Meta is ramping up pressure on European officials to crack down on the burgeoning commercial spyware industry, after the company announced it had disrupted a number of Italian and Spanish firms that were advertising their surveillance services in plain sight. These firms were, in some cases, targeting people inside of Europe, Meta says—surreptitiously accessing their devices and collecting data from them in violation of the government’s data privacy laws.
“EU da
(Reuters) – Nvidia overtook Google-parent Alphabet’s stock market capitalization to become the third biggest U.S. company on Wednesday, days before the poster child of AI boom is due to report fourth-quarter results.
Strong demand for the Silicon Valley company’s chips used in artificial intelligence computing has powered the stock 231% in the past 12 months to record highs, taking its market value to $1.812 trillion.
In comparison, Alphabet’s m
Slack is now offering its first generative AI features after announcing them last fall.
By clicking Slack’s star-shaped AI button, users can get a written summary of everything that happened in a channel over a specified date range. Slack AI can also summarize conversation threads, and it’ll attempt to answer searches with written summaries and suggested follow-up questions. Third-party Slack apps are now adding generative AI features as well, and routine digests of ch
Welcome back to Plugged In, Fast Company’s weekly tech update from me, global technology editor Harry McCracken. If a friend or colleague forwarded this edition to you—or you’re reading it on FastCompany.com—you can check out previous issues and sign up to get it yourself every Wednesday morning. Your comments, questions, and suggestions are most welcome: Write to me at hmccracken@fastcompany.com.
First up, four fresh Fast Company tech stories for you:
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On the worst day on Wall Street since last March, shares of rideshare service Lyft blew up briefly in after-hours trading after the company posted erroneous earnings projections in an earnings press release that sent investors into a frenzy.
Shares of Lyft were up 63% at one point in the post-market, spiking from a $12.13 per share at market close (a 2% drop) to just shy of $20, an area it hasn’t been close to since May 2022. That surge came after the company said in an earni
Love might be blind, but it’s not fiscally irresponsible. At least not if a new dating app has its way. Just in time for Valentine’s Day, Score, a new app (and website) for the financially minded, hopes to attract people with “good to excellent” credit who know the importance of monitoring their finances. No one with a credit score of less than 675 is allowed to join. (A score of 850 is considered perfect, though very few people are near that level.)
Scor
U.S. worker safety officials fined Elon Musk’s SpaceX $3,600 this month after an accident at its site in Washington state led to a “near amputation,” according to inspection records reviewed by Reuters.
A Reuters investigation late last year found that Musk’s rocket company disregarded worker-safety regulations and standard practices at its facilities nationwide. Through interviews and government records, the news organization documented at least 600 prev
Not since the original iPhone came out 2007 has a device launch garnered as much media attention as the Apple Vision Pro. It’s been the subject of countless reviews and thought pieces, with some (including yours truly) even exploring its potential as a retirement nest egg. But very few have raised questions about the privacy implications of the device. Those who have have been rightly wary. There is reason to be suspicious of home gadgets packed with microphones, cameras, and sensors&#
A judge has ordered Elon Musk to testify for a third time as part of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s investigation into his $44 billion purchase of Twitter, now called X, in 2022.
Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler issued an order Saturday giving Musk, his team and the SEC a week to agree on a date and location for Musk’s testimony. In a court hearing last December, Beeler said she would issue an order if the two sides couldn’t agree on when and w
Paramount Global is laying off about 800 employees, or roughly 3% of its workforce, CNBC reported on Tuesday, citing a person familiar with the matter.
The media industry has been grappling with the changing landscape of streaming gaining dominance over traditional television and the impact from the Hollywood strikes last year. A soft advertising market and economic uncertainties have added to the pressure.
The affected workers will be notified Tuesday, the report quoted C