Category: Technology

Chicago — Five secretaries of state are urging Elon Musk to fix an AI chatbot on the social media platform X, saying in a letter sent Monday that it has spread election misinformation. The top election officials from Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Washington told Musk that X’s AI chatbot, Grok, produced false information about state ballot deadlines shortly after President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 presidential race. While Grok is available only to subscribers to the premium versions of X, the misinformation was shared across multiple social media platforms and reached millions of people, according to the letter. The bogus ballot deadline information from the chatbot also referenced Alabama, Indiana, Ohio and Texas, although their secretaries of state did not sign the letter. Grok continued to repeat the false information for 10 days before it was corrected, the secretaries said. The letter urged X to immediately fix the chatbot “to ensure voters have accurate information in this critical election year.” That would include directing Grok to send users to CanIVote.org, a voting information website run by the National Association of Secretaries of State, when asked about U.S. elections. “In this presidential election year, it is critically important that voters get accurate information on how to exercise their right to vote,” Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon said in a statement. “Voters should reach out to their state or local election officials to find out how, when, and where they can vote.” X did not respond to a …

Washington — A judge on Monday ruled that Google’s ubiquitous search engine has been illegally exploiting its dominance to squash competition and stifle innovation in a seismic decision that could shake up the internet and hobble one of the world’s best-known companies. The highly anticipated decision issued by U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta comes nearly a year after the start of a trial pitting the U.S. Justice Department against Google in the country’s biggest antitrust showdown in a quarter century. After reviewing reams of evidence that included testimony from top executives at Google, Microsoft and Apple during last year’s 10-week trial, Mehta issued his potentially market-shifting decision three months after the two sides presented their closing arguments in early May. “After having carefully considered and weighed the witness testimony and evidence, the court reaches the following conclusion: Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly,” Mehta wrote in his 277-page ruling. It represents a major setback for Google and its parent, Alphabet Inc., which had steadfastly argued that its popularity stemmed from consumers’ overwhelming desire to use a search engine so good at what it does that it has become synonymous with looking things up online. Google’s search engine currently processes an estimated 8.5 billion queries per day worldwide, nearly doubling its daily volume from 12 years ago, according to a recent study released by the investment firm BOND. Google almost certainly will appeal the decision in a process that ultimately may land in the …

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Commerce Department is expected to propose barring Chinese software in autonomous and connected vehicles in the coming weeks, according to sources briefed on the matter. The Biden administration plans to issue a proposed rule that would bar Chinese software in vehicles in the United States with Level 3 automation and above, which would have the effect of also banning testing on U.S. roads of autonomous vehicles produced by Chinese companies. The administration, in a previously unreported decision, also plans to propose barring vehicles with Chinese-developed advanced wireless communications abilities modules from U.S. roads, the sources added. Under the proposal, automakers and suppliers would need to verify that none of their connected vehicle or advanced autonomous vehicle software was developed in a “foreign entity of concern” like China, the sources said. The Commerce Department said last month it planned to issue proposed rules on connected vehicles in August and expected to impose limits on some software made in China and other countries deemed adversaries. Asked for comment, a Commerce Department spokesperson said on Sunday that the department “is concerned about the national security risks associated with connected technologies in connected vehicles.” The department’s Bureau of Industry and Security will issue a proposed rule that “will focus on specific systems of concern within the vehicle. Industry will also have a chance to review that proposed rule and submit comments.” The Chinese Embassy in Washington did not immediately comment but the Chinese foreign ministry has previously urged the United States …

Taipei, Taiwan — Concern is rising among China’s more than 1 billion internet users over a government proposal portrayed as a step to protect their personal information and fight against fraud. Many fear the plan would do the opposite. China’s Ministry of Public Security and the Cyberspace Administration issued the draft “Measures for the Administration of National Network Identity Authentication Public Services” on July 26. According to the proposal, Chinese netizens would be able to apply for virtual IDs on a voluntary basis to “minimize the excessive collection and retention of citizens’ personal information by online platforms” and “protect personal information.” While many netizens appear to agree in their posts that companies have too much access to their personal information, others fear the cyber ID proposal, if implemented, will simply allow the government to more easily track them and control what they can say online. Beijing lawyer Wang Cailiang said on Weibo: “My opinion is short: I am not in favor of this. Please leave a little room for citizens’ privacy.” Shortly after the proposal was published, Tsinghua University law professor Lao Dongyan posted on her Weibo account, “The cyber IDs are like installing monitors to watch everyone’s online behavior.” Her post has since disappeared, along with many other negative comments that can only be found on foreign social media platforms like X and Free Weibo, an anonymous and unblocked search engine established in 2012 to capture and save posts censored by China’s Sina Weibo or deleted by users. A Weibo user …

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ANKARA, Turkey — Turkey’s communications authority blocked access to the social media platform Instagram on Friday, the latest instance of a clampdown on websites in the country. The Information and Communication Technologies Authority, which regulates the internet, announced the block early Friday but did not provide a reason. Sabah newspaper, which is close to the government, said access was blocked in response to Instagram removing posts by Turkish users that expressed condolences over the killing of Hama political leader Ismail Haniyeh. It came days after Fahrettin Altun, the presidential communications director and aide to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, criticized the Meta-owned platform for preventing users in Turkey from posting messages of condolences for Haniyeh. Unlike its Western allies, Turkey does not consider Hamas to be a terror organization. A strong critic of Israel’s military actions in Gaza, Erdogan has described the group as “liberation fighters.” The country is observing a day of mourning for Haniyeh on Friday, during which flags will be flown at half-staff. Turkey has a track record of censoring social media and websites. Hundreds of thousands of domains have been blocked since 2022, according to the Freedom of Expression Association, a nonprofit organization regrouping lawyers and human rights activists. The video-sharing platform YouTube was blocked from 2007 to 2010. …

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LONDON — Within hours of a stabbing attack in northwest England that killed three young girls and wounded several more children, a false name of a supposed suspect was circulating on social media. Hours after that, violent protesters were clashing with police outside a nearby mosque. Police say the name was fake, as were rumors that the 17-year-old suspect was an asylum-seeker who had recently arrived in Britain. Detectives say the suspect charged Thursday with murder and attempted murder was born in the U.K., and British media including the BBC have reported that his parents are from Rwanda. That information did little to slow the lightning spread of the false name or stop right-wing influencers pinning the blame on immigrants and Muslims. “There’s a parallel universe where what was claimed by these rumors were the actual facts of the case,” said Sunder Katwala, director of British Future, a think tank that looks at issues including integration and national identity. “And that will be a difficult thing to manage.” Local lawmaker Patrick Hurley said the result was “hundreds of people descending on the town, descending on Southport from outside of the area, intent on causing trouble — either because they believe what they’ve written, or because they are bad faith actors who wrote it in the first place, in the hope of causing community division.” One of the first outlets to report the false name, Ali Al-Shakati, was Channel 3 Now, an account on the X social media platform that purports to …

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A California company is developing a material that can cool things by sending heat into deep space. Matt Dibble has our story in this week’s edition of LogOn. …

The construction industry is finding new uses for artificial intelligence. In a multi-story building project in the northwestern U.S. city of Seattle, autonomous robots are tasked with documenting progress and detecting potential hazards. VOA’s Natasha Mozgovaya has the story. …

New York — A manipulated video that mimics the voice of Vice President Kamala Harris saying things she did not say is raising concerns about the power of artificial intelligence to mislead with Election Day about three months away. The video gained attention after tech billionaire Elon Musk shared it on his social media platform X on Friday evening without explicitly noting it was originally released as parody. The video uses many of the same visuals as a real ad that Harris, the likely Democratic president nominee, released last week launching her campaign. But the video swaps out the voice-over audio with another voice that convincingly impersonates Harris. “I, Kamala Harris, am your Democrat candidate for president because Joe Biden finally exposed his senility at the debate,” the voice says in the video. It claims Harris is a “diversity hire” because she is a woman and a person of color, and it says she doesn’t know “the first thing about running the country.” The video retains “Harris for President” branding. It also adds in some authentic past clips of Harris. Mia Ehrenberg, a Harris campaign spokesperson, said in an email to The Associated Press: “We believe the American people want the real freedom, opportunity and security Vice President Harris is offering; not the fake, manipulated lies of Elon Musk and Donald Trump.” The widely shared video is an example of how lifelike AI-generated images, videos or audio clips have been utilized both to poke fun and to mislead about politics as …

LOS ANGELES — Billions of dollars have been spent on efforts to get homeless people off the streets in California, but outdated computer systems with error-filled data are all too often unable to provide even basic information like where a shelter bed is open on any given night, inefficiencies that can lead to dire consequences. The problem is especially acute in Los Angeles, where more than 45,000 people — many suffering from serious mental illness, substance addictions or both — live in litter-strewn encampments that have spread into virtually every neighborhood, and where rows of rusting RVs line entire blocks. Even in the state that is home to Silicon Valley, technology has not kept up with the long-running crisis. In an age when anyone can book a hotel room or rent a car with a few strokes on a mobile phone, no system exists that provides a comprehensive listing of available shelter beds in Los Angeles County, home to more than 1 in 5 unhoused people in the U.S. Mark Goldin, chief technology officer for Better Angels United, a nonprofit group, described L.A.’s technology as “systems that don’t talk to one another, lack of accurate data, nobody on the same page about what’s real and isn’t real.” The systems can’t answer “exactly how many people are out there at any given time. Where are they?” he said. The ramifications for people living on the streets could mean whether someone sleeps another night outside or not, a distinction that can be life-threatening. …

WASHINGTON — In a fresh broadside against one of the world’s most popular technology companies, the Justice Department late Friday accused TikTok of harnessing the capability to gather bulk information on users based on views on divisive social issues like gun control, abortion and religion. Government lawyers wrote in a brief filed to the federal appeals court in Washington that TikTok and its Beijing-based parent company ByteDance used an internal web-suite system called Lark to enable TikTok employees to speak directly with ByteDance engineers in China. TikTok employees used Lark to send sensitive data about U.S. users, information that has wound up being stored on Chinese servers and accessible to ByteDance employees in China, federal officials said. One of Lark’s internal search tools, the filing states, permits ByteDance and TikTok employees in the U.S. and China to gather information on users’ content or expressions, including views on sensitive topics, such as abortion or religion. Last year, The Wall Street Journal reported TikTok had tracked users who watched LGBTQ content through a dashboard the company said it had since deleted. The new court documents represent the government’s first major defense in a consequential legal battle over the future of the popular social media platform, which is used by more than 170 million Americans. Under a law signed by President Joe Biden in April, the company could face a ban in a few months if it doesn’t break ties with ByteDance. The measure was passed with bipartisan support after lawmakers and administration officials …

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washington — This week, as Taiwan was preparing for the start of its Han Kuang military exercises, its air defense system detected a Chinese drone circling the island. This was the sixth time that China had sent a drone to operate around Taiwan since 2023. Drones like the one that flew around Taiwan, which are tasked with dual-pronged missions of reconnaissance and intimidation, are just a small part of a broader trend that is making headlines from Ukraine to the Middle East to the Taiwan Strait and is changing the face of warfare.  The increasing role that unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, play and rising concern about a Chinese invasion of democratically ruled Taiwan is pushing Washington, Beijing and Taipei to improve the sophistication, adaptability and cost of drone technology. ‘Hellscape’ strategy Last August, the Pentagon launched a $1 billion Replicator Initiative to create air, sea and land drones in the “multiple thousands,” according to the Defense Department’s Innovation Unit. The Pentagon aims to build that force of drones by August 2025. The initiative is part of what U.S. Admiral Samuel Paparo recently described to The Washington Post as a “hellscape” strategy, which aims to counter a Chinese invasion of Taiwan through the deployment of thousands of unmanned drones in the air and sea between the island and China. “The benefits of unmanned systems are that you get cheap, disposable mass that’s low cost. If a drone gets shot down, the only people that are crying about it are the accountants,” …

LOS ANGELES — Hollywood’s video game performers voted Thursday to go on strike, throwing part of the entertainment industry into another work stoppage after talks for a new contract with major game studios broke down over artificial intelligence protections.  The strike — the second for video game voice actors and motion capture performers under the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists — will begin at 12:01 a.m. Friday. The move comes after nearly two years of negotiations with gaming giants, including divisions of Activision, Warner Bros. and Walt Disney Co., over a new interactive media agreement.  SAG-AFTRA negotiators say gains have been made over wages and job safety in the video game contract, but that the studios will not make a deal over the regulation of generative AI. Without guardrails, game companies could train AI to replicate an actor’s voice, or create a digital replica of their likeness without consent or fair compensation, the union said.  Fran Drescher, the union’s president, said in a prepared statement that members would not approve a contract that would allow companies to “abuse AI.”  “Enough is enough. When these companies get serious about offering an agreement our members can live — and work — with, we will be here, ready to negotiate,” Drescher said.  A representative for the studios did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.  The global video game industry generates well over $100 billion in profit annually, according to game market forecaster Newzoo. The people who design and …

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AUSTIN, Tex. — Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike says a “significant number” of the millions of computers that crashed on Friday, causing global disruptions, are back in operation as its customers and regulators await a more detailed explanation of what went wrong.  A defective software update sent by CrowdStrike to its customers disrupted airlines, banks, hospitals and other critical services Friday, affecting about 8.5 million machines running Microsoft’s Windows operating system. The painstaking work of fixing it has often required a company’s IT crew to manually delete files on affected machines.  CrowdStrike said late Sunday in a blog post that it was starting to implement a new technique to accelerate remediation of the problem.  Shares of the Texas-based cybersecurity company have dropped nearly 30% since the meltdown, knocking off billions of dollars in market value.  The scope of the disruptions has also caught the attention of government regulators, including antitrust enforcers, though it remains to be seen if they take action against the company.  “All too often these days, a single glitch results in a system-wide outage, affecting industries from healthcare and airlines to banks and auto-dealers,” said Lina Khan, chair of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, in a Sunday post on the social media platform X. “Millions of people and businesses pay the price. These incidents reveal how concentration can create fragile systems.”  …

NEW DELHI — Byju Raveendran, an Indian mathematics whiz who soared from teacher to startup billionaire before his education-technology company imploded this year, now faces his biggest test. The future of Raveendran’s eponymous Byju’s online coaching firm rests with India’s courts after the country’s biggest startup, once loved by global investors who valued it at $22 billion, crashed below $2 billion in valuation. The 44-year-old founder last week lost control of the company as a tribunal kick-started an insolvency process. Accused of “financial mismanagement and compliance issues,” the son of a family of teachers from a small village in south India faces a reckoning that will test the ingenuity that made him a poster child for India’s startups. His formerly high-flying company was eventually brought low when it could not pay $19 million in sponsorship dues to India’s cricket federation, prompting a tribunal to suspend Byju’s board and make Raveendran report to a court-appointed restructuring expert. An appeals tribunal is expected to hold a hearing on Monday on whether Byju’s insolvency process should be quashed after the former billionaire argued in court his company is solvent and that insolvency could shut it down and cost the jobs of 27,000 staff, including teachers. Insolvency also would not bode well for Byju’s backers, such as Dutch technology investor Prosus. Raveendran denies the allegations of mismanagement and wrongdoing at his firm, which has in recent months faced lawsuits over unpaid loans and boardroom battles with foreign investors that went public. Potential insolvency is a …

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BENGALURU, India — At a Coca-Cola factory on the outskirts of Chennai in southern India, a giant battery powers machinery day and night, replacing a diesel-spewing generator. It’s one of just a handful of sites in India powered by electricity stored in batteries, a key component to fast-tracking India’s energy transition away from dirty fuels.    The country’s lithium ion battery storage industry — which can store electricity generated by wind turbines or solar panels for when the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing — makes up just 0.1% of global battery storage systems. But battery storage is growing fast, with around a third of India’s total battery infrastructure coming online just this year.    “Our orders are growing exponentially,” said Ayush Misra, CEO of Amperehour Energy, the company that installed the batteries at the Chennai factory. “It’s a really exciting time to be a battery storage provider.”    Businesses invest in industry India currently has around 100 megawatts of storage capacity from batteries, with another 3.3 gigawatts of clean energy storage coming from hydropower. The Indian government estimates that the country will need about 74 gigawatts of energy storage from batteries, hydropower and nuclear energy by 2032, but experts think the country actually needs closer to double that amount to meet the country’s energy needs.  Some customers are still wary of using battery technology for storage, and the storage systems can be seen as more expensive than the more commonly used coal. The supply chain of batteries is also concentrated in …