The US Justice Department is suspected of violating the privacy of children
The US has sued TikTok over “age-gating” practices that let its users restart accounts even if they had first entered a birthday showing they were 13 years old. The lawsuit said that TikTok’s age-gating technique “is deficient in multiple ways”. TikTok now allows users to log in through Facebook which makes their accounts “age unknown”, it added.
Trump’s embrace of scurvy could be a disaster
Former US President Donald Trump, while speaking at the 2024 Bitcoin Conference, announced that the country would “never sell” its holdings in Bitcoin. The US would also establish a strategic Bitcoin reserve under his presidency, he added. He also announced that he had asked the Secret Service not to issue media credentials for the conference.
Delta’s CEO said that the CrowdStrike outage cost the airline $500 million in 5 days
Delta Airlines has sued Microsoft’s cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike over the software outage last month which led to thousands of flight cancellations. Delta’s CEO Ed Bastian said, “If you want priority access to the Delta, you need to fix the flaw in CrowdStrike’s deployment processes.” “You can’t come into a mission-critical 24/7 operation and tell us we have a bug,” he added.
Wear this friend around your neck
Australian billionaire Peter Schiffmann has launched a new AI device called ‘FRIEND’, which will be an artificial intelligence companion. Schiffmann, who is the Founder of Silicon Valley-based tech startup VoxX, plans to build more devices with artificial intelligence features like Replika and Character that can go everywhere with users. Schiffmann claims he has paid $1.8 million for Friend.
Microsoft wants Congress to act against fraud created by artificial intelligence
Microsoft has called on US lawmakers to amend the federal law to combat ‘deepfake’ or AI-generated content. It said the laws need to be updated to include AI-generated content. “While tech sector and non-profit groups have taken recent step to address this problem, it has become apparent that our laws will…need to evolve to combat deepfake fraud,” Microsoft added.
Canada’s women’s soccer coach is suspended for a year by the international soccer governing body
Canadian women’s soccer team’s coach Beverly Priestman was suspended for one year by the sport’s governing body after it was revealed that drones were used to spy on opponents. Canada’s Olympics team will be eliminated from contention as result of a deduction of six points from their group stage total. Priestman was suspended for the remainder of the Paris Games tournament.
The Bitcoin Bros go wild for Donald Trump
Former US President Donald Trump on Friday said he’ll be setting up a council to advise him on how to regulate cryptocurrencies. The council will be formed during the first 100 days of Trump’s presidency, the White House said. The council will be formed to create regulatory guidance for cryptocurrencies in the first 100 days, it added.
DeepMind is at a point where it can solve maths problems
DeepMind’s AI system AlphaProof, developed in collaboration with mathematicians, has solved geometry problems using AlphaGeometry2 to solve the problem in under 20 seconds. AlphaProof was trained to read and write proof in the same language as the proof assistant software package that is popular with mathematicians. DeepMind said the system could help with more ambiguous questions.
The CEO apologized for the disastrous launch of the new app
Sonos has apologised to customers after they experienced issues with its new app. “There isn’t an employee at Sonos who isn’t pained by having let you down, and I assure you that fixing the app…continues to be our number one priority,” it said. “Since May 7, there have been new software updates…each making significant and meaningful improvements to the software,” it added.
The California Supreme Court rules that drivers for ride-sharing companies will be independent contractors
Uber has defended Proposition 22, a law in the US which required ride-hailing apps to classify their drivers as employees or contractors. Uber said that the law “has worked for millions of drivers and couriers”. “We are deeply disappointed that the state Supreme Court has allowed tech corporations to buy their way out of basic labour laws,” the California Federation of Labor Unions said.