Category: Business

Artificial intelligence was the dominant topic at the United Nations Security Council this week. In his opening remarks at the session, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said, “AI will have an impact on every area of our lives” and advocated for the creation of a “new United Nations entity to support collective efforts to govern this extraordinary technology.” Guterres said “the need for global standards and approaches makes the United Nations the ideal place for this to happen” and urged a joining of forces to “build trust for peace and security.” “We need a race to develop AI for good,” Guterres said. “And that is a race that is possible and achievable.” In his briefing, to the council, Guterres said the debate was an opportunity to consider the impact of artificial…

Tayba Hatimy studied and practiced dentistry for seven years before she realized her real passion was caring for the environment. Since then, she has founded a garbage collection app that helps people in Mombasa, Kenya reduce garbage along the coast. Saida Swaleh has the story. (Camera: Moses Baya ) ...

Artificial intelligence is quickly becoming part of our social media world on our cellphones and computers. Text, images, audio and video are becoming easier for anyone to create using new generative AI tools. As AI-generated materials become more pervasive, it's getting harder to tell the difference between what is real and what has been manipulated. "It's one of the challenges over the next decade," said Kristian Hammond, a professor of computer science who focuses on artificial intelligence at Northwestern University. AI-generated content is making its way into movies, TV shows and social media on Facebook, TikTok, Snapchat and other platforms. AI has been used to change images of former President Donald Trump and Pope Francis. The winner of a prestigious international photo competition this year used AI to create a…

Chinese livestreamers have set their sights on TikTok shoppers in the U.S. and Europe, hawking everything from bags and apparel to crystals with their eyes on a potentially lucrative market, despite uncertainties over the platform's future in the U.S. and elsewhere. In China, where livestreaming ecommerce is forecast to reach 4.9 trillion yuan ($676 billion) by the year's end, popular hosts like "Lipstick King" Austin Li rack up tens of millions of dollars in sales during a single livestream. Many brands, including L'Oreal, Nike and Louis Vuitton, have begun using livestreaming to reach more shoppers. But the highly competitive livestreaming market in China has led some hosts to look to Western markets to carve out niches for themselves. Oreo Deng, a former English tutor, sells jewelry to U.S. customers by…

Does generative artificial intelligence pose a risk to humanity that could lead to our extinction? That was among the questions put to experts by the head of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission at a workshop hosted with the National Science Foundation. FCC chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said she is more hopeful about artificial intelligence than pessimistic. "That might sound contrarian," she said, given that so much of the news about AI is "dark," raising questions such as, "How do we rein in this technology? What does it mean for the future of work when we have intelligent machines? What will it mean for democracy and elections?" The discussion included participants from a range of industries including network operators and vendors, leading academics, federal agencies, and public interest representatives.   "We are entering…

The White House on Tuesday along with companies such as Amazon.com Inc, Alphabet's Google and Best Buy will announce an initiative that allows Americans to identify devices that are less vulnerable to cyberattacks. A new certification and labeling program would raise the bar for cybersecurity across smart devices such as refrigerators, microwaves, televisions, climate control systems and fitness trackers, the White House said in a statement. Retailers and manufacturers will apply a "U.S. Cyber Trust Mark" logo to their devices and the program will be up and running in 2024. The initiative is designed to make sure "our networks and the use of them is more secure, because it is so important for economic and national security," said a senior administration official, who did not wish to be named. The…

Norway's data protection agency said Monday it would ban Facebook and Instagram owner Meta from using the personal information of users for targeted advertising, threatening a $100,000 daily fine if the company continues.  The business practices of big U.S. tech firms are under close scrutiny across Europe over concerns about privacy, with huge fines handed out in recent years.  The Norwegian watchdog, Datatilsynet, said Meta uses information such as the location of users, the content they like and their posts for marketing purposes.  "The Norwegian Data Protection Authority considers that the practice of Meta is illegal and is therefore imposing a temporary ban of behavioural advertising on Facebook and Instagram," it said in a statement.   The ban will begin on August 4 and last three months to give Meta…

Britain's financial watchdog on Monday proposed toughening up safeguards against the illegal marketing of financial products on social media by applying a stringent "consumer duty" that is being rolled out to banks, funds and insurers on July 31. The Financial Conduct Authority has said its new duty will be a step change in protecting retail investors after years of mis-selling scandals, by forcing firms to demonstrate how they are giving consumer good outcomes. "Where applicable, the Consumer Duty will raise our expectations of firms communicating financial promotions on social media above the requirement... to be ‘clear, fair and not misleading’," the FCA said in proposals out to public consultation. "Firms advertising using social media must consider how their marketing strategies align with acting to deliver good outcomes for retail customers."…

Elon Musk says Twitter is still losing cash because advertising has dropped by half. In a reply to a tweet offering business advice, Musk tweeted Saturday, "We're still negative cash flow, due to (about a) 50% drop in advertising revenue plus heavy debt load." "Need to reach positive cash flow before we have the luxury of anything else," he concluded. Ever since he took over Twitter in a $44 billion deal last fall, Musk has tried to reassure advertisers who were concerned about the ouster of top executives, widespread layoffs and a different approach to content moderation. Some high-profile users who had been banned were allowed back on the site. In April, Musk said most of the advertisers who left had returned and that the company might become cash-flow positive…

The chief executives of Intel Corp and Qualcomm Inc are planning to visit Washington next week to discuss China policy, according to two sources familiar with the matter. The executives plan to hold meetings with U.S. officials to talk about market conditions, export controls and other matters affecting their businesses, one of the sources said. It was not immediately clear whom the executives would meet. Intel and Qualcomm declined to comment, and officials at the White House did not immediately return a request for comment. The sources said other semiconductor CEOs may also be in Washington next week. The sources declined to be named because they were not authorized to speak to the media.   U.S. officials are considering tightening export rules affecting high-performance computing chips and shipments to Huawei…

Microsoft says hackers used a flaw in its code to steal emails from government agencies and other clients.  In a blog post published Friday, the company said that Chinese hackers were able to take advantage of "a validation error in Microsoft code" to carry out their cyberespionage campaign.  The blog provided the most thorough explanation yet for a hack that rattled both the cybersecurity industry and China-U.S. relations. Beijing has denied any involvement in the spying.  Microsoft and U.S. officials said on Wednesday night that since May, Chinese state-linked hackers had been secretly accessing email accounts at about 25 organizations. U.S. officials said those included at least two U.S. government agencies.  Microsoft has not identified any of the hack's targets, but several victims have acknowledged they were affected, including personnel…

India is set to launch a spacecraft to the moon Friday. If successful, it would make India only the fourth country to do so, after the U.S., the Soviet Union, and China. It will take the $75 million Chandrayaan-3 over a month to reach the moon's south pole  in August. The south pole is a special place of interest because scientists believe water is present there. Chandrayaan-3's equipment includes a lander to deploy a rover. Chandrayaan-3 means "moon craft" in Sanskrit. ...

Hackers, possibly linked to China’s intelligence agencies, are being blamed for a monthlong campaign that breached some unclassified U.S. email systems, allowing them to access to a small number of accounts at the U.S. State Department and a handful of other organizations. Microsoft first announced the intrusion Tuesday, attributing the attack on its Outlook email service to Chinese threat actors it dubbed Storm-0558. The company said in a blog post that the hackers managed to forge a Microsoft authentication token and gain access to the email accounts of 25 organizations, both in the U.S. and around the globe, starting in mid-May. The company said access was cut off after the breach was discovered a month later. “We assess this adversary is focused on espionage, such as gaining access to email systems…

U.S. tech titan Mark Zuckerberg has plunged into a high-stakes game of brinkmanship with the European Union by withholding his new Threads app from users in Europe, but analysts say he will struggle to win the fight. Threads, billed as the killer of Twitter, a platform that has tumbled into chaos under the leadership of mercurial tycoon Elon Musk, has added more than 100 million users in its first week in app stores. But Zuckerberg's firm Meta said it could not be released in Europe because of "regulatory uncertainty" around the Digital Markets Act, an antitrust regulation that will not come into force until next year. "The reason they gave made me laugh," said Diego Naranjo, head of policy at campaign group European Digital Rights. "The regulation is not uncertain,…

The European Union signed off Monday on a new agreement over the privacy of people's personal information that gets pinged across the Atlantic, aiming to ease European concerns about electronic spying by American intelligence agencies. The EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework has an adequate level of protection for personal data, the EU’s executive commission said. That means it's comparable to the 27-nation's own stringent data protection standards, so companies can use it to move information from Europe to the United States without adding extra security. U.S. President Joe Biden signed an executive order in October to implement the deal after reaching a preliminary agreement with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. Washington and Brussels made an effort to resolve their yearslong battle over the safety of EU citizens’ data that…

In a world where technology, such as artificial intelligence, is advancing at a rapid pace, what guidance do technology developers have in making the best ethically sound decisions for consumers?  A new handbook, titled "Ethics in the Age of Disruptive Technologies: An Operational Roadmap," promises to give guidance on such issues as the ethical use of AI chatbots like ChatGPT. The handbook, released June 28, is the first product of the Institute for Technology, Ethics and Culture, or ITEC, the result of a collaboration between Santa Clara University's Markkula Center for Applied Ethics and the Vatican's Center for Digital Culture. The handbook has been in the works for a few years, but the authors said they saw a need to work with a new sense of urgency with the recent escalation…

A panel of AI-enabled humanoid robots told a United Nations summit Friday that they could eventually run the world better than humans. But the social robots said they felt humans should proceed with caution when embracing the rapidly developing potential of artificial intelligence. And they admitted that they cannot — yet — get a proper grip on human emotions. Some of the most advanced humanoid robots were at the U.N.'s two-day AI for Good Global Summit in Geneva. They joined around 3,000 experts in the field to try to harness the power of AI — and channel it into being used to solve some of the world's most pressing problems, such as climate change, hunger and social care. They were assembled for what was billed as the world's first news…

HONG KONG — Chinese regulators are fining Ant Group 7.123 billion yuan ($985 million) for violating regulations in its payments and financial services, an indicator that more than two years of scrutiny and crackdown on the firm that led it to scrap its planned public listing may have come to an end. The People's Bank of China imposed the fine on the financial technology provider on Friday, stating that Ant had violated laws and regulations related to corporate governance, financial consumer protection, participation in business activities of banking and insurance institutions, payment and settlement business, and attending to anti-money laundering obligations. The fine comes more than two years after regulators pulled the plug on Ant Group's $34.5 billion IPO — which would have been the biggest of its time —…

Just one day after its launch, Threads, the latest social media network, was blocked by the Islamic Republic, denying access to the Iranian population. This action occurred even though an account had been created for Iran President Ebrahim Raisi on the platform. On Thursday afternoon, Raisi's user account, under the address raisi.ir, was established on Threads. Within a few hours, by Friday noon, he had garnered 27,000 followers. He has yet to make any posts, apparently because the Presidential Office staff administers Raisi's social media accounts. As Raisi's user account debuted on the social media platform, numerous Iranian social media users have voiced concerns regarding restricted access to the platform since Thursday evening. Users have indicated that similar to Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, they require a VPN or proxy to…

Ukraine has been using drones for reconnaissance and attacks since the start of Russia'18s invasion. But sometimes combat drone operators use them to save civilians — or even capture the enemy. Anna Kosstutschenko went to the Donbas region to find out more. Camera: Pavel Suhodolskiy Produced by: Pavel Suhodolskiy ...

Threads, a text-based app built by Meta to rival Twitter, is live. The app, billed as the text version of Meta's photo-sharing platform Instagram, became available Wednesday night to users in more than 100 countries — including the U.S., Britain, Australia, Canada and Japan. Despite some early glitches, 30 million people had signed up before noon on Thursday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on Threads. New arrivals to the platform include celebrities like Oprah, pop star Shakira and chef Gordon Ramsay — as well as corporate accounts from Taco Bell, Netflix, Spotify, The Washington Post and other media outlets. Threads, which Meta says provides "a new, separate space for real-time updates and public conversations," arrives at a time when many are looking for Twitter alternatives to escape Elon Musk's raucous…

Tens of millions of people have signed up for Meta's new app, Threads, as it aims to challenge competitor platform Twitter. Threads launched on Wednesday in the United States and in more than 100 other countries. In a Thursday morning post on the platform, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said 30 million people had signed up. "Feels like the beginning of something special, but we've got a lot of work ahead to build out the app," he said in the post. Threads is a text-based version of Meta's social media app Instagram. The company says it provides "a new, separate space for real-time updates and public conversations." The high number of sign-ups is likely an indication that users are looking for an alternative to Twitter, which has been stumbling since Elon…

Facebook behemoth Meta officially launched Threads, its text-based rival to Twitter, on Wednesday — but its release in Europe has been delayed over data privacy concerns.  Threads is the biggest challenger yet to Elon Musk-owned Twitter, which has seen a series of potential competitors emerge but not yet replace one of social media's most iconic companies, despite its epic struggles.  The app went live on Apple and Android app stores at 2300 GMT with accounts already active for celebrities such as Shakira and Jack Black, as well as media outlets including The Hollywood Reporter, Vice and Netflix.  "Let's do this. Welcome to Threads," wrote Meta chief executive and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in his first post on the new platform, which will run with no ads for now.  The app…

In India, a recent court judgement that dismissed a legal petition by Twitter challenging the federal government’s orders to block tweets and accounts is a setback for free speech, according to digital rights activists.   The Karnataka High Court, which delivered its judgement last week, also imposed a fine of $ 61,000 on the social media company for its delay in complying with the government’s takedown orders.   “The order sets a dangerous precedent for curbing online free speech without employing procedural safeguards that are meant to protect users of online social media platforms,” Radhika Roy, a lawyer and spokesperson for the digital rights organization, Internet Freedom Foundation, told VOA.   Twitter’s lawsuit filed last year was seen as an effort to push back against strict information technology laws passed in 2021 that…

Elon Musk spent the weekend further alienating Twitter users with more drastic changes to the social media giant, and he is facing a new challenge as tech nemesis Mark Zuckerberg prepares to launch a rival app this week.   Zuckerberg's Meta group, which owns Facebook, has listed a new app in stores as "Threads, an Instagram app", available for pre-order in the United States, with a message saying it is "expected" this Thursday.   The two men have clashed for years but a recent comment by a Meta executive suggesting that Twitter was not run "sanely" irked Musk, eventually leading to the two men offering each other out for a cage fight.   Since buying Twitter last year for $44 billion, Musk has fired thousands of employees and charged users…

U.S. President Joe Biden says he wants every American to have access to high-speed internet. VOA’s Julie Taboh has our story about the United States' more than $40 billion-dollar investment to expand the service. ...

STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN — Sweden on Monday ordered four companies to stop using a Google tool that measures and analyzes web traffic, as doing so transfers personal data to the United States. One company was fined the equivalent of more than $1.1 million.  Sweden's privacy protection agency, the IMY, said it had examined the use of Google Analytics by the firms following a complaint by the Austrian data privacy group NOYB (none of your business), which has filed dozens of complaints against Google across Europe.  NOYB asserted that the use of Google Analytics for web statistics by the companies resulted in the transfer of European data to the United States in violation of the EU's data protection regulation, the GDPR.  The GDPR allows the transfer of data to third countries only if the…

Airline passengers who have endured tens of thousands of weather-related flight delays this week could face a new source of disruptions starting Saturday, when wireless providers are expected to power up new 5G systems near major airports. Aviation groups have warned for years that 5G signals could interfere with aircraft equipment, especially devices using radio waves to measure distance from the ground and which are critical when planes land in low visibility. Predictions that interference would cause massive flight groundings failed to come true last year, when telecom companies began rolling out the new service. They then agreed to limit the power of the signals around busy airports, giving airlines an extra year to upgrade their planes. The leader of the nation's largest pilots' union said crews will be able…