Omar Sultan Al Olama, the United Arab Emirates minister of artificial intelligence, yesterday told an audience at the World Economic forum in Davos that it’s his belief that people who commit “serious crimes” in the metaverse should be punished with real-world criminal consequences. Per an article by CNBC’s Sam Shead, the minister views this as a necessary measure to protect people’s mental health: If I send you a text on WhatsApp, it’s text right? It might terrorize you but to a certain degree
DuckDuckGo’s reputation for protecting privacy has taken a hit after revelations emerged of a tracking deal with Microsoft. Security researcher Zack Edwards this week revealed that DuckDuckGo’s mobile browsers allow some Microsoft sites to bypass its block on trackers. While the browser blocks Facebook and Google trackers, DuckDuckGo makes an exception for Microsoft. Edwards found that the browsers allow allows data to be sent to Microsoft’s LinkedIn and Bing domains “You can capture data within
The road to hell is paved with good intentions — or, as you may call them, “cookie pop-ups.” The pop-ups have scarred the internet since the EU made them mandatory for most sites. Lawmakers were understandably concerned about companies tracking users as they browse the web. The notifications are their attempt to protect our privacy. Well, thanks — I hate them. No one reads the stoopid banners, sites use dark patterns to trick us into accepting their worst terms, and the pop-ups make peaceful bro
For a long time, we’ve been hearing that cobalt is terrible. Its mining is linked to child labor, environmental damage, and loss of habitat to local wildlife — and its use is increasing. But there are some signs for the better. We decided to take a look. The numbers are going up According to The Cobalt Institute, electric vehicles are the highest drivers of cobalt demand, consuming 59,000 tonnes, or 34% of the global total in 2021. EVs are the biggest users of cobalt. Credit: Cobalt Institute
By: Todd Feathers and Alfred Ng In late 2019, Utah state senator Kirk Cullimore got a phone call from one of his constituents, a lawyer who represented technology companies in California. “He said, ‘I think the businesses I represent would like to have some bright lines about what they can do in Utah,’ ” Cullimore told The Markup. At the time, tech companies in California were struggling with how they could comply with a new state law that gave individual Californians control over the data that
Last year, more than 300 million truly wireless earbuds (TWS) were shipped worldwide. While Apple is the leading company in the sector with its AirPods, they cost more than $150. The leading price point in the market is under $50, with a 36% market share, according to research firm Counterpoint. This is the segment OnePlus wants to dominate with its sub-$40 Nord Buds. It’s a no-frills release from the company that attempts to give you just the basics of wireless audio — and it pretty much nails
Few office workers seem to like performance reviews, those annual examinations of how well workers are doing their jobs. And many seem to outright hate – or fear – them. A 2015 survey of Fortune 1000 companies found that nearly two-thirds of employees were dissatisfied with performance reviews, didn’t think they were relevant to their jobs – or both. In a separate survey conducted in 2016, a quarter of men and nearly a fifth of women reported crying as a result of a bad review. The figures were
Enthusiasts lit up social media recently with images of what appeared to be a “doorway” into a hillside on Mars. Was it, some wondered, evidence that the red planet could be, or have been, inhabited by aliens? The “door” was imaged by Nasa’s Curiosity rover on May 7 on the slopes of Mount Sharp, the central massif within Gale crater, where it landed in 2012. Described on one website as a “pharaonic tomb door”, because of its resemblance to some ancient Egyptian remains, it is in fact only about
Machine-learning systems are increasingly worming their way through our everyday lives, challenging our moral and social values and the rules that govern them. These days, virtual assistants threaten the privacy of the home; news recommenders shape the way we understand the world; risk-prediction systems tip social workers on which children to protect from abuse; while data-driven hiring tools also rank your chances of landing a job. However, the ethics of machine learning remains blurry for man
There’s a new development in the Twitter–Elon Musk deal, and this time, it’s a financial one rather than a juicy controversy. In his latest step, Musk has removed Tesla shares as collateral to secure financing for his acquisition of Twitter. He declared the expiry of margin loans in a new filing with the Security and Exchanges Commission (SEC). When Musk first penned the offer to buy Twitter, he committed $21 billion of his own money, and the rest was acquired through loans. He used Tesla shares