Innovation & Technology

In a shocking scam, deepfake technology was used to trick an employee at Arup, a major engineering firm, into handing over $25 million. This shows how advanced AI scams are becoming more common and dangerous. The scam happened in January. An employee in Arup's Hong Kong office thought they were on a video call with the company's Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and other staff members. However, the video call was fake. Hong Kong public broadcaster RTHK reported that the scammers used AI to create realistic video and audio of the CFO and other employees. During the call, the employee was told to transfer HK$200 million (about $25.6 million) to five different bank accounts. The employee did this over 15 transactions. It took about a week before the employee realized it was a scam when th...

TikTok is testing a groundbreaking feature that could revolutionize the social media landscape: allowing some users to upload videos up to 60 minutes long. This bold move challenges YouTube's dominance in the realm of long-form content and could potentially shift viewership away from traditional streaming services. A Gradual Expansion TikTok, which initially allowed only 60-second videos, has been steadily increasing its video length limits. Recently, the platform extended the limit to 10 minutes for all users and 15 minutes for some creators. Now, select users are being given the option to upload videos up to 60 minutes long. This pilot program was first publicly spotted by tech newsletter writer Matt Navarra and later confirmed by TikTok to TechCrunch. Post by @mattnavarr...

Real estate mogul Frank McCourt is leading a new effort to buy TikTok’s US business through Project Liberty, an internet advocacy group he founded in 2021. McCourt's move comes after US lawmakers voted to ban the Chinese-owned app unless it is sold within a year. On Wednesday, McCourt announced that he is forming a team of experts to help with the acquisition. This group includes investment bank Guggenheim Securities, law firm Kirkland & Ellis, as well as technology experts, academics, and parents. Their goal is to create a new internet model that gives users and creators more control over their digital identities and data. "We thought this was a really fantastic opportunity to accelerate the creation of an alternative internet," McCourt told the Associated Press. With a net wor...

The Chinese government is, in reality, encouraging its tech companies to purchase more locally-made AI chips, according to The Information. Major companies, such as Alibaba, Baidu, ByteDance, and Tencent, are cutting their spending on foreign-made chips in favor of local manufacturers, including Nvidia. China's new directive will be a big blow to Nvidia, as it is a huge market for the company. In recent months, the company has developed certain specialized products for China, among which the three new GPUs are named H20, L20, and L2. The Reuters news agency quoted two sources familiar with the matter, saying that the company was making chips to those products to comply with existing US sanctions. For the fiscal year 2023, China's contribution for the chipmaker data center chip reven...

Tesla, the pioneering electric vehicle manufacturer, is poised to launch its autonomous taxi service, known as robotaxis, in China. According to a report from China Daily, a state-owned newspaper, Tesla CEO Elon Musk aims to integrate the company's cutting-edge Full Self-Driving (FSD) technology into China's taxi industry. Elon Musk's recent visit to China, where he met with Premier Li Qiang, underscores Tesla's commitment to the Chinese market. Despite facing challenges such as sluggish sales, as reported by Bloomberg, Tesla received initial approval from Chinese authorities to deploy its FSD technology in the country. In addition to this approval, China Daily's report indicates that the Chinese government is interested in Musk's proposal to incorporate Tesla's FSD technology into ...

In a year filled with challenges and layoffs, four top executives at Google have received hefty stock payouts based on their performance. Despite a turbulent period for the company, Google's senior vice president and chief business officer each received stock worth $35 million for 2023. Alphabet, the parent company of Google, announced these payouts in a regulatory filing last week, highlighting the rewards for President and Chief Financial Officer Ruth Porat, Senior VP Prabhakar Raghavan, Chief Business Officer Philipp Schindler, and Legal Chief Kent Walker. These executives achieved the highest possible performance-based stock awards, a testament to their contributions in a tough year. Each of these four executives maintained a base salary of $1 million last year, supplemented by ...

Since 2018, Apple has been stealing AI experts from Google. A report from the Financial Times says they've convinced 36 Googlers to join them. It's all part of a big fight between the top tech companies to get the best AI people. A recent Apple's research study had six writers who used to work at Google. They joined Apple in the last two years. A total of nine out of 31 people who helped write the study were last working at Google. Even two writers came from Microsoft. This is happening while there's a big rush among top tech companies to boost their AI teams. Google just got Logan Kilpatrick, who used to be the top guy for developers at OpenAI. Someone even said that the boss of OpenAI, Sam Altman, personally called them to join his team, and they said yes. Mark Zuckerberg from ...

The FCC slapped four big US network companies with nearly $200 million in fines for sharing customer data when they shouldn’t have. They sold this info to middlemen, known as "aggregators," who then passed it on to others. All the companies hit with fines are planning to fight back, saying the FCC's got it wrong legally. The carriers fined include AT&T, who's out about $57 million, and Verizon, which owes almost $47 million. T-Mobile and Sprint, now a single company after a merger, are together on the hook for $92 million. The FCC announced these fines on Monday, making it clear they mean business. Jessica Rosenworcel, the head of the FCC, pointed out that these companies have the keys to some of our most private info, like where we are at any given moment. She stressed how crit...

Elon Musk made a surprise trip to China, where he met officials and made a deal with Baidu. The deal gets Tesla closer to adding self-driving features in cars sold in China. Tesla's sales in China have struggled because of competition and a price war. Elon Musk's unexpected visit to China seems to have paid off. The rich guy suddenly went to Beijing last weekend, met with top officials, and made a deal with Chinese search giant Baidu. This quick trip happened just after Musk decided not to go to India as planned to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying he had to do Tesla stuff. Instead, he met with Premier Li Qiang in Beijing to talk about putting Tesla's self-driving tech in the biggest auto market in the world. Some folks told Bloomberg that Tesla might soon get the okay to us...

Here’s a wild story straight out of South Korea that sounds like something out of a bad movie: a woman there got totally duped by a guy pretending to be Elon Musk! Yes, you read that right. She lost a whopping $50,000 to this scammer after he slid into her DMs on Instagram, claiming he picks fans to chat with at random. It all started when the woman, who’s a big Elon Musk fan (thanks to reading his biography), got a friend request from someone she thought was the real deal. According to The Korea Herald, she told South Korean broadcaster KBS in an interview, “On July 17 last year, Musk added me as a friend on Instagram. Although I have been a huge fan of Musk after reading his biography, I doubted it at first.” But then, the fake Elon started sending her photos that looked like they we...