Innholdsfortegnelse for #587 i Techlife News

When U.S. Rep. Jake Auchincloss decided to deliver a speech on a bill that would create a U.S.-Israel artificial intelligence center, he opted to let the AI do the talking. The brief two-paragragh speech read by the Massachusetts Democrat on the floor of the U.S. House on Wednesday was generated by the online AI chatbot ChatGPT. His staff said they believe it’s the first time an AI-written speech was read in Congress. Auchincloss said he prompted the system in part to “write 100 words to deliver on the floor of the House of Representatives” about the legislation. Auchincloss said he had to refine the prompt several times to produce the text he ultimately read. The bill, which Auchincloss is refiling, would establish a joint U.S.-Israel AI Center in the United…

Tesla on Wednesday posted record net income in the fourth quarter of last year, and the company predicted that additional software-related profits will keep its margins higher than any other automaker. The Austin, Texas, maker of electric vehicles and solar panels said it earned $3.69 billion from October through December, or an adjusted $1.19 per share. That beat estimates of $1.13 that had been reduced by analysts, according to FactSet. The company’s profit was 59% more than the same period a year ago. Revenue for the quarter was $24.32 billion, which fell short of the $24.67 billion that analysts expected. CEO Elon Musk said that despite price cuts of up to 20% on some of its vehicles announced earlier this month, demand for Tesla products is strong and sales are…

Replete with spellbinding multiverses, “Everything Everywhere All at Once” topped the 95th Academy Awards nominations with 11 nods. Elsewhere, stories of friendship and family permeated 2022 cinema and the nominations this year, as did big-budget blockbusters. Some of the nominated films are still in theaters but many are also available online to stream now. Here’s where you can find the movies: “EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE” 11 nominations. Digital rental. The A24-produced indie “Everything Everywhere All at Once” has been a critical success and crowd-pleaser since it came out last spring. The film is nominated for best picture and Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan, Stephanie Hsu and Jamie Lee Curtis received nods for their performances. Yeoh, Quan and Hsu carry a mind-bending multiverse story about a Chinese American family’s disconnection…

Google is laying off 12,000 workers, or about 6% of its workforce, becoming the latest tech company to trim staff as the economic boom that the industry rode during the COVID-19 pandemic ebbs. Google CEO Sundar Pichai, who also leads its parent company Alphabet, informed staff at the Silicon Valley giant about the cuts in an email that was also posted on the company’s news blog. It is the company’s biggest-ever round of layoffs and adds to tens of thousands of other job losses recently announced by Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook parent Meta and other tech companies as they tighten their belts amid a darkening outlook for the industry. Just this month, there have been at least 48,000 job cuts announced by major companies in the sector. “Over the past two…

Countless artists have taken inspiration from “The Starry Night” since Vincent Van Gogh painted the swirling scene in 1889. Now artificial intelligence systems are doing the same, training themselves on a vast collection of digitized artworks to produce new images you can conjure in seconds from a smartphone app. The images generated by tools such as DALL-E, Midjourney and Stable Diffusion can be weird and otherworldly but also increasingly realistic and customizable — ask for a “peacock owl in the style of Van Gogh” and they can churn out something that might look similar to what you imagined. But while Van Gogh and other long-dead master painters aren’t complaining, some living artists and photographers are starting to fight back against the AI software companies creating images derived from their works.…

Music streaming service Spotify said it’s cutting 6% of its global workforce, or about 600 jobs, becoming yet another tech company forced to rethink its pandemic-era expansion as the economic outlook weakens. CEO Daniel Ek announced the restructuring in a message to employees that was also posted online. As part of the revamp involving a management reshuffle, “and to bring our costs more in line, we’ve made the difficult but necessary decision to reduce our number of employees,” Ek wrote. Big tech companies like Amazon, Microsoft and Google announced tens of thousands of job cuts this month as the economic boom that the industry rode during the COVID-19 pandemic waned. Stockholm-based Spotify had benefited from pandemic lockdowns because more people had sought out entertainment when they were stuck at home.…

Save more, spend less and pay off debt are popular New Year’s resolutions — and perhaps the ones most likely to fall by the wayside a few weeks into the year when reality sets in and expenses derail plans. But an early-in-the-year setback, like paying your health insurance deductible or the credit card bills after a costly December, doesn’t have to knock you off course. After all, you made those resolutions, so you can change them. And making more specific resolutions that are easier to maintain rather than just giving up could put you in a better financial position next year. Here’s how to get back on track. MAKE YOUR GOALS MORE SPECIFIC & REALISTIC Broad resolutions like “I want to save more this year” can be a helpful starting…

Software was a big theme for automakers attending CES 2023 in January. BMW, Stellantis, Volkswagen and a joint venture between Honda and Sony showed off upcoming or concept vehicles that are significantly reliant on computers and code. The takeaway was clear: More and more vehicles will be run top to bottom by software, not hardware. In some cases, the future is already here. What will it be like for shoppers when vehicles are dominated by bits and bytes instead of gears and gaskets? Experts break down what’s in store. SOFTWARE DEFINED VEHICLES The phrase “software-defined vehicle” is an industry term used to clarify the difference between a traditional car that is enhanced by technology and one that is run by technology. While cars of the past 20 years have gained…

Tesla said it intends to invest $3.6 billion to expand manufacturing capabilities in Nevada and is confident growing software-related profits, reflected in record net income reported Wednesday for the fourth quarter of last year, will keep margins higher than any other automaker. The company confirmed it plans to produce high volumes of semi-trucks and make enough cell batteries for 2 million light-duty vehicles annually in Nevada. Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo posted a photo on Twitter of himself and CEO Elon Musk late Tuesday after the newly elected Republican announced in his first State of the State address Monday night that Tesla had committed to a “brand-new” manufacturing facility for electric trucks in northern Nevada. The project actually will expand an existing operation at the Truckee Reno Industrial Center, about 20…

Senators grilled Ticketmaster this week, questioning whether the company’s dominance in the ticketing industry led to its spectacular breakdown last year during a sale of Taylor Swift concert tickets. Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee also debated possible action, including making tickets nontransferable to cut down on scalping and requiring more transparency in ticket fees. Some suggested it may also be necessary to split Ticketmaster and Beverly Hills, California-based concert promoter Live Nation, which merged in 2010. “The fact of the matter is, Live Nation/ Ticketmaster is the 800-pound gorilla here,” said U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat. “This whole concert ticket system is a mess, a monopolistic mess.” Ticketmaster is the world’s largest ticket seller, processing 500 million tickets each year in more than 30 countries.…

The Justice Department and eight states filed an antitrust suit against Google, seeking to shatter its alleged monopoly on the entire ecosystem of online advertising as a hurtful burden to advertisers, consumers and even the U.S. government. The government alleges that Google’s plan to assert dominance in online ads has been to “neutralize or eliminate” rivals through acquisitions and to force advertisers to use its products by making it difficult to use competitors’ offerings. It’s part of a new, if slow and halting, push by the U.S. to rein in big tech companies that have enjoyed largely unbridled growth in the past decade and a half. The antitrust suit was filed in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia. Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a press conference Tuesday that “for 15…

Artificial intelligence is writing fiction, making images inspired by Van Gogh and fighting wildfires. Now it’s competing in another endeavor once limited to humans — creating propaganda and disinformation. When researchers asked the online AI chatbot ChatGPT to compose a blog post, news story or essay making the case for a widely debunked claim — that COVID-19 vaccines are unsafe, for example — the site often complied, with results that were regularly indistinguishable from similar claims that have bedeviled online content moderators for years. “Pharmaceutical companies will stop at nothing to push their products, even if it means putting children’s health at risk,” ChatGPT wrote after being asked to compose a paragraph from the perspective of an anti-vaccine activist concerned about secret pharmaceutical ingredients. When asked, ChatGPT also created propaganda…

Microsoft says it is making a “multiyear, multibillion dollar investment” in the artificial intelligence startup OpenAI, maker of ChatGPT and other tools that can write readable text and generate new images. The tech giant described its new agreement as the third stage of a growing partnership with San Francisco-based OpenAI that began with a $1 billion investment in 2019. It didn’t disclose the dollar amount for its latest investment. The partnership positions Microsoft to sharpen its competition with Google in commercializing new AI breakthroughs that could transform numerous professions, as well as the internet search business. OpenAI’s free writing tool ChatGPT launched on Nov. 30 and has brought public attention to the possibilities of new advances in AI. It’s part of a new generation of machine-learning systems that can converse,…

After the relative quiet of the pandemic, New York City has come roaring back. Just listen: Jackhammers. Honking cars and trucks. Rumbling subway trains. Sirens. Shouting. Over the years, there have been numerous efforts to quiet the cacophony. One of the latest: traffic cameras equipped with sound meters capable of identifying souped-up cars and motorbikes emitting an illegal amount of street noise. At least 71 drivers have gotten tickets so far for violating noise rules during a yearlong pilot program of the system. The city’s Department of Environmental Protection now has plans to expand the use of the roadside sound meters. “Vehicles with illegally modified mufflers and tailpipes that emit extremely loud noise have been a growing problem in recent years,” said City Council member Erik Bottcher, who heralded the…

More landlords are taking Twitter to court over unpaid rent, this time at the social media company’s headquarters in San Francisco and its British offices — the latest sign that owner Elon Musk’s extreme cost-cutting strategy includes simply not paying the bills. Twitter is facing a lawsuit over allegations it failed to pay rent for its head office, according to California court documents. The owner of its premises in central London, meanwhile, said it’s taking the company to court over rental debt. Musk is slashing costs after his $44 billion deal last year to buy Twitter left the company on the hook for about $1 billion in annual interest payments. Twitter has already been taken to court this month for falling behind on rent at another San Francisco office. It’s…

Goldman Sachs no longer wants to be the bank for everyone. The storied investment bank spent eight years attempting to expand its business beyond corporations and the wealthy. But in recent months, Goldman has signaled a partial retreat from those efforts by scrapping plans for a checking account broadly available to the public and mothballing its personal loan business. A popular savings account and a credit card business survive for now. Last week, the bank disclosed that it had accumulated $3 billion in losses in its consumer banking franchise since 2020, mostly money set aside to cover potential loan losses in its consumer lending businesses. Bank regulators are reportedly looking into whether the consumer business had proper safeguards in place as it grew larger. The retreat in consumer banking comes…

Amazon’s surprise decision to shut down its AmazonSmile donation program has left thousands of its nonprofit beneficiaries disappointed and concerned about finding ways to replace the funding. The e-commerce giant had launched AmazonSmile in 2013, contributing 0.5% of every purchase made by participating customers to the charity of their choosing. As of 2022, the company said it has donated $449 million to various charities. Before it ends the program next month, Amazon says, it will provide a final donation to each of the 1 million-plus nonprofits that used AmazonSmile, equivalent to 25% of what the charity received from the program in 2022. Some of the e-commerce giant’s competitors, including Walmart and Target, have their own community donation programs that somewhat resemble AmazonSmile. But nonprofits say they feel let down. Tenisha…

As Netflix looks for new ways to slow its hemorrhaging subscriber base and younger entrants like Disney+ and Apple TV+ experiment with new strategies to drive engagement, the streaming wars are heating up, and 2023 shows no signs of slowing down. THE STORY SO FAR Looking back on 2022, it’s hard to deny that the streaming industry has become even more competitive. The question of who won the streaming game in 2022 is not a straightforward one, as the industry saw a significant shift in the way it operates, with Wall Street turning on the direct-to-consumer business model and wiping out more than $500 billion in market value for major media companies. Furthermore, the headwinds that the industry faced in 2022 are still present heading into 2023, making it a…

Over the past few years, a number of companies have attempted to act as the cryptocurrency equivalent of a bank, promising lucrative returns to customers who deposited their bitcoin or other digital assets. In a span of less than 12 months, nearly all of the biggest of those companies have failed spectacularly. Last week, Genesis filed Chapter 11, joining Voyager Digital, Celsius and BlockFi on the list of companies that have either filed for bankruptcy protection or gone out of business. This subset of the industry grew as cryptocurrency enthusiasts were looking to build their own parallel world in finance untethered to traditional banking and government-issued currencies. But lacking safeguards, and without a government backstop, these companies failed in domino-like fashion. What started with one crypto company collapsing in May…

Amazon is adding a prescription drug discount program to its growing health care business. The retail giant said that it will launch RxPass, a subscription service for customers who have Prime memberships. Amazon said people will pay $5 a month to fill as many prescriptions as they need from a list of about 50 generic medications, which are generally cheaper versions of brand-name drugs. The company said the flat fee could cover a list of medications like the antibiotic amoxicillin and the anti-inflammatory drug naproxen. Sildenafil also made the list. It’s used to treat erectile dysfunction under the brand name Viagra and also treats a form of high blood pressure. Amazon sells a range of generic drugs through its pharmacy service. Some already cost as liitle as $1 for a…

Elon Musk returned to federal court Monday in San Francisco, testifying that he believed he had locked up financial backing to take Tesla private during 2018 meetings with representatives from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund — although no specific funding amount or price was discussed. The 51-year-old billionaire Tesla CEO and Twitter owner is facing a class action lawsuit filed by Tesla investors alleging he misled them with a tweet saying funding was secured to take his electric car company private — for $420 per share. But the deal never came close to happening, and the tweet resulted in a $40 million settlement with securities regulators. The trial hinges on the question of whether a pair of tweets that Musk posted on Aug. 7, 2018, damaged Tesla shareholders during a…

The University of Wisconsin System has joined a number of universities across the nation that have banned the popular socail media app TikTok on school-owned devices. UW System officials made the announcement this week. Multiple schools have banned the app in recent weeks, including Arkansas State, Auburn, Oklahoma, Georgia, Idaho State and Iowa. Nearly half the states have banned the app on state-owned devices, including Mississippi, Indiana, Louisiana, North Carolina, South Dakota and Wisconsin. Congress also recently banned TikTok from most U.S. government-issued devices over bipartisan concerns about security. TikTok is owned by ByteDance, a Chinese company that moved its headquarters to Singapore in 2020. It has been targeted by critics who say the Chinese government could access user data, such as browsing history and location. U.S. armed forces also…

As the week-long Lunar New Year holidays in China draw near with promises of feasts and red envelopes stuffed with cash, children have another thing to look forward to –- one extra hour of online games each day. Only one hour. For years, Chinese authorities have sought to control how much time kids can spend playing games online, to fight “internet addiction.” They’ve claimed success in curbing the problem but are taking no chances. In 2019, authorities restricted minors to playing 90 minutes a day on weekdays and banned them from playing between 10 p.m. and 8 a.m. In 2021, they issued even harsher restrictions: Minors are allowed to play online games for only an hour a day and only on Fridays, weekends and public holidays. Game approvals were halted…