the only way a video can be manipulated. Other ways of content alteration are just as serious and should be treated similarly.

The board also had a few suggestions. For instance, they said if removing fake content contradicted their policies, they could at least label fake content.

This way the users won’t have to fact-check every scandalous news and the spread of misinformation can be effectively curbed. And at the same time, every user will continue to have their freedom of speech.

Policy Change Needs To Be Quick Amidst Upcoming Elections

Responding to the remarks made by the board, a spokesperson from Meta said that the company was reviewing their policies and publicly responded to the suggestions made by the board within 60 days.

The reason why the board feels it’s important to address the matter as soon as possible is because of the upcoming elections in 2024. Firms like OpenAI have taken active measures against election misinformation and it’s time other social media giants follow suit.

Biden’s presidential campaign released a statement on Monday, breaking silence over this issue.

As of now, unfortunately for Biden, the edited video continues to circulate. For instance, a verified account on X (Formerly Twitter) shared the same video last month captioning it “The media just pretend this isn’t happening.”. This account that shared this video has 267,000 followers and the video itself received 611,000 views.

While it seems that the damage is extensive, the Oversight Board stated that the clip clearly looks edited. So it can be hoped that it won’t that it won’t mislead the users.

The post Biden’s Manipulated Video Will Continue To Stay On Facebook; Oversight Board Confirms appeared first on The Tech Report.

As the US tightens semiconductor restrictions, China bets on open-source RISC-V chips to reduce Western tech dependence. A patent published in September 2023 by a military institute under the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) sheds light on the intensity of this move.  

The patent filing revealed that the Chinese military institute utilized RISC-V, an open-source standard, to enhance the performance of chips for smart cars and cloud computing.

China Emerges as Global Leader in RISC-V Development

Notably, the US and UK export controls ban the sales of the most cutting-edge x86 and Arm designs, which produce the highest-performance chips, to clients in China.

However, the RISC-V, which is open-sourced, contrasts sharply with the currently dominant standards x86 and Arm, which are proprietary and closed systems controlled by American and British companies, respectively. 

While RISC-V chips still lag behind Arm and x86 in complex computing capabilities, the gap has steadily closed as RISC-V startups proliferate globally and more technology giants invest R&D into the open standard. 

For China, RISC-V offers a potential long-term path to end reliance on Western intellectual property and develop a homegrown alternative that can one day challenge the x86-Arm duopoly. 

The open-source nature of RISC-V makes it an ideal choice as Chinese companies and research institutions seek to withstand American sanctions and build next-generation chips.

China has heavily invested in RISC-V, with estimates of over $50 million going into related projects between 2018-2023.

By 2022, half of the over 10 billion RISC-V chips shipped globally will have already been manufactured in China. Chinese RISC-V startups have received around $1.18 billion in funding in recent years. 

In 2021, China accounted for 1061 out of the global total of 2508 RISC-V patents filed internationally.

Significant contributors include Chinese tech giants like Alibaba and Huawei, alongside universities and research institutes linked to Beijing. Advanced RISC-V chips designed and produced in China can power everything from self-driving cars, artificial intelligence models, and data centers to networked devices. 

Critical Role of Military Research in Advancing RISC-V

China’s military has demonstrated a vital strategic interest in harnessing RISC-V to achieve self-sufficiency in defense electronics and computing. Chinese universities and laboratories closely linked to the defense establishment, like the PLA’s National University of Defense Technology, are among the top patent filers. 

At academic conferences, researchers from defense partners like Beihang University have presented RISC-V chip designs for radar and other signal-processing roles. 

The state-run Chinese Academy of Sciences, a think tank that serves as a critical military supplier, has developed RISC-V processors for cybersecurity and unveiled high-performance supercomputing designs. 

For China’s military, achieving self-reliance in semiconductor technology through RISC-V is a strategic priority.

Although RISC-V still commands just around 1.9% of the global market share in chips, its customization, efficiency, and cost advantages have attracted significant international chipmakers. 

Qualcomm, a leader in smartphone processors, calls RISC-V ideal for designing highly customized AI acceleration cores. As demand for specialized AI and machine learning chips grows across industries, RISC-V provides flexibility to tailor solutions without the overheads of licensing and royalties. 

While it will take time for RISC-V to challenge the dominance of x86 and Arm truly, China is making a long-term bet on the standard’s potential amidst an increasingly tense geopolitical climate. 

The post China Bets on Open-Source RISC-V Chips Amid US Export Controls appeared first on The Tech Report.

While Apple has been very secretive about its autonomous car project, the tech giant’s filings with the California Department of Motor Vehicles indicate that it has ramped up the testing of the self-driving vehicle.

The company quadrupled its test driving distance in 2023 compared to 2022, logging 450,000 miles of autonomous driving in the US.

Previous reports claimed that the company has toned down its efforts to develop an autonomously-driving electric car. However, according to the latest filings, Apple is still going strong with the project even if it may have lowered its expectations.

Apple Still Lagging Behind Other Autonomous Vehicle Developers in Testing

Apple’s increased focus on testing its autonomous EV is relatively recent, with a majority of the testing miles being recorded in the second half of 2023. The tests peaked in August when Apple recorded 83,900 miles of autonomous testing.

However, despite ramping up the testing, Apple still lags behind more advanced companies developing autonomous cars.

For instance, Alphabet’s Waymo drove a whopping 3.7 million testing miles in the state with a safety driver behind the wheel, 1.2 million testing miles with no driver, and over 1.6 million additional miles with passengers.

Apple is yet to obtain a permit to carry out completely driverless testing on public roads in California, which means it must have a safety driver behind the wheel at all times.

It’s worth noting that besides the testing miles recorded in California, Waymo also operates a driverless autonomous taxi service in Phoenix and carrying out tests in Austin, Texas.

General Motors’ autonomous vehicle division Cruise surpasses Apple in testing too, despite its troubled state. The company halted its nationwide testing of autonomous vehicles soon after losing its permit to deploy in California in October 2023.

However, it still managed to rack up 2.65 million miles of test driving in the state, which is more than 2.2 million more than what Apple logged.

While California’s reporting guidelines make it a challenge to compare the testing data directly, Apple clearly has a long way to go before it can catch up with its biggest rivals.

Apple Reportedly Working on v2x Technology for Its Autonomous Cars

With Apple being highly secretive about the project, not much is known of the autonomously driving cars that are under development by the iPhone maker.

However, reports suggest that the company is working on a vehicle-to-everything (V2X) technology that would enable the cars to connect to the Internet of Things (IoT) and even communicate with each other.

The tech giant has already filed several new software and hardware patents focused on riding comfort features, such as suspension and seats.

While it was earlier reported that the Apple car would arrive in 2024, the launch has since been postponed. The good news, however, is that the project to develop the car, which will supposedly be priced under USD 100,000 finally seems to be gaining momentum.

The post Apple Ramped Up Its ‘Secret’ Autonomous Car Project With Increased Testing, Says Report appeared first on The Tech Report.

Sam Altman is a major investor in Helion Energy— an American-based fusion research company and together, they are trying to build the first nuclear fusion power plant. If they succeed in doing so, they will be the first to put this technology to practical use.

As of now, nuclear fusion is not only unstable but it requires a lot more energy input to work compared to the final outcome it produces. So in the long-term, it’s not a sustainable energy source.

However, Altman and Helion Energy are trying to change that narrative with their latest Polaris machine.

Sam Altman also took to his X account and shared a picture of the facility in which Polaris will be shortly built.

While the company agrees that they have a long way to go before nuclear fusion-produced energy can be a reality, they also have faith in their project.

Microsoft’s Deal With Helion Energy

What’s even more interesting is that Helion already has a big-ticket client in line to buy energy from them.

In May 2023, Microsoft signed a power purchase agreement with Helion, confirming that they’ll buy electricity from them in 2028. This gives the company almost 4 years to bring the project to life by which it aims to build a 50MW nuclear fusion power plant.

With the deal with Microsoft, it may have also ensured a limitless nuclear energy supply for OpenAI as well because it depends on Microsoft’s servers and resources to run its AI tools.

What makes this deal even more special is that this is the first time a company has signed a formal deal for the purchase of electricity.

Why Do We Need Nuclear Fusion?

The rising impact of global warming has been a major concern for all countries and companies. Using Nuclear Fusion— a clean source of energy could do away with this major global crisis.

But there’s another reason why Sam Altman is getting behind this project—to sustain the future of his AI tools.

Many AI tools have now been made public which drastically increased their consumption. But what a lot of us don’t know is it takes a lot of energy to keep an AI system up and running.

As of now, OpenAI gets hundreds of millions of queries every single day which approximately takes up 1GWh of energy on a daily basis. This is equivalent to the amount of energy used by 33,000 households in the US.

Generating one AI image takes as much power as charging your smartphone. In short, there’s no way AI can sustainably grow without a new energy source.

And this breakthrough seems very possible now that companies are relying on AI to grow their business. Their own needs are motivating them to heavily invest in renewable energy sources like nuclear fusion and solar energy.

Sam Altman has already invested $375 million in Helion Energy and seems pretty confident of meeting their 2028 deadline. If this project successfully goes through, it’ll not only benefit Helion but also catapult OpenAI’s growth and give it an edge over its competitors.

The post Sam Altman Shares Pictures Of The Polaris Project—A Nuclear Fusion Power Plant appeared first on The Tech Report.

Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, has finally thrown some light on Apple’s plan with generative AI. Users can expect some big AI features as early as the end of 2024.

Although the exact features and the time of launch weren’t revealed, Cook’s statement has started a series of speculations among Apple enthusiasts.

Apple experts believe that the upcoming iOS 18 update might be the biggest Apple users have seen. Siri is expected to get a complete revamp, with the integration of several AI features such as AI summarization and smart replies. Apple Messages, Music, and Pages can also see major AI upgrades.

Photography is one area where Apple might be more careful. Although AI boosts photo editing and camera performance, it also opens the floodgates to deepfakes and digital foul play.

As regards the time of announcement, experts expect the annual June Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) event to be leveraged for AI announcements. Since most participants will be developers, it makes sense that tech updates are unveiled at this event.

Apple’s Delay In Introducing AI Features

Experts have for long wondered why Apple took so long to get on to the AI bandwagon. As per Apple, they have been working on an in-house LLM model for a few years now. However, no Apple product is laced with an AI feature yet.

This can be attributed to Apple’s stringent approach towards user privacy. AI models, as of now,  aren’t the safest tools out there—user data can be prone to leaks. Apple has always marketed itself as a privacy-first product maker. That’s why Apple isn’t rushing into hugging AI like its competitors.

Microsoft’s Copilot and Google’s Bard have already been deeply integrated into different tech products.

Samsung’s Galaxy AI has been making a lot of buzz lately. With features like generative edit, Instant Slow-mo, and Circle to Search, Samsung is ready to take the AI game a notch higher. Galaxy AI can even translate calls in real time and rewrite texts with different tones.

However, now that users know AI updates are around the corner, the competition among these giants will become more intense.

The post Apple To Introduce AI Features By The End Of 2024 Confirms Tim Cook appeared first on The Tech Report.

Jeff Bezos is all set to sell 50 million Amazon shares by the end of January 2025, as revealed by Amazon’s annual report. The sale plan was adopted in November 2023 and is subject to certain conditions.

Amazon shares are currently trading at $171.81—a sharp rise of 90% since December 2022, when demands dwindled as effects of the pandemic. This would make the sale worth $8.6 billion.

Amazon’s shares saw an 8% surge on Thursday after its earnings release, taking its market cap to $1.78 trillion.

An interesting thing to note is that Bezos has recently moved to Florida from Washington. WA imposes a capital gain tax of 7%, which would have taken more than $602 million out of Jeff’s sales proceeds. However, now that he is in Florida, no such tax obligation lies on him.

Amazon Turns To AI

Amazon’s AI approach has helped the business massively. The company hasn’t looked back since the demand drop in 2022.

The e-commerce giant launched an AI assistant called Rufus, as recently as this Thursday, with knowledge of the entire product catalog, FAQs, shopping policies, and customer reviews. This will help customers find products they are looking for quicker.

It has also launched a chatbot named Q, that will help its AWS customers to transform user interaction. You can even use it to generate content and take action on your behalf.

Another interesting Amazon feature is its AI-powered review summaries. You can read crisp summaries of all reviews of a particular product, instead of going through multiple reviews. This not only saves you time but also helps you find the right product for your needs.

All these innovations have seemed to help Amazon in its e-commerce business. This is now evident with its rising share prices.

Some experts have questioned whether it is the right time for Bezos to cash out, considering the fact that Amazon shares might sore even more in the coming few years.

However, with a net worth of $193.8 billion, Bezos is third on the list of the richest people in the world, as of now. The decision to cash out might not entirely be dependent on financial motives. Considering that he stepped down as Amazon’s CEO in 2021, Bezos might be preparing for a life of calm as he nears retirement.

Whatever the case might be, it will be interesting to see how Amazon grows by the time Bezos cashes out and how the stocks react once he leaves.

The post Jeff Bezos To Cash Out Amazon Stocks By January 2025 appeared first on The Tech Report.

As the US military began integrating AI technology into their plans, a recent study has revealed that AI bots are inclined to choose violent options and nuclear attacks more frequently.

They set 3 war scenarios—an invasion, a cyber attack, and a neutral state where there’s no trigger or anticipation for a war. There were 27 types of actions available which included both light methods like talks and diplomatic discussions and aggressive methods like trade restrictions and nuclear attack.

In many scenarios, it was seen that the AI quickly escalated to more aggressive actions, even in a neutral state. This was after the AI models had been trained.

There was another test conducted on the untrained version of Open AI GPT 4 which was even more violent and unpredictable.

All that it said to justify these choices is “I just want to have peace in the world.” and “We have it! Let’s use it”.

Reuel said that the reason why it’s important to check how AI behaves without any training in safety guardrails is because prior studies have shown time and again that in action, it’s very easy for these safety training to be bypassed.

What Is The Current Role Of AI In the Military?

The integration of AI with the US’s defense system is very new. Currently, no AI models have any right to make military decisions. The idea is theoretical as of now and the military is only testing to see whether these tools can be used in the future to get advice on strategic planning during conflicts.

However, Lisa Koch from Claremont McKenna College that with the advent of AI, people tend to trust the responses of these systems.

So even if there’s no direct involvement, it can still influence the decisions, thus undermining the purpose of giving the final say over defense-related actions to humans for safety reasons.

Speaking of collaboration, companies like OpenAI (although according to their initial policy, they refused to take part in military actions), Scale AI, and Palantir have been invited to take part in the process. While the latter two didn’t have any comments to make, Open AI explained the reason behind their sudden change in policy.

Despite these concerning results, the possible use of AI in the military hasn’t been completely discarded. It would be interesting to see if and how AI can transform the military for the better.

But that being said, it’s clear as of now that no automated model is ready to handle the complications of making war-related decisions.

The post Research Shows That AI Tends To Make More Violent Choices In War Games appeared first on The Tech Report.

On Thursday, former CIA hacker, Joshua Schulte was sentenced to 40 years in prison for causing a massive data leak. On top of that, after he’s released, he’ll be subject to a lifetime of supervision. As per reports, he worked for the Center for Cyber Intelligence from 2012 to 2016.

He not only leaked a bunch of classified hacking tools to Wikileaks but was also found to be in possession of child abuse media.

In the words of the prosecutor, “tens of thousands of images of child sexual abuse materials” were found when his apartment was searched. Prosecutors have labeled this one of the most “brazen” and biggest data leaks in history.

He was also accused of leaking CIA’s “Vault 7” tools which allowed them to hack into Apple and Android devices during overseas spy operations and transform any internet TV into a hidden listening device.

Schulte obviously denied all the allegations. He even went on to say that both the FBI and CIA are trying to make him a scapegoat for the public release of a trove of CIA secrets by WikiLeaks in 2017.

But he was ultimately found guilty of all the allegations in all three federal trials conducted in 2020, 2022, and 2023 respectively. The charges against him include espionage, contempt of court for making false statements to the FBI, possession of child pornography, and illegal hacking.

What Exactly Happened?

It all began in 2016 when Schulte leaked stolen data to Wikileaks. And in 2017, Wikileaks began publishing data from the leak. Even then he was accused of the leak but he managed to escape by lying to the FBI and the CIA. It is believed that his motive was anger; seemingly over a workplace dispute.

He was failing to meet deadlines at work and one of his projects was so far behind the timeline, that it infamously earned him the nickname “Drifting Deadline”.

He also had some issues with a colleague and the management. Schulte also filed a restraining order against the said colleague in a state court following which they both had to be transferred.

But although his initial intention was to seek revenge from those who mocked him at his workplace, he ended up severely compromising national security.

The whole leak not only cost the CIA millions of dollars but also exposed many secrets, tools, and resources of the agency. On top of that, it also impaired their ability to collect intelligence data on political opponents and adversaries.

Although the accused has been behind bars since 2018, it hasn’t stopped him from trying to leak more data from the prison. He somehow smuggled in a phone and drafted a tweet containing CIA cyber groups and information about CIA cyber tools.

It was sent to a reporter and Schulte smartly concealed his identity was taking the name Jason Bourne (a fake intelligence operative).

The post Former CIA Hacker Gets 40 Years In Prison For Leaking Documents To Wikileaks appeared first on The Tech Report.

In January, NVIDIA Corp achieved a historic milestone as it recorded a remarkable surge in market value, setting a new monthly record. The chipmaker’s market cap saw an extraordinary increase of $296.52 billion, reaching approximately $1.52 trillion. 

This surge surpassed its monthly high of $248.23 billion, recorded in May 2023.

Tech Market Values Soar in January

The surge in Nvidia’s stock was fueled by heightened optimism surrounding artificial intelligence (AI), favorable analyst predictions, and the company’s announcement of expanded AI offerings.

Introducing new desktop graphics processors and AI-related components and software advancements further contributed to the stock’s growth.

In a similar trend, Microsoft, the world’s most valuable company, experienced a substantial rise in market value, adding $159.36 billion. This increase was primarily attributed to the growing demand for its Azure cloud service.

The company reported higher-than-estimated quarterly profit and revenue, although investor caution surfaced due to concerns about rising costs.

As of Wednesday, 31 January, Microsoft’s market value exceeded $2.95 trillion, surpassing Apple Inc’s $2.85 trillion market capitalization. Meta Platforms also saw more growth in its market value, crossing the $1 trillion mark for the first time since September 2021.

The surge in Meta’s stock, driven by a 14% increase to a record high of $451, resulted in a market capitalization increase from $148 billion to $1.16 trillion.

This followed Meta’s announcement of a 25% jump in revenue to $40.1 billion for the December quarter and the declaration of its inaugural dividend.

Furthermore, Tesla Inc. emerged as the weakest performer among the top 20 global companies by market cap, witnessing a decline of approximately 24.5% in its value over the last month. 

Concerns over slowing growth led CEO Elon Musk to caution that sales growth would be “notably lower” this year despite recent price reductions. 

Additionally, Saudi Arabian Oil Co experienced a 7.3% fall in its market value during the same period.

Nvidia’s Recent Market Performance

Besides the growth in market value, Nvidia has maintained a good streak of achievements in recent months. A notable example is the recognition at the NVIDIA Partner Awards EMEA 2024.

The company’s market performance is also seen in its stock growth as of last year, with prices surging by over 238%.

Moreover, Nvidia has been pivotal in pushing technological progress within the retail sector. This is exemplified by their yearly State of AI in Retail and CPG survey, which sheds light on new trends and showcases how AI can boost operational effectiveness and foster expansion.

Nvidia also positions itself as a critical player in the tech industry through its gaming and artificial intelligence offerings. The company is known for its graphics processing units (GPUs), which are essential to gaming and AI applications.

The importance of these GPUs is also seen in workflows, as they enable data-driven decision-making and aid cost reduction in various industries, including gaming, AI, and autonomous vehicles.

The post Nvidia Records Remarkable Surge in Market Value in January appeared first on The Tech Report.

Earnings reports from Big Tech companies Amazon, Meta, Apple, and Microsoft sparked major stock moves late Thursday as investors reacted to the latest financial results. 

Meta Platforms and Amazon saw their market values surge, while Apple declined after mixed results in China. 

The shifts highlighted both opportunities and challenges facing tech giants in areas like artificial intelligence and international markets.

Meta Jumps on Strong Ad Revenue

Meta’s stock skyrocketed over 14% to an all-time high of $451 after markets closed Thursday. The stunning rally added $148 billion to Meta’s market capitalization, elevating it to $1.16 trillion. 

The surge came after Meta reported a 25% increase in quarterly revenue to $40.1 billion, driven by resilient advertising sales and device revenue. 

The company also announced its first-ever stock dividend, appealing to investors seeking mature, dividend-paying stocks. The dividend signals Meta’s evolution beyond its high-growth Facebook roots. But revenue gains showed Meta continues growing strongly as well.

Meta appears to be having its cake and eating it, blending maturity with momentum. Amazon’s shares jumped 8% in extended trading Thursday, boosting its market capitalization to $1.78 trillion.

The e-commerce and cloud computing leader exceeded expectations for quarterly revenue thanks to robust holiday online spending.

Amazon has been a prime beneficiary of consumers’ shifting to digital shopping and preference for online retailers. The latest results confirmed Amazon’s dominance in e-commerce, especially during the critical holiday season.

The company seems poised to continue riding secular shifts to online spending.

Its leading position in cloud computing with AWS provides another engine for growth in 2023 and beyond. In contrast to Meta and Amazon, Apple saw its market value dip by $70 billion to $2.2 trillion after delivering mixed quarterly results Thursday afternoon. 

While Apple’s overall revenue and profits beat analyst estimates, sales, specifically in China, fell short. That stoked worries that Apple is losing ground in the competitive Chinese smartphone market.

Investors are also concerned Apple may be falling behind in artificial intelligence, as companies like Microsoft and Google plow money into AI development. 

However, Apple teased new “exciting” AI products later this year.

Tech Giant Microsoft Leads The AI Race 

Looking ahead, analysts see Microsoft as having the early lead over Apple in AI, thanks to swift investments in artificial intelligence AI research from the Windows maker. 

Microsoft displaced Apple as the world’s largest company by market capitalization in January, reflecting this perceived edge in AI and strength in cloud computing.

Given Microsoft’s head start in generative AI, analysts believe its advantage over Apple will likely widen over the next five years. For Apple to bridge the gap, it may need hugely successful AI products or a transformation of the iPhone.

The post Big Tech Stocks Trend Sideways After as Financial Results Come To Light appeared first on The Tech Report.

Although both Microsoft and Google had faced temporary dips in cloud revenue, the reports for the last quarter show a massive rise in profits, all thanks to generative AI.

The two tech giants made their revenue reports for the December quarter of 2023 public on Tuesday and the numbers look very promising.

Lee Sustar, the principal analyst at Forrester said that the last quarter’s profits not only helped Google make up for all the losses in the previous quarters but the revenue from Google Cloud now accounts for 10% of the total revenue generated by Alphabet— Google’s parent company.

Google Cloud reported a total revenue of $9.19 billion for the last quarter which is 28% more than the previous quarter. For the same quarter, Alphabet reported a total revenue of $86 billion.

Microsoft too has reported similar numbers. Its cloud tools (Azure and other SaaS products) together generated a total revenue of $33 billion which is 24% (22% in constant currency) more than the previous quarter.

What’s New With Google and Microsoft?

Seeing how AI has benefited the company in the last quarter, Google has smartly decided to pair its Bard chatbot with the new Gemini Pro model.

If you didn’t know, Gemini is the first model to outperform human experts in MMLU (Massive Multitask Language Understanding). As of now, the product is expected to support more than 40 Global languages which include Japanese, Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, French, and so on.

On top of that, Google is also planning to add image generation support which will allow users to create images through texts typed in the chat. Right now the feature will only be available for English speakers.

AI has drastically increased Google’s user base. CEO Sundar Pichai said that while cost optimization strategies were helping them stay afloat during the macroeconomic headwinds, it’s providing better AI services that helped them bring in new customers.

Microsoft on the other hand managed to revive its struggling cloud services by offering an array of AI features. Integration with OpenAI and ChatGPT was a huge step towards this success.

Many other services such as Microsoft 365 and Azure also went through a makeover with Copilot—an AI-based chatbot.

The last year saw rapid advancement with AI. The collaboration of Microsoft and OpenAI was a huge trigger that left all other competing tech companies to launch their own chatbots.

Now that the financial reports of both Google and Microsoft are out, it would be interesting to see whether Amazon’s AWS platform (that launched its own AI model to compete with Microsoft) made similar profits.

The post Microsoft & Google’s Cloud Revenue Significantly Boosted By Generative AI appeared first on The Tech Report.

On Thursday, Amazon—the popular e-commerce platform—launched its brand new AI shopping assistant called “Rufus” to keep up with the massive revenue growth driven by holiday shoppers in the last quarter.

The revenue has sky-rocketed for the company, speeding past all estimations made by Wall Street and growing the company’s total value by 14% compared to the previous year.

Hence, the company decided to make shopping easier for its customers with the new AI assistant. It will not only revolutionize online shopping but might also impress investors, considering this is the first big AI development that Amazon is using for its customer-facing interfaces.

On top of that, CEO Andy Jassy had also been assuring Amazon investors that the company will soon dive into AI Technology to keep up with the changing times. So it’s a good time to fulfill those promises.

What Exactly Will Rufus Do?

Rufus knows more about the company, its products, and its policies than anyone else. During its extensive hours of training, it mastered the entire product catalog of Amazon, its shopping policies, FAQs, customer reviews, and so on.

On Thursday, Rufus was rolled out in beta mode to some select customers. It is expected to roll out to a few additional US Amazon shoppers in a few weeks.

Last year, Amazon launched a new feature that uses generative AI to produce summaries of its customer reviews. This way, you don’t have to go through tons of reviews for any products. Simply read a crisp summary of all the reviews. This saves time and enhances the overall customer experience.

The tech giant had also introduced Q—an AI chatbot for AWS customers, priced at $20/year. It can analyze and troubleshoot different problems, whether it a network connectivity or finding the best AWS solutions for particular application workloads.

What Other Profits Did Amazon Make?

The growth in sales revenue was not the only factor that led to this big AI step. Last year Amazon Web Services made a massive profit which increased its revenue by 13%, totalling $24.2 billion.

There was even a huge growth in the company’s advertising revenue—almost 27% year-over-year. And as per current predictions, the coming quarter is also expected to be profitable for the company.

These new developments and profits have proved to be a lifesaver for Amazon, considering the previous year was quite troublesome for the company.

At the beginning of 2023, Amazon was dealing with geo-political uncertainty, inflation, economic slowdown, and a dip in customer demand post-pandemic.

This further led to huge job cuts in the company which highly destabilized the internal environment. The stocks had also fallen in value, the lowest being $84.

But thankfully all of that has changed for Amazon this year. Its stocks increased by 90% in value (from $84) and business has been running steadily since the last quarter.

This is the perfect time for the company to experiment with something new and step into AI to keep up with its tech competitors.

The post Amazon Launches Rufus—An AI Shopping Assistant To Keep Up With Holiday Season’s Sales Boost  appeared first on The Tech Report.

A Delaware judge voided Elon Musk’s Tesla pay package of $56 billion on Tuesday, January 30. The decision is seen as a threat to Tesla’s CEO Musk and the company, throwing them to a starting point.

Moreover, the decision has set a landmark that could influence the approach to CEO compensation in entities across America. 

Musk and his Tesla board will enter into another negotiating section to devise a suitable contract for replacement. 

Court Ruling Voids Musk’s Pay Package

According to the court’s ruling, Judge Kathleen McCormick regarded the pay package as an “unfathomable sum.” She noted that while the pay reflects injustice to shareholders, it also questions the independence of the board.

The trend in the court proceeding indicated the situation is a hard nut to crack.

Notably, many view the case as the first overturn of a board’s decision on compensation. So, the decision serves as an encouragement for investors who have shown concern over the years regarding Tesla’s board independence. 

Also, Elon Musk may see a different dimension change to the entire setting in his company.

According to a previous report from Reuters, the billionaire planned to lay out 25% voting control at Tesla before bringing his AI goals to the company. A Tesla shareholder, Ross Gerber, reacted to the situation as disclosed by Reuters.

He noted that the decision has thrown Tesla out of control from an executive perspective. 

Gerber mentioned that the court’s decision needs new independent board members to provide guidelines for the CEO. Carving out a replacement package would be a difficult process.

Moreover, there is no certainty on who will advocate for Tesla on the issue. Meanwhile, Musk is yet to react to the situation, though he may opt for an appeal.

However, if the ruling stands, Musk will return all he received. Based on the company’s contract terms since 2018, the CEO got twelve tranches of options worth almost $51 billion.

Also, the court ruling indicated that the options grant sits unexercised and undisturbed. This means it may not be complicated for Musk to give up his earnings.

Tesla Shareholder Tornetta Position In The Filing

The recent court’s ruling voiding Musk’s pay package has raised several reactions in different sectors. A report from Forbes revealed the argument of Tesla shareholder Richard Tornetta in the filing.

Tornetta highlighted that the company’s board breached its fiduciary duties by giving Musk the performance-based plan.

The shareholder noted that the plan stands as

the largest potential compensation opportunity ever observed in public markets.

Meanwhile, in her ruling, Judge McCormick stated that both Tornetta and Tesla would negotiate on a form of final order that would implement the decision. Also, they need to submit a joint letter pointing out all the issues to be addressed to resolve the matter completely during the trial level.

The post Judge’s Voiding Of Musk’s $56 Billion Tesla Pay Package Throws Board Off Balance appeared first on The Tech Report.

The European Union has set ambitious targets to transform society and the economy by 2030 digitally. A new report shows adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly accelerating across European businesses, helping put the EU closer to achieving its digital objectives. 

According to the survey conducted by Strand Partners across over 16,000 citizens and 14,000 businesses, more than one-third (38%) of European companies embraced AI technology in some form in 2023. 

This represents a significant jump from just a quarter of firms utilizing AI tools as recently as 2022. 

Generative AI Drives Widespread Experimentation

Driving this surge is the expanding accessibility and capabilities of generative AI models that can produce original text, images, and other content.

Last year was a pivotal moment across Europe; from Malmo to Milan, the increasing availability of generative artificial intelligence created a strong appetite for experimentation among both consumers and businesses. 

This was explained by Tanuja Randery, Managing Director at Amazon Web Services, which commissioned the research. The poll found companies across major industries like retail, finance, healthcare, and manufacturing rapidly adopting artificial intelligence systems to enhance operations. 

This also included systems to understand customers better, provide personalized recommendations, automate processes, and more. Unveiled in early 2021, the EU Digital Decade established lofty targets for the region to meet by 2030, including having 80% of the population possess basic digital skills and 75% of companies utilizing cloud computing services.

However, by 2022, progress remained slow, with only 26% of firms implementing AI tools. Experts worried Europe risked falling 10 years behind schedule in achieving its digital objectives without concerted efforts to improve digital literacy and artificial intelligence adoption.

However, the strong embrace of AI observed in the report over the past year has helped accelerate the EU towards its aims.

On Track to Achieve Digital Goals

“The speed of AI uptake we saw in 2023 has put Europe firmly back on track to realize, if not exceed, its Digital Decade goals for digitalizing society and the economy,” noted Randery. 

Beyond businesses, the report found over 50% of EU citizens now interact with some form of AI daily, ensuring the growth of broader digital skills.

Their availability through easy-to-use apps and websites made artificial intelligence experimentation accessible to the average consumer. Companies quickly realized they could also utilize these technologies to create content, automate workflows, and enhance customer experiences.

The Strand Partners report predicts this rapid growth of generative AI will continue disrupting industries and changing the nature of work over the next decade. 

Further technological leaps in areas like speech artificial intelligence and computer vision will drive even wider adoption.

Researchers estimate that expanded European adoption of AI could positively impact the economy by an additional €600 billion through 2030, supplementing previous forecasts of a €2.7 trillion boost. But fully realizing these gains requires addressing AI skill gaps.

The report emphasized that while adoption is accelerating, further investment into digital skills and AI training is still needed. Students must receive education on core technologies like machine learning and data science. Also, workers should have access to AI certifications and professional development programs.

If businesses, governments, and schools partner together to expand access to AI resources and training, Europe can smooth the transition for workers into new digitally-powered roles. This will ensure no groups are left behind by technological change.

The post Over one-third of EU Firms Adopt AI, Accelerating Progress on Digital Transformation Goals appeared first on The Tech Report.

FBI director Christopher Wray warned that cyber hackers working for the Chinese government are planning to cause major disruptions in the US.

Their attack plan is likely to target transportation networks, water infrastructure, and the power grid.

After Wray’s meeting with US politicians, he’s now expected to talk to the House Select Committee On The Chinese Communist Party.

He will not only raise concerns about the issue at hand but also highlight how little attention is being paid to a matter that will affect almost every American citizen.

He already has a copy of the statements that he plans to make. We managed to find some excerpts from it—here are some of them:

• “China’s hackers are positioning on American infrastructure in preparation to wreak havoc and cause real-world harm to American citizens and communities, if or when China decides the time has come to strike.”
• “Today, and literally every day, they’re actively attacking our economic security, engaging in wholesale theft of our innovation, and our personal and corporate data.”

It’s not just assumptions. The statements made by Wray are backed by data offered by private cyber security firms that have warned about China’s dangerous plans.

In fact, a malicious group from China (Volt Typhoon) recently attempted to break into sensitive American infrastructure and they also managed to infect countless end-of-life routers.

Thankfully, officials were swift in taking action and allowed the FBI to not only issue warrants but also launch a remote command to wipe the Volt Typhoon’s botnet clean.

What makes this issue even more dangerous is once inside, the Volt Typhoon team uses legitimate IP addresses and credentials, making it almost impossible to detect.

China has also been accused by US firm Mandiant of breaking into thousands of private and public sectors across the world by exploiting a security flaw in a popular email application.

These events alone are sufficient data to prove that the threat of China is no longer theoretical.

Why Is China Attacking The US Infrastructure?

While there’s no solid evidence behind any of the theories, some officials believe that China plans to time the attack with its invasion of Taiwan. Even if the US decides to help Taiwan, it will be too busy sorting out major crises in its own country.

Along with the threat to the USA’s infrastructure, China also seems to have cyber control over the country through AI deep fakes, social media sites, and other destructive cyber tools that could easily tamper with the US elections.

China continues to deny all allegations despite solid evidence. A committee was established to counter China’s action and in 2022, Mr Wray also joined hands with MI5 to issue a joint warning to China.

However, it seems like the talks aren’t achieving the required results. The threat still persists and in the FBI’s words, how the Chinese Intelligence Services and other agencies are handling the matter is still pretty intense and concerning.

The post Chinese Hackers Plan To Wreak Havoc In The US, Warns The FBI appeared first on The Tech Report.

Mark Zuckerberg– the man behind Instagram and Facebook— apologized to the families who claimed that their children were ruined by social media.

Zuckerberg was one of the top executives alongside other representatives from X, Tiktok and other social media giants who faced Senator Josh Hawley’s heated questions regarding child safety, especially for sexual harassment and exploitation online.

He was asked whether he compensated any of the families that faced hardship due to the negligence of his platforms to which he replied no.

He also assured the families that Meta is continuously investing in and working on providing better technologies to protect children across the industry.

What Did The Parents Have To Say?

The families shared heart-rending stories about their children, highlighting the painful details of their personal tragedy tied to their social media usage.

There were also several video testimonies from kids explaining the horrors they faced on these social media sites. One child even went on to reveal (anonymously) that they were sexually exploited on Facebook.

The parents sat clutching the photos of their kids who were harmed by these social media platforms throughout the process.

What’s even more tragic is that some kids have also self-harmed and taken their lives owing to the problems they faced online.

The families certainly gave the executives a tough time, jeering at them at every chance and applauding the senators every time they asked the executives a challenging question.

Zuckerberg was targeted the most. His opening line and many other statements were met with unkind interruptions and remarks.

What Did The Other CEOs & Executives Have To Say?

While Mark Zuckerberg and Shou Zi Chew (Tiktok CEO) voluntarily agreed to testify, executives from X, Snap, and Discord had to be forced in through government-issued subpoenas.

Chew sympathized with the parents stating that his own 3 kids don’t use TikTok owing to restrictions in Singapore, where he lives.

Yaccarino, the executive from X was in favor of the STOP CSAM act, a legislative proposal that will make all tech companies liable for allowing child abuse material online and will give the victim rights to take legal action against the company in case they are involved.

Zuckerberg was most under fire for an Instagram prompt containing child abuse material. Although it initially issued a warning, it still gave the option to “see it anyway”.

Zuckerberg even tried to defend it by saying “It’s often helpful too, rather than just blocking it, to help direct them towards something that could be helpful”

Overall, the outcome of the testimonies was unsatisfactory. Parents were not confident in the promises made by the representatives. Some of the executives didn’t even seem very supportive of the proposals made by the Senator.

For instance, when lawmaker Lindsay Graham listed some of the bills currently going through Congress for child safety, Discord CEO Jason Citron (although he barely had any time to respond), seemed to have some reservations.

The criticism for the lack of accountability also came from inside sources. Arturo Bejar, a former engineer at Meta testified that the company does have a good knowledge of the exploitation kids face online and the harm teens go through, yet it has done much to address or fix the issue.

It remains to be seen if these tech giants actually take any steps to protect children online, or will it be the same story moving forward?

The post Mark Zuckerberg Apologizes To Families During Senate Hearing On Child Safety appeared first on The Tech Report.

The top executives of major social media giants will be in the Congressional hot seat on Wednesday. They will face intense grilling from lawmakers over their efforts to combat online child sexual exploitation. 

The high-profile Senate Judiciary Committee hearing comes amid mounting bipartisan frustration on Capitol Hill. This is over the perceived failure of the tech industry to prioritize child safety on their immensely popular platforms.

Lawmakers Blast Tech Industry’s “Half-Measures” on Safety

Committee Chairman Senator Dick Durbin declared that voluntary initiatives by social media companies have fallen woefully short when it comes to protecting children online. “It’s clear that we need legislation because the tech industry has failed on its own to protect our kids.

They’re protecting their profits, but they’re not protecting our children,” Durbin asserted on Tuesday. The Illinois Democrat argued that despite some recent changes, tech giants continue to drag their feet rather than implementing robust safeguards to prevent child predators from leveraging their services.

Durbin and other exasperated lawmakers are threatening regulatory crackdowns if Silicon Valley does not take far more aggressive action to enforce child safety standards. The high-stakes hearing will mark the first time TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew has faced Congressional interrogation since March.

On that occasion, the Chinese-owned video app weathered scathing criticism over concerns about its impact on children’s mental health and addictive nature. Chew will be joined in the hot seat by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, X CEO Linda Yaccarino, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel, and Discord CEO Jason Citron.

The tech leaders will likely highlight their companies’ intensified efforts to root out exploitative content and beef up safeguards for young users. 

However, they should expect to field searing questions over continued lapses.

Momentum Builds for Tougher Federal Action 

Last year, the Judiciary Committee voted to advance several hard-hitting bills that would impose new mandates and strip tech firms’ liability protections regarding child sexual exploitation.

Even though the measures have stalled due to tech industry pushback. Now, lawmakers are ramping up pressure for passage.

Senator Amy Klobuchar accused social media platforms of “turning a blind eye when young children joined” and failing to curb volumes of abusive material. Support appears to be consolidating for reforms that would compel companies to follow strict new protocols focused on minor safety or face daunting criminal and civil penalties.

In written testimony, Meta Zuckerberg stated that his company is “committed to protecting young people from abuse,” but that vigilance against constantly evolving risks is needed. Similarly, Snap’s Spiegel touted parental controls Snap has implemented while acknowledging social networks must remain proactive against those seeking to exploit minors. 

The execs will likely talk up their child safety improvements while conceding that predators still misuse their services and pledging strengthened safeguards.

However, many in Congress argue voluntary initiatives are insufficient without enforceable requirements, potent accountability measures, and government oversight of platforms’ practices regarding children.

The tense hearing could lay the groundwork for renewed legislative attempts to compel social media to overhaul policies, features, and algorithms in the name of youth protection.

The post Tech Titans Face Senate Scrutiny Over Online Child Safety appeared first on The Tech Report.

Zoom is gearing to step into mixed reality and carve out an indispensable place for itself in the industry with Apple’s Vision Pro—Apple’s first spatial computer. It launched its visionOS app on the same day that the Apple Vision Pro hit the market.

The Apple Vision Pro can be used to take spatial photos and videos so that you can relive your best moments all over again. However, that’s being humble, as you’ll also get a three-dimensional user interface with the ability to seamlessly blend digital content (such as app interfaces) with the physical world around you.

What Will The New Zoom App Do?

For example, all of the participants will get a 3D representation, which will allow the other members to see their hands and facial movements easily. You’ll also be able to scale the app to your desired size (which will make it look like you’re in the same room as your colleague) and seamlessly blur the background. All these features are expected to roll out on February 2.

This is just the beginning, though—in a recent blog post, Zoom announced that it’s planning to add more features later this year.

This will include 3D object sharing which will allow users to share 3D files with their team members. So, if you’re designing a new product, you can share its 3D design with your team with ease.

On top of that, you’ll also be able to add up to 5 participants to the top of the meeting. Doing so will remove their background, adding a greater level of realism to the meeting. Finally, Zoom is also planning to add a chat app for the entire team, and that too, within the visionOS, to further improve team collaboration.

The coming together of Apple and Zoom is being considered a positive move by tech experts around the world. See for yourself:

The Only Drawback 

While the new Zoom app seems to work like a dream, there’s one tiny drawback—there aren’t many third-party apps to connect with. As a business, you might want to have enough integration options to centralize your workflow. However, as of now, this doesn’t seem to affect sales.

Apple has already sold over 200,000 units which made its new headset-line a $700,000,000 business even before the units have been delivered.

It seems that the entire digital industry is amazed by this futuristic collaboration barring a few exceptions such as YouTube and Netflix. Netflix, for instance, believes that this feature isn’t very relevant to its users, which is why it has said that Netflix won’t launch a dedicated app for Apple Vision Pro. However, as it’s for every one of us to see, Zoom feels otherwise.

The post Zoom All Set To Join Hands With Apple Vision Pro With Its Spatial Computing App appeared first on The Tech Report.

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla (and whose Neuralink implants became the first brain chip in a human), first rose to the position of the richest man in the world in September 2021 and then again in 2023 and has held the title ever since. But that’s all about to change as this new ruling from a Delaware court comes in.

A judge from Delaware has reportedly sided with the shareholders of Tesla and denied Musk the $56 billion promised to him via corporate payout.

The ruling comes after a lawsuit was filed against him by the shareholders of his company Tesla, which stated that Musk dictated his own terms of payment to the board members and they had no independent say in how much he gets to take home.

She also went on to say that Elon Musk is a “Superstar CEO” (from what it looks like, that’s sarcasm?) who used his personal connections with some of the board members and power over the company to create a payment approval process that works in his favor and is not subject to the decisions of his board members.

Read more about Elon: Fidelity slashes valuation of Musk’s X holdings by 71.5% amidst advertiser boycott

What Does Elon Musk Have To Say In His Defence? 

Further, his lawyers also stated that the massive paycheck that was approved by the board members and the shareholders back in 2018 was solely done to keep the best engineers in the world focused completely on Tesla.

According to the deal he then created, he would receive 1% of the company’s share for each commercial milestone it reaches. Since then, the company sped past all 12 pre-decided milestones which propelled both Tesla and Musk to the top.

Although the growth benefited all shareholders, McCormick pointed out that Musk was already heavily benefitting from the company, considering he owned 22% of its shares.

She also observed that back then (i.e. in 2018), Tesla was in the middle of launching the Model 3 Sedan—a car that would make the luxury brand available to middle-class customers. In her words, this was “the largest potential compensation opportunity ever observed in public markets by multiple orders of magnitude.”

She also questioned whether this step was even necessary to retain Musk and grow the company (as stated by Musk’s lawyers) or to simply make the company dependent on him.

Furthermore, Musk isn’t the only one to take a hit from the case. Tesla’s shares slipped by 4% in after-hours trading on Tuesday evening.

After all, both the New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq Exchange need the company’s board of directors to be independent of the company before its shares can be traded in the open market.

The post Elon Musk Might Lose The “Richest Person In The World” Title As Court Decides He Cannot Keep Tesla Payout appeared first on The Tech Report.

The CEO and co-founder of Tencent Holdings, Pony Ma, recently expressed the challenges faced by the company’s video games business due to intense competition but highlighted progress in its AI development.

During Tencent’s annual meeting in Shenzhen, Ma acknowledged that the gaming sector, contributing over 30% to Tencent’s revenue, had encountered stiff competition. 

Tencent Holdings Deals with Competitor Challenges

The concerns revolved around Tencent’s ability to maintain its position as China’s top tech company amidst growing competition and emerging disruptive technologies. Ma emphasized that despite facing challenges in the gaming sector, Tencent has made strides in AI development, catching up with leading companies. 

He mentioned that while Tencent may not consider itself at the forefront, it is not significantly behind its peers. Regarding AI, Ma outlined Tencent’s focus on integrating its Hunyuan AI model into various business scenarios to enhance efficiency rather than rushing to transform AI into products.

As such, he suggested that massive AI-native applications might not materialize within the next one or two years.

Ma also addressed Tencent’s exploration of live-streaming e-commerce as a strategy to evolve WeChat, the company’s robust platform, which, despite being 12 years old, boasts a substantial user base and ecosystem.

As highlighted by Ma, the challenge is finding innovative approaches to rejuvenate WeChat’s established platform and compete with successful models like Douyin’s live-streaming e-commerce.

Tencent Holdings’ Commitment to Artificial Intelligence

Tencent Holdings’ business objectives center around improving the experience of its users through continuous dedication to artificial intelligence. 

Located in Shenzhen, the firm operates in a cutting-edge AI lab where in-depth research on speech recognition, machine learning, and computer vision is done continually.

It leverages the strength of AI to integrate this technology across different areas to improve how users communicate, even as it aids business growth. The importance of this technology is also seen in how Tencent addresses regular complications found in various organizations.

Notably, the idea to introduce the AI model aligns with the company’s proactive stance in adhering to new Chinese regulations concerning generative artificial intelligence, which came into effect on August 15 last year. This model serves as a testament to Tencent’s technological prowess, striving to democratize AI accessibility for people worldwide.

The company also noted the significance of using open-source models and enterprise data for targeted industrial use cases. This dual approach enhances the efficiency of AI solutions and plays a pivotal role in fortifying data protection measures.

The collaborative utilization of open-source models and industry-specific data is seen as a strategic move to unlock the full value of AI across various domains.

With thousands of researchers dispersed across its global offices, Tencent’s dedicated teams focus on pivotal research areas such as machine learning, natural language processing, computer vision, and speech recognition.

Meanwhile, the competitive landscape of Tencent’s AI endeavors in China is intensifying, solidifying the company’s position as a frontrunner in the ongoing AI race.

The post Tencent Holdings Faces Competitor Threat but Thrives in AI Development appeared first on The Tech Report.

On Tuesday, Elon Musk announced that his neurotechnology company Neuralink implanted the first brain chip in a human. The trial was first announced in September 2023 and as per his latest tweet on X(formerly known as Twitter), the participant is recovering fine.

Results also show a great deal of neuron spikes. For those who don’t know, neuron spike refers to the activity of neurons during which they use energy to send signals and information around the brain and to the body. So an increase in neuron spikes simply refers to a more active brain.

A little about the company— Neuralink was co-founded by Elon Musk in 2016.

Its primary goal is to create a sustainable bond between our brains and computers which in turn will help us deal with neurological disorders.

However, the company had to go through a great deal of struggle in the initial stages, owing to the unique nature of its work. But this year it reached one of its biggest milestones as FDA approved human testing for the chips.

What Lies Ahead?

With the approval from the FDA, Neuralink will now launch a 6-year study during which they’ll have a robot implant 64 flexible threads (thinner than human hair) into the part of the brain that helps control movement.

As you can understand, if this experiment is successful, it will revolutionize the lives of people suffering from movement-related diseases such as ALS or Parkinson’s.

Musk also said that the first product by Neuralink will be named Telepathy. It would allow you to control any device through your phone or computer just by thinking. A lot like how Stephen Hawking functioned, but this process will be much faster.

However, this is only the beginning and the road ahead is quite tricky for Neuralink because there are many other successful competitors aiming for the same goal. For instance, Blackrock Neurotech implanted its first set of brain-computer interfaces in 2004.

Other companies such as Australia-based Synchron and Precision Neuroscience are not only early to the race, but the latter has developed better ways of implanting the chip.

Precision Neuroscience (which was founded by a co-founder of Neuralink) uses a very tiny chip, almost the size of a small tape, that’s meant to sit at the surface of your brain and can be implanted through a micro slit surgery. This process is said to be much simpler and less invasive than what Musk had originally planned.

Sensing the growing competition, Musk smartly reached out to Synchron for a collaboration. The implant developed by the latter is much less invasive and doesn’t require cutting into the skull in order to install, unlike Neuralink’s Link product. This will certainly give the company an edge over its competitors.

Overall, Neuralinl is doing great. As per the latest reports from Pitchbook (a data company), it has a strong workforce of 400 employees and has raised at least $363 million from investors.

The post Elon Musk’s Neuralink Implants First Brain Chip In A Human appeared first on The Tech Report.

On Monday, Italy’s Data Protection Authority (DPA) found that OpenAI’s AI-driven chatbot ChatGPT has been violating European data privacy laws.

The incident came to light when a “fact-finding activity” found new evidence. This activity was launched by the DPA when ChatGPT was first introduced in Europe.

According to the latest statement released by the authorities, it’s confirmed that this new evidence points to a breach of the terms mentioned in the EU GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation).

While the exact details are still unknown, it seems that the violation was regarding the collection of bulk personal user data for training purposes.

Also, the authorities are worried that the rapid growth of ChatGPT exposes the younger generation to a greater risk of coming across inappropriate content generated by AI. OpenAI has been given 30 days to respond with a defense.

The DPA could also impose restrictions on its operations in Europe which would change how the company collects and uses data to train its AI bots. If the company does not comply with the restrictions imposed, it might have to pull out its services from the EU Member States.

ChatGPT’s History With Italy & Europe

This isn’t the first time that ChatGPT has gotten in trouble. In March 2023, Italy was the first Western country to ban ChatGPT owing to privacy concerns.

The ban was authorized by Italian watchdog Garante the European Union’s primary agency in testing AI platform compliance with the bloc’s data privacy regime.

The platform was reinstated 4 weeks later after it successfully clarified all the issues raised by the DPA. Despite being welcomed back, the regulators continued to have doubts about the platform.

In April 2023, the DPA along with the European Union’s European Data Protection Board set up a special task force for monitoring the activities of the company.

While the new privacy measures taken by ChatGPT were appreciated, the regulators want even more compliance and cooperation from the company.

Explaining the details, one of the spokesmen from the agency said that they want an age verification system to protect minors and an option to opt out of sharing their data for training purposes for all users.

An informative campaign was also expected to be launched that would explain to the Italians what exactly happened.

The company also assured that they are actively trying to reduce the usage of personal data in AI training and have trained systems like ChatGPT to reject requests for the private information of users from other third parties. For now, they plan to work with the Garante to find a common solution.

The post ChatGPT Under Fire For Violating Privacy Laws In Italy appeared first on The Tech Report.

In a significant move to advance its artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities, China has endorsed more than 40 AI models for public use in the last six months. This move highlights China’s commitment to catching up with the United States in the field of AI development.

China Approves Over Forty AI Models

According to reports from Chinese media, regulators in China recently approved a total of 14 large language models (LLMs), marking the fourth round of approvals in the country. Among the recipients are prominent entities like 4Paradigm, Xiaomi Corp, and 01. AI.

The regulatory framework for AI in China was initiated in August last year. The guidelines required tech companies to seek approval before making their LLMs accessible to the public.

This approach reflects China’s strategy of fostering AI technology while maintaining strict oversight and control.

Notably, this process began in August when the first batch of artificial intelligence models received approval, with major players like Baidu, Alibaba, and ByteDance leading the way.

Subsequent batches were approved in November and December 2023, with the latest approvals reported this month.

Although the exact list of approved companies remains undisclosed, reports suggest that over 40 AI models have been approved for public use. China’s push for artificial intelligence development gained momentum following the global impact of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in 2022.

China boasted 130 LLMs at that time, representing 40% of the global total and closely trailing the United States with a 50% share, according to brokerage CLSA cited by Reuters on September 22, 2023.

Notably, by December, Baidu’s Ernie Bot, a prominent ChatGPT-like chatbot, amassed over 100 million users, highlighting China’s rapid strides in AI technology.

China Envisions Better Position in the AI Sector

Anticipated to persist in its advancements despite obstacles like US export controls on semiconductors, China is poised to sustain growth and investment in the artificial intelligence sector throughout 2024.

The nation has solidified its global standing by heavily investing in AI infrastructure, nurturing talent, fostering innovation, and deploying artificial intelligence across diverse sectors like health, education, business, and security.

The Chinese government has implemented supportive policies to bolster artificial intelligence development, directing financial resources toward AI research, development, and commercialization.

These initiatives also involve encouraging data sharing, fostering collaboration between academia and industry, and attracting foreign talent and investment.

Projections indicate that China’s AI industry spending is expected to reach $14.75 billion by 2026, constituting approximately 10% of the global total. The sector is expected to maintain a compound annual growth rate exceeding 20% from 2021 to 2026.

While China has the potential to lead in data integration and industrial intelligence across various industries, it may trail the US in multilingual global applications. Notably, the dynamic competition between China and the US in the artificial intelligence industry encompasses technological, economic, military, and political dimensions, ensuring an ongoing and evolving landscape.

The post China Approves Over 40 AI Models in the Past Six Months appeared first on The Tech Report.

Microsoft’s stock has surged 7% so far in 2024, propelling its market capitalization above $3 trillion. It has now outpaced Apple as the world’s most valuable company.

Investments strategists and portfolio managers unanimously expect Microsoft to remain more valuable than Apple over the next five years due to its early lead in artificial intelligence.

Microsoft Leveraging AI Across Business Lines

Microsoft made key early investments in AI leaders like OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT. It is now rapidly incorporating generative AI across its offerings. One such integration is Outlook’s AI-powered email composition.

This gives Microsoft an edge as AI transforms cloud computing and enterprise software markets, where it competes with Amazon and Alphabet. Apple has quietly added AI to iPhone features but lacks a clear AI strategy. With iPhone sales slowing, especially in China, Apple’s stock is flat this year.

Its new mixed-reality headset, while innovative, serves a niche market. Unless Apple unveils more ambitious AI plans, Microsoft’s focus and investments in this critical technology appear set to push it ahead of Apple in valuation.

Microsoft’s Azure cloud business, enterprise software, gaming, and new offerings like Outlook’s AI-powered email composition all stand to benefit enormously from artificial intelligence. The company’s early and large investments in OpenAI granted it exclusive access to powerful generative AI models like GPT-3.5.

This enables Microsoft to rapidly integrate AI across its products and services, from Office 365’s automated meeting summaries to Azure’s machine learning offerings. 

As AI transforms major industries, Microsoft’s strategic focus and early mover advantage in AI gives it an edge over rivals.

Meanwhile, Apple has not articulated a vision for AI across its business. While it uses AI to improve iPhone photography and other capabilities, Apple risks falling behind Microsoft and other tech giants in key growth areas if it does not have a more ambitious AI strategy.

Analysts Overwhelmingly Bullish on Microsoft

Among major financial institutions surveyed, analysts unanimously predict Microsoft’s valuation will exceed Apple’s in 5 years. Fifty analysts recommend buying Microsoft stock, while only four are neutral, and none advise selling. 

In contrast, 26 analysts recommend buying Apple while 12 are neutral, and two recommend selling, including a recent downgrade to “underweight,” citing slowing iPhone sales. 

Microsoft’s early lead in AI gives analysts confidence in its ability to drive revenue growth through new capabilities and enterprise cloud market share gains.

Its share price reflects confidence its AI focus will unlock growth opportunities and competitive advantages. With a 33X increase since inception and a valuation of over $3 trillion, Microsoft stocks are expected to grow even more as more investors come in. With AI poised to transform major industries, Microsoft is appealing as a long-term AI investment. 

Its strategic vision, focused investments, and aggressive product rollout allow it to monetize advances in generative AI across the cloud, enterprise software, and other businesses. 

While Apple and Nvidia may compete for the top valuation in the long term, Microsoft’s execution and positioning in AI give it a pole position for now.

The post Microsoft Poised to Overtake Apple as Most Valuable Company appeared first on The Tech Report.

The stock market indices—Nasdaq and S&P 500—have all reached all-time highs (hope y’all are invested and raking in good passive income), primarily thanks to tech companies like Microsoft, Meta, and Alphabet achieving unparalleled market valuations.

There’s something worrisome behind the curtains—the tech sector is currently experiencing an increase in layoffs this month. Higher valuations with fewer resources? Interesting!

Last year wasn’t great either—as many as 260,000 jobs were wiped off. If you’re in the tech space, you’d know that this is the most challenging the industry has gotten since the dot-com bubble burst in the early 2000s.

So, what’s the reason for massive layoffs? Well, I’ve scoured what companies have been saying and all of them in so many words have blamed poor consumer demand, high inflation, and an exaggerated recruitment phase during the pandemic for these job reductions.

At the time of writing, the aforementioned tech giants have all recovered from the perplexing pre-pandemic performance levels, plus there’s been a 50% reduction in inflation when compared to the previous year. All this has surely improved the confidence of customers like you and me.

Despite this, the beginning of this year saw nearly 100 tech companies, including juggernauts such as Amazon, Meta, Google, Microsoft, Salesforce, and TikTok, collectively laying off around 25,000 employees. This is concerning, to say the least.

To give you a quick rundown:

• Microsoft and SAP laid off around 1,900 and 8,000 employees
• eBay cut thousands of jobs while fintech startup Brex has let go 20% of its employees
• Earlier this month, Amazon, Google, Discord, and Unity also announced job cuts to streamline their operations and adapt to market demand
• Amazon slashed positions across MGM Studios, Prime Video, audible, and Twitch divisions
• Unity and Discord are cutting 25% and 17% of their workforce

Interestingly, these layoffs coincide with the upcoming tech earnings season, where Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, Apple, and Microsoft are set to disclose their quarterly results—I’d look at it as a means to appease investors and other stakeholders because whether we like it or not, and regardless of the big-picture effects, the companies have been able to reduce costs in response to various economic uncertainties.

The bottom line is: can you blame a company for focusing on productivity and efficiency?

The New Reality 

As I pointed out, we can link these job cuts to budget planning and strategic initiatives of the companies in the upcoming year.

Of course, there has been an increased investment in AI that has made it necessary for companies to cut down costs. Investment in AI is on the rise, and it’s no secret that it may soon result in more workforce reductions.

Phil Spencer, Microsoft’s gaming CEO, explained that the layoffs were aimed at minimizing areas of overlap and are part of a bigger plan followed by the acquisition of Activision Blizzard.

Similarly, Google recently introduced new AI products to improve Google Chrome. Amazon is also increasing its investments in AI, and SAP has also stated about diverting its focus more to business AI.

If you think tech industries are the only ones facing layoffs, how about this—Citigroup, a company in the banking sector, has announced a 10% workforce cut. Then there are media companies like Levi Strauss and Paramount that have also announced layoffs to enhance efficiency and streamline operations—just like the rest of them.

All in all, it’s undoubtedly a social responsibility rather than a business-driven incentive, so we can only guess whether these companies will be able to protect jobs as we move towards a more AI-driven work environment.

The post The Surge In Tech Layoffs Despite Wall Street Records appeared first on The Tech Report.

Elon Musk is actively hiring content moderators for its new X Austin office. The aim is to form a team of 100 moderators by the end of the year.

Called the “Trust and Safety Center of Excellence”, the date of opening of the facility is not yet known. However, it is expected to combat the growing issues of child abuse and rising hate speech on X.

Benarroch stressed the fact that the company is looking to develop such a facility to prevent its platform from being used as a tool to spread hate.

Musk’s relationship with Austin isn’t new—Tesla already operates a gigafactory there. As per a recent tax filing of The Foundation, one of Musk’s charities, there are plans to build a university in Austin. Musk has tendered a $100 million gift for the purpose.

X’s Content Moderation Headaches

Ever since Musk has taken over X, the company has been under security for all the wrong reasons. He had fired content moderators right after he took over the reins.

X came under regulatory fire during the Hamas-Israel conflict. The EU launched a formal investigation into X’s content moderation practices. This was to examine if they are complying with legal requirements to stop the spread of misinformation and hate speech on the platform.

Similarly, a new law in California required social media companies to submit a half-yearly report disclosing their content moderation practices.

However, X filed a lawsuit challenging this law, terming it “unconstitutional”. X alleged that it violated the First Amendment and was against its policy of “free speech”.

However, Judge William Shubb dismissed such claims, reiterating that the law was well within the constitutional framework.

The Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) has also accused X of stifling anti-hate campaigners on its platform. However, X rubbished such claims, claiming there to be a political motive behind such a statement.

All these incidents hint at one thing — X has not done enough to prevent hate speech on its platform. Musk’s own anti-semantic tweets were heavily criticized, which led to a massive advertiser exodus from the platform.

However, with this new Austin facility, X seems to finally be moving in the right direction. It remains to be seen how things shape up for Musk and his notion of “free-speech”.

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Less than 15 months after its launch, the UK Amazon Insurance Store is now closed for business.

Amazon announced its insurance business in the UK in October 2022, partnering with companies like LV, Co-op, and Ageas. You could buy home, travel, car, and other insurance products with Amazon.

The company has assured customers that their ongoing policies will not be affected and they will continue to enjoy coverage. You’ll be able to make claims as usual, without any delays. Amazon said that it will guide and help customers if any changes are made.

Amazon’s exit goes to highlight the difficulty of entering a highly regulated market even for commercial giants.

However, this doesn’t come as a surprise for insurance experts, given how unplanned Amazon’s move was, especially for the UK markets.

Reasons Behind Amazon’s Exit

However, this isn’t the first time a brand has failed to fathom unexplored waters. Tesco, the popular grocery brand, once forayed into mortgage and other financial services, only to close that business later on.

Quickbooks had announced that they would offer commercial insurance products in 2020. However, it quickly abandoned the project after failing to achieve profit and return targets.

Stephen Perkins, managing director at Yellow Brick Mortgages, has outlined several reasons for Amazon’s failure.

For starters, there wasn’t much market awareness about Amazon’s insurance business. People didn’t know that Amazon sold insurance in the first place, making business tough for the giant.

Another reason could be the continued losses or shrinking profits, which were too little for the amount of risk involved in the business.

Lastly, the regulatory requirements in the insurance business are far more when compared to online retail business, which could have been too much for Amazon to comply with.

Experts have also acknowledged the fact that it is not good for customers, since they will now have a choice less when picking an insurer.

But at the same time, it is also a big relief to them. There’s always a threat of big corporations using their brand name and network to disrupt industries. However, with this incident, it is quite evident that it’s not that simple.

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Democratic Oregon Senator Ron Wyden made a startling revelation on Thursday, claiming that the National Security Agency (NSA) has been purchasing domestic internet records of American citizens for years, spying on them without necessary warrants.

In his letter to intelligence chief Avril Haines, Wyden mentioned that US officials had fought to keep their ties with “shady” private companies a secret.

It was Wyden’s blocking of the appointment of a new NSA director that forced them to release the details, he added.

A “Legal Gray Area” – How NSA Officials Obtained Data through Private Companies

According to the Oregon Democrat, data brokers had been quietly obtaining and reselling the internet metadata of Americans without their consent.

Describing the practice as a “legal gray area”, he accused officials of exploiting it to circumvent legal procedures.

To obtain location data from mobile phones of American users, security officials would require a warrant. However, their arrangements with private companies allow them to work around it by routinely purchasing the necessary data.

For years, Wyden’s office has been probing the sale of location data to the government, it said. The investigation uncovered several ties between the Department of Defense and companies that Wyden described as “shady”, accusing them of flagrantly violating people’s privacy.

Wyden expressed in his letter that the US government is in need of a wake-up call,  asking Ms. Haines to take inventory of the data in possession of the government already and remove any information that fails to meet the standard of consent.

The senator also called for rules that would only allow the government to purchase data that Americans have consented to be sold. “The U.S. government should not be funding and legitimizing a shady industry”, Wyden added.

Despite the details of the data purchases always being unclassified, the Pentagon tried hard to keep it under wraps.

However, Wyden recently blocked the NSA’s attempt to appoint a new director, forcing them to disclose the information.

According to him, intelligence agencies tried their best to maintain the secrecy around the practice as they intended to “keep the American people in the dark”.

Secretary of Defense and NSA Director Defend the Practice

Ron Wyden also released a letter from NSA director and Army General Paul M. Nakasone, where the latter can be seen detailing the NSA’s actions and justifying them.

Describing the acquired data as “commercially available information”, Nakasone claimed that such acquisitions are limited and did not include location data from automobiles.

The NSA does not purchase location data of phones that are “known to be used in the US”, he added, confirming that the agency acquires US-based  “non-content” data when there are communications between a US-based IP address and one located abroad.

Ronald S. Moultrie, the Under Secretary of Defense, defended the DoD’s acquisition of the said data in a separate letter.

There is no judicial opinion or law in the US that requires the department to get a court order before acquiring, accessing, or using any information that is equally available for private individuals, other US companies, and foreign adversaries to purchase, he mentioned.

However, Ryden believes that the legal landscape on the matter may have now changed, with the FTC taking action against a data broker earlier this month. Selling location data counts as an intrusion into the lives of consumers, the commission ruled.

It’s worth noting that Wyden’s disclosure of the practice comes at a time when the House Judiciary Committee and the House Intelligence Committee are fighting over efforts to outlaw such data purchases.

The post NSA Secretly Spying on Americans by Buying Their Internet Records, Us Senator Ron Wyden Reveals appeared first on The Tech Report.

Sexually explicit AI-generated images of popular pop singer Taylor Swift went viral this week, sparking calls for new legislation against the creation of deepfake images.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre expressed alarm over the incident, urging Congress to take legislative action.

Distributed through the popular instant messaging app Telegram, the fake images reached millions of users. We also found these images on X, which were viewed 47 million times before they got taken down by the platform.

Democrats and Republicans Unite on the Deepfake Situation

Quite expectedly, the incident has sparked outrage among Taylor Swift fans and US politicians alike — both Democrats and Republicans calling for the criminalization of such actions.

However, this is not the first time that AI has been used to create fake yet convincing imagery of someone without their consent.

A spokesperson for US representative Joe Morelle expressed hope that the news will add momentum and garner support for a bill addressing the exact situation.

The bill, which Morelle tried to pass with a renewed push last week, intends to declare the nonconsensual distribution of digitally altered explicit pictures a federal crime.

This would bring such wrongdoers to justice with both civil and criminal penalties, Morelle’s spokesperson pointed out.

In a post on X, Democratic representative Yvette D Clarke said that recent developments in AI have made it much easier and cheaper to create deepfake images – which have been used to target women for years.

He went on to emphasize the need for safeguards to combat the growing and dangerous trend, pointing out that the victim could be any young person across the country.

X issued a statement saying that it was actively taking down the images, monitoring the situation closely to prevent further violations, and taking “appropriate action” against the involved accounts.

The Rise of Deepfakes Amid a Stark Lack of Legislation

Anyone can be a victim of deepfake, including you. However, the risk is much higher for celebrities and public personalities.

If you don’t know what deepfake exactly is, it is the use of artificial intelligence to create realistic images or videos of a person by manipulating their face, body, and even voice. This has been fueled by the recent rise of AI.

A 2023 study reveals that the total number of deepfake videos on the internet stood at 95,820 in 2023 — a 550% jump since 2019. And to everyone’s shock, 98% of these deepfake videos are pornography.

The UK criminalized the sharing of deepfake pornography in 2023 with its Online Safety Act. But that’s not the case in the US, since there’s no proper legislation addressing the problem.

Despite state-level attempts to tackle the creation and distribution of sexually explicit deepfakes, there are no federal laws on the issue.

RAINN Vice President of Public Policy Stefan Turkheimer spoke up on the incident, claiming that over 100,000 such images and videos are shared on the internet daily.

Expressing the organization’s anger on behalf of the pop singer, he added that they were “angrier still” for the millions who lack the resources to regain autonomy over their images.

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The world’s richest entrepreneur, Elon Musk, has set a high target in the latest fundraising round for his fledgling artificial intelligence company.

According to a new Financial Times report, Musk is looking to secure $6 billion in fresh funding for his startup XAI. 

This enormous target reflects Musk’s ambitions to aggressively scale up XAI and compete at the top levels of the red-hot AI sector. It also shows his determination to challenge leading players like OpenAI, which recently hit a $29 billion valuation thanks to its popular ChatGPT chatbot.

Sky-High Valuation as Investors Chase AI

At a proposed $20 billion valuation, XAI would still be dwarfed by OpenAI’s size. But it indicates investors’ appetite to pay premium prices to back AI leaders in this space.

For a startup less than a year old, a possible $20 billion price tag illustrates the heady growth predictions being placed on artificial intelligence companies. 

Principal backers are betting these AI firms will one day generate immense revenues from transformative technologies. To pull off this massive fundraising round, Musk has been meeting with deep-pocketed Asian investors. 

His team reportedly approached influential family offices in Hong Kong, hoping they would bankroll XAI’s growth. 

They also targeted cash-rich sovereign wealth funds in the Middle East as potential backers. Along with this, XAI has Morgan Stanley coordinating its fundraising push. The investment bank assisted Musk in financing his blockbuster Twitter acquisition last year.

Compared to the $1 billion XAI originally sought to raise, this new $6 billion goal is an exponential increase. It reflects Musk’s pressing need to scale operations to compete with OpenAI’s meteoric rise. After co-founding OpenAI in 2015, Musk had a falling out and exited the firm by 2018.

He launched XAI years later when AI capabilities like chatbots captivated Silicon Valley. XAI made waves last year with the release of its ChatGPT rival dubbed Grok.

With OpenAI dominating headlines, Musk is keen to expand his startup’s talent, computing power, and reach. 

A massive new funding infusion can help turbocharge XAI’s capabilities in natural language processing and machine learning algorithms. With OpenAI advancing rapidly thanks to Microsoft’s backing, Musk can’t afford to lag far behind.

Battling OpenAI Amid Market Instability

Seeking over $6 billion in an uncertain startup funding environment is an aggressive move. But it highlights Musk’s confidence that demand for elite AI players remains white-hot.

This is because, despite instability in public markets, venture investing in top AI startups continues to break records.

The promise of artificial general intelligence has overcome broader economic jitters. In recent months, major AI firms like Anthropic have raised hundreds of millions in new capital.

Microsoft also continues pouring money into OpenAI, leading a $10 billion investment round last year.

As AI capabilities advance blisteringly, we inch closer to technologies once confined to science fiction. Leading companies are jockeying to monetize AI through revolutionary real-world applications.

Musk aims to cement XAI as a titan in artificial intelligence research and commercialization. 

With his prolific fundraising abilities, we can expect XAI to aggressively expand its reach across industries in the coming years.

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Solana rose dramatically to occupy the fifth position in the ranking of crypto assets by market cap. Also, SOL joined the top-performing assets from 2023 as it displayed an impressive growth pattern toward the year’s end.

However, the prevailing pressure from the bears has overwhelmed most assets, including Solana.

The latter has shed some of its value. Based on the current downtrend, a prominent crypto analyst revealed that SOL has entered its tipping point and will continue to play in the red till it hits $70.

Solana Initiates A Price Correction That Will Propel Future Rally

Top crypto trader and analyst Bluntz (known as @Bluntz_Capital) recently laid out some interest growth paths for Solana. According to the trader, the token will face a correction as the price continues to decline. 

Bluntz further stated that Solana will witness a great rally that will follow its negative movement.

$SOL also looking like all these weeks of sideways was probably some kind of B wave triangle.

ill be interested again in the low $70s pic.twitter.com/0n3rI6rUaO

— Bluntz (@Bluntz_Capital) January 22, 2024

Further, Bluntz offered a Solana price chart to support his analysis. The trader highlighted that the token had indicated a B-wave triangle with sideways trends. 

$SOL also looking like all these weeks of sideways was probably some kind of B wave triangle.

ill be interested again in the low $70s pic.twitter.com/0n3rI6rUaO

— Bluntz (@Bluntz_Capital) January 22, 2024

Notably, the price movements display some elements of uncertainty. However, the analyst placed his attention on the potential low existing within the $70 support region.

But for now, the asset has not slipped below the $80 zone despite the prevailing bearish trend in the broader crypto market.

Picking the $70 mark reflects the worst-case scenario for SOL. If it occurs, it would represent the point where several participants will start to accumulate the token. According to Bluntz’s analysis, Solana will scale up to $150 after dipping to $70.

Such a rally will indicate the token’s best price movement since two years ago.

Solana’s Impressive Ecosystem Backs Its Growth 

Solana is among the few protocols within the crypto space that display relevant real-world utilities. Most of its use cases have been supporting the growth of the coin. 

Notably, the increasing value improves the token’s appeal and demand in the industry. This helps to boost its adoption, stimulating a possible rise in its price.

The Solana Mobile Saga is one of the developments in the ecosystem that has brought a huge positive impact on the token. It’s a mobile phone that includes Web3 for users to experience its unique feel. 

As a move to attract more attention, Saga was listed on eBay, a popular online sales platform.

Though the price is more than $5,000, the sales offer a free airdrop of 30 million BONK coins to owners. Also, Solana has become a reliable base for meme coins and many crypto assets.

The ecosystem houses more than 200 different digital assets, including notable meme coins with potential for higher gains.

Some of the meme coins within the Solana ecosystem include Bonk, Dogwifhat, Sponge V2, Fronk, Moonlana, and others. These factors and more contribute to SOL’s price gains and will likely help in boosting its price amid the bearish pressure. 

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For the first time in the company’s history, Apple has announced that it would allow rival app stores to be used on Apple devices purchased in the EU.

This comes as a part of major changes to how the tech giant handles apps in Europe, which also included significant cuts in its App Store fees.

The updates, which were announced on Thursday, are a response to the new regulations that are set to take effect in March this year.

The changes won’t apply in the UK – at least just yet. However, the Digital Markets Bill which is currently passing through the UK parliament will likely bring Apple’s practices under scrutiny.

Cheaper Fees and Greater Flexibility: A Win for Users and Developers

The shift is essentially one of the most impactful changes to the company’s app business since the App Store was first launched, 15 years ago.

With Apple strongly stifling competition from potential rival app stores, it formed the basis of the tech giant’s ecosystems. Apple currently allows you to only download apps from its proprietary store – a rule that it claims to enforce to protect the users’ security.

However, there has been mounting pressure against the policy, with Apple being accused of creating a monopoly.

Epic Games recently brought Apple to court over forcing customers and developers to go through its own channels and charging developers a hefty processing fee of up to 30%.

The move led Apple to update its policy and start allowing developers to offer alternate payment channels – while still charging a 27% commission. Spotify had recently criticized Apple for this move.

With the official App Store from Apple being the only app store that could be used on its devices, you did not have much choice in how you installed apps.

Developers who don’t wish to pay the hefty fees or do not meet Apple’s standards could not sell their products to the millions of Apple users either. This is now set to change in Europe once the updates take effect.

For developers who are eligible for certain discount programs and are currently charged a 15% commission on in-app transactions, the fee would be set at 10%. This is indeed yet another massive change, addressing one of the key issues raised against Apple in recent times.

The announced updates go on to show how EU policymakers succeeded in forcing Apple to change its business practices.

The tech giant has also announced that developers will soon be able to offer alternative payment methods without having to pay a commission. No fees would be collected from apps distributed through rival app stores either, the company said.

Developers choosing to benefit from the new fee structure and capabilities will instead have to pay Apple a fee of 0.50 euros for every installation following the first 1 million installs in a year.

Based on this requirement, less than 1% of the developers in the EU would have to pay this fee, Apple mentioned.

Other Changes for Apple Users in the EU

Besides the reduced fees and the option to use alternative app stores and payment methods, Apple also announced other changes that will be coming to the EU.

Once iOS 17.4 is rolled out, developers will be able to access the tap-to-pay chip that comes embedded in iPhones. This would enable them to create alternative iOS mobile wallet apps for contactless payments.

EU users opening Safari after downloading the update will see a menu of alternative browsers like Chrome and Firefox. Though Apple’s App Tore will continue to be initially set as default, you will gain the ability to set a third-party app store as your default choice.

The post Apple Cuts App Store Fees, to Allow Rival App Stores in Europe appeared first on The Tech Report.

In a move aimed at protecting minors on two of the world’s largest social media platforms, Meta has announced a new safety update for Facebook and Instagram.

Teens aged under 16, or 18 in some places, will no longer receive direct messages from strangers, i.e., users who they don’t follow or aren’t connected to already.

The stricter safety controls come as a part of Meta’s ongoing efforts to ensure “age-appropriate experiences for teens” across its platforms.

Parental Approval Needed to Turn Off the New Setting

The new security setting will be activated by default for all minor users on Instagram and Facebook.

If you’re an existing user to whom the changes apply, you’ll get a notification at the top of your feed, informing you of the change to your message settings.

While you will still have the option to turn off the setting, it might require your parents’ approval.

Now, let’s say you’re a parent of an underage adult. Until now, you were simply notified when your children made a change to their default privacy and security settings. However, you’ll now be able to approve or reject such requests.

This means teens using a supervised account would not be able to change their direct messaging settings in order to be able to receive DMs from strangers unless their parents approve of the change.

Trying to turn off the security setting will notify you, along with a prompt to approve or decline the attempt.

Meta’s Growing Efforts for Stricter Parental Control

While a previously introduced feature blocked adults over 19 years from direct messaging minors, the new change applies to all strangers.

As a parent, these changes offer you greater control over the online interactions of your children. The new feature is aimed at facilitating in-person conversations between teens and their parents, Meta said.

The update comes at a crucial time when social media platforms are under increasing scrutiny over the impact they have on teens.

In December 2023, New Mexico’s Attorney General Raul Torrez sued Meta for failing to protect the younger Facebook and Instagram users from being exposed to sexual abuse material and even allowing adults to ask them for explicit imagery.

Newly redacted documents from the case underscore the Mark Zuckerberg-led tech giant’s “historical reluctance” to protect children, the lawsuit says.

It’s worth noting that Meta has announced the introduction of a new feature that would block underage users from viewing inappropriate images sent to them, even by people they are connected to.

The company is also expanding its suite of parental supervision tools and has introduced a number of features over the last two years. Not too long ago, tools were rolled out on Facebook and Instagram to limit access to content related to eating disorders or self-harm for teens.

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Apple’s iPhone was the best-selling smartphone in China for the first time in 2023. This is according to new data from market research firm IDC. The iPhone ranked number one in shipments during Q4 and for the full year, defying expectations amid slow demand in China’s smartphone market.

Notably, China’s smartphone shipments declined 5% in 2022, marking the lowest volume in a decade. Slow economic recovery, weak consumer sentiment, and rising domestic competition all contributed to the slumping sales. 

This sales slowdown created an opening for Apple to claim the top spot despite facing its struggles in China.

Huawei Resurgence Adds to Competitive Pressures  

While Apple’s iPhone sales still dropped 2.1% in the first quarter of 2023, this was less severe than the double-digit declines experienced by rivals like Honor and Vivo. Through timely discounts and promotions, Apple was able to stimulate enough demand to edge out the competition. 

The company’s relative resilience points to the enduring popularity of the iPhone even as nationalistic sentiment grows in China. Apple’s rise to number one in China comes despite mounting competitive threats, especially from a resurgent Huawei. 

The embattled Chinese brand saw its smartphone shipments jump 36% in Q4 2022, thanks to the successful launch of its newest Mate 60 series. Huawei’s strong comeback propelled it back into the top five smartphone makers in China during the holiday quarter. 

With its China sales crippled in recent years by U.S. sanctions, Huawei doubled down on its domestic market. The brand is positioned to be Apple’s chief rival again in 2024 if it can sustain momentum.

Apple also faces pressure from ambitious Chinese Android brands like Honor, Xiaomi, and Oppo. 

With consumers tightening budgets, Apple will have to closely monitor pricing and promotions to defend its newfound top spot this year.

iPhone 15 Faces More Headwinds in Sustaining China Sales

Looking ahead, analysts predict Apple will struggle to grow iPhone sales in China in 2024. Though the iPhone 14 series initially saw strong demand, interest faded fast, according to most estimates. 

According to a Reuters report, research firm Jefferies expects iPhone sales in China to drop by double digits this year. 

The new iPhone 15 models will need compelling upgrades and aggressive pricing to reinvigorate sales. But nationalism and geopolitical tensions pose ongoing risks. For instance, Chinese state-owned companies have banned employees from bringing iPhones and other foreign devices to work. 

These prohibitions against Apple technology appear to be expanding across China’s public sector. Deteriorating U.S.-China relations could fuel more anti-Apple policies that hamper performance.

Despite the many challenges it faces, Apple has started 2024 in pole position in China’s smartphone market. 

To defend this top spot through 2024, Apple will likely need to continue strategically using discounts and promotions to remain competitive. Maintaining strong sales and connections with Chinese consumers also depends on Apple avoiding any missteps around sensitive political issues. 

While its hole is narrowing, Apple still has an opportunity to thrive in this essential market by providing desired innovations and responding to economic conditions. Also, the company will have to overcome nationalistic rivalry to sustain its newfound sales leadership in China’s slumping market.

The post iPhone Tops China Smartphone Sales Despite Setbacks appeared first on The Tech Report.

The international organization that oversees the global financial system, the Financial Stability Board (FSB), has published its work program for 2024.

According to the Work Programme for 2024, the FSB plans to set all necessary measures and frameworks for cryptocurrency-related activities. 

The move is to cover the implementation and regulation of crypto assets and monitor AI’s impact on the financial system.

The FSB Work Program For 2024 Focuses on Crypto Oversights

The FSB released the plan for the year, tagged Work Programme for 2024, on January 24. As per the publication, the organization set its major focus on global crypto regulatory approaches.

The FSB noted that it would ensure effective crypto oversight and all related activities, markets, and stablecoin engagements worldwide.

We have published our 2024 work programme, which outlines our priorities and provides a timeline for our planned reports. Find out more:https://t.co/Mca17lj94A pic.twitter.com/PAfkx5b50a

— The FSB (@FinStbBoard) January 24, 2024

In July 2023, the FSB created a global regulatory framework for cryptocurrency. Notably, the directives inculcated the 20 leading economies across the world called the G20.

It mentioned that crypto platforms must separate customers’ funds from the companies’ assets and other functions.

 The aim was to ensure that there was clarity with no conflict of interest in the ownership and use of digital assets. Moreover, the regulators are expected to maintain strict cross-border cooperation and regulations.

Additionally, the FSB disclosed its attention to activities related to tokenization.

In its last year’s programs, the organization mentioned it was investigating both present and upcoming asset tokenization projects. The move was to discover all associated implications of the process on financial stability.

Key Outlines In The FSB’s Program For 2024

In line with its objectives, the FSB revealed its key plans for 2024. One of its focuses is to ensure effective resolution processes in the financial system. The organization noted that it drew lessons from the bank crises in March on its improvement path. 

An extract of the publication states:

One focus of FSB work in 2024 will be to promote the full implementation of the Key Attributes of Effective Regimes for Financial Institutions across all sectors work on resolution, including addressing the lessons learned from the March 2023 banking turmoil.

Further, the organization aims to complete all pending work from last year’s focus on the impacts of tokenization on financial stability. Also, discoveries through the 2024 program will help the organization develop a report for the G20.

Notably, the new report will cover the new AI innovations and their possible impact on financial stability. Also, the organization’s input is expected to dig out measures that would enhance cyber resilience against AI threats.

According to the publication, the FSB set November 2024 as the deadline for its report on AI’s impact on financial stability. Secondly, the report on the implications of tokenization on financial stability will be in October this year.

Additionally, the FSB’s work program for 2024 includes creating a format for incident reporting exchange (FIRE). 

The new development will ensure more convergence in financial institutions’ records of incidents to financial regulators. Also, the reporting format, FIRE, aims to promote consistency in cyber incident reporting.

In line with the FSB’s discoveries in April 2023, FIRE will enable monetary authorities to share financial information daily.

The post FSB Sets Its 2024 Program Tackling Global Crypto Regulation And AI’s Financial Impact appeared first on The Tech Report.

A prominent player in the advertising industry, Publicis, has taken a bullish stance on artificial intelligence (AI) development.

In a January 25 presentation, the company revealed plans to invest €300 million (~$326.94 million) in AI technology over the next three years.

Publicis intends to claim a position among the list of top artificial intelligence operators in the advertising industry through this move.

Details of Publicis’ AI Plan 

While discussing the plans during a pre-annual result presentation, the company stated that it will allocate €100 million for 2024 alone, which it plans to drive through its internal efficiencies.

This step will ensure no reduction impact on its operating margin. 

Meanwhile, the presentation from the maker of the Heineken and Barilla pasta campaigns revealed an organic growth of 6.3% for last year. This improvement surpassed the 5.5% to 6% surge in October.

Publicis CEO Arthur Sadoun, in his statement, emphasized the significance of showcasing the company’s financial strength as a strategic move. The group aims to integrate AI more deeply into its existing platform model by connecting every individual in the company to an entity named CoreAI. 

This initiative, which began in the second half of 2023, is set to be implemented in the first half of 2024, using acquired and internally developed data from the past decade.

Arthur Sadoun even explained that CoreAI is built on the foundation of accumulated data, emphasizing its importance. 

As such, the 2024 investment plan is split, with half dedicated to upskilling, training, and recruitment and the other half focused on technology, licenses, software, and cloud infrastructure.

When questioned about potential acquisitions, Sadoun stated that the company’s transformation phase is complete. 

Going forward, the emphasis will be on smaller investments in technology, intellectual property, and talent. Importantly, Publicis’ exceptional performance in the face of a broader slowdown in the advertising industry highlights its resilience and strategic positioning in the market.

Publicis Groupe’s Commitment to Developments

During 2023, Publicis Groupe took substantial steps forward in its business operations. The company secured complete ownership of Publicis Sapient AI Labs, marking a strategic move to enhance its artificial intelligence research.

This acquisition mirrors the firm’s unwavering dedication to maintaining a leading position in technological advancements. Financially, Publicis Groupe demonstrated resilience, recording a net revenue of 3,241 million euros in Q3 2023, showcasing stability compared to the previous year.

It also registered an impressive +5.3% in the third quarter of 2023 compared to the corresponding period in 2022. This growth attests to Publicis Groupe’s agility in adapting to market changes and consistently delivering value to its customers. 

Moreover, its robust performance in acquiring a new business accentuated the company’s triumph.

In 2022, Publicis Groupe secured new media business contracts valued at $331 million, a figure double that of its closest competitor, WPP.

This accomplishment shows Publicis Groupe’s competitive prowess and highlights its capability to attract and retain clients in the industry’s unstable environment.

The post Publicis Plans to Pump 300 Million Euros Into AI Development Over the Next Three Years appeared first on The Tech Report.

The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) published a report on January 24, highlighting the near-term impact of AI on the looming cyber threat.

The growing adoption of artificial intelligence and the constantly improving capabilities of AI tools will increase the already severe threat posed by ransomware gangs, cybersecurity experts in the UK have warned.

The cybersecurity agency assessed that artificial intelligence is making it easier for novice cybercriminals in a number of ways. It enables even unskilled criminals to pull off successful cyberattacks, including ransomware attacks.

Here’s How AI Is Helping Cybercriminals

Until now, one of the most common ways to identify scammers has been their poorly written emails and texts, often filled with grammatical errors.

Generative AI tools like ChatGPT can now change this by helping scammers and other cybercriminals produce more convincing messages to prey on unsuspecting victims.

A growing number of publicly available AI tools are making it increasingly easy to generate text, image, and voice messages using nothing but simple hand-typed prompts.

Additionally, cybercriminals can also use AI to identify vulnerable targets, the NCSC warned. “AI services lower barriers to entry, increasing the number of cyber criminals, and will boost their capability by improving the scale, speed, and effectiveness of existing attack methods”.

The report warned that there might also be a spike in fraud and child abuse.

The biggest threat that AI would help amplify, however, is ransomware. Previously identified by the NCSC as the biggest cyber threat faced by the UK, ransomware attacks involve cybercriminals stealing data or locking access to files in a system by encrypting them.

Hackers can then extort hefty ransoms from their victims by threatening to leak stolen data or wreaking financial havoc by refusing to reopen access to locked systems.

According to the National Crime Agency (NCA)’s findings, cybercriminals are already developing malicious versions of generative AI models. This, in turn, allows anyone to acquire better hacking tools with ease.

Must Harness the Potential of AI While Managing Its Risks, Says NCSC Chief

Lindy Cameron, the chief executive of the NCSC said that despite the growing cyber threats due to artificial intelligence, the technology should still be embraced.

Cameron also went on to describe the growing use of AI in cybercrimes as “evolutionary” rather than “revolutionary”, explaining that while it increases existing risks, the risk landscape itself won’t be getting transformed in the near term.

The NCSC is doing all in its power to ensure that AI systems are designed to be secure, she assured while urging individuals and organizations to follow the agency’s guidelines.

AI can also be used as a defensive tool against malicious actors, the report noted, pointing out that it can help design more secure systems and detect cyber-attacks.

Not too long ago, the UK government published the “Cyber Governance Code of Practice” – a set of guidelines that encourage businesses to stay better equipped to prevent and recover from ransomware attacks.

The post AI Intensifying Global Ransomware Threat, Warns The NCSC appeared first on The Tech Report.

Microsoft’s version of Metaverse for professional settings is finally here, with the tech giant announcing that Microsoft Teams will now support 3D meetings.

This means you can now engage in virtual 3D meetings in customizable environments. The new feature comes as a result of Microsoft integrating Teams with its mixed reality platform Mesh.

While the new 3D meetings are meant to offer a virtual reality experience that would work best with VR headsets, you don’t necessarily need one. You may also join a Mesh meeting on teams using a PC for an on-screen 3D experience.

Mesh Meetings to Only Support Meta’s Quest Headsets for Now

As of now, the Mesh-powered 3D meetings on Teams only support the Quest series VR headsets from Meta.

Though Apple’s Vision Pro, which is set to launch on February 2 has been making waves in the VR space, Microsoft declined to comment on its compatibility with the new feature.

If you’re joining these meetings using PCs, you can still control an avatar to move around and interact in various 3D environments—except it wouldn’t be as immersive.

Previously in 2017, Microsoft acquired AltspaceVR, a social VR platform. The tech giant then went on to shut down the platform in 2023, following a mass layoffs that recorded over 10,000 job cuts.

Microsoft Mesh, which was only offered as a preview until recently, doesn’t feel very different from AltspaceVR—just a more corporate version designed for professional use.

The Mesh meetings on Teams feature customizable 3D environments, allowing you to add icebreaker questions and fun games. The excellent spatial and audio features in these meetings help replicate physical meetings closely.

For instance, you can move away from others in the 3D virtual space to have private conversations, just like you would in a physical setting.

Microsoft believes that the new feature would find application across a range of use cases such as employee onboarding, town hall meetings, brainstorming sessions, and more.

Forrester Vice President and Principal Analyst J.P. Gownder agrees that Mesh can “play a role in creating cohesion for hybrid working arrangements” by addressing some of the limitations associated with video meetings.

What Does the Future Hold for Mesh?

While the integration of Mesh revolutionizes Teams meetings, it is unclear whether the new feature would gain any traction among users.

The chances of widespread adoption would have been much greater if Microsoft introduced the tool in 2020. With the COVID-19 pandemic causing remote work to surge, there was a significant spike in investments in collaboration tools.

Now that business travel has resumed fully and people are more mobile, it may take time for Mesh to gain popularity.

Mesh is already being used by companies like BP, Accenture, Mercy Ships, and Takeda. However, it is still only a fraction of the companies that use Teams on a daily basis.

While the integration with Teams would certainly help Mesh draw more attention, there’s a good chance that it would simply remain a Teams feature rather than become a popular standalone platform.

Mesh, along with its immersive spaces and other standard features, will be included under the Microsoft Teams business plans. However, deploying a custom immersive space would require a Teams Premium license.

The post Microsoft Teams Integrated With Mesh to Support 3D and VR Meetings appeared first on The Tech Report.

Netflix exceeded Wall Street expectations for fourth-quarter subscriber growth. It reported an impressive addition of 13.1 million subscribers, a record for the December quarter. 

This surge, well above the anticipated 8.97 million, pushed the streaming giant’s total subscribers to 260 million. Consequently, Netflix shares rose by 8.3% in after-hours trading, contributing to a 65% increase in stock value throughout 2023.

Netflix Beats Q4 Subscriber Record

Based on a Reuters report, Bank of America media analyst Jessica Reif Ehrlich noted Netflix’s triumph in the ‘streaming wars’ and attributed its success to the two recently added movies, The Crown and The Killer.

Although the company fell short of per-share earnings estimates at $2.11, citing a $239 million noncash loss related to currency exchange rates, its revenue of $8.8 billion surpassed both forecasts and its own guidance.

Looking ahead to 2024, Netflix anticipates double-digit revenue growth driven by continuous subscriber additions and investments in its advertising business. While advertising currently plays a secondary role in revenue, Netflix aims to make it a primary driver by 2025.

The company credited its growth to a compelling intellectual property portfolio, including hits like Squid Game: The Challenge, new series such as All the Light We Cannot See, feature films like Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon: A Child of Fire, and successful non-English-language programming like the third season of Lupin from France.

More so, Netflix highlighted the demand for licensed titles such as Young Sheldon and expressed enthusiasm for licensing agreements with studios.

Co-CEO Ted Sarandos emphasized the company’s openness to licensing, presenting it as a mutually beneficial arrangement that allows Netflix to reduce investment in riskier original productions while providing revenue to other media companies.

The changing market dynamics, according to Bank of America’s Ehrlich, position Netflix as a beneficiary, prompting media companies to reconsider exclusive retention of content for their streaming services.

This shift, characterized as a win-win proposition, enables Netflix to navigate original production risks while supporting other media companies with vital revenue.

Netflix Commits to Further Improvements

Netflix is undergoing a series of transformations and enhancements this year. This is reflected in a notable shift to retire its $11.99 per month basic, ad-free plan, starting with Canada and the UK in the second quarter. 

Subscribers are now left with the $15.49 per month option, representing Netflix’s most affordable ad-free plan.

Over the years, the streaming service has introduced various features, including 4K streams and a foray into gaming. However, users should be aware that occasional additional charges may be implemented to account for these improvements.

Furthermore, Netflix secured a 10-year deal to stream WWE’s Monday Night Raw for a staggering $5 billion, marking a historic shift for the live weekly show after over three decades of traditional airing.

Interestingly, the platform is producing fewer movies in 2024, signaling a change in its content strategy for the year.

Investors and users are also being prepared for the likelihood of more price hikes throughout 2024. These developments reflect Netflix’s commitment to evolving its services and content offerings in the ever-changing entertainment sector.

The post Netflix Subscribers Exceed Fourth-Quarter Estimates appeared first on The Tech Report.

The German enterprise software giant SAP unveiled plans for a significant restructuring involving around 8,000 positions. The revamp aims to reshape SAP’s workforce to align with strategic growth priorities like cloud offerings and artificial intelligence capabilities. 

Specifically, SAP will spend €2 billion ($2.2 billion) on retraining employees in AI skills or offering voluntary redundancy packages. 

While the total headcount is expected to remain around 108,000 by the end of 2024, the reshuffling will concentrate roles on high-growth cloud and AI areas. 

Strong 2023 Results, Upbeat 2024 Outlook

The restructuring comes amid a wave of job cuts in the tech sector as firms like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon look to prioritize investments in AI. SAP has been an early mover in experimenting with the AI chatbot ChatGPT for enterprise applications. 

The company pledged over $1 billion to back AI startups through its VC arm, Sapphire Ventures. Alongside the restructuring news, SAP reported financial results that beat expectations and provided an optimistic forecast for 2024. 

In 2023, cloud revenue grew 23% adjusted for currency to €13.66 billion, meeting consensus estimates.

Total revenue rose 11% to €31.7 billion. Operating profit increased 13% to €8.7 billion in 2023, surpassing analyst predictions. For 2024, SAP expects operating profit to jump 17-21% and cloud revenue to grow 24-27%. 

We kept our promise and achieved double-digit non-IFRS operating profit growth despite an adverse macro environment,

said CFO Dominik Asam.

SAP adjusted its medium-term financial targets for 2025 to account for a change in accounting practices. The company now expects €10 billion in operating profit by 2025, lowered from approximately €11.5 billion previously.

The cloud revenue goal of doubling between 2020 and 2025 remains unchanged.  

Despite the forecast revision, SAP noted its 2025 goals still represent robust growth given the uncertain macroeconomic climate. The company aims to drive higher margins through efficiency improvements from the restructuring program. Cloud offerings and AI adoption are the main drivers of top-line expansion.

Market Enthusiasm for AI Focus

Investors welcomed the restructuring and strong near-term guidance, sending SAP shares up 7% to a record high of €109.48. Analysts viewed the revamp as strategically crucial for accelerating SAP’s transition towards cloud and AI. 

While restructuring costs are expected to dampen profitability in 2023 temporarily, benefits from workforce reshaping could boost margins starting in 2025. The program is positioning SAP at the forefront of enterprise artificial intelligence transformation.

The right adjustments are being made, and the company is being reorganized to prepare it for the age of artificial intelligence,

Said RoboMarkets investment strategist Jürgen Molnar. He added that even as some roles are cut, new AI opportunities will also emerge for SAP’s workforce.

The post SAP Announces Major Restructuring to Accelerate Cloud and AI Focus appeared first on The Tech Report.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently revealed that its official X account was hacked using a technique known as SIM swapping. The agency admitted its security lapses enabled the hackers to gain access and post fabricated information, causing temporary market turmoil.

Hackers Posted Fake Approval of Bitcoin Investments

Earlier this month, on January 9, hackers briefly broke into the SEC’s verified social media account on X (formerly Twitter). The hackers tweeted that the SEC had approved new investment products tied to the digital currency bitcoin. 

This bogus information caused a surge in Bitcoin’s price, followed by a quick dump after the SEC raised the alarm on the fake post. The next day, the SEC approved Bitcoin investment products called futures ETFs after the leaders voted 3-2 in favor. 

So, the hackers’ false posts briefly looked authentic and accurate to investors. Some traders likely profited from the fake news by buying Bitcoin before the actual approval happened. The SEC revealed that the hackers did a SIM swap to sneak into the account.

For clarity, a SIM swap is when scammers convince your cell phone company to transfer your phone number to a new device that the bad actors control.

Once they had the SEC’s phone number moved over, the hackers could use it to reset the agency’s social media password and get around security protections.

However, the SEC did not name which cell carrier enabled the hackers’ SIM swap scam. But the agency also admitted it had made security mistakes that helped the hackers succeed.

Six months before the breach, in June 2022, SEC employees had asked for multi-factor authentication (MFA) to be turned off.

MFA requires a special login code from your phone, making accounts more secure. With MFA disabled, the hackers likely found it simple to reset the password using the swapped phone number.

The SEC has now turned MFA back on for all of its social media accounts to prevent future attacks.

Investigations Look into Breakdown of Security Measures

Numerous government agencies are now probing how the hackers were able to access the SEC’s account and post false data. The SEC’s own internal watchdog and investigation unit have started inquiries. 

Other groups looking into the troubling security lapses include the FBI, the Justice Department, and a specialized cybersecurity agency.

Lawmakers have also demanded the SEC explain why it let its guard down online. The sophisticated attack has raised worries that phone number scams could be used to steal even more vital financial information from the SEC or significant companies. 

The apparent vulnerability shown by the hackers gaining easy entry via the SIM swap suggests stronger protections may be needed. The SEC and other organizations handling sensitive data should keep strong multi-layered security measures active.

Phone companies may also need better identity checks before number swaps to avoid assisting fraudsters.

In its statement, the SEC pledged to study how the attack succeeded and fix any gaps. The agency says turning the MFA back on will bolster defenses to prevent such embarrassing breaches.

While this hack only impacted a public social media presence, it demonstrates holes that could allow access to far more private data. 

The post SEC Blames Phone Number Hack for Social Media Security Breach appeared first on The Tech Report.

The French data protection watchdog, CNIL, has slapped Amazon with a hefty €32M (£27M) fine for “excessively intrusive” surveillance of its workers.

According to the agency, the eCommerce giant has resorted to surveillance measures that it found to be illegal.

Following media coverage of the working conditions at the warehouses as well as complaints by employees, the CNIL decided to launch an inquiry in 2019.

Upon investigation, the agency discovered that Amazon tracks workers in real time using data from their handheld scanners.

This enables Amazon to keep a close watch on its employees, allegedly making for a stressful work environment. Amazon, however, has refuted the findings by claiming that they are “factually incorrect”.

Workers Have to Justify Each Break, CNIL Finds

According to the CNIL, scanner data indicating the time taken by workers to perform specific tasks are documented in real time.

Such precise and intrusive surveillance led to workers potentially having to justify each break they took while at work.

The investigators also found that Amazon tracks the time taken by employees to check the quality of items. Workers are mandated to put at least 1.25 seconds into checking each article.

A check that falls below this threshold, i.e., takes less than 1.25 seconds, is deemed insufficient by Amazon.

The eCommerce giant’s surveillance methods breach the General Data Protection Regulation enforced in the EU in three ways, the CNIL claims.

While error alerts for quality checks taking less time than the minimum threshold is one, the other two are for breaks lasting from 1 to 10 minutes and 10 minutes or more respectively.

The CNIL also raised questions about Amazon retaining the collected data for longer than 31 days, calling it excessive.

Amazon Responds to “Nearly Unprecedented” Fine, Disagrees with CNIL’s Findings

The €32M penalty that Amazon has been charged with is almost equivalent to 3% of the company’s revenue in 2021, which stood at €1.1 billion.

Pointing out that it’s not far below the CNIL’s maximum chargeable penalty of 4% of a company’s revenue, the agency described the fine as “nearly unprecedented”.

The spokesperson then went on to point out that warehouse management systems are an industry standard. The surveillance measures are in place to ensure operational efficiency, safety, and quality. These methods help Amazon track inventory storage and process packages timely to meet customer expectations, they added.

The CNIL, however, believes that Amazon already has plenty of data that it can use to maintain quality and safety standards at its warehouses.

While Amazon uses the collected data to plan the workflow in its warehouses and train employees based on weekly evaluations, the CNIL once again found it unnecessary.

The company does not need access to the smallest details of the data provided by the scanners, the agency believes.

The fines levied on Amazon are primarily for its alleged failure to properly inform workers and external visitors of its surveillance measures. However, with Amazon retaining the right to appeal, it remains to be seen if the big tech company would have to pay the €32M fine.

The post French Data Watchdog Fines Amazon €32M for Excessive Surveillance appeared first on The Tech Report.

Google LLC has ended its contract with Australian AI data firm Appen, which helped the tech giant train its AI chatbot Bard, Search Engine, and other products.

Contractors at Appen help rate answers and data quality from AI models such as Bard and search engines like Google Search.

Besides Google, Appen has also worked with all four of the other Big Five companies – Meta, Microsoft, Apple, and Amazon to train their AI models.

According to the notification, Google will stop availing of Appen’s services on March 19, 2024. Appen did not have any prior knowledge of Google’s decision to end the contract, the company said in a filing notifying the Australian Stock Exchange on January 20.

Remember, Google had previously cited the need for greater efficiency as the reason behind its mass layoffs.

Despite being the backbone of the industry, employees at companies like Appen are often ignored and underpaid. Last year, employees at Appen who are also a part of the Alphabet Workers Union, petitioned Appen to raise the wages from $10 to $15 an hour.

Appen did eventually relent, but the wage increase wasn’t as much as the union demanded. Appen then fired several of these disconcerting workers, blaming it on adverse business conditions.

Workers at Accenture, another contractor working with Google, have refused to handle “obscene, graphic, and offensive prompts” for the Bard in November 2023, before the chatbot was released.

The employees then voted overwhelmingly to unionize and join the Alphabet Workers Union.

The impact of the cancellation of the Appen contract on Google’s Search Quality Rater Program, which measures the quality of search results, remains unclear. Google updated its Search Quality Rater Guidelines in November 2023.

The announcement of the contract termination follows a series of layoffs by Google across different departments. The layoffs have drawn a lot of criticism from Google employees, who called out the company’s leadership for lacking initiative and vision.

Appen Stocks Hit All-Time Low Following Google’s Decision to Terminate Contract

This contract termination has impacted Appen’s stocks severely, which reached an all-time low. This shouldn’t be surprising considering the company’s contract with Google makes up for 26% of its revenue.

Despite Appen’s strong portfolio and the spike in demand for training data for generative AI tools, the company has been struggling in recent years.

Suffering from a loss of customers, declining financials, and the departure of several executives, Appen recorded a 30% revenue loss in 2023.

In its filing with the Australian Stock Exchange, Appen wrote that it will now focus on “cost management, business turnaround, and delivery of high-quality AI data for its customers”.

The post Google Terminates Contract With Australian Firm That Helped Train Google Search and Bard appeared first on The Tech Report.

The gaming regulator in China, the National Press and Publication Administration (NPPA), has taken down the draft rules for video games from its website.

Reports revealed the rules no longer exist on the regulator’s website as of Tuesday, January 23, spreading optimism across the gaming industry, which led to a surge in stock prices. 

The rules, aimed at restricting spending and rewards related to video games, were proposed last month by the NPPA, causing market turmoil upon announcement.

China Revises Gaming Rules

The NPPA’s website no longer provides access to the draft rules as of Tuesday morning, following its availability on Monday. This unexpected move has been described by analysts as unusual, sparking speculation about a potential revision.

The consultation period for the rules, which had initially rattled investors and wiped off nearly $80 billion in market value from China’s top gaming companies, concluded on Monday.

Following this event, Tencent Holdings, the world’s largest gaming company, and its closest rival recorded a significant boost in their shares, rising by as much as 6% and 7%, respectively, in morning trading.

Even at noon, both companies’ shares remained up more than 4%, surpassing the 2.4% increase in Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index. Notably, the draft rules proposed measures such as spending limits for online games.

This raised concerns about potential regulatory changes, which impacted investor confidence during a time when the government sought to stimulate the economy through private-sector investment.

Meanwhile, analysts had noted the risk associated with the proposed rules, particularly highlighting Articles 17 and 18. Article 17 aimed to ban video games from forcing players into combat, confusing an industry where combat is a fundamental aspect of many multiplayer games. Article 18 required games to set spending limits for players and prohibited features encouraging in-game spending.

Following the initial market reaction and concerns, the NPPA adopted a more conciliatory tone, expressing a commitment to improving the rules based on public feedback.

Importantly, the removal of the draft rules from the website is seen as a significant development, and analysts suggest it may signal further changes in the regulatory approach.

China Gaming Rules Extend to Minors

Over the years, Chinese officials have been working to regulate the amount of time youngsters devote to online gaming in their efforts to combat “internet addiction.” While they note success in addressing the issue, they remain watchful.

As far back as 2019, the government imposed some restrictions that limited minors to a daily 90-minute gaming window on weekdays and prohibited gameplay between 10 pm and 8 am.

In 2021, more stringent measures were introduced, which permitted minors to just one hour of online gaming per day, exclusively on Fridays, weekends, and public holidays.

Meanwhile, the recent move comes in the context of China’s ongoing efforts to balance regulatory measures in the gaming industry. The industry earnestly awaits official statements or clarifications from the authorities regarding the future direction of video game regulations.

The post China Regulator Erases Draft Video Game Rules, Raising Company Shares appeared first on The Tech Report.

YouTube sensation Mr. Beast raked in an astounding $263,655 as advertisement revenue from a single video he posted on X. However, the situation is a bit more nuanced than the headline may suggest.

For starters, Mr. Beast’s revelation contradicts his previous stance on the potential of earning revenue from X—he earlier said that the amount X pays is insufficient for content creators.

The 25-year-old prioritized business, stating, “My videos cost millions to make and even if they got a billion views on X it wouldn’t fund a fraction of it . . . I’m down though to test stuff once monetization is really cranking”.

However, his recent experiment on X garnered a massive 155 million views, and as you might have guessed (given this star YouTuber’s popularity—all channels combined he boasts 233 million YouTube subscribers), this news created waves across social media platforms.

So, the bottom line? Mr. Beast has shown the world the true potential for serious content creators to monetize content on Musk’s platform.

Content Creators Eye Better Returns Through Revenue on X

In a tweet, Mr. Beast hinted at a potential twist in his windfall, stating, “Advertisers saw the attention it was getting and bought ads on my video (I think) and thus my revenue per view is [probably] higher than what you’d experience”.

Now, this take of his raises questions about strategies of ad placement on X to generate higher revenue.

The Principal at W Media Research, Karsten Weide, acknowledged Mr. Beast’s achievement.

However, the earning disparity between influencers is a significant feature of all social media platforms, not just X. Plus, advertisers’ deals with content creators, including Mr. Beast, are almost always kept confidential, so there’s hardly a reliable way for us to know how much someone is actually earning or what their negotiations entailed.

In any case, this has set a good precedent for other content creators on X. We can expect more influencers to make quality content on X, which can help Musk revive the platform.

Earning Potential For Other Content Creators Through Revenue

Yes, Mr. Beast has undoubtedly hit it out of the park with his video, but it’s crucial to remember that it’s just a one-off instance (at least till now). So, there are still doubts over X’s ability to sustain such potential for advertisement revenue monetization.

The CEO of influencer analytics platform WeArism, Jenny Tsai said that it will be interesting to see how the monetization potential shapes up in the near future.

The CEO of X, Linda Yaccarino, may find solace in the success of Mr. Beast. Other influencers and content creators on social media will find this testament convincing at a time when the X is experimenting with new strategies to attract advertisement revenue.

Why, you ask? Well, Elon Musk recently visited the Auschwitz death camp, which comes at a time when X is facing scrutiny over its handling of anti-semitic content.

And remember when Musk launched a profanity attack against advertisers when they threatened to leave? So, of course, the platform is facing unique challenges to attract advertisers.

The post Mr. Beast Posts Video On X, Streams In A Whopping $250,000 appeared first on The Tech Report.

In a proactive move to safeguard user data, Apple introduced a new layer of security called “Stolen Device Protection” for its iPhones.

This security mechanism has been embedded in the iOS 17.3 update to secure sensitive user data like credit card information from unauthorized access after instances of device theft.

Announced on Monday, this decision from the tech giant marks a significant leap forward in protecting iOS devices.

If you’re an Apple user, you need to enable two-factor authentication and “Find My” for your respective ID accounts. Next, go to settings > Face ID & Passcode to enable the Stolen Device Protection feature.

Stringent Authentication Measures in Place

Before this update, a passcode was the only way you (or a thief) could access sensitive information on iOS devices. That’s not the case anymore, though.

With Apple introducing new security features, you now need to validate your identity by providing biometric data through your touch or face IDs. This authentication is mandatory before you can access data or make significant changes in device settings.

Apple has taken security protocols a notch higher when it comes to performing sensitive actions. For instance, modifying security settings in an iOS device or changing an Apple ID password will require you to wait for one hour as a part of a security delay after you provide biometric data.

The changes will be activated once you validate your identity by re-entering the same biometric data after the wait. This makes it challenging for malicious parties to make unauthorized changes to their devices quickly.

This Is How The Stolen Device Protection Mechanism Works

The Stolen Device Protection is location-sensitive. It promises better security measures when you remain away from familiar locations such as work or home. The device stores these locations automatically to boost security in environments exposed to a higher risk of theft.

Security experts have welcomed this update. A global cybersecurity adviser, Jake Moore, stated, that the update is “likely to act as another barrier and put more pressure on thieves when targeting victims”.

He added that organized crime groups will have to work harder to sell stolen phones now. Apple introduced this feature in response to an escalating rate of global phone thefts. Statistics reveal that in London, a phone gets stolen every six minutes.

This feature reflects Apple’s growing confidence in biometric technologies. The tech giant has already gained more than a decade of experience in touch ID and Face ID. The company is showing the way to a future where users will look beyond passwords to maintain device security.

The post Apple Fortifies iPhones With Stolen Device Protection to Thwart Thieves appeared first on The Tech Report.