Category: News and Views

End-to-End Encrypted Instagram and Messenger Chats: Why It Took Meta 7 Years | WIRED

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Since 2016, the social behemoth now known as Meta has been working to deploy end-to-end encryption in its communication apps. CEO Mark Zuckerberg even promised in 2019 that the data privacy protection would roll out by default across all of the company’s chat apps. In practice, though, it was a wildly ambitious goal fraught with technical and political challenges, and Meta has only been able to move toward it in gradual, incremental steps. But this week the company is finally starting its full rollout.

“It’s been a wild ride,” says Jon Millican, a software engineer within Meta’s messenger privacy team. “I suspect this is the first time that something’s been end-to-end encrypted with all of the constraints that we’re working with. It’s not just that we’re migrating people’s data, but it’s actually that we’re having to fundamentally change a bunch of the assumptions that they work with when they’re using the product.”

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Google’s Gemini Is the Real Start of the Generative AI Boom | WIRED

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The history of artificial intelligence has been punctuated by periods of so-called “AI winter,” when the technology seemed to meet a dead end and funding dried up. Each one has been accompanied by proclamations that making machines truly intelligent is just too darned hard for humans to figure out.

Google’s release of Gemini, claimed to be a fundamentally new kind of AI model and the company’s most powerful to date, suggests that a new AI winter isn’t coming anytime soon. In fact, although the 12 months since ChatGPT launched have been a banner year for AI, there is good reason to think that the current AI boom is only getting started.

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Elon Musk is no fan of ‘GTA’ — but X is desperate to bring the ‘GTA 6’ trailer to the platform | Mashable

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Elon Musk has voiced his love for video games like Elden Ring in the past. But there’s one extremely popular game that Musk isn’t a fan of: Grand Theft Auto.

“Tried, but didn’t like doing crime,” Musk said in a reply to an X employee who said they had never played a GTA game before. “GTA5 required shooting police officers in the opening scene. Just couldn’t do it.”

GTA is a work of fiction – a video game – and playing it does not mean you are actually doing crime or shooting police officers. But Musk is entitled to his opinion. And GTA was certainly a big topic of conversation on Monday, after the trailer for GTA 6 leaked on Musk’s social media platform a day before it was supposed to launch.

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Alaska Air to buy Hawaiian Airlines for $1.9 billion | CNN Business

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Alaska Air (ALK) on Sunday announced it will buy rival Hawaiian Airlines (HA) for $1.9 billion.

The acquisition was the culmination of “several months” of negotiations, according to Alaska Airlines CEO Ben Minicucci. It will include $900 million in Hawaiian Airlines debt.

“This is a fantastic deal that bring two airlines that have amazing loyalties in our regions together,” said Minicucci in a news conference, adding that the merger will give customers in both states expanded domestic and international choices.

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There’s a big problem with smartphone software updates | Digital Trends

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Software updates, the lifeblood of our phones, are a confusing mess — and we need to let manufacturers know there’s a problem. Those are bold words for a seemingly boring aspect of our phones, but it’s true.

We absolutely need updates regularly delivered to our phones, but we don’t need questionable features so they become “newsworthy” events, and updates need to be better presented to the people actually using the device itself.

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I’m worried about the future of the Microsoft Surface | Digital Trends

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I’ve always rooted for the Surface. What started exclusively as a way to push the concept of the Windows 2-in-1 has grown into a full-fledged premium laptop brand, with options at nearly every price point.

But after a year like 2023, it’s hard not to feel like we may be reaching a turning point for the brand.

This year was a very slow year for the Surface. Microsoft announced four new Surface devices in 2023: the Surface Go 4, Surface Laptop Go 3, Surface Hub 3, and the Surface Laptop Studio 2. That might sound like a lot, but when you break it down, the “Go” devices are both budget-focused, and the Surface Hub 3 is a purely commercial product. The Surface Laptop Studio 2 was really the only exciting new consumer device announced, and it was a fairly minor spec update. The Surface line has never been known for consistent updates or drastic design changes, but that’s still a very quiet set of updates to Microsoft’s flagship line of PCs.

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Starbucks faces walkout at hundreds of US stores | BBC News

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The union representing thousands of Starbucks workers in the US is staging a walkout on one of the coffee chain’s busiest days of the year.

The action comes amid a bitter fight between Starbucks and Starbucks Workers United, which started organizing workers at the company in 2021.

The two sides are fighting over pay, scheduling, and other issues.

Roughly 200 stores are expected to be affected by the 16 November work stoppage.

Barista Michelle Eisen, one of the union’s leaders, said the company could afford to “do better by its workers”.

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Amazon to sell cars online, starting with Hyundai | TechCrunch

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It was inevitable. Amazon, which got its start selling books, is getting into the car business.

The e-commerce giant along with new partner Hyundai announced Thursday at the 2023 LA Auto Show that it will start selling vehicles on its website in the second half of 2024. Hyundai vehicles will be the first vehicles sold on Amazon.com’s U.S. store with other brands following later in the year.

The Amazon car sales section will allow customers to shop for vehicles in their area based on a range of preferences, including model, trim, color, and features, choose their preferred car, and then check out online with their chosen payment and financing options. Customers will be able to buy a vehicle online and then pick it up or have it delivered by their local dealership, according to Amazon.

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Musk: SpaceX now aiming for Saturday for Starship’s second flight test | TechCrunch

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SpaceX has officially pushed back the second orbital flight test of Starship by one day to Saturday, CEO Elon Musk confirmed on X.

Rumors about the push-back started to swirl after onsite news organizations, like NASASpaceflight, observed a massive crawler crane headed to the launch site. That machine is used to stack (and destack) Starship, so seeing one moving toward the rocket was not the most hopeful sign.

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Musician Refused to Stop Singing, Almost Booted from Flight | Entrepreneur

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Lots of things can make a plane ride unbearable — crying babies, loud adults…a Grammy-nominated singer who refuses to stop singing.

This was the case on a Delta Airlines flight on November 10 when gospel singer Bobbi Storm started singing and refused to stop — even after being told by flight attendants and crew members to sit down.

In a video posted to Instagram, Storm stood up and decided she wanted to start singing to passengers before sitting down and announcing to the flight that she had been nominated for two Grammy Awards that day.

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