Author: Sellbiz

For Makenzie Gilkison, spelling is such a struggle that a word like rhinoceros might come out as “rineanswsaurs” or sarcastic as “srkastik.”  The 14-year-old from suburban Indianapolis can sound out words, but her dyslexia makes the process so draining that she often struggles with comprehension. “I just assumed I was stupid,” she recalled of her early grade school years.  But assistive technology powered by artificial intelligence has helped her keep up with classmates. Last year, Makenzie was named to the National Junior Honor Society. She credits a customized AI-powered chatbot, a word prediction program and other tools that can read for her.  “I would have just probably given up if I didn’t have them,” she said.  New tech; countless possibilities Artificial intelligence holds the promise of helping countless  students with a range of visual, speech, language and hearing impairments to execute tasks that come easily to others. Schools everywhere have been wrestling with how and where to incorporate AI, but many are fast-tracking applications for students with disabilities.  Getting the latest technology into the hands of students with disabilities is a priority for the U.S. Education Department, which has told schools they must consider whether students need tools like text-to-speech and alternative communication devices. New rules from the Department of Justice also will require schools and other government entities to make apps and online content accessible to those with disabilities.  There is concern about how to ensure students using it — including those with disabilities — are still learning.  Students …

WEST PALM BEACH, FLORIDA — President-elect Donald Trump on Saturday sided with key supporter and billionaire tech CEO Elon Musk in a public dispute over the use of the H-1B visa, saying he fully backs the program for foreign tech workers opposed by some of his supporters.  Trump’s remarks followed a series of social media posts from Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, who vowed late Friday to “go to war” to defend the visa program for foreign tech workers.  Trump, who moved to limit the visas’ use during his first presidency, told The New York Post on Saturday he was likewise in favor of the visa program.  “I have many H-1B visas on my properties. I’ve been a believer in H-1B. I have used it many times. It’s a great program,” he was quoted as saying.   Musk, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in South Africa, has held an H-1B visa, and his electric-car company Tesla obtained 724 of the visas this year. H-1B visas are typically for three-year periods, though holders can extend them or apply for permanent residency.  The altercation was set off earlier this week by far-right activists who criticized Trump’s selection of Sriram Krishnan, an Indian American venture capitalist, to be an adviser on artificial intelligence, saying he would have influence on the Trump administration’s immigration policies.  Musk’s tweet was directed at Trump’s supporters and immigration hard-liners who have increasingly pushed for the H-1B visa program to be scrapped amid a heated debate over immigration …

The emergence of generative artificial intelligence tools that allow people to efficiently produce novel and detailed online reviews with almost no work has put merchants, service providers and consumers in uncharted territory, watchdog groups and researchers say.  Phony reviews have long plagued many popular consumer websites, such as Amazon and Yelp. They are typically traded on private social media groups between fake review brokers and businesses willing to pay. Sometimes, such reviews are initiated by businesses that offer customers incentives such as gift cards for positive feedback.  But AI-infused text generation tools, popularized by OpenAI’s ChatGPT, enable fraudsters to produce reviews faster and in greater volume, according to tech industry experts.  The deceptive practice, which is illegal in the U.S., is carried out year-round but becomes a bigger problem for consumers during the holiday shopping season, when many people rely on reviews to help them purchase gifts.  Where fakes are appearing  Fake reviews are found across a wide range of industries, from e-commerce, lodging and restaurants to services such as home repairs, medical care and piano lessons.  The Transparency Company, a tech company and watchdog group that uses software to detect fake reviews, said it started to see AI-generated reviews show up in large numbers in mid-2023 and they have multiplied ever since.  For a report released this month, the Transparency Company analyzed 73 million reviews in three sectors: home, legal and medical services. Nearly 14% of the reviews were likely fake, and the company expressed a “high degree of …

Health care organizations may be required to bolster their cybersecurity to better prevent sensitive information from being leaked by cyberattacks like the ones that hit Ascension and UnitedHealth, a senior White House official said Friday. Anne Neuberger, the U.S. deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technology, told reporters that proposed requirements are necessary in light of the massive number of Americans whose data has been affected by large breaches of health care information. The proposals include encrypting data so it cannot be accessed, even if leaked, and requiring compliance checks to ensure networks meet cybersecurity rules. The full proposed rule was posted to the Federal Register on Friday, and the Department of Health and Human Services posted a more condensed breakdown on its website. She said that the health care information of more than 167 million people was affected in 2023 as a result of cybersecurity incidents. The proposed rule from the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) within HHS would update standards under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act and would cost an estimated $9 billion in the first year, and $6 billion in years two through five, Neuberger said. “We’ve made some significant proposals that we think will improve cybersecurity and ultimately everyone’s health information, if any of these proposals are ultimately finalized,” an OCR spokesperson told Reuters late Friday. The next step in the process is a 60-day public comment period before any final decisions will be made. Large health care breaches caused by hacking …

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court on Friday to pause the potential TikTok ban from going into effect until his administration can pursue a “political resolution” to the issue. The request came as TikTok and the Biden administration filed opposing briefs to the court, in which the company argued the court should strike down a law that could ban the platform by January 19 while the government emphasized its position that the statute is needed to eliminate a national security risk. “President Trump takes no position on the underlying merits of this dispute. Instead, he respectfully requests that the court consider staying the act’s deadline for divestment of January 19, 2025, while it considers the merits of this case,” said Trump’s amicus brief, which supported neither party in the case. The filings come ahead of oral arguments scheduled for January 10 on whether the law, which requires TikTok to divest from its China-based parent company or face a ban, unlawfully restricts speech in violation of the First Amendment. Earlier this month, a panel of three federal judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit unanimously upheld the statute, leading TikTok to appeal the case to the Supreme Court. The brief from Trump said he opposes banning TikTok at this junction and “seeks the ability to resolve the issues at hand through political means once he takes office.” …

NASA said on Friday that its Parker Solar Probe was “safe” and operating normally after successfully completing the closest-ever approach to the sun by any human-made object.  The spacecraft passed 6.1 million kilometers from the solar surface on Tuesday, flying into the sun’s outer atmosphere — called the corona — on a mission to help scientists learn more about Earth’s closest star.  The agency said the operations team at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland received the signal, a beacon tone, from the probe just before midnight on Thursday.  The spacecraft is expected to send detailed telemetry data about its status on January 1, NASA added.  Moving at up to 692,000 kilometers per hour the spacecraft endured temperatures of up to 982 degrees Celsius, according to the NASA website.  “This close-up study of the sun allows Parker Solar Probe to take measurements that help scientists better understand how material in this region gets heated to millions of degrees, trace the origin of the solar wind (a continuous flow of material escaping the Sun), and discover how energetic particles are accelerated to near light speed,” the agency added.  “We’re rewriting the textbooks on how the sun works with the data from this probe,” Dr. Joseph Westlake, NASA’s heliophysics director, told Reuters.  “This mission was theorized in the fifties,” he said, adding that it is an “amazing achievement to create technologies that let us delve into our understanding of how the sun operates.”  The Parker Solar Probe was launched in …

WASHINGTON — A sprawling Chinese espionage campaign hacked a ninth U.S. telecom firm, a top White House official said Friday. The Chinese hacking blitz known as Salt Typhoon gave officials in Beijing access to private texts and phone conversations of an unknown number of Americans. The White House earlier this month said the attack affected at least eight telecommunications companies and dozens of nations. Anne Neuberger, the deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technologies, told reporters Friday that a ninth victim was identified after the administration released guidance to companies about how to hunt for Chinese culprits in their networks. The update from Neuberger is the latest development in a massive hacking operation that alarmed national security officials, exposed cybersecurity vulnerabilities in the private sector and laid bare China’s hacking sophistication. The hackers compromised the networks of telecommunications companies to obtain customer call records and gain access to the private communications of “a limited number of individuals.” Although the FBI has not publicly identified any of the victims, officials believe senior U.S. government officials and prominent political figures are among those whose communications were accessed. Neuberger said officials did not yet have a precise sense of how many Americans overall were affected by Salt Typhoon, in part because the Chinese were careful about their techniques, but a “large number” were in or near Washington. Officials believe the goal of the hackers was to identify who owned the phones and, if they were “government targets of interest,” spy on their …

Russia’s invasion has pushed Ukrainian tech companies working with defense simulation technology to seriously compete in global markets. One such company is SKIFTECH, which specializes in high-tech military simulators. Iryna Solomko visited the company’s production site in Kyiv. Anna Rice narrates the story. Camera: Pavlo Terekhov …

TOKYO — Japan Airlines reported a cyberattack on Thursday that caused delays to domestic and international flights but later said it had found and addressed the cause. The airline, Japan’s second biggest after All Nippon Airways (ANA), said 24 domestic flights had been delayed by more than half an hour. Public broadcaster NHK said problems with the airline’s baggage check-in system had caused delays at several Japanese airports but no major disruption was reported. “We identified and addressed the cause of the issue. We are checking the system recovery status,” Japan Airlines (JAL) said in a post on social media platform X. “Sales for both domestic and international flights departing today have been suspended. We apologize for any inconvenience caused,” the post said. A JAL spokesperson told AFP earlier the company had been subjected to a cyberattack. Japanese media said it may have been a so-called DDoS attack aimed at overwhelming and disrupting a website or server. Network disruption began at 7:24 a.m. Thursday (2224 GMT Wednesday), JAL said in a statement, adding that there was no impact on the safety of its operations. Then “at 8:56 a.m., we temporarily isolated the router (a device for exchanging data between networks) that was causing the disruption,” it said. Report on January collision JAL shares fell as much as 2.5% in morning trade after the news emerged, before recovering slightly. The airline is just the latest Japanese firm to be hit by a cyberattack. Japan’s space agency JAXA was targeted in 2023, although …

TEHRAN, IRAN — Iran’s top council responsible for safeguarding the internet voted Tuesday to lift a ban on the popular messaging application WhatsApp, which has been subject to restrictions for over two years, state media reported.  “The ban on WhatsApp and Google Play was removed by unanimous vote of the members of the Supreme Council of Cyberspace,” the official IRNA news agency said.  The council is headed by the president, and its members include the parliament speaker, the head of the judiciary and several ministers.  It was not immediately clear when the decision would come into force.  ‘Restrictions … achieved nothing but anger’ The move has sparked a debate in Iran, with critics of the restrictions arguing the controls were costly for the country.   “The restrictions have achieved nothing but anger and added costs to people’s lives,” presidential adviser Ali Rabiei said on X Tuesday.  “President Masoud Pezeshkian believes in removing restrictions and does not consider the bans to be in the interest of the people and the country. All experts also believe that this issue is not beneficial to the country’s security,” Vice President Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Tuesday.  Lifting restrictions ‘a gift to enemies’ Others, however, warned against lifting the restrictions.   The reformist Shargh daily on Tuesday reported that 136 lawmakers in the 290-member parliament sent a letter to the council saying the move would be a “gift to [Iran’s] enemies.”   The lawmakers called for allowing access to restricted online platforms only “if they are …

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to repeal President Joe Biden’s executive order on artificial intelligence security, setting the stage for deregulation for AI companies by nominating pro-business, pro-startups Silicon Valley leaders. The nomination of Jacob Helberg, an outspoken China critic, for a key State Department post indicates Trump’s intention to lead over China in AI, according to analysts. “We’re likely to see quite a great focus on countering China when it comes to AI – beating China, when it comes to having the most advanced AI capabilities,” says Ruby Scanlon, a researcher on technology and national security at Center for a New America Security. Click here for the full story in Mandarin. …

Tirana, Albania — Albania’s prime minister said Sunday the ban on TikTok his government announced a day earlier was “not a rushed reaction to a single incident.” Edi Rama said Saturday the government will shut down TikTok for one year, accusing the popular video service of inciting violence and bullying, especially among children. Authorities have held 1,300 meetings with teachers and parents since the November stabbing death of a teenager by another teen after a quarrel that started on social media apps. Ninety percent of them approve of the ban on TikTok. “The ban on TikTok for one year in Albania is not a rushed reaction to a single incident, but a carefully considered decision made in consultation with parent communities in schools across the country,” said Rama. Following Tirana’s decision, TikTok asked for “urgent clarity from the Albanian government” in the case of the stabbed teenager. The company said it had “found no evidence that the perpetrator or victim had TikTok accounts, and multiple reports have in fact confirmed videos leading up to this incident were being posted on another platform, not TikTok.” “To claim that the killing of the teenage boy has no connection to TikTok because the conflict didn’t originate on the platform demonstrates a failure to grasp both the seriousness of the threat TikTok poses to children and youth today and the rationale behind our decision to take responsibility for addressing this threat,” Rama said. “Albania may be too small to demand that TikTok protect children and …

TIRANA, ALBANIA — Albania’s prime minister said Saturday the government will shut down the video service TikTok for one year, blaming it for inciting violence and bullying, especially among children.  Albanian authorities held 1,300 meetings with teachers and parents following the stabbing death of a teenager in mid-November by another teen after a quarrel that started on TikTok.  Prime Minister Edi Rama, speaking at a meeting with teachers and parents, said TikTok “would be fully closed for all. … There will be no TikTok in the Republic of Albania.” Rama said the shutdown would begin sometime next year.  It was not immediately clear if TikTok has a representative in Albania.  In an email response Saturday to a request for comment, TikTok asked for “urgent clarity from the Albanian government” on the case of the stabbed teenager. The company said it had “found no evidence that the perpetrator or victim had TikTok accounts, and multiple reports have in fact confirmed videos leading up to this incident were being posted on another platform, not TikTok.”  Albanian children comprise the largest group of TikTok users in the country, according to domestic researchers.  There has been increasing concern from Albanian parents after reports of children taking knives and other objects to school to use in quarrels or cases of bullying promoted by stories they see on TikTok.  TikTok’s operations in China, where its parent company is based, are different, “promoting how to better study, how to preserve nature … and so on,” according to Rama.  …

Generative artificial intelligence companies are racing to build on the popularity of programs like ChatGPT, but AI regulation has not kept pace with the technology. Now, an incoming administration could favor U.S. domination over risk mitigation. Tina Trinh reports. …

SYDNEY — Australia’s center-left government said on Thursday it planned new rules that would charge big tech firms millions of dollars if they did not pay Australian media companies for news hosted on their platforms. The move piles pressure on global tech giants such as Facebook-owner Meta Platforms and Alphabet’s Google to pay publishers for content or face the risk of paying millions to continue operations in Australia. “The news bargaining initiative will … will create a financial incentive for agreement-making between digital platforms and news media businesses in Australia,” Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services Stephen Jones told a news conference. The platforms at risk will be significant social media platforms and search engines with an Australian-based revenue in excess of $160 million, he said. The charge will be offset for any commercial agreements that are voluntarily entered into between the platforms and news media businesses, Jones said. Tech companies condemned the plan. “The proposal fails to account for the realities of how our platforms work, specifically that most people don’t come to our platforms for news content and that news publishers voluntarily choose to post content on our platforms because they receive value from doing so,” a Meta spokesperson said after Jones’ remarks. A spokesperson for Google said the government’s decision “risks ongoing viability of commercial deals with news publishers in Australia.” The proposed new rules come as Australia toughens its approach to the mostly U.S.-domiciled tech giants. Last month it became the first country to ban children …

NAIROBI, KENYA — The United Nations, Microsoft and Kenya’s Ministry of Information last week launched a digital and artificial intelligence center in Nairobi to train African public servants and accelerate the development and use of online services. Officials said the program — the Timbuktoo GreenTech Hub and Africa Centre for Competence for AI and Digital Skilling — aims to improve the skills of 100,000 government workers. U.N. Development Program Regional Director Ahunna Eziakonwa said at the launch that better digital skills and resources will enable Africa to achieve technological progress. “An inclusive public sector digital transformation drives efficiency and effectiveness and helps governments to enhance coordination of resources and information and strengthen data and code policymaking and implementation,” she said. Kenyan President William Ruto said that more than 20,000 government services can be accessed online and that the digital transformation has made government work easier. “This will help us streamline public service delivery and enhance transparency and efficiency, minimize opportunities for corruption and maximize visibility and mobilization of public revenue,” he said. “The transformative impact of this single initiative on citizens’ experience in accessing public services, along with the government’s capacity to effectively manage public resources, clearly illustrates the immense value of digital transformation.” Governance experts say digital services offered online have improved citizens’ trust in public services and made the work of government employees faster, more accurate and more transparent. However, the frequent power and internet blackouts that plague some African countries sometimes force government workers to resort to traditional …

WASHINGTON — The United States slapped sanctions on a Chinese cybersecurity company and one of its employees Tuesday, accusing it of compromising more than 80,000 firewalls in a 2020 attack. The U.S. Treasury Department said in a statement that it had sanctioned Sichuan Silence Information Technology Company and an employee named Guan Tianfeng over the April 2020 attack, which targeted firewalls around the world, including critical infrastructure in the U.S. Over a three-day period, Guan exploited a vulnerability in a firewall product and proceeded to deploy malware against some 81,000 businesses around the world with the aim of stealing data, including usernames and passwords, while also attempting to infect the computers with ransomware, according to the Treasury Department. More than 23,000 firewalls were in the United States, of which 36 were protecting “critical infrastructure companies’ systems,” the Treasury said. “Today’s action underscores our commitment to exposing these malicious cyber activities … and to holding the actors behind them accountable for their schemes,” Bradley Smith, Treasury acting undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said in a statement. The Treasury, he said, “will continue to leverage our tools to disrupt attempts by malicious cyber actors to undermine our critical infrastructure.” Alongside the sanctions, the Department of Justice has also unsealed an indictment against Guan and announced a reward of up to $10 million for information about the employee or company, according to the Treasury Department. …

The Biden administration is shoring up its CHIPS Act funding agreements before President-elect Donald Trump takes office on January 20. Trump has previously disparaged the CHIPS Act and called for higher tariffs instead of subsidies to incentivize companies to build semiconductor factories. What would be the future of TSMC under the Trump administration? See the full story here. …

BEIJING — China on Monday said it has launched an investigation into U.S. chip maker Nvidia over suspected violations of the country’s anti-monopoly law, in a move that will likely be seen as a retaliatory move against Washington’s recent chip curbs.   The State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) said Nvidia is also suspected of violating commitments it made during its acquisition of Mellanox Technologies Ltd, according to terms outlined in the regulator’s 2020 conditional approval of that deal.  It did not elaborate on how Nvidia might have violated China’s anti-monopoly laws.   Nvidia did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The company’s shares fell 2.2% in premarket trading after the Chinese regulator’s announcement.   The investigation comes after the U.S. last week launched its third crackdown in three years on China’s semiconductor industry, which saw Washington curb exports to 140 companies, including chip equipment makers.  Nvidia has enjoyed booming demand from China, though this has been dented over the past year by U.S. efforts to stop China from acquiring the world’s most advanced chips.  Before the U.S. curbs, Nvidia dominated China’s AI chip market with more than 90 per cent share. However, it currently faces increasing competition from domestic rivals, chief among them being Huawei.  When the U.S. firm made a $6.9 billion bid to acquire Israeli chip designer Mellanox Technologies in 2019 there were concerns that China could block the deal due to U.S.-China trade frictions.   Beijing however later approved the deal in 2020 with multiple …

ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA — Richard Andre Newman thought he would live the rest of his life in his quiet, leafy neighborhood in suburban Virginia. He was born and raised in Bren Mar Park, where children ride their bikes and neighbors wave hello. But now, as he’s approaching 60, he’s considering selling his Fairfax County home and moving away. That’s because he’s getting a new neighbor: Plaza 500, a 466,000-square-foot data center and an adjacent electrical substation to be built a few hundred feet from townhomes, playgrounds and a community center. Newman feels helpless to stop it. “I planned on staying here until I died,” he said, “until this came up.” The sprawling, windowless warehouses that hold rows of high-speed servers powering almost everything the world does on phones and computers are increasingly becoming fixtures of the American landscape, popping up in towns, cities and suburbs across the United States. Demand for data centers ballooned in recent years due to the rapid growth of cloud computing and artificial intelligence, and local governments are competing for lucrative deals with big tech companies. But as data centers begin to move into more densely populated areas, abutting homes and schools, parks and recreation centers, some residents are pushing back against the world’s most powerful corporations over concerns about the economic, social and environmental health of their communities. Tyler Ray, a vocal critic of data centers and leader in the fight against the Virginia project, said the incentives offered are not enough to counteract the consequences of …

WASHINGTON — The U.S. House of Representatives is set to vote next week on an annual defense bill that includes just over $3 billion for U.S. telecom companies to remove equipment made by Chinese telecoms firms Huawei and ZTE 000063.SZ from American wireless networks to address security risks. The 1,800-page text was released late Saturday and includes other provisions aimed at China, including requiring a report on Chinese efforts to evade U.S. national security regulations and an intelligence assessment of the current status of China’s biotechnology capabilities. The Federal Communications Commission has said removing the insecure equipment is estimated to cost $4.98 billion but Congress previously only approved $1.9 billion for the “rip and replace” program. Washington has aggressively urged U.S. allies to purge Huawei and other Chinese gear from their wireless networks. FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel last week again called on the U.S. Congress to provide urgent additional funding, saying the program to replace equipment in the networks of 126 carriers faces a $3.08 billion shortfall “putting both our national security and the connectivity of rural consumers who depend on these networks at risk.” She has warned the lack of funding could result in some rural networks shutting down, which “could eliminate the only provider in some regions” and could threaten 911 service. Competitive Carriers Association CEO Tim Donovan on Saturday praised the announcement, saying “funding is desperately needed to fulfill the mandate to remove and replace covered equipment and services while maintaining connectivity for tens of millions of Americans.” …

A federal appeals court in Washington on Friday upheld a law requiring the wildly popular social media app TikTok to be sold to a non-Chinese owner or face closure in the United States by next month. The court cited “persuasive” and “compelling” arguments presented by the federal government that TikTok poses a risk to national security. The ruling could leave the 170 million Americans who regularly use TikTok without access to a social media platform that has enjoyed explosive global growth in recent years. It could also mean that the millions of Americans who create content for TikTok — some of whom rely on monetizing that content for their livelihood — could be cut off from their audiences. The government has argued that TikTok presents a unique danger to national security because it collects vast amounts of information about its users, and because the Chinese government ultimately exercises control over its parent company, ByteDance, and over the algorithm that determines what content TikTok users see. Because ByteDance is in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) it is subject to that country’s laws, including measures requiring private companies to cooperate with government intelligence agencies. The three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit found that the government has a compelling interest in taking steps “to counter the PRC’s efforts to collect great quantities of data about tens of millions of Americans” and “to limit the PRC’s ability to manipulate content covertly on the TikTok platform.” …

Using sailing ships to move cargo may be making a comeback. These days, eco-friendly watercraft are equipped with the latest technology. Elena Wolf has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. Camera: Max Avloshenko  …

WASHINGTON — Amid widespread protests in Kenya this summer over a controversial finance bill, the country’s Communications Authority announced it did not intend to shut down internet access. The next day, however, Kenya experienced a countrywide loss in internet connectivity.  The main internet service providers said the outage on June 25 was caused by an issue with undersea cables. But the incident caught the attention of digital rights groups, who said the timing of the outage “strongly suggests” an intentional action. Various governments have used such shutdowns to maintain control, these groups say.  Many governments justify the shutdowns as moves to promote public order and safety, Nompilo Simanje, Africa advocacy and partnerships lead at the International Press Institute, told VOA.  “The key reasons really are to restrict communication, restrict free expression, restrict online mobilization, restrict online freedom of assembly and association, and also restrict access to information,” she said.  Access ‘could be about life and death’ Digital watchdogs have documented several cases across the African continent in recent months where access to the internet or social media was blocked or cut off at crucial moments. It isn’t always clear if the cases are the result of a direct order, but the timing often suggests it is, analysts say.  Within the past year, digital rights group Access Now has documented shutdowns in Kenya, Mozambique, Tanzania, Mauritius and Equatorial Guinea. Nearly all take place alongside events such as protests or elections.  But these shutdowns can be harmful to the country’s residents, Felicia Anthonio, …