South Africa’s environment minister and the national air quality officer have been sued by environmental activists for allegedly

X, formerly known as Twitter, wants to start collecting “biometric information” about its users, as well as their employment history. Elon Musk’s company is seemingly giving itself permission to fingerprints or facial features, or the other kind of information about people’s bodies that are usually used in biometrics. That is according to a change to its privacy policy that was first reported by Bloomberg. “Based on your consent, we may collect and use your biometric information for safety, security, and identification purposes,” the new rules state. They will go into effect at the end of the month. The policy also allows X to collect “your employment history, educational history, employment preferences, skills and abilities, job search activity and engagement”. The policy does not give any details about where the information will be used, and the company has not elaborated elsewhere. But it has been looking into using biometric data for some features. Earlier this month, for instance, security researcher Nima Owji found that the site was testing a way for users of the premium Twitter Blue service to verify who they are by using a government-issued ID and taking a selfie. A screenshot of the feature showed users being asked to click a button to confirm they “consent to X sharing images of my ID, including biometric data” with authentication companies. Elon Musk has also suggested that X could be used for hiring in the future, which may be the purpose of collecting employment information. Last week, X announced a new feature called “X Hiring” which allows companies that pay for the verified badge to include job ads on their profiles. That appears to be part of his plan to turn X into the “everything app”. He has suggested that it could include payments in the future, and he is soon to roll out audio and video calls that will be made with people’s username rather than their phone number. Read More Tesla reportedly under probe over mysterious project to build ‘glass house’ for Musk Elon Musk booed at video games contest as crowds shout: ‘Bring back Twitter!’ Meta could finally launch Threads feature everyone is waiting for

Elon Musk claimed that the media ignores things they don't want to talk about and exaggerate minor events when they wish to

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BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 9, 2023--

A federal appeals court has breathed new life into a rural Nevada town's unusual bid to halt government repairs to an aging irrigation canal that burst and flooded more than 500 homes in 2008

Here's when players can pre-load Super Mario Bros. Wonder.

It's the last day of Prime Day 2023, but there are still tons of good

Facebook parent company Meta Platforms posted stronger-than-expected results for the second quarter on Wednesday, buoyed by a rebound in online advertising after a post-pandemic slump

Facebook parent company Meta is reportedly planning to internally release an artificial intelligence chatbot called “Gen AI Personas” aimed at younger users. The chatbot, similar to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, is set to be launched during Meta’s Connect Event on Wednesday. The tech giant is testing the chatbot, which comes in multiple “personas” aimed to engage young users, including a “sassy robot” persona inspired by Bender from Futurama,according to The Wall Street Journal. Meta is reportedly developing “dozens” of these chatbots, including some to help with “coding and other tasks” and improve productivity as well as a tool to help celebrities make their own chatbots for their fans. The development of some of these chatbots – including one with the personality of former US president Abraham Lincoln – are part of Meta’s attempts to boost engagement on its social media platforms, reports previously suggested. The development of these new chatbots are signs of Meta’s growing interest in the market for large language models (LLM) similar to ChatGPT. It launched a new version of its open-source model in July called Llama 2 for commercial use, becoming the first major tech firm to release its AI chatbot. Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg said at the time of Llama 2’s release that it would “drive progress across the industry” while the firm’s chief AI scientist Yann LeCun said it will “change the landscape of the LLM market”. The tech firm’s development of “personas” also comes as tech industry leaders called for a balanced approach towards regulating AI at a historic gathering convened by US senate majority leader Chuck Schumer. At the meeting held earlier this month, Mr Zuckerberg said the two defining issues for AI are “safety and access.” He urged the US Congress should “engage with AI to support innovation and safeguards”. “New technology often brings new challenges, and it’s on companies to make sure we build and deploy products responsibly,” the Meta chief said. “This is an emerging technology, there are important equities to balance here, and the government is ultimately responsible for that,” he added. Read More Meta’s new end-to-end encryption ‘means thousands of criminals could go undetected’ Elon Musk warns of ‘civilisational risk’ posed by AI at historic gathering of tech giant chiefs WhatsApp update brings ‘channels’, allowing people to follow updates from celebrities and companies Facebook changes logo to ‘make F stand apart’ – but can you tell the difference? Elon Musk warns of ‘civilisational risk’ posed by AI at historic gathering Nasa just delivered a piece of a distant asteroid to Earth

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New York Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez mocked Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s presidential campaign launch by noting that more people watched her gaming online than listened to the 44-year-old begin to make his case to the voters. Mr DeSantis started his campaign on Twitter Spaces alongside platform owner and Tesla CEO Elon Musk and entrepreneur David Sacks. The launch was marred by tech issues, with the live broadcast crashing several times and the sound dropping out, which Mr Musk blamed on the servers being overwhelmed by the number of people trying to listen in. Ben Collins of NBC News tweeted on Wednesday night that “David Sacks just ludicrously made up that Ron DeSantis’ Twitter space was the largest group that ‘has ever met online.’ There are 100,000 people in this thing.” “We had more people join when I played Among Us,” Ms Ocasio-Cortez added. More than 400,000 people watched Ms Ocasio-Cortez and Minnesota Democrat Ilhan Omar play the game Among Us on Twitch in the lead-up to the 2020 election – one of the 20 most watched streams on the platform at the time, according to The Verge. Ms Ocasio-Cortez was far from the only one mocking the debacle of Mr DeSantis’s disastrous launch. Donald Trump Jr echoed his father’s ‘”low energy” comments about former Florida Governor Jeb Bush during the 2016 campaign, saying that “DeSantis is making JEB! look high energy right now”. Memes began to be shared of the Twitter Spaces chaos, including an edited video of Mr Trump tackling Mr DeSantis to the ground. After the tech issues plaguing the Twitter Spaces event finally faded, Mr DeSantis was mocked for his voice. “Now that the space has worked long enough for DeSantis to deliver consecutive desentences, all I’m seeing are tweets about how annoying his voice is,” Bobby Lewis tweeted. DNC member Thomas Kennedy added: “Holy s*** this is the worst campaign launch I have objectively ever seen. Embarrassing technical difficulties and consists of DeSantis rambling with his annoying nasally voice about the most niche hyper online right-wing issues that your average voter finds weird and alienating.” Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo, tweeted that “the initial space topped out at over 600k but this one is stuck at 139k”. The second space later hosted on the account of Mr Sacks reached more than 300,000 listeners, according to Twitter. “BuzzFeed exploding the watermelon hit 820,000 concurrent viewers in 2016,” Tom Gara noted. MSNBC host Chris Hayes said: “I’m sorry but this is an ASTOUNDINGLY HUMILIATING degree of incompetence. Unspinnable failure. Total and complete. Fully public.” Former Obama official and Pod Save America co-host Tommy Vietor tweeted on Wednesday evening that “doing a Twitter spaces conversation with Elon at some point during your campaign is a good idea, even if its glitchy. Making this awkward mess your presidential announcement is truly a disaster”. The right-wing account Catturd added: “I left the Space - It was so terrible and boring I couldn’t take it anymore. I’m going to go watch some paint dry so I can be more entertained.” Rep Matt Gaetz of Florida, a Trump supporter, simply wrote: “DeSedative.” Read More DeSantis wants to model America after Florida. Civil rights groups are sounding the alarm on his ‘hostile’ agenda DeSantis dismisses climate change, calling it ‘politicisation of weather’ Ron DeSantis news – live: DeSantis’ glitch-filled 2024 launch on Elon Musk’s Twitter Spaces branded ‘DeSaster’