Innholdsfortegnelse for #618 i Techlife News

Kelly McKernan’s acrylic and watercolor paintings are bold and vibrant, often featuring feminine figures rendered in bright greens, blues, pinks and purples. The style, in the artist’s words, is “surreal, ethereal ... dealing with discomfort in the human journey.” The word “human” has a special resonance for McKernan these days. Although it’s always been a challenge to eke out a living as a visual artist — and the pandemic made it worse — McKernan now sees an existential threat from a medium that’s decidedly not human: artificial intelligence. It’s been about a year since McKernan, who uses the pronoun they, began noticing online images eerily similar to their own distinctive style that were apparently generated by entering their name into an AI engine. The Nashville-based McKernan, 37, who creates both…

Microsoft will stop packaging its Teams videoconferencing app with its Office software in Europe in an effort to head off antitrust penalties by regulators. The tech giant also said Thursday that it would take steps to make it easier for competing products to work alongside its software. The announcement comes a month after the European Union’s executive Commission, the 27-nation bloc’s top competition enforcer, opened a formal investigation over concerns that bundling Teams with Office gives the company an unfair edge over competitors. The investigation was triggered by a complaint filed in 2020 by Slack Technologies, maker of popular workplace messaging software. Slack, owned by business software maker Salesforce, alleged that Microsoft was abusing its market dominance to eliminate competition — in violation of EU laws — by illegally combining…

In a world dependent on technology, Elon Musk is a name that often comes to mind. From X to Tesla, the entrepreneur has his fingers in a number of pies. One of Musk’s ventures capturing both imagination and market share is Starlink, a global satellite-based internet service, which will revolutionize the way we think about the internet for decades ahead. REVOLUTIONIZING CONNECTIVITY Starlink is a satellite internet constellation constructed by SpaceX, the American aerospace manufacturer founded by Musk. Utilizing a constellation of small satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO), Starlink aims to provide high-speed internet access across the globe. Unlike traditional internet services, Starlink bypasses the complex network of terrestrial cables and base stations. The implications of this are far-reaching, from rural connectivity to global data-sharing and real-time communication on…

Pricing for new electric vehicles can be daunting for many shoppers. But more and more EVs are becoming available on the used vehicle market, and that’s creating greater opportunities for buying a lower-priced used EV. There’s also a further incentive to purchase a used EV that costs less than $25,000 thanks to an available federal tax credit of up to $4,000. To qualify for the federal tax credit, the EV you’re interested in must meet these criteria: 1) It must be purchased from a licensed dealership; 2) the sale price must be $25,000 or less; and 3) it must be at least two model years old from the current year. The credit is calculated at 30% of the sale price and caps out at $4,000. To be clear, this isn’t…

The U.S. economy expanded at a 2.1% annual pace from April through June, showing continued resilience in the face of higher borrowing costs for consumers and businesses, the government said this week in a downgrade from its initial estimate. The government had previously estimated that the economy expanded at a 2.4% annual rate last quarter. The Commerce Department’s second estimate of growth last quarter marked a slight acceleration from a 2% annual growth rate from January through March. Though the economy has been slowed by the Federal Reserve’s strenuous drive to tame inflation with interest rate hikes, it has managed to keep expanding, with employers still hiring and consumers still spending. Wednesday’s report on the nation’s gross domestic product — the total output of goods and services — showed that…

Wireless carrier T-Mobile said it plans to cut 5,000 jobs, or about 7% of its workforce. In email to employees shared in a regulatory filing, CEO Michael Sievert said the layoffs would come over the next five weeks and impact T-Mobile workers across the country — particularly those working in corporate and back-office roles, as well as some technology positions. Retail and customer service teams will not be part of the cuts. “This is a large change, and an unusual one for our company,” Sievert wrote. “Because of this, we do not envision making additional largescale reductions across the company again in the foreseeable future.” T-Mobile estimated it will book a pre-tax charge of about $450 million in the third quarter related to the job cuts. Laid-off employees will receive…

JCPenney said Thursday it plans to spend more than $1 billion by the end of 2025 in a bid to revive the storied but troubled 121-year-old department store chain. The money is going toward remodeling JCPenney stores, upgrading its online shopping site and app, and making its supply network more efficient so that online orders are delivered more quickly. JCPenney’s CEO Marc Rosen, who took the company’s helm in November 2021 and has served as an executive at Levi Strauss and Walmart, is renewing the chain’s focus on its core middle-income shoppers with affordable fashion and housewares. “Now is the time more than ever to lean into that and make sure that we’re delivering that experience for our customer,” Rosen said in an interview. That’s a change of tactics from…

Artificial intelligence has been the buzzword of 2023 ever since ChatGPT made its public debut earlier this year, with businesses, schools, universities and even non-profits looking for ways to integrate AI in their operations. John Kim, chief product officer for PayPal, spoke about how the company is using the early proliferation of artificial intelligence technologies in its business, as well as PayPal’s future in payments when there’s so much competition. The interview has been edited for length and clarity. Q: HOW HAVE SECURITY ISSUES CHANGED SINCE YOU’VE BEEN IN THIS ROLE OR SIMILAR ROLES? HOW MUCH MORE COMPLICATED OR SOPHISTICATED ARE THREATS OR OPPORTUNITIES TO PROTECT CUSTOMER DATA? A: One way you you can put it is that the fraud is a pretty big business, it’s growing and getting more…

Ask Alexa or Siri about the weather. But if you want to save someone’s life? Call 911 for that. Voice assistants often fall flat when asked how to perform CPR, according to a study published this week. Researchers asked voice assistants eight questions that a bystander might pose in a cardiac arrest emergency. In response, the voice assistants said: — “Hmm, I don’t know that one.” — “Sorry, I don’t understand.” — “Words fail me.” — “Here’s an answer ... that I translated: The Indian Penal Code.” Only nine of 32 responses suggested calling emergency services for help — an important step recommended by the American Heart Association. Some voice assistants sent users to web pages that explained CPR, but only 12% of the 32 responses included verbal instructions. Verbal…

The nightmare repeats itself every year: A towering wall of flames devours forests, farmland and homes, forcing animals and people to flee for their lives. With their hot, dry summers, Greece and its southern European neighbors experience hundreds of devastating wildfires each year. Last week alone, wildfires killed 21 people in Greece. The country’s deadliest, in 2018, cost more than 100 lives. And experts warn that climate change is likely to exacerbate extreme weather, fueling more wildfires. This summer, a group of residents in a leafy suburb of the Greek capital united in determination to prevent the nightmare from reaching their homes. In less than a week in early August, an initial group of three people with a shared concern grew to an online community of about 320 offering donations…

Amazon employees have been pushing back against the company’s return-to-office policy for months — and it seems CEO Andy Jassy has had enough. During a pre-recorded internal Q&A session earlier this month, Jassy told employees it was “past the time to disagree and commit” with the policy, which requires corporate employees to be in the office three days a week. The phrase “disagree and commit” is one of Amazon’s leadership principles, and was used often by the company’s founder and current executive chairman, Jeff Bezos. “If you can’t disagree and commit, it’s probably not going work out for you at Amazon,” Jassy said, adding it wasn’t right for some employees to be in the office three days a week while others refuse to do so. His comments were first reported…

The average long-term U.S. mortgage rate slipped after climbing for five consecutive weeks to a more than 20-year high, a modest relief for would-be homebuyers challenged by rising home prices and a thin inventory of homes on the market. Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday that the average rate on the benchmark 30-year home loan fell to 7.18% from 7.23% last week. A year ago, the rate averaged 5.66%. The average rate is now the lowest it’s been in two weeks, but remains above 7%. High rates can add hundreds of dollars a month in costs for borrowers, limiting how much they can afford in a market already unaffordable to many Americans. They also discourage homeowners who locked in low rates two years ago from selling. The average rate on…

One of the features that President Joe Biden cited in his plan to bring internet to every home and business in the United States by 2030 was affordability. But an important federal program established to keep broadband costs down for low-income households is set to expire next year. The Affordable Connectivity Program has not reached everyone who is eligible. According to enrollment and census data, less than than 40% of eligible households have utilized the program, which provides monthly subsidies of $30, and in some cases, up to $75, to help pay for internet connections. Still, the program has been a lifeline for Kimberlyn Barton-Reyes, who is paraplegic and visually impaired. Barton-Reyes did not have to wait for an in-person appointment when a seizure-alert system disconnected from her electric wheelchair…

U.S. officials said this week that the FBI and its European partners infiltrated and seized control of a major global malware network used for more than 15 years to commit a gamut of online crimes including crippling ransomware attacks. They then remotely removed the malicious software agent — known as Qakbot — from thousands of infected computers. Cybersecurity experts said they were impressed by the deft dismantling of the network but cautioned that any setback to cybercrime would likely be temporary. “Nearly ever sector of the economy has been victimized by Qakbot,” Martin Estrada, the U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, said Tuesday in announcing the takedown. He said the criminal network had facilitated about 40 ransomware attacks alone over 18 months that investigators said netted Qakbot administrators about $58 million.…

The company had struggled for years, tossed around by pandemic-induced production shutdowns that began in March 2020. Last year, though, business for Valentino’s Costume Group had finally picked back up. Hoping to capitalize on that good fortune, the shop moved in January to a North Hollywood space twice the size of its old building. Then Hollywood’s screenwriters and actors went on strike. Now, says co-owner Shon LeBlanc, Valentino’s can no longer afford to pay its rent. “My chest is tightening because the money is so tight,” says LeBlanc, bemoaning the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers’ apparent lack of urgency to try to reach an agreement with the unions. “When is the mayor going to step in and say, ‘I’m ordering you guys to figure something out because you’re…

On a breezy July morning in South Seattle, a dozen elementary-aged students ran math relays behind an elementary school. One by one, they raced to a table, where they scribbled answers to multiplication questions before sprinting back to high-five their teammate. These students are part of a summer program run by the nonprofit School Connect WA, designed to help them catch up on math and literacy skills lost during the pandemic. There are 25 students in the program, and all of them are one to three grades behind. One 11-year-old boy couldn’t do two-digit subtraction. Thanks to the program and his mother, who has helped him each night, he’s caught up. Now, he says math is challenging, but he likes it. Other kids haven’t fared so well. Across the country,…