Month: November 2024

New data released Wednesday from a Chinese government-affiliated research firm showed sales of foreign-branded smartphones, including Apple’s iPhone, fell 44.25% year-on-year in China in October, while overall phone sales in China have increased 1.8%, Reuters reported. The data released by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology revealed sales of foreign-branded phones in China decreased to 6.22 million units last month, down from 11.149 million units a year earlier. The decrease of foreign phone sales comes in the wake of Chinese tech conglomerate Huawei’s rise to the top of the phone market in China. Huawei was widely popular in China’s smartphone market last year when it released the Mate 60 Pro, a phone with a tiny computer chip more advanced than any other chip previously made by a Chinese company. Chinese consumers have eagerly embraced Huawei’s smartphones, drawn to the appeal of locally made technology — an option that has swayed many who might have previously chosen iPhones. On Tuesday, the Chinese phone maker launched the next generation of the Mate 60 Pro, the Mate 70 series. The smartphone was described by Huawei’s consumer group chairman Richard Yu as the “smartest” Mate phone, The New York Times reported. The Mate 70 series features hardware and software that are the most independent from Western influence to date. Highlights of Huawei’s newest phone include artificial intelligence-enabled functions and improved photography. The phone uses an operating system of HarmonyOS, which allows the smartphones to connect with smart devices. Huawei’s ability to self-supply …

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has opened a broad antitrust investigation into Microsoft, including of its software licensing and cloud computing businesses, a source familiar with the matter said on Wednesday. The probe was approved by FTC Chair Lina Khan ahead of her likely departure in January. The election of Donald Trump as U.S. president, and the expectation he will appoint a fellow Republican with a softer approach toward business, leaves the outcome of the investigation up in the air. The FTC is examining allegations the software giant is potentially abusing its market power in productivity software by imposing punitive licensing terms to prevent customers from moving their data from its Azure cloud service to other competitive platforms, sources confirmed earlier this month. The FTC is also looking at practices related to cybersecurity and artificial intelligence products, the source said on Wednesday. Microsoft declined to comment on Wednesday. Competition complains about practices Competitors have criticized Microsoft’s practices they say keep customers locked into its cloud offering, Azure. The FTC fielded such complaints last year as it examined the cloud computing market. NetChoice, a lobbying group that represents online companies such as Amazon and Google, which compete with Microsoft in cloud computing, criticized Microsoft’s licensing policies, and its integration of AI tools into its Office and Outlook. “Given that Microsoft is the world’s largest software company, dominating in productivity and operating systems software, the scale and consequences of its licensing decisions are extraordinary,” the group said. Google in September complained to …

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA — Australia’s House of Representatives on Wednesday passed a bill that would ban children younger than 16 years old from social media, leaving it to the Senate to finalize the world-first law. The major parties backed the bill that would make platforms including TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat, Reddit, X and Instagram liable for fines of up to $33 million for systemic failures to prevent young children from holding accounts. The legislation passed 102 to 13. If the bill becomes law this week, the platforms would have one year to work out how to implement the age restrictions before the penalties are enforced. Opposition lawmaker Dan Tehan told Parliament the government had agreed to accept amendments in the Senate that would bolster privacy protections. Platforms would not be allowed to compel users to provide government-issued identity documents including passports or driver’s licenses. The platforms also could not demand digital identification through a government system. “Will it be perfect? No. But is any law perfect? No, it’s not. But if it helps, even if it helps in just the smallest of ways, it will make a huge difference to people’s lives,” Tehan told Parliament. Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said the Senate would debate the bill later Wednesday. The major parties’ support all but guarantees the legislation will pass in the Senate, where no party holds a majority of seats. Lawmakers who were not aligned with either the government or the opposition were most critical of the legislation during debate on Tuesday and …

SYDNEY — Google and Facebook-owner Meta Platforms urged the Australian government on Tuesday to delay a bill that will ban most forms of social media for children under 16, saying more time was needed to assess its potential impact. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s center-left government wants to pass the bill, which represents some of the toughest controls on children’s social media use imposed by any country, into law by the end of the parliamentary year on Thursday. The bill was introduced in parliament last week and opened for submissions of opinions for only one day. Google and Meta said in their submissions that the government should wait for the results of an age-verification trial before going ahead. The age-verification system may include biometrics or government identification to enforce a social media age cut-off. “In the absence of such results, neither industry nor Australians will understand the nature or scale of age assurance required by the bill, nor the impact of such measures on Australians,” Meta said. “In its present form, the bill is inconsistent and ineffective.” The law would force social media platforms, and not parents or children, to take reasonable steps to ensure age-verification protections are in place. Companies could be fined up to $32 million for systemic breaches. The opposition Liberal party is expected to support the bill though some independent lawmakers have accused the government of rushing through the entire process in around a week. A Senate committee responsible for communications legislation is scheduled to deliver a report …

sydney — Australia’s Indian Ocean territory of Christmas Island will be connected by subsea cable to the northern garrison city of Darwin, a project backed by Alphabet’s Google that Australia says will boost its digital resilience. Christmas Island is 1,500 kilometers (930 miles) west of the Australian mainland, with a small population of 1,250, but strategically located in the Indian Ocean, 350 kilometers (215 miles) from Jakarta. The cable announcement comes as the Australian and U.S. militaries upgrade airfields in Australia’s north, where a rotating force of U.S. Marines will be joined by Japanese troops next year. Google’s vice president of global network infrastructure, Brian Quigley, said in a statement the Bosun cable will link Darwin to Christmas Island, while another subsea cable will connect Melbourne on Australia’s east coast to the west coast city of Perth, then on to Christmas Island and Singapore. Australia is seeking to reduce its exposure to digital disruption by building more subsea cable pathways to Asia to its west, and through the South Pacific to the United States. “These new cable systems will not only expand and strengthen the resilience of Australia’s own digital connectivity through new and diversified routes but will also complement the Government’s active work with industry and government partners to support secure, resilient and reliable connectivity across the Pacific,” Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said in a statement. The other partners in the cable project include Australian data center company NextDC, Macquarie-backed telecommunications group Vocus, and SUBCO. SUBCO previously built an Indian …

ALEXANDRIA, Virginia — The U.S. Justice Department told a federal judge that Google illegally dominated online advertising technology in seeking a second antitrust win against the company.  The closing arguments in Alexandria cap a 15-day trial held in September in which prosecutors sought to show Google monopolized markets for publisher ad servers and advertiser ad networks and tried to dominate the market for ad exchanges, which sit between buyers and sellers.  “Google rigged the rules of the road,” said DOJ lawyer Aaron Teitelbaum, who asked the judge to hold Google accountable for anti-competitive conduct and added that Google is “once, twice, three times a monopolist.”  Another DOJ lawyer, Julia Tarver Wood, compared the case to the Charles Dickens novel A Tale of Two Cities and said U.S. Judge Leonie Brinkema had to decide whether to adopt the DOJ or Google version of the state of the ad market.  Google lawyer Karen Dunn said the DOJ had not met its legal burden and was asking Brinkema to overrule key precedents. “The law simply does not support what the plaintiffs are arguing in this case,” Dunn said.  She argued the DOJ was ignoring Google’s legitimate business decisions and the robust quality of the online advertising market. The company argues the government had cherry-picked a narrow slice of the online market and did not account for aggressive competition.  Shares of Alphabet, the parent company of Google, were up 1.4% in afternoon trading.  Publishers testified at the trial that they could not switch away from …

Chinese hackers are positioning themselves in U.S. critical infrastructure IT networks for a potential clash with the United States, a top American cybersecurity official said Friday. Morgan Adamski, executive director of U.S. Cyber Command, said Chinese-linked cyber operations are aimed at gaining an advantage in case of a major conflict with the United States. Officials have warned that China-linked hackers have compromised IT networks and taken steps to carry out disruptive attacks in the event of a conflict. Their activities include gaining access to key networks to enable potential disruptions such as manipulating heating, ventilation and air-conditioning systems in server rooms, or disrupting critical energy and water controls, U.S. officials said earlier this year. Beijing routinely denies cyber operations targeting U.S. entities. The Chinese Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Adamski was speaking to researchers at the Cyberwarcon security conference in Arlington, Virginia. On Thursday, U.S. Senator Mark Warner told The Washington Post a suspected China-linked hack on U.S. telecommunications firms was the worst telecom hack in U.S. history. That cyber espionage operation, dubbed “Salt Typhoon,” has included stolen call records data, compromised communications of top officials of both major U.S. presidential campaigns before the November 5 election, and telecommunications information related to U.S. law enforcement requests, the FBI said recently. The FBI and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency are providing technical assistance and information to potential targets, the bureau said. Adamski said Friday that the U.S. government has “executed globally synchronized activities, both …

From digital passports to apps that announce air alerts or enable conscripts to update their information in the draft register, Ukraine is now a world leader in the drive to digitalize government services. From Kyiv, Lesia Bakalets reports on how Russia’s full-scale invasion has pushed Ukraine’s drive to digitalize. …

WASHINGTON — The Federal Communications Commission voted on Thursday to propose new rules governing undersea internet cables in the face of growing security concerns, as part of a review of regulations on the links that handle nearly all the world’s online traffic. The FCC voted 5-0 on proposed updates to address the national security concerns over the global network of more than 400 subsea cables that handle more than 98% of international internet traffic. “With the expansion of data centers, rise of cloud computing, and increasing bandwidth demands of new large language models, these facilities are poised to grow even more critical,” FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel said. Baltic nations said this week they are investigating whether the cutting of two fiber-optic undersea telecommunication cables in the Baltic Sea was sabotage. Rosenworcel noted that in 2023 Taiwan accused two Chinese vessels of cutting the only two cables that support internet access on the Matsu Islands and Houthi attacks in the Red Sea may have been responsible for the cutting of three cables providing internet service to Europe and Asia. “While the details of these incidents remain in dispute, what is clear is that these facilities — with locations that are openly published to prevent damage — are becoming a target,” Rosenworcel said. The Chinese Embassy in Washington said “turning undersea cables into a political and security issue severely disrupts international market rules, threatens global digital connectivity and cybersecurity, and denies other countries, especially developing countries, the right to develop their undersea cable …

NEW YORK — Nick Pickles, the former head of global affairs at Elon Musk’s social media platform X, is joining forces with one of Musk’s rivals, his fellow OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman. Pickles, who resigned from X in September, told Reuters on Wednesday that he will serve as chief policy officer for Altman’s Tools for Humanity, the company building the technology to support World Network, formerly known as Worldcoin. Pickles’ old boss, Musk, and his new boss, Altman, founded ChatGPT creator OpenAI in 2015 but have since fallen out in a messy legal dispute. World Network, which has faced scrutiny over its data collection, is ramping up efforts to scan people’s irises, using its “orb” devices, to create World ID. The ID will serve as a digital passport to prove, in the online realm, that its holder is an actual human being as opposed to an AI bot. Pickles told Reuters that AI is “on the cusp” of overtaking traditional online defenses to determine whether a user is a real person, such as Captcha puzzles. Once AI can blow through those barriers, trust on the Web will further disintegrate. “It’s imminent,” said Pickles. “Throughout my time at X and at Twitter, one of the consistent issues that kept coming up is, ‘Is this a real account or a bot?’” He added: “I saw every day how this issue is going to be central to the future of online interaction.” During his 10 years at X, formerly known as Twitter, Pickles served …

Farmers in Kenya are using artificial intelligence to help them get better crop yields. An AI-powered tool – called Virtual Agronomist – engages directly with farmers to help them create tailored plans to optimize the quality and quantity of their crops. Mohammed Yusuf has more from Mwea, Kenya. …

U.S. regulators want a federal judge to break up Google to prevent the company from continuing to squash competition through its dominant search engine after a court found it had maintained an abusive monopoly over the past decade. The proposed breakup floated in a 23-page document filed late Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Justice calls for sweeping punishments that would include a sale of Google’s industry-leading Chrome web browser and impose restrictions to prevent Android from favoring its own search engine. A sale of Chrome “will permanently stop Google’s control of this critical search access point and allow rival search engines the ability to access the browser that for many users is a gateway to the internet,” Justice Department lawyers argued in their filing. Although regulators stopped short of demanding Google sell Android too, they asserted the judge should make it clear the company could still be required to divest its smartphone operating system if its oversight committee continues to see evidence of misconduct. The broad scope of the recommended penalties underscores how severely regulators operating under President Joe Biden’s administration believe Google should be punished following an August ruling by U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta that branded the company as a monopolist. The Justice Department decision-makers who will inherit the case after President-elect Donald Trump takes office next year might not be as strident. The Washington, D.C., court hearings on Google’s punishment are scheduled to begin in April and Mehta is aiming to issue his final decision before …

WASHINGTON — Pakistan’s top cleric has declared that virtual private networks, or VPNs, are unlawful, igniting a debate on privacy rights and access to information amid a government crackdown on the internet. Allama Raghib Naeemi, head of the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII), issued a decree saying it makes no difference whether a VPN is registered or unregistered. “If attempts are made to access indecent or immoral sites, character assassination is done, statements are being made against national security, or if various incidents of religious blasphemy are being spread through it, then [using] it would completely be un-Islamic,” he said. A VPN protects online privacy by creating a secure connection and is used to access blocked content, protect data from hackers and support remote work or secure transactions. Several internet service providers in Pakistan expressed concerns Tuesday over the possible imposition of blanket restrictions on VPNs, warning that the move would anger users and impact online businesses. Shahzad Arshad, chairman of the Wireless and Internet Service Providers Association of Pakistan, said in a statement, “It is essential to recognize that blanket restrictions or sweeping narratives around tools like VPNs risk alienating segments of society, particularly those who rely on these tools for entirely legitimate purposes, such as IT exports, financial transactions, and academic research.” Arshad, in reference to CII’s declaration, said technology is neutral and that how it is used determines whether it is aligned with ethics. Amnesty Tech, part of Amnesty International, said last week on X that imposing restrictions …

WASHINGTON — Pakistan’s top cleric has declared that virtual private networks, or VPNs, are unlawful, igniting a debate on privacy rights and access to information amid a government crackdown on the internet. Allama Raghib Naeemi, head of the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII), issued a decree saying it makes no difference whether a VPN is registered or unregistered. “If attempts are made to access indecent or immoral sites, character assassination is done, statements are being made against national security, or if various incidents of religious blasphemy are being spread through it, then [using] it would completely be un-Islamic,” he said. A VPN protects online privacy by creating a secure connection and is used to access blocked content, protect data from hackers and support remote work or secure transactions. Several internet service providers in Pakistan expressed concerns Tuesday over the possible imposition of blanket restrictions on VPNs, warning that the move would anger users and impact online businesses. Shahzad Arshad, chairman of the Wireless and Internet Service Providers Association of Pakistan, said in a statement, “It is essential to recognize that blanket restrictions or sweeping narratives around tools like VPNs risk alienating segments of society, particularly those who rely on these tools for entirely legitimate purposes, such as IT exports, financial transactions, and academic research.” Arshad, in reference to CII’s declaration, said technology is neutral and that how it is used determines whether it is aligned with ethics. Amnesty Tech, part of Amnesty International, said last week on X that imposing restrictions …

Artificial intelligence was much discussed and demonstrated at the Africa Tech Festival in Cape Town, South Africa earlier this month. The conference highlighted how technology is changing industries on the continent. Vicky Stark filed this report. …

The rise of AI tools like ChatGPT has sparked debate in higher education, raising questions about ethics and integrity in teaching, learning and knowledge creation. In South Africa, some academic institutions are taking a proactive approach, integrating AI into their curricula. Experts say this step is not only innovative but also helps level the playing field among students. Zaheer Cassim reports from Johannesburg. …

DAEJEON, South Korea — Imagine a wheelchair equipped with wheels flexible enough to navigate all manner of obstacles from curbs to humps and even staircases.   Or perhaps an unmanned delivery vehicle using the same wheels that takes the stairs to deliver food and groceries right to your door.  This is what researchers from the Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials (KIMM) envision for their “morphing” wheel, which can roll over obstacles up to 1.3 times the height of its radius.   Inspired by the surface tension of water droplets, it goes from solid to fluid when it encounters impediments.  Other possible applications include robots that spy on the enemy in the battlefield.  The KIMM team also hopes that morphing wheels will eventually be used with two- and four-legged robots – currently limited in movement efficiency and susceptible to vibration – that can carry payloads that need stable movement in industrial settings.  “The goal is to make this viable for speed up to 100 kph, or the speed of an average car,” said Song Sung-hyuk, principal researcher at KIMM.  Wheels developed for a similar purpose such as nonpneumatic or airless tires have flexibility but are limited in their ability to overcome obstacles, said Song, who is a member of KIMM’s AI robotics research team.   The morphing wheel consists of an outer hoop of a chain and a series of spoke wires running through the hub. The stiffness of the spokes – and hence the wheel – is automatically regulated by …

BEIJING/HONG KONG — A 22-year-old Chinese woman’s account of how she was lured into the country’s illegal surrogacy industry before suffering a miscarriage went viral on Chinese social media this week and raised heated debates over women’s rights and social inequality.  Surrogacy is banned in China, and authorities have vowed to severely crack down on illegal practices, including the buying and selling of sperm, egg and surrogacy services.  The incident comes as Chinese authorities grapple with how to increase the country’s birth rate as more young couples put off having children or opt to have none.  China’s population fell for a second consecutive year in 2023 and Beijing in October rallied local governments to direct resources towards fixing China’s population crisis to create a “birth-friendly” society.   Zhang Jing, 22, told state-backed Phoenix TV magazine that she donated her eggs out of financial desperation and then agreed to “rent out her uterus” to be impregnated for a total of 30,000 yuan ($4,152).   If she “successfully” delivered the baby, she would be paid a total of 240,000 yuan. At five months pregnant, she experienced severe complications and had to have an abortion.   Zhang’s story amassed more than 86 million views and 10,000 comments on Chinese social media platform Weibo, with the hashtag “#2000s-born Surrogate Miscarriage Girl Speaks Out#.”  The majority of comments strongly opposed surrogacy. Some warned that legalizing surrogacy in China could lead to increased competition that would lower compensation and further devalue women.  “No woman could escape this …

MELBOURNE, Australia — How do you remove children from the harms of social media? Politically the answer appears simple in Australia, but practically the solution could be far more difficult. The Australian government’s plan to ban children from social media platforms including X, TikTok, Facebook and Instagram until their 16th birthdays is politically popular. The opposition party says it would have done the same after winning elections due within months if the government hadn’t moved first. The leaders of all eight Australian states and mainland territories have unanimously backed the plan, although Tasmania, the smallest state, would have preferred the threshold was set at 14. But a vocal assortment of experts in the fields of technology and child welfare have responded with alarm. More than 140 such experts signed an open letter to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese condemning the 16-year age limit as “too blunt an instrument to address risks effectively.” Details of what is proposed and how it will be implemented are scant. More will be known when legislation is introduced into the Parliament next week. The concerned teen Leo Puglisi, a 17-year-old Melbourne student who founded online streaming service 6 News Australia at the age of 11, laments that lawmakers imposing the ban lack the perspective on social media that young people have gained by growing up in the digital age. “With respect to the government and prime minister, they didn’t grow up in the social media age, they’re not growing up in the social media age, and what …

Brussels — The European Commission on Thursday fined Meta Platforms $840.24 million over abusive practices benefiting Facebook Marketplace, it said in a statement, confirming an earlier report by Reuters. “The European Commission has fined Meta … for breaching EU antitrust rules by tying its online classified ads service Facebook Marketplace to its personal social network Facebook and by imposing unfair trading conditions on other online classified ads service providers,” the European Commission said. Meta said it will appeal the decision, but in the meantime, it will comply and will work quickly and constructively to launch a solution which addresses the points raised. The move by the European Commission comes two years after it accused the U.S. tech giant of giving its classified ads service Facebook Marketplace an unfair advantage by bundling the two services together. The European Union opened formal proceedings into possible anticompetitive conduct of Facebook in June, 2021, and in December, 2022, raised concerns that Meta ties its dominant social network Facebook to its online classified ad services. Facebook launched Marketplace in 2016 and expanded into several European countries a year later. The EU decision argues that Meta imposes Facebook Marketplace on people who use Facebook in an illegal “tie” but Meta said that argument ignores the fact that Facebook users can choose whether to engage with Marketplace, and many do not. Meta said the Commission claimed that Marketplace had the potential to hinder the growth of large incumbent online marketplaces in the EU but could not find any …

Zhuhai, China — Stealth fighter jets and attack drones took center stage as China’s largest air show officially opened on Tuesday, an opportunity for Beijing to showcase its growing military might to potential customers and rivals alike. China has poured resources into modernizing and expanding its aviation capabilities as it faces off against the United States and others around regional flashpoints like Taiwan. Record numbers of Chinese warplanes have been sent around the self-ruled democratic island, which Beijing claims as its territory, over the past few years. The star of Airshow China, which showcases Beijing’s civil and military aerospace sector every two years in the southern city of Zhuhai, is the new J-35A stealth fighter jet. Its inclusion in the airshow suggests it is nearly ready to enter operation, which would make China the only country other than the United States to have two stealth fighters in action, experts said. The J-35A is lighter than China’s existing model, the J20, and looks more similar in design to a US F-35. A group of J20s performed a display flight on Tuesday morning, flying in a diamond formation across a grey sky. State news agency Xinhua quoted military expert Wang Mingzhi as saying the combination of the two models greatly enhances the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF)’s “ability to conduct offensive operations in high-threat and contested environments.” Attack drones The airshow will feature a dedicated drone zone for the first time, reflecting their increased prominence in warzones, including Ukraine. The SS-UAV — …