James Farrell
Latest from James Farrell
US Supreme Court seems split over landmark social media laws
Supreme Court justices today listened to oral arguments for four hours regarding laws in Florida and Texas that seek to regulate how social media companies such as Meta Platforms Inc. and X Corp. run their platforms, a case that could fundamentally alter the future of digital free speech. The Republican-backed laws passed in Florida and ...
FTC hits antivirus firm Avast with fine for selling customer data it promised to protect
The Federal Trade Commission today announced that it’s fining U.K.-based Avast PLC $16.5 million for selling its customer data to third-party data brokers. Avast, one of the antivirus giants of the world, had advertised its product as a shield against people’s browsing data being collected and sold on to brokers. Yet it was doing exactly ...
Google admits its Gemini AI was problematic with racially diverse images, vows to fix it
Google LLC today admitted it “missed the mark” after its the image generator in its generative artificial intelligence Gemini was accused of going too far in trying to promote diversity by consistently making white historical characters nonwhite. As a result, the company has paused generation of images of people until it can come up with a ...
EU launches probe into TikTok over possible failure to protect minors
The European Union today said it’s investigating TikTok over potential Digital Services Act breaches concerning whether the social media platform has done enough to protect children from harm in the bloc. ByteDance Ltd.-owned TikTok, which recently cried foul over the fees it will have to pay for the EU’s new online moderation policies, was fined ...
AI deepfakes of mass shooting victims used to lobby Congress for gun control
It’s not often we hear about deepfake content being used as a force for good, but a group of activists in the U.S. will tell you that they began doing exactly that this week when they used the technology to lobby members of Congress for stricter gun laws in the country. On Wednesday, exactly six ...
Mozilla lays off 60 of its workforce, will now concentrate on AI for Firefox
Just a week after Mozilla Corp. hired a new chief executive in an effort to steer the company in a different direction, it announced that 60 of its staff – about 5% of the total workforce – are being laid off. Former Airbnb Inc. and eBay Inc. executive Laura Chambers took hold of the reins at ...
Meta will test a trending-topics feature on its Threads platform
Meta Platforms Inc. today announced that it will soon start testing a trending topics feature in the U.S. on its X competitor social network, Threads. “For those of you who have been calling for a trending feature, we’re rolling out a small test in the U.S. to help you find timely topics people are talking ...
Meta and TikTok cry foul over EU’s DSA enforcement fees
The social media companies Meta Platforms Inc. and ByteDance Ltd.-owned TikTok separately announced today that they will challenge in court the European Union’s demand for fees under its stringent content moderation law. Enforcing the Digital Services Act, or DSA, a law that aims to rein in what the EU considers the “Wild West” of the ...
Report: Apple is trying to meet the challenge of developing two foldable iPhones
While much of the buzz around Apple Inc.’s products is currently focused on the new mixed reality Vision Pro headset, according to reports today Apple has been quietly tinkering away with concepts for two foldable iPhones. According to The Information, two of the more exciting things happening inside Apple’s research lab are clamshell-style foldable iPhone ...
New Hampshire AG says Texas firm was behind AI-generated Joe Biden robocall
New Hampshire’s attorney general today named the alleged sources of a mysterious deepfake Joe Biden robocall last month that told Democrats in the state not to vote in the primary election, prompting more discussions on the regulation of artificial intelligence. Attorney General John Formella said the calls were traced to the telemarketing outfit Life Corp., ...