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  • GOP senators: Computer chip money underwriting ‘woke’ agenda

    GOP senators: Computer chip money underwriting ‘woke’ agenda

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican senators are accusing the Biden administration of using $39 billion meant to build computer chip factories to further “woke” ideas such as requiring some recipients to offer child care and encouraging the use of union labor.

    The administration has countered that these elements of the funding guidelines announced Tuesday will improve the likelihood of attracting companies to build the semiconductor factories and people to work there — a key challenge that could determine the program’s success. It sees the guidelines as a starting point for working with companies to ensure value for taxpayers.

    The tension is an example of the partisan mistrust that can arise in Washington even on an agenda item that lawmakers from both parties say is vital for U.S. national security. Republicans say the administration, in implementing the law, is trying to squeeze in priorities that please the Democratic base. They also argue that the guidelines will increase the cost of constructing semiconductor plants and will poison any sense of ongoing trust.

    “What President Biden is doing by jamming woke and green agenda items into legislation we pass is making it harder for him to ever get legislation passed again,” said Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, who voted for the law.

    But in the grand scheme, administration officials say, the guidelines can help to address two fundamental challenges to the government’s plans to transform the United States into the world leader in producing advanced computer chips: The companies need skilled labor and they need innovations that can reduce production costs.

    If the investments are going to succeed, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo has said, the companies must find and train tens of thousands of workers, from welders to electrical engineers. More importantly, the industry needs scientific breakthroughs to halve the cost of making chips so the U.S. can compete with Asia, Raimondo told The Associated Press in an interview before the guidelines came out.

    “Innovation happens when you go to solve big fat problems like cutting the cost of chip production in half,” Raimondo said. “That’s what we have to do.”

    The money for the factories comes from the CHIPS and Science Act that President Joe Biden signed into law last August. It includes $11 billion for research, in addition to the $39 billion for building advanced computer chip factories. Tax incentives bring the total investment to $52 billion.

    Chips are integrated circuits that are embedded in a semiconductor, a material — notably silicon — that can manage the flow of electric current. The terms “chip” and “semiconductor” are often used interchangeably. Computer chips are used in everything from autos to toys to advanced weapons, making them as fundamental for the digital era as iron and steel were in the industrial age.

    Administration officials said the factories could have an easier time attracting workers if child care is provided to parents at an “affordable” rate by companies that would receive $150 million or more in government backing. Similarly, companies seeking the money are given a preference if they use labor agreements for construction, a boost for building trade unions. The White House, in a 2022 executive order, said that can ensure projects are completed on time.

    An administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations, said no prospective applicant has complained about the child care provision. The official added that TSMC and Samsung — two possible applicants — already provide child care at their facilities in Taiwan and South Korea, respectively.

    Researchers at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank focused on national security, described the child care provisions as necessary for the “fabs,” the chip industry’s term for factories.

    “It is not, as some have wrongly argued, an issue of social policy,” wrote Sujai Shivakumar and Charles Wessner, both at CSIS. “It is a pragmatic move, clearly aligned with the nation’s security interests, to grow the workforce necessary to get the fabs built and producing the chips on which our country runs.”

    There are roughly 360,000 jobs in semiconductor production, according to the Labor Department. Announced projects tied to the possibility of government support could add 200,000 more jobs, including 36,000 directly tied to computer chips, according to a report by the Semiconductor Industry Association.

    That same report noted that the U.S. leads in terms of designing chips and the equipment to manufacture them. But more than 70% of the chips produced globally come from China, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea — an economic and military weakness for the U.S.

    Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said the mandates for accessing government support would raise the cost of completing the factories planned by Intel, Micron and Wolfspeed, which plans to make silicon wafers in his state.

    “What we’re beginning to do is discount the value of the investment that we’re making,” Tillis said. “I think that what we’re doing is social engineering.”

    Support for the computer chips legislation was bipartisan. Seventeen Republican senators joined with Democrats to back the bill. Twenty-four House Republicans voted for the legislation.

    Raimondo, when asked if the law could get tripped up by politics, said: “You always worry. Washington’s unpredictable. And politics is crazy.”

    Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind., said the practical impact of the guidance is limited because companies likely would have offered child care and relied on some unions anyway. But Young said the administration’s messaging is not going over so well with colleagues.

    Young was instrumental in generating Republican support for the bill and worked closely with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer in crafting it. The idea behind the proposed investments is “consistent with our free market principles,” he said. “But the communications exercise of the administration as related to these matters is complicating that.”

    Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who voted for the bill, said he has exchanged text messages with Raimondo since the guidance came out and told her “that when the administration does things like that, it really undermines our ability to work together in a bipartisan basis to pass legislation.”

    Cornyn said he realizes that Raimondo “doesn’t call all the shots,” but he hopes she’s sending the message to the White House about Republican frustration. He acknowledged that he is still evaluating the guidance and trying to figure out “what difference does it make.”

    Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said he voted to “give us the capabilities that we don’t have,” not the “union agenda” that he sees embedded in the application process.

    Graham said Republicans have recourse to make sure the administration knows their objections, possibly taking the squabble well beyond computer chips: “Hold every nominee, make life miserable,” he said.

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  • Need a Lenten fish fry? There’s an interactive map for that

    Need a Lenten fish fry? There’s an interactive map for that

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    WEXFORD, Pa. (AP) — By the time the doors open at 4:30 p.m., a boisterous line of 50 hungry people is looping around the gymnasium foyer at Blessed Francis Seelos Academy. Their objective: to occupy tables on the basketball court and, for the parish’s first time since the pandemic descended in 2020, sit down for an old-fashioned Lenten fish fry.

    Many patrons are members of the flock — St. Aidan Catholic Parish north of Pittsburgh — and greet each other as longtime friends. But these days, newcomers figure in the mix, too. And some arrive in a way that unites two rich seams of western Pennsylvania culture — tradition and innovation.

    The fish fry, a long-established Friday staple during Lent, is roaring back from COVID with an assist from something decidedly newfangled: an interactive map built by local volunteer coders that points the way to scores of churches, fire halls and other places that offer battered and breaded seafood for the taking. In the process, the new Pittsburgh is helping point the way to the old.

    “I like to think that this project helps people get excited about these very old cultural and culinary traditions,” says Hollen Barmer, a Tennessee transplant who came to Pittsburgh two decades ago and started the map in 2012 for her fish-fry-loving self.

    “Fish fries,” Barmer likes to say, “are an adventure.”

    TWO PARTS OF PITTSBURGH

    At this moment in its history, Pittsburgh is working to blend its fabled industrial yesterdays with a 21st-century economy based increasingly on services and innovation — something the map project reflects.

    “Allowing people to interact with something traditional through technology, it adds an element to it that appeals to a different group of people,” says Ellie Newman, a member and the former leader of the nonprofit Code for Pittsburgh, which works with Barmer to operate the map.

    During Lent, thousands of western Pennsylvanians — Catholic and non-Catholic alike — stream into Friday afternoon fish fries. Some pick up for takeout. Some chow down right there — fish and shrimp, fries and cole slaw and mac and cheese, sometimes pierogies or a local noodle-and-cabbage delicacy called haluski.

    Western Pennsylvania loves the past, but the fish fry itself is steered by some very modern forces.

    Long a tradition in American cities with Catholic communities, particularly around the Great Lakes, fish fries surged in popularity after the Second Vatican Council essentially told the faithful in 1966 that the practice of not eating meat on Fridays was optional — except during Lent, the period between Ash Wednesday and Easter. That made February to April a concentrated period of fish consumption.

    Then came the steel industry’s foundering in the 1970s and 1980s. That upended the region, stole elements of civic pride and whipped up a fervor for traditions that shouted, loudly, “Pittsburgh!”

    “There was a sense of destabilization — of `Who are we?′ And people tended to center around things that symbolized the community,” says Leslie Przybylek, senior curator at the Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh.

    Food touchstones like fish fries, pierogies and the “ cookie table ” — a western Pennsylvania wedding staple — became signifiers of identity. At the same time, technological advances in frozen food and the growth of fast food were making fish more accessible. The longtime presence of powerhouse regional fish distributor Robert Wholey & Co. also honed local tastes.

    “People in Pennsylvania are used to good fish,” says Bill Yanicko, a funeral director in suburban West Deer Township who runs the community fish fry at Our Lady of the Lakes Parish. “They really don’t want to see a cookie-cutter triangle fish.”

    Overlay all that with a robust interactive map (and pent-up pandemic energy) and you have a potent mix that helps people in western Pennsylvania overcome the geographic hesitations of the region’s hills and valleys, and go out searching for fish.

    “Putting it in a digital frame and encouraging people to engage with it, it adds a level of vocabulary to it that makes a difference,” says Przybylek, who favors the fry at the Swissvale Fire Department, just outside the city. “Different generations engage in stories in different ways. It literally takes a food tradition and puts it into a platform that speaks to them on a different level.”

    MAPPING DELICIOUSNESS

    Today, while churches remain a mainstay of Lenten fish fries, fire departments give them a run for their money — of which there is lots at play. Both entities use fish fries as volunteer-staffed fundraisers to offset budget challenges, and each works hard to stand out. “It takes a little army to make this happen,” says Keith Young, a retired businessman who helps with the St. Aidan fry.

    Code for Pittsburgh, a group designed to create places where “civics and technology meet,” is all-volunteer as well. Its varied projects include a food access map of Pittsburgh and a cartographic catalog that helps track vehicle-pedestrian accidents.

    The volunteer coding sessions held to build the fish-fry map are — how to say it? — fish-forward. Swedish Fish candies are set out. Bowls of Goldfish crackers are distributed. Radiohead’s “Weird Fishes/Arpeggi” plays.

    “It’s kind of the perfect marriage of things — a team of super-nerdy people who know all about maps and know all about coding, and fish fries, which are just so Pittsburgh,” Newman says. “I don’t know of any other city that has this kind of obsession. … As soon as people in the group heard about it, they were instantly hooked on it.”

    Pittsburgh’s growing reputation as an innovation hub — with companies from Google to Uber establishing beachheads here — is sometimes cast as recent. But innovation lies at the heart of the region’s history. The steel industry that built it into an industrial powerhouse was a cutting-edge transformation of its day, and advances ranging from early movies to the polio vaccine have roots here.

    David Schorr, an IT analyst from the Pittsburgh suburb of West Mifflin, is known locally as “ The Codfather ” for his very public affinity to — and experience with — fish fries. He knows where to go for everything — including the places to secure, as he puts it, “handmade pierogies personally pinched by church ladies.” The interactive map, he says, opens myriad possibilities of fish-fry forays.

    “It makes it a treasure hunt: `Oh — let’s go to that neighborhood,’” Schorr says. “They go, ‘Oh, look, this one’s on my way home from work.’ Or `I have to go visit Aunt Edna and we’ll be driving right by it.’ Or, `Oh, they have sauerkraut soup.′ Or, `I don’t like pollock. This one has cod. I’m going there.’”

    The map, Barmer and Newman say, is designed to do precisely that — turn the western Pennsylvania fish-fry culture into an adventure stamped onto the landscape that fosters community engagement and understanding for natives and newcomers alike.

    “As things become more globalized and cities tend to look more and more the same, there’s something appealing about coming to a place like Pittsburgh that still has things like this that have very deep roots in the community,” Newman says. “Things may change around you every year, but you know that every year you can go to your same church basement or fire hall and get that fish sandwich.”

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    Ted Anthony, director of new storytelling and newsroom innovation at The Associated Press, has been writing about American culture since 1990. Follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/anthonyted

    ___

    Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

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  • White House cybersecurity strategy stresses software safety

    White House cybersecurity strategy stresses software safety

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — An ambitious and wide-ranging White House cybersecurity plan released Thursday calls for bolstering protections on critical sectors and making software companies legally liable when their products don’t meet basic standards. The strategy document promises to use “all instruments of national power” to pre-empt cyberattacks.

    The Democratic administration also said it would work to “impose robust and clear limits” on private sector data collection, including of geolocation and health information.

    “We still have a long way to go before every American feels confident that cyberspace is safe for them,” acting national cyber director Kemba Walden said during an online forum on Thursday. “We expect school districts to go toe-to-toe with transnational criminal organizations largely by themselves. This isn’t just unfair. It’s ineffective.”

    The strategy largely codifies work already underway during the last two years following a spate of high-profile ransomware attacks on critical infrastructure. A 2021 attack on a major fuel pipeline caused panic at the pump, resulting in an East Coast fuel shortage, and other damaging attacks made cybersecurity a national priority. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine compounded those concerns.

    The 35-page document lays the groundwork for better countering rising threats to government agencies, private industry, schools, hospitals and other vital infrastructure that are routinely breached. In the past few weeks, the FBI, U.S. Marshals Service and Dish Network were among the intrusion victims.

    “The defense is hardly winning. Every few weeks someone gets hacked terribly,” said Edward Amoroso, CEO of the cybersecurity firm TAG Cyber.

    He called the White House strategy largely aspirational. Its boldest initiatives — including stricter rules on breach reporting and software liability — are apt to meet resistance from business and Republicans in Congress.

    Brandon Valeriano, former senior adviser to the federal government’s Cyberspace Solarium Commission, agreed.

    “There’s a lot to like here. It just lacks a lot of specifics,” said Valeriano, a distinguished senior fellow at the Marine Corp. University. “They produce a document that speaks very much to regulation at a time when the United States is very much against regulation.”

    The strategy’s data-collection component is also expected to meet stiff headwinds in Congress, though opinion polls say most Americans favor federal data privacy legislation.

    In a new report, the tech data firm Forrester Research said state-sponsored cyberattacks rose nearly 100% between 2019 and 2022 and their nature changed, with a greater percentage now carried out for data destruction and financial theft. The threats are mostly from abroad: Russia-based cybercrooks and state-backed hackers from Russia, China, North Korea and Iran.

    President Joe Biden’s administration has already imposed cybersecurity regulations on certain critical industry sectors, such as electric utilities, gas pipelines and nuclear facilities. The strategy calls for expanding them to other vital sectors.

    In a statement accompanying the document, Biden says his administration is taking on the “systemic challenge that too much of the responsibility for cybersecurity has fallen on individual users and small organizations.” That will mean shifting legal liability onto software makers, holding companies rather than end users accountable.

    As a nation, “we tend to devolve responsibility for cybersecurity downward. We ask individuals, small businesses and local governments to shoulder a significant burden for defending us all,” Walden said.

    The White House wants to put greater responsibility on the software companies.

    “Too many vendors ignore best practices for secure development, ship products with insecure default configurations or known vulnerabilities, and integrate third-party software of unvetted or unknown provenance,” the document says. That must change, it adds, stating that the White House will work with Congress and the private sector on legislation to establish liability.

    The director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Jen Easterly, drew an analogy in a speech Monday at Carnegie Mellon University to the automotive industry before consumer advocates led by Ralph Nader forced safety reforms, including seat belts and air bags: “The burden of safety should never fall solely upon the customer. Technology manufacturers must take ownership of the security outcomes for their customers.”

    But Amoroso, the cybersecurity executive, called that comparison misguided because software is a different animal, inherently complex with hackers constantly finding ways to break it. The liability initiative is apt to get tied up in the courts as industry resists, he said. “If you are a cybersecurity lawyer this is manna from heaven.”

    Asked if it was fair to make software companies liable in court for cyberattack damage, the trade association BSA — The Software Alliance said in a statement: “Cybersecurity is constantly evolving and providing incentives for companies to use best practices in secure software design and development would benefit the entire ecosystem.”

    The group, whose members include Microsoft, Adobe, SAP, Oracle and Zoom, added: “We look forward to working with the administration and Congress on any proposed legislation to promote best practices.” Amoroso said he liked positive aspects of the strategy such as securing clean-energy technologies and bolstering the cybersecurity work force, currently short 700,000 workers nationally.

    The document also calls for more aggressive efforts to pre-empt cyberattacks by drawing on military, law enforcement and diplomatic tools as well as help from the private sector. Such offensive operations, it says, must take place with “greater speed, scale, and frequency.”

    Disruption of hostile cyberactivity through “defending forward” is already happening.

    The FBI and U.S. Cyber Command now routinely engage cybercriminals and state-backed hackers in cyberspace, working with foreign partners to thwart ransomware operations and election interference in 2018 and 2020. The government has already deemed ransomware a national security threat and the document says it will continue to use methods such as “hacking the hackers” to combat it.

    ___

    Bajak reported from Boston. AP reporter Rebecca Santana contributed.

    Follow Eric Tucker on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/etuckerAP.

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  • Betting on social media as a news destination for the young

    Betting on social media as a news destination for the young

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    NEW YORK (AP) — If young people are spending so much time on social media, it stands to reason that’s a good place to reach them with news.

    Operators of the News Movement are betting their business on that hunch. The company, which has been operating for more than a year, hopes to succeed despite journalism being littered with years of unsuccessful attempts to entice people in their 20s to become news consumers.

    The brainchild of former Dow Jones executives, the News Movement is using a staff of reporters with an average age of 25 to make tailored news content for sites like TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter.

    “You really have to stay humble and stay open to different trends and ideas,” said Ramin Beheshti, president and a founder of the organization with former Dow Jones CEO Will Lewis. “We’ve built a newsroom that reflects the audience that we’re trying to go after.”

    Among the newsrooms the company is producing TikTok videos for is The Associated Press. The AP has provided office space for the company and Lewis is vice chairman of its board of directors.

    Some of the content would startle a news traditionalist.

    Recognizing his friends appreciated calming videos, one staff member created an “explainer” on the midterm elections for Snapchat that used video of a horse being groomed, pizza being made and flowers growing while an offscreen voice discusses politics.

    In “Get Ready with Me,” two women prepare for work while talking about some things in the news.

    There are more typical offerings: video of the earthquake in Turkey, for example, and reports on President Biden’s proposals on abortion and social media. Explainer stories take a step back to tell people why something is news.

    Some stories aren’t really news at all, but stem from personal experience. One New York-based journalist who wondered why police didn’t immediately jump onto subway tracks to save someone who fell looked into it to find they were working to stop trains.

    Curious about why stories about odd things done by Florida residents are a staple of news coverage, a staff member made a TikTok video showing that it’s partly because police there often release photos and details about incidents faster than other states.

    There’s also relatable content that provides a service, of a sort: asking young people on the street some of the excuses they’ve used to break a date.

    “News isn’t always what you think it is,” said Jessica Coen, U.S. executive editor, who’s had leadership roles at Mashable, Morning Brew and The Cut.

    The News Movement is not trying to be an aggregator, and cover every headline, Coen said. “We’re trying to cover issues where we can provide context and clarity,” she said.

    Story formats differ to reflect where they are placed. Most TikTok videos are about a minute, while a meaty YouTube piece about women’s safety and how London police react to assault cases ran for nearly 14 minutes.

    Some 60% of people in Gen Z, or young adults up to their mid-20s, say they get news through social media, according to a study by Oliver Wyman and the News Movement. Other studies show people in Gen Z have a lower opinion of traditional news outlets than their elders.

    Given this, the News Movement believes that efforts by news organizations to entice young people to their own sites or apps are tough sells.

    “News shouldn’t feel like work,” Beheshti said. “It should be part of your daily consumption.”

    One person who sampled some of the News Movement’s TikTok stories offered a mixed review, saying they often seemed to emphasize flash over substance. They need to “read the room” better, said Gabriel Glynn-Habron, a 21-year-old college student from Asheville, N.C. who is studying journalism.

    “I do appreciate the effort,” he said. “It’s part of what the news media should do more — just show the effort.”

    Often, those who try to appeal to young people are unsuccessful because they really don’t understand who they’re trying to reach, said Linda Ellerbee, whose “Nick News” programs for the Nickelodeon network in the 1990s offered a template for success. It’s a mistake to think Gen Z is apathetic; the generation led the way in protesting George Floyd’s death at the hands of police, she said.

    “Most attempts to try to deliver news to young people fail because they underestimate the intelligence of their audience,” Ellerbee said. “They talk down to them. They assume that because they’re young, they’re dumb.”

    One place where Ellerbee and the News Movement agree is in how many people are frustrated by traditional news because they feel like they’re getting only a piece of a story, or dipping in to a movie somewhere in the middle. That argues for more explainers.

    The company’s research found that while young news consumers fact-check information more readily than older peers, they’re also more susceptible to believing misinformation.

    Since news is shaky as a business, the News Movement has made diversification a part of its model from the start. It will work with traditional news organizations and help them build social media teams.

    The News Movement advises brands on how to reach young consumers and has bought the Recount, which makes video content about American politics for social media and continues to operate as a separate unit.

    “We can’t have one way of making money,” Beheshti said.

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  • New crew from US, Russia and UAE arrives at space station

    New crew from US, Russia and UAE arrives at space station

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    CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A new crew arrived at the International Space Station on Friday for a six-month mission, after overcoming trouble with one of the capsule’s docking hooks.

    The SpaceX capsule and its four astronauts had to wait 65 feet (20 meters) from the orbiting lab, as flight controllers in California scrambled to come up with a software fix.

    It’s the same problem that cropped up shortly after Thursday’s liftoff. Although all 12 hooks on the capsule appeared to be fine, the switch for one of them malfunctioned. SpaceX Mission Control urged patience, telling the U.S., Russian and Emerati astronauts they could stay in this holding pattern for up to two hours.

    Once new software commands were relayed, the astronauts received the go-ahead to proceed. In the end, the linkup occurred an hour late as the capsule and space station soared 260 miles (420 kilometers) above the coast of Somalia.

    “After a brief scenic detour, welcome to the International Space Station,” SpaceX Mission Control radioed. NASA officials agreed the delay added to the anticipation.

    The new arrivals include United Arab Emirates’ Sultan al-Neyadi, the first astronaut from the Arab world who will spend an extended time in space. Al-Neyadi is only the second person from the UAE to rocket into orbit.

    “I can’t be happier than this, seeing old friends in space, gathering as a big family. This is the essence of space exploration,” al-Neyadi said upon entering the station. “The UAE is taking a great step toward pushing the boundaries of exploration.”

    Also flying up in the capsule: NASA’s Stephen Bowen, a retired Navy submariner who made three space shuttle flights, and Warren “Woody” Hoburg, a space newbie and former research scientist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Andrei Fedyaev, a space rookie who’s retired from the Russian Air Force.

    SpaceX launched the four astronauts for NASA early Thursday from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Their flight was delayed a few days by a clogged filter in an ignition fluid line.

    The UAE sent its first astronaut, Hazzaa al-Mansoori, to the space station in 2019 aboard a Russian rocket. It had been decades since the first Arab launched in 1985 during NASA’s shuttle era. The longest spaceflight by any of them was about a week.

    A UAE space official, Hamad al-Mansoori, called the station from Dubai to wish el-Nayadi and his crew a safe and successful mission and said it represented “a huge milestone.”

    The space station will be home to 11 people for the next week.

    The newcomers will replace two NASA astronauts, a Japanese astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut who have been on the station since October and will return in their own SpaceX capsule next week. Two other Russians and an American traveled to the station in September on a Russian Soyuz capsule that had to be replaced because of a leak, pushing their mission to a full year.

    ___

    This story corrects a previous version that said UAE astronaut Hazzaa al-Mansoori called the space station. The caller was UAE space official Hamad al-Mansoori.

    ___

    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • Ford to raise production as US auto sales start to recover

    Ford to raise production as US auto sales start to recover

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    DEARBORN, Mich. (AP) — Ford will increase production of six models this year, half of them electric, as the company and the auto industry start to rebound from sluggish U.S. sales in 2022.

    The automaker announced Friday that it plans to build more of the Mustang Mach-E, the Bronco Sport SUV and Maverick small pickup, the F-150 Lightning electric pickup, and the Transit and E-Transit gas and electric full-size vans.

    To help increase production, Ford last year said it would add a third shift and 1,100 jobs at its full-size van plant in Claycomo, Missouri, near Kansas City, and another 3,200 jobs related to building the F-150 Lightning which is made in Dearborn, Michigan.

    Ford will also hire an unspecified number of new workers this year at plants in Cuautitlan and Hermosillo, Mexico, where the Mach-E, Maverick and Bronco Sport are made, according to spokesman Said Deep. Production line speeds will increase shortly to raise output, with more workers coming later, he said.

    For more than two years, U.S. auto sales have been depressed largely due to a shortage of computer chips during the coronavirus pandemic. But the chip shortage is easing and automakers like Ford are starting to increase production and build supplies on dealer lots.

    Overall in the U.S., auto sales fell almost 8% last year to just under 14 million, with Ford’s dropping just over 2%, according to Autodata Corp. But in February, overall industry sales rose 9.5% over the same month a year ago, according to LMC Automotive, which sees sales increasing to 15 million this year. Ford sales were up almost 22% in February.

    “The industry is on its track back,” said Jeff Schuster, executive vice president of automotive for LMC and Global Data.

    Shares of Ford closed Friday up 4.2%, getting a boost after the production announcement was made.

    At crosstown rival General Motors, full-size pickup truck inventory rebounded enough that it will shut down a factory in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, for two weeks starting March 27 to control it.

    Ford suspended production of the F-150 Lightning in February after a battery caught fire during a pre-delivery quality check. Deep said the battery issue has been resolved and production will resume March 13 to an annual rate of 150,000.

    Mach-E production will rise to an annual rate of 210,000 by year’s end, while the company plans to boost Bronco Sport and Maverick production by 80,000 vehicles this year. Transit and E-Transit production will rise by 38,000 this year.

    Sales are up so far this year for all the models that will see production increases.

    The production jumps are good news for consumers, who have had long wait times for some more popular models and have been forced to pay high prices due to strong demand and short supplies.

    J.D. Power reported that the average U.S. new vehicle sold for $46,229 last month, a record for the month of February.

    But as the chip shortage eases and automakers can produce more this year, Schuster said there should be some easing of prices even on hot-selling models.

    “I would expect some relief on the pricing front,” he said, adding that sticker prices could come down or automakers could offer discounts.

    But he said prices will remain high and aren’t expected to return to pre-pandemic levels.

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  • OpenAI launches an API for ChatGPT, a startup attempts a humanoid robot, and Salesforce turns it around

    OpenAI launches an API for ChatGPT, a startup attempts a humanoid robot, and Salesforce turns it around

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    TGIF, my TechCrunch homies. It’s that time of week again — the time for Week in Review, where we recap the past five days in tech news. As always, lots happened, so let’s dig in sans delay.

    Well, perhaps with a slight delay. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that TechCrunch Early Stage, TechCrunch’s annual founder summit, is around the corner — on April 20, to be exact. Set in Boston this year, Early Stage will host sessions with advice and takeaways from top experts and provide opportunities to meet entrepreneurs taking incredible journeys. Trust me, it’ll be worth the trek.

    Disrupt, TechCrunch’s flagship conference, will also be well worth the trek. (And I’m not just saying that because yours truly will be participating — I swear it!) This year, Disrupt will feature six new stages with industry-specific programming tracks, inspired by our popular TC Sessions series. Experts across climate, mobility, fintech, AI and machine learning, enterprise, privacy and security, and hardware and robotics will be in attendance and will have fascinating insights to share.

    So, signed up for both events? Great. Now, here’s the Week in Review!

    most read

    ChatGPT in API form: OpenAI introduced an API that’ll allow any business to build ChatGPT tech into their apps, websites, products and services. (As a refresher, ChatGPT is the free text-generating AI that can write human-like code, emails, essays and more.) Snap, Quizlet, Instacart and Shopify are among the early adopters.

    Becoming human: A startup, Figure, emerged from stealth this week promising a general-purpose bipedal humanoid robot. (Brian broke the news of the startup’s existence in September, in case you missed it.) The Figure robot’s alpha build, which the company completed in December, is currently being tested in its Sunnyvale offices. It’s focused on a wide range of manual labor tasks for now.

    Warrantless surveillance: Zack reports that the Secret Service and ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations unit repeatedly failed to obtain the correct legal paperwork when carrying out invasive cell phone surveillance. The findings were published last week by Homeland Security’s inspector general, tasked with oversight of the U.S. federal department and its many law enforcement units, which said that the agencies often used cell-site simulators without obtaining the appropriate search warrants.

    Salesforce turns it around: This week, Salesforce reported its fiscal fourth-quarter earnings, including revenue that topped expectations and guidance that came in ahead of street estimates. It was a much-needed win for the company, which was facing increasing pressure from activist investors, including Elliott Management.

    Hydrogen powered: Startup Universal Hydrogen took to the air this week with the largest hydrogen fuel cell ever to fly. The 15-minute test flight of a modified Dash-8 aircraft was short, but — as Mark writes — it showed that hydrogen could be viable as fuel for short-hop passenger aircraft. (Many technical and regulatory barriers stand in the way, however.)

    Pause your streak: Ivan reports that Snapchat will allow users to pause their Snap streaks — where you send a snap to your friend once every 24 hours — so they don’t have to worry about breaking them if they decide to not access the app for a while.

    New nonprofit for AI: A community-driven AI research group, EleutherAI, is forming a nonprofit foundation. Funded by donations and grants from backers, including AI startups Hugging Face and Stability AI, former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman, Lambda Labs and Canva, the nonprofit plans to research issues around large language models along the lines of OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

    Ceasing “Succession”: The official trailer for the final season of “Succession” premiered this week, and it appears that the series is ending with an epic mic drop. As Lauren writes, the HBO series was not only hugely successful, with its 13 Emmy wins and five Golden Globe awards, but it was also an interesting commentary on the media industry. Creator and showrunner Jesse Armstrong has admitted to taking inspiration from lots of places, including the Rupert Murdoch playbook.

    audio

    Like Elon Musk’s meddling with Twitter, the TechCrunch podcast machine never stops. This week on Equity, Mary Ann, Becca and Alex gathered to riff through the week’s biggest startup and venture news, including what’s happening in the land of NFTs, AI versus crypto in venture hype cycles and Amazon’s unlikely partnership. And on The TechCrunch Live Podcast, Matt Burns spoke with Sagi Eliyahu, CEO and co-founder of Tonkean, and Foundation Capital partner Joanne Chen, all about addressing blind spots in leadership and the best ways for founders to work with their board of directors.

    TechCrunch+

    TC+ subscribers get access to in-depth commentary, analysis and surveys — which you know if you’re already a subscriber. If you’re not, consider signing up. Here are a few highlights from this week:

    The “branding” issue for female VCs: The goal of being a VC is to generate returns for limited partners, and there’s an understanding that a diverse startup ecosystem will lead to better outcomes for all. But Natasha and Rebecca write about how balancing those two, for female VCs, has often manifested in different, often frustrating ways.

    Jumping on the AI bandwagon: Camilla Tenn, a PR consultant for Eleven International, writes on whether tech startups should shift their messaging toward AI-related topics. If AI-related coverage can get a new, unknown brand into its target publications today, she argues, it could help get the brand’s pitch deck in front of potential investors tomorrow.

    Turning open source into a business: Despite the premise of open source software distribution being “free,” multibillion-dollar companies like Red Hat, MongoDB, GitLab and Elastic have already broken ground building profitable businesses with open source at their core. But is it possible for a smaller open source project to find its way into this land of commercial opportunity? Victoria Melnikova investigates.

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    Kyle Wiggers

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  • This Week in Apps: Jack Dorsey-backed Bluesky, social apps’ teen protections, Twitter clients get help

    This Week in Apps: Jack Dorsey-backed Bluesky, social apps’ teen protections, Twitter clients get help

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    Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the weekly TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy.

    The app economy in 2023 hit a few snags, as consumer spending last year dropped for the first time by 2% to $167 billion, according to data.ai’s “State of Mobile” report. However, downloads are continuing to grow, up 11% year-over-year in 2022 to reach 255 billion. Consumers are also spending more time in mobile apps than ever before. On Android devices alone, hours spent in 2022 grew 9%, reaching 4.1 trillion.

    This Week in Apps offers a way to keep up with this fast-moving industry in one place with the latest from the world of apps, including news, updates, startup fundings, mergers and acquisitions, and much more.

    Do you want This Week in Apps in your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here: techcrunch.com/newsletters

    Social apps & “pseudo” teen protections

    Amid a lack of U.S. regulation over how social media companies should be protecting their teen and minor users, big tech companies are self-policing, hoping to ward off any coming laws that could impact their businesses. But the companies’ so-called teen safety features and protections now being rolled out are doing little to actually limit the negative impacts of teens’ social media use. At best, they present small roadblocks or annoyances that any teen user could easily bypass. At worst, as in the case of Snapchat’s new Streaks pausing feature, they actually force users to pay for the benefit of a less addictive app and better mental health.

    Let’s start with Instagram. The company this week was touting its expanded tests of an age verification feature that asks users to verify their age if they attempt to change their age to an adult (18 or older) in the app. The company offers one of three methods to confirm the user’s age: they can upload a government ID, take a video selfie, or get others to vouch for their age. The ID upload is obviously the most accurate method here, as video selfies can be hit or miss. Still, these first two options may feel a bit more invasive in terms of privacy. Plus, many in the under-18 crowd may not yet have a government ID if they haven’t gotten their driver’s license.

    That’s why Instagram offers the third option of “social vouching.”

    Image Credits: Instagram

    But the way it’s implemented puts the control largely in the teen’s hands. A parent or guardian does not have to be asked to verify the teen’s age. Instead, the teen is allowed to hand-select three users among their mutual followers who will vouch that the teen is the age they say they are. Those vouching for the teen will receive a request, which they have to respond to within 3 days. This request presents several options for them to choose from such as “under 13 years old,” “13-17 years old,” “18-20 years old,” “21 years or older” or “I’m not sure.”

    Instagram claims these users must also be at least 18 (assuming their age is real in the first place) and they must meet “other safeguards” but nothing about this option is documented in the site’s Help pages. 

    In practice, it would be exceedingly simple for a teen to simply ask their three friends to click the “18” option if they were trying to work around the system. As a result, this is not any sort of real preventative measure, it’s simply a roadblock a teen could easily avoid. (And let’s not forget that once the teen is “officially” 18, Instagram can use their data for ad targeting in more expansive and revenue-boosting ways!)

    Next, there’s TikTok, which made headlines this week for its new 60-minute limit for teens, if it’s even fair to call it that. While the under-13 users will be blocked from continuing to watch without a parent or guardian’s permission, older teens can choose for themselves.

    In the case of the former, the parent would need to enter a passcode to enable 30 more minutes of viewing for their under-13 child. However, all other teens under 18 will simply be prompted to enter a passcode to keep watching TikTok. Even the company acknowledges this isn’t really a limit on TikTok viewing, noting the passcode entry screen is there to require the teens “to make an active decision to extend that time.” It’s also just another roadblock and one designed to be easily bypassed.

    TikTok Family Pairing updates shown on 3 smartphone screens

    Image Credits: TikTok

    But while Instagram and TikTok are at least gesturing toward teen safety and better mental health, Snap has decided to outright charge for it.

    As any teen knows, one of the company’s most addictive features is the app’s “Snap Streaks,” which tracks how many days in a row two Snapchat users have sent Snaps back and forth to one another. Teens consider this measurement to be an indication of the strength of their friendship, but in reality, the Streaks have little point beyond encouraging repeat app opens and Snapchat addiction. The problem is so bad among teens that it’s been the focus of government intervention and proposed legislation at various times.

    This week, Snap said it would test — not launch, mind you, but test — a new feature that would allow users to pay for Streak Restores.

    This option would let them reignite a Streak in the event they accidentally let it drop. The option could potentially fend off customer service requests from teens who are so addicted to streaks that they email the company to beg for them back. In addition, Snapchat+ subscriptions will soon gain a feature that would allow users to freeze their streaks any time they needed a break, the company said.

    This is an incredible thumbing of its nose by Snap at all the hubbub around teen safety and mental health protections. Not only is it doing nothing to address the root cause of the problem — that it gamified friendships among a psychologically vulnerable demographic — it’s asking users to pay for the privilege of unwinding from their addiction. The fact that the launch is being widely celebrated is only further proof of how desperate Snap’s users have become to have any options to limit their in-app screen time. It’s like charging opioid addicts for their methadone. Truly mindblowing.

    Jack Dorsey-backed Bluesky hits the App Store and other Fediverse news

    Bluesky, the Twitter alternative backed by Twitter co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey, hit the App Store this week and more testers are gaining access. Though the app is still only available as an invite-only beta, its App Store arrival signals that a public launch could be nearing.

    We hadn’t heard much from Bluesky since October 2022, when the team behind the project shared an update on the Bluesky blog, detailing the status of the social protocol that powers its new Twitter-like app, also called Bluesky. Last year, Bluesky said it had received $13 million to ensure it had the freedom and independence to get started on R&D and noted Jack Dorsey was on its board. (Because apparently, Twitter’s own board is asleep at the wheel!)

    AT (originally called ADX, or “Authenticated Transfer Protocol,”) is Bluesky’s main effort while the Bluesky mobile app serves to showcase the protocol in action. Similar to the ActivityPub protocol that powers Mastodon, AT offers the means of creating a federated and decentralized social network.

    TechCrunch was able to go hands-on with the Bluesky app this week, which you can read more about here, but found it to be a stripped-down Twitter clone for the most part. Its uniqueness is more about the underlying technology rather than its user interface, it seems.

    Bluesky has faced some criticism, notably from Mastodon and other developers, who pointed out that ActivityPub — a recommended W3C standard — already powers a large and growing “Fediverse” of interconnected servers. Already, other companies have committed to or have at least discussed plans to adopt ActivityPub, including Flipboard, which announced its Fediverse plans this week, as well as Medium, Tumblr and possibly Flickr.

    If there is any Fediverse momentum, it’s from ActivityPub for the time being.

    We also checked in with Tumblr to find out where the company was with its own Fediverse ambitions since we hadn’t heard much about it plans lately. Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg told us the company is actually testing all the protocols, including ActivityPub, Bluesky and Nostr.

    “Tumblr is quite large, and we don’t want to break anything in the Fediverse by turning things on willy-nilly, so we’re digging into the protocols,” he said. There’s no ETA yet on when the company might make a decision, however.

    Tweetbot & Twitterific ask customers to decline refunds in rare App Store exception

    Twitter last month officially banned third-party clients, putting a sudden end to popular apps, including Tweetbot, Twitterrific, and others. This week, in an unusual turn of events, two developers have updated their shuttered apps with new functionality: They’re asking their subscribers to decline to receive a refund by clicking a new “I don’t need a refund” button in their nonfunctional apps. And, in the case of Tapbots’ Tweetbot app, users can opt to transfer their subscription to the company’s newest app — its Mastodon client Ivory — instead. The options allow subscribers who are sympathetic to these indie developers’ plight to offer support by not asking for their money back.

    It’s an unprecedented situation, to say the least, and one most subscription-based iOS apps wouldn’t ever have to face. In most other scenarios, a company’s decision to put an end to API access, as Twitter did, would have been telegraphed well in advance. This would allow the businesses dependent on the API functionality to communicate with their customers about the change and prepare to take the next steps. The third-party Twitter clients, however, had no warning. Their businesses were ruined overnight though they had done no wrong. What’s more, they would have to pay back users’ pro-rated subscriptions out of pocket.

    That situation seems to have paved the way for an equally unusual exception to App Store rules, which typically wouldn’t allow developers to solicit customers to decline refunds for non-functional apps. Subscribers can choose to click a button in the app to allow the developers to keep their money — which, we’d advise, everyone to go do now.

    Google

    Image Credits: Google

    • Google announced new Android features at Mobile World Congress this week, alongside updates for Chromebook and Wear OS. Among the changes, Google said Fast Pair will soon work with Chromebook to connect headphones already configured with an Android device; expanded noise cancellation for Google Meet on more Android devices; a Google Keep widget for Home screens; the ability to use a stylus or touch the screen to annotate PDFs in the Google Drive app for Android; and a way to increase the text size in Chrome up to 300% while preserving the layout. Wear OS will receive two new sound and display modes to improve watch accessibility.
    • Google’s Pixel Watch gained a fall-detection feature that uses motion sensors and on-device machine learning to identify if a user has taken a hard fall. The watch can then connect the user with help, if need be. Apple has offered a similar feature since 2018’s launch of the Apple Watch Series 4.
    • Google announced upcoming policy changes aimed at improving the quality of apps for Wear OS and how they appear in the Google Play Store. The changes speak to how the app should be designed and how features should appear, among other things. The requirements go into effect on August 31. Google also noted all Wear OS apps must target Android 11 (API level 30) by August 31 as well in order to remain discoverable by users with newer Android OS versions.
    • Recommended Reading: TechCrunch’s Brian Heater sat down with Android exec Sameer Samat to talk ecosystems, regulation and competition in a wide-ranging interview. You can dig in here.

    Apple

    • Apple rolled out iOS 16.4 beta 2 for developers alongside the second developer betas for iPadOS 16.4, tvOS 16.4 and watchOS 9.4. The betas include more hints about Apple Music Classical, the rumored streaming service in development. The software also confirms the coming launch of Apple Pay in South Korea, which had already been given the green light. 
    • The App Store Connect tool was updated to now allow developers to use peer group benchmarks for metrics about their apps. This allows developers to compare their app’s performance with others like them without having to subscribe to a third-party measurement firm’s data.

    AI

    • Snap introduced My AI, a new in-app chatbot that uses the latest version of OpenAI’s GPT technology. The feature, which is only offered to Snapchat’s paid subscribers (Snapchat+), can do things like suggest birthday gift ideas, help with trip planning, suggest recipes, and other less serious tasks. Users can also personalize the AI by giving it a name and customizing the wallpaper for their chat.
    Snapchat's new AI chatbot

    Image Credits: Snapchat

    • Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg also announced the company will build a new top-level product group focused on integrating generative AI into its services and developing “AI personas that can help people in a variety of ways.” In the near term, the company said it will begin testing text-based AI tools in WhatsApp and Messenger, likely similar to ChatGPT. It also said it will experiment with AI-aided filters and ad formats on Instagram as well as video and multi-modal experiences.
    • Windows 11 added the new Bing to its taskbar after previously bringing it to its Edge desktop browser followed by the Edge, Bing and Skype mobile apps.
    • Brave Search launched a new “Summarizer” feature, which is powered by different large langue models (LLMs), but not OpenAI’s GPT. the feature will become available within desktop and mobile web browsers but was not yet natively integrated into Brave’s native mobile browser app.
    • TikTok’s newest viral beauty filter, “Bold Glamour,” appears to be AI, notes The Verge. But TikTok wouldn’t confirm. Unlike other filters, Bold Glamour completely alters’ users’ appearances — but in a way that makes the effect look less cartoonish and more subtle. Experts believe the filter is likely using ML, specifically Generative Adversarial Networks, or GANs. The impressive part is that TikTok has been able to bring this technique to mobile with minimal glitches, the report says.

    Social

    • Apptopia crunched the numbers on social apps’ in-app purchases. Companies are now looking to direct user payments, including subscriptions and other in-app purchases, as Apple’s ATT changes have cut into their ad revenues. Among the highlights, the report found that TikTok has earned $205 million more than Facebook, Twitter, Snap, and Instagram combined on in-app purchases in 2023 so far. The full group has also grown their collective quarterly IAP revenue 91% since the launch of ATT. Snapchat+ is also outperforming Facebook on daily IAP revenue by 20% on average.
    • VSCO says it’s expanding its social features in Spaces, its collaborative galleries where photographers can upload images around a theme and chat. In mid-March, VSCO will make it possible for users to share text-based posts in Spaces and will allow users to message each other, regardless of follow status. It will also introduce new 9×16 auto-generated images, optimized for Instagram Stories and the like, among other improvements.
    VSCO new features

    Image Credits: VSCO

    • Reddit added new features including the ability to find comments within a post from the search bar, which will arrive on desktop, iOS and Android. It also noted other improvements, like its subreddit search algorithm that’s been enhanced to surface more relevant subreddits for most searches, updates to autocomplete, and easier ways to browse video results with up and down swipes in video search results.
    • Twitter’s paid subscription Twitter Blue is now available to more than 20 new countries in Europe, including Netherlands, Poland, Ireland, Belgium, Sweden, Romania, Czech Republic, Finland, Denmark, Greece, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Slovakia, Latvia, Slovenia, Estonia, Croatia, Luxembourg, Malta and Cyprus. The expansion makes the $8/mo plan available in a total of now 35 countries, including the U.S.

    Image Credits: Instagram

    • Instagram began testing its age verification tools in more countries, including Canada and Mexico. The test initially launched in the U.S., then later rolled out in Brazil and Japan in October. If a user attempted to change their age to 18 or up, the app would require them to verify using one of three methods: uploading an ID, recording a video selfie or asking mutual friends to verify their age.
    • Pinterest is alpha testing a new video advertising product that allows brands to reach consumers from a more prominent position within the company’s mobile app. With the “Premiere Spotlight” ad advertisers will gain access to a premium placement for 24 hours on the Pinterest app’s search page, where they are able to feature an add with Pinterest’s max width video format.
    • TikTok parent company ByteDance launched Lemon8 in the U.S. and U.K., an app that’s a lot like the Chinese social shopping app Xiaoghongshu (Little Red Book). Like TikTok, the app has a Following and For You feed, but is described more as a lifestyle community. The company has been paying creators in the U.K. to post on the app.
    • Meta will now allow for longer Facebook Reels of up to 90 seconds, up from 60 seconds previously. It is also added more creative tools, including a new templates feature that lets users create Reels with trending templates, similar to ByteDance’s CapCut.

    Streaming & Entertainment

    Image Credits: TikTok

    • Ahead of TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew’s testimony before Congress planned for March, the company introduced more well-being features for teens, including screen time controls, new default settings and expanded Family Pairing controls. Notably, every account belonging to a user under the age of 18 will automatically be set to a 60-minute daily screen time limit, and teens will have to enter a code to continue scrolling. It’s also working on Family Pairing controls that would let parents filter videos by words and hashtags as well as customizable daily screen time controls.
    • A TikTok test in Australia limited the amount of licensed music available to some users on the platform, in an experiment to determine the different ways people interact with the app, Billboard reported. The results could ultimately inform TikTok’s licensing strategy, but users issued numerous complaints over the accompanying “sound removed” messages during the tests.
    • Spotify is killing its “heart” button for liking songs in favor of the plus button. The change will consolidate likes and adding content to playlists into a single button as one tap will like the track and a second tap will add the track to playlists.

    Image Credits: Spotify

    • Pinterest’s collage maker app Shuffles expanded to nine more countries, including Germany, France, Austria, Switzerland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and the Netherlands. The app lets users pull and edit images from Pinterest or their camera roll to make collages they can share with others in-app or post to social media.
    • TikTok launched Sounds for Business, a collection of sounds that are designed as templates for easy use by marketers. The collection includes a mix of music, voice-over and other sound cues to help businesses create engaging content.
    • Twitter outages have gotten worse as further layoffs of senior staff have left the company floundering. Most recently, a global outage this week lasted for over two hours, with the timeline failing to load on mobile and web. But users are now often experiencing lags and errors outside of full outages, as well.
    • Amazon-owned Audible is launching its first-ever singing competition series, “Breakthrough,” as an exclusive podcast featuring artists Sara Bareilles and Kelly Rowland as judges. The series debuts on June 1.
    • Netflix will live stream its first broadcast with Chris Rock’s latest standup, “Chris Rock: Selective Outrage.” The airing will take place on Saturday, March 4, at 10 PM Eastern.
    • Movies Anywhere, a previously Disney-backed app that lets users access their digitally owned movie collection from across services, is shutting down two features, “Screen Pass” and “Watch Together.” The former allowed users to share their movies with friends while the latter was for co-viewing.

    Gaming

    Pokemon GO Scarlet and Violet

    Image Credits: The Pokémon Company

    • During this week’s Pokémon Presents livestream, the company announced Pokémon Sleep will become available on iOS and Android this summer, offering users a way to track their sleep habits and analyze them. It also announced integrations between its Pokémon Scarlet & Violet games and the Niantic-produced mobile game Pokémon GO.

    Dating

    • Tinder kicked off a new brand campaign to appeal to Gen Z daters and their inclusive attitudes. It’s also pushing back again at Tinder’s hookup perception, noting that long-term relationships are members’ No. 1 goals — a change from an earlier campaign several years back that had embraced Tinder’s “casual” nature.

    Messaging

    • Microsoft launched Phone Link for iOS which lets iPhone users take calls and respond to iMessage texts from their PC.
    • Telegram updated its Mac App Store app with a new Power Saving Mode that aims to help prevent the app from draining the computer’s battery. The feature will also automatically turn itself on based on the current battery charge.

    Travel & Transportation

    Cariad-VW Group-app store

    Image Credits: Cariad/VW Group

    • The VW Group announced a new in-car app store will be launched by its software subsidiary Cariad. Starting with select Audi vehicles, the app store will bring dozens of apps to vehicles, including Spotify, Amazon Music, TikTok and gaming hubs Vector Unit and FRVR to cars starting this summer. It will later expand across Audi’s portfolio then to Porsche and Volkswagen.
    • Waze killed off its iOS widget in its latest update due to low usage. The widget had been designed for the left-most homescreen and allowed users to jump into navigation. It’s unknown if Waze will bring back the widget as a Lock Screen option or full Home Screen widget instead.
    • Apple Maps’ 3D “Look Around” feature has arrived in Finland, Norway and Sweden.
    • Uber updated its app with updates for its courier feature Shop and Pay to address concerns with out of stock items, digital payments and order clarity before accepting a tip.

    Fintech

    • Indian fintech CRED announced plans to launch a buy now and pay later service and a tap-to-pay feature that will first roll out to NFC-enabled smartphones.
    • Public made its Treasury Accounts available to all members. It said members can now take advantage of the current 5.1% yield of Treasury bills, which is higher than savings accounts,   while also receiving the “flexibility and ease of access to cash” of a typical bank account.
    • All-in-one fintech app Revolut reported its first full year of profit, noting it tripled its revenue between 2020 and 2021 and reached 16+ million users by the end of 2021.
    • The crypto-focused Robinhood Wallet app was officially launched to iOS users globally. The app, which now supports both the Polygon and Ethereum networks, had a waitlist of over 1 million ahead of its launch.
    • Wealthfront announced an expansion into stocks and fractional shares, allowing investors to now buy individual stocks and discover new investment opportunities.
    • Gen Z neobank Step launched stock investing allowing users to now invest as well as earn, save, spend and build credit before they turn 18. The company also announced a milestone of 4 million accounts. 
    European Commissioner for Europe fit for the Digital Age, Margrethe Vestager, gestures as she speaks during an online news conference on Apple antitrust case at the EU headquarters in Brussels, on April 30, 2021

    European Commissioner for Europe fit for the Digital Age, Margrethe Vestager, gestures as she speaks during an online news conference on Apple antitrust case at the EU headquarters in Brussels, on April 30, 2021. Image Credits: GETTY IMAGES / FRANCISCO SECO/POOL/AFP

    • The EU confirmed changes to its antitrust case against Apple, dropping objections over in-app purchases on streaming music providers, and instead focusing on Apple’s policies that prevent apps from telling their users about other subscription options. This could still be good news for Spotify if a final ruling is issued, as it could force Apple to adjust its guidelines in addition to a fine. Spotify, however, is not happy with how long it’s taken to reach a decision on the matter.
    • The Canadian government has followed the U.S.’s lead with an announcement that it plans to ban TikTok from federal mobile devices on February 28 over security concerns.
    • The U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee voted 24 to 16 to give President Joe Biden the power to ban TikTok and other apps. Democrats opposed the bill, which was said to be “dangerously overbroad.” The ACLU said it a TikTok ban would violate citizens’ free speech. The bill will have an uphill battle in the Senate, where Democrats still have a narrow majority. The bill follows moves by federal government and several state governments to ban TikTok from government devices.
    US Capitol building

    Capitol building. Image Credits: Bryce Durbin/TechCrunch

    • U.S. civil liberties and digital rights groups, including the ACLU, Access Now, and Fight for the Future, are speaking out against a potential TikTok ban saying that it would violate people’s First Amendment rights.
    • An open letter penned by Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) called on new Twitter owner Elon Musk to bring the accessibility team back to the company, noting disabled users have “reported increased difficulty and frustration using Twitter” since the layoffs.
    • BetterHelp owner Teladoc Health settled with the FTC for $7.8 million over data mishandling occurring from 2017-2020. The company also agreed to stop sharing data with Meta, Snap, and Pinterest for advertising purposes.
    • In a new filing late last week, the U.S. Department of Justice alleged that Google “routinely destroyed” an entire category of written communications in its antitrust investigation against the company. The communications — chat messages between Google employees — were deleted over the course of several years, as Google allowed employees to set messages to auto-delete. A similar issue had been brought up by Epic Games in its ongoing trial involving the Fortnite maker accusing Google of anticompetitive conduct with its Play Store.
    • CollX, a mobile app for trading card collectors, raised $5.5 million in a seed round led by Brand Foundry Ventures. Launched in January 2022, the app claims to have 600,000+ users who have scanned more than 100 million cards.
    • Serena Williams’ Serena Ventures backed community finance company SoLo Funds, which now has 1 million+ registered users and over 1.3 million downloads, the company claims.
    • Recipe app and website SideChef raised another $6 million in Series B funding, bringing its total raise to date to more than $16 million. Investors include LG, Ideate Ventures, AB Electrolux, Peacock Capital Group, and others. The app is free to download with a $4.99/mo premium subscription available and offers over 20K recipes.
    • Chef-prepared meals marketplace Shef, available on web and mobile, raised $73.5 million in Series B funding back in June 2022 (newly announced), including $7 million in debt, led by CRV with participation from a16z and Amex Ventures. The company helps home cooks become small business owners and is now available nationwide.
    • Chinese fast fashion giant Shein had talked with Amazon and Google over a potential investment when negotiating for cloud contracts, but neither firm was interested.

    Mammoth

    Mammoth app on three smartphone screens

    Image Credits: Mammoth

    A new Mastodon app called Mammoth gained 10,000 downloads in the first few days of its availability on the App Store. The app was built by a team that includes the developer of the Aviary app for Twitter, which was among those unceremoniously killed by Twitter earlier this year after new owner Elon Musk decided the wider app ecosystem no longer had a need for third-party Twitter clients. The app offers a range of features for using Mastodon from the expected — like being able to browse timelines and post and turn on a dark mode — to the less common, like picture-in-picture for pinning posts to your screen, tools for viewing media in AR, tools for sentiment analysis and more. But key to the experience is how Mammoth intends to make it easier for newcomers to join the Fediverse with simplified onboarding and a suggested users list.

    The app is also backed by Mozilla, which led the company’s pre-seed round. The company behind Mammoth had acquired the app from developer Shihab Mehboob (Aviary 2, Vinyls) and is now led by Bart Decrem, previously of Mozilla, Disney, and other entrepreneurial projects, like KyrptoSign and years back, the Flock browser. Other investors include Long Journey Ventures and Salesforce’s Marc Benioff.

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    Sarah Perez

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  • TikTok to set one-hour daily screen time limit by default for users under 18 | CNN Business

    TikTok to set one-hour daily screen time limit by default for users under 18 | CNN Business

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    Editor’s Note: Are you ready to break up with your phone? The Chasing Life podcast with Dr. Sanjay Gupta dives into the science behind how technology is impacting our brains. Listen now.



    CNN
     — 

    TikTok announced Wednesday that every user under 18 will soon have their accounts default to a one-hour daily screen time limit, in one of the most aggressive moves yet by a social media company to prevent teens from endlessly scrolling.

    Teenage TikTok users will be able to turn off this new default setting, which will roll out in the coming weeks. But the feature change could bolster the digital well-being of younger users by requiring them to opt out of stricter screen time limits rather than clearing the higher bar of opting in to them.

    If the 60-minute limit is reached, users will be prompted to enter a passcode — requiring them to make an active decision to extend their time spent swiping through videos on the app.

    The move comes after TikTok and other social media platforms have faced years of scrutiny over their impact on young users, including their potential to lead teens down harmful rabbit holes. TikTok is also facing mounting pressure from Washington over security concerns from its ties to China through parent company Bytedance, including renewed discussion of a possible US ban of the short-form video app.

    Cormac Keenan, TikTok’s head of trust and safety, said the company consulted researchers and experts from the Digital Wellness Lab at Boston Children’s Hospital when deciding the time limits to set for teen users.

    “While there’s no collectively-endorsed position on how much screen time is ‘too much’, or even the impact of screen time more broadly, we recognize that teens typically require extra support as they start to explore the online world independently,” Keenan wrote in a blog post.

    Keenan added that if a teen decides to turn off this new default limit and spends more than 100 minutes on TikTok a day, they will be prompted to set a daily screen time limit for themselves. “In our first month of testing, this approach increased the use of our screen time management tools by 234%,” Keenan wrote.

    Keenan also announced some updates to the app’s Family Pairing feature, which allows a parent or caregiver to link their TikTok account to their teen’s and set controls. Parents will be able to filter videos with words or hashtags they don’t want to appear in their teen’s feed, set a custom daily screen time limit for their teen, and set a custom schedule to mute TikTok notifications sent to their teen.

    Other platforms including Instagram and Snapchat have similarly rolled out additional parental controls and features that encourage teens to take a break and set boundaries.

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  • Are you being watched in your next vacation rental?

    Are you being watched in your next vacation rental?

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    As creepy and illegal as it sounds, there is a possibility that the next time you book a short-term vacation rental, the owner will have cameras set up. 

    CLICK TO GET KURT’S CYBERGUY NEWSLETTER WITH QUICK TIPS, TECH REVIEWS, SECURITY ALERTS AND EASY HOW-TO’S TO MAKE YOU SMARTER 

    Sometimes they’re for security purposes outside, although some creeps do use hidden cameras. 

    Are cameras in a vacation rental legal? 

    Vacation rental companies like Airbnb and Vrbo do have rules in place when it comes to a host having cameras. 

    A host is allowed to have cameras in their rental space as long as they are in public areas like the front or backyard. 

    However, cameras are strictly forbidden in private areas of the space, such as a bedroom or bathroom. And if a host has cameras in their rental space, they must clearly state it in the guidelines so that a potential renter will be aware before booking.

    Hidden Camera (Cyberguy.com)

    What steps should I take before booking my rental? 

    The first thing you should do is read the fine print of every rental you are considering booking. Most rentals will have plenty of information listed, such as amenities the rental offers and the house rules. If a host has cameras, they should clearly state it in the guidelines. 

    Booking a rental on the laptop

    Booking a rental on the laptop (Cyberguy.com)

    AIRLINE PASSENGER SAYS HE WANTED TO SLAP MAN WHO REFUSED TO SWITCH SEATS SO HE COULD SIT BY HIS WIFE

    If you do not see anything in the guidelines about cameras, you can also reach out to the host directly and ask them if you can expect any video or audio recording devices while staying at their property before you book it. 

    If they are not straightforward with their answer or you feel any sort of aggression from them, feel free to move on to another rental. 

    What do I do once I book my rental? 

    Once you have a rental booked and you go to the property, you can always check in all of the usual and unusual places to make sure there aren’t any hidden recording devices that you can see. 

    Be sure to check in private rooms like the bedroom and bathroom.  And look closely at devices like a fire detector that might be placed facing a bed. 

    Person holds a small camera

    Person holds a small camera (Cyberguy.com)

    STUDENTS STRANDED AFTER HOTEL ACCIDENTALLY SHREDS 42 PASSPORTS: REPORT

    Be a detective when you check-in 

    If you want to be sure there aren’t any devices you don’t know about, you can invest in a radio frequency (RF) detector. Some of the better-quality ones are a little more expensive. 

    However, you want to make sure you’ll get one that will give you accurate results. Here’s one we found on Amazon, called the Advanced GQ EMF-390, which at the time of publishing, cost $119.90 and had over 2,200 global reviews with 73% giving it 5 stars. 

    RF Detector

    RF Detector (Cyberguy.com)

    Get Advanced GQ EMF-390 

    Click here for more of my spyware detection equipment picks 

    Stay private while on vacation 

    My last tip is to use a VPN. I recommend using one on all your devices and especially while traveling and staying in a short-term vacation rental so that your information is encrypted and secure even if the WiFi network you’re on isn’t.  

    For best VPN software, see my expert review of the best VPNs for browsing the web privately on your Windows, Mac, Android & iOS devices by searching ‘Best VPN’ at CyberGuy.com by clicking the magnifying glass icon at the top of my website.   

    Best VPN

    CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

    Have you experienced issues with hidden cameras in your vacation rentals? Let us know your experience. 

    For more of my tips, subscribe to my free CyberGuy Report Newsletter by clicking the “Free newsletter” link at the top of my website. 

    Copyright 2023 CyberGuy.com.  All rights reserved.  CyberGuy.com articles and content may contain affiliate links that earn a commission when purchases are made. 

    Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson is an award-winning tech journalist who has a deep love of technology, gear and gadgets that make life better with his contributions for Fox News & FOX Business beginning mornings on “FOX & Friends.” Got a tech question? Get Kurt’s CyberGuy Newsletter, share your voice, a story idea or comment at CyberGuy.com.

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  • The good news for long-term software growth

    The good news for long-term software growth

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    There’s gold in all those nontech industries!

    While the venture market continues to digest a new reality, the TechCrunch+ crew has been paying very close attention to software earnings. Why are we tracking earning results for Q4 2022 in March 2023? Because lots of software companies have fiscal calendars that end on January 31 of each year. That means they report their results a bit later than other companies, leading to some lag when it comes to sorting out how many of the most important public comps for startups are performing.

    Hello, friends, Alex here. Anna is out this weekend, but we expect her return in short order. A big thank-you to her for letting me write the Exchange newsletter for you today. It’s great to be back!

    As always, we’re looking at public-market data for tea leaves that we can relate back to the comparatively opaque private-market companies that we cover here at TechCrunch.

    Salesforce, beleaguered by external criticism concerning its cost structure and investor pressure regarding its growth rate, bested expectations in its trailing results and projected greater profitability. Okta was another standout reporter from the week, beating expectations and putting up guidance that investors liked.

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    Alex Wilhelm

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  • How e-bikes are exploding and killing people

    How e-bikes are exploding and killing people

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    Over the last few years, e-bikes have killed at least 11 people and injured at least 251 in New York City alone, all from fires that sparked from malfunctioning lithium-ion battery-powered devices. 

    CLICK TO GET KURT’S CYBERGUY NEWSLETTER WITH QUICK TIPS, TECH REVIEWS, SECURITY ALERTS AND EASY HOW-TO’S TO MAKE YOU SMARTER 

    In 2022, these bikes were the cause of the fourth most fire deaths, according to the FDNY.  And in 2023, there have already been 15 lithium-ion battery-related fires, with one person dead and up to 25 injured. 

    Why are these fires happening? 

    New York City has had more of these fires than anywhere else in the country because it is so densely populated, and many delivery workers use electric bikes as an easy way to get around. 

    However, these bikes often need to be charged at home overnight, and many of them have, unfortunately, been designed with cheap and poorly-made batteries that end up exploding and causing these deadly fires. 

    IN NEW YORK CITY, E-BIKE BATTERIES BLAMED FOR 22 FIRES, 2 DEATHS SINCE JANUARY

    Over the last few years, e-bikes have killed at least 11 people and injured at least 251 in New York City.  (FDNY)

    The thing about lithium-ion batteries is that the fires they cause differ from normal fires, which is why they have killed so many. 

    The flames spread much faster and will catch any combustible item within seconds. The batteries cannot be extinguished with water or foam because it can cause a reaction and increase the fire. 

    Firefighters must use extinguishers explicitly designed for lithium battery fires which contain dry powder, which absorbs the heat and smothers the fire. Compounding the problem with these fires is that they release toxic gases, which pose an extra level of danger. 

    MORE: AI RACE REPLACING HUMAN DRIVERS 

    What is being done to prevent this? 

    In New York, Councilman Robert Holden has introduced legislation that would ban electric scooters and electric bikes until further safeguards are in place. However, this is just one form of legislation. 

    Many politicians in New York are working on proposals that would help decrease the fires without having to completely take the bikes away from delivery workers, such as a bill that would legally make people have to charge their batteries outside their homes. 

    Also, the New York City fire department has banned e-mobility devices at its headquarters and trained firefighters to respond to lithium-ion battery fires. It is also educating fire departments around the country about the risk. 

    In late November, the FDNY required landlords in the city to distribute a safety bulletin in residential buildings warning tenants about the potential dangers of charging electric bikes. 

    Many politicians in New York are working on proposals that would help decrease the fires without having to completely take the bikes away from delivery workers.

    Many politicians in New York are working on proposals that would help decrease the fires without having to completely take the bikes away from delivery workers. (FDNY)

    WHAT’S REALLY KILLING YOUR LAPTOP BATTERY?

    In the meantime, it’s important to note that the vast majority of E-bikes on the market are safe and reliable when used as intended and maintained properly. 

    The biggest point to remember is to avoid buying batteries that have been damaged or modified as unsafe, as well as those that have not been certified with all the proper safety precautions. 

    E-bike owners should also avoid using a charger that was not designed for the battery or buying batteries from secondhand stores. 

    And remember to avoid charging the battery in a place where it might block a fire escape, like a front door or a window. 

    How do you feel about e-bikes? Should they be banned altogether? Tell us your thoughts. 

    It's important to note that the vast majority of E-bikes on the market are safe and reliable when used as intended and maintained properly. 

    It’s important to note that the vast majority of E-bikes on the market are safe and reliable when used as intended and maintained properly.  (CyberGuy.com)

    CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

    For more of my tips, subscribe to my free CyberGuy Report Newsletter by clicking the “Free newsletter” link at the top of my website. 

    Copyright 2023 CyberGuy.com.  All rights reserved.  CyberGuy.com articles and content may contain affiliate links that earn a commission when purchases are made. 

    Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson is an award-winning tech journalist who has a deep love of technology, gear and gadgets that make life better with his contributions for Fox News & FOX Business beginning mornings on “FOX & Friends.” Got a tech question? Get Kurt’s CyberGuy Newsletter, share your voice, a story idea or comment at CyberGuy.com.

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  • First evidence for horseback riding dates back 5,000 years

    First evidence for horseback riding dates back 5,000 years

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    WASHINGTON — Archaeologists have found the earliest direct evidence for horseback riding – an innovation that would transform history – in 5,000 year old human skeletons in central Europe.

    “When you get on a horse and ride it fast, it’s a thrill – I’m sure ancient humans felt the same way,” said David Anthony, a co-author of the study and Hartwick College archaeologist. “Horseback riding was the fastest a human could go before the railroads.”

    Researchers analyzed more than 200 Bronze Age skeletal remains in museum collections in Bulgaria, Poland, Romania, Hungary and the Czech Republic to look for signs of what co-author and University of Helsinki anthropologist Martin Trautmann calls “horse rider syndrome” – six tell-tale markers that indicate a person was likely riding an animal, including characteristic wear marks on the hip sockets, thigh bone and pelvis.

    “You can read bones like biographies,” said Trautmann, who has previously studied similar wear patterns in skeletons from later periods when horseback riding is well-established in the historical record.

    The researchers focused on human skeletons — which are more readily preserved than horse bones in burial sites and museums – and identified five likely riders who lived around 4,500 to 5,000 years ago and belonged to a Bronze Age people called the Yamnaya.

    “There is earlier evidence for harnessing and milking of horses, but this is the earliest direct evidence so far for horseback riding,” said University of Exeter archaeologist Alan Outram, who was not involved in the research, but praised the approach.

    The study was published Friday in the journal Science Advances.

    Domesticating wild horses on the plains of Eurasia was a process, not a single event, the researchers say.

    Archaeologists have previously found evidence of people consuming horse milk in dental remains and indications of horses controlled by harnesses and bits dating back more than 5,000 years, but that does not necessarily indicate the horses were ridden.

    The Yamnaya culture, known for its characteristic burial mounds, originated in what’s now part of Ukraine and western Russia, an area called the Pontic Caspian steppe. The horses they kept were distinct from modern horses – likely more easily startled and less tolerant of humans – although they may have been the immediate genetic ancestors of modern horses, which emerged a few centuries later, the researchers say.

    The Yamnaya are most significant because of their dramatic expansion across Eurasia in only a few generations — moving westward to Hungary and eastward to Mongolia, said University of Helsinki archaeologist and co-author Volker Heyd.

    “The spread of Indo European languages is linked to their movement, and they reshaped the genetic make-up of Europe,” he said.

    Their relationship with horses may have partly enabled this stunning movement, the researchers suggest. “Horses expand the concept of distance – you begin to think about places previously out of reach as being reachable,” said co-author Anthony, the Hartwick College archaeologist.

    That does not mean the Yamnaya people were warriors on horseback, as the horses they rode were likely too skittish for stressful battlefield situations, he said. But horses may have allowed the Yamnaya to more effectively send communications, build alliances and manage the herds of cattle that were central to their economy.

    Because only a small percentage of the skeletons studied clearly showed all six markers of riding horseback, “it seems that a minority of the people at that time were riders – that does not suggest that a whole society was built on horseback riding,” said molecular archaeologist Ludovic Orlando, who is based at the Centre for Anthropobiology and Genomics of Toulouse in France and was not involved in the research.

    Still, he praised the work for helping to better pinpoint the potential genesis of horseback riding.

    “This is about the origins of something that impacted human history like only a few other things have,” said Orlando.

    ___

    Follow Christina Larson on Twitter at @larsonchristina.

    ___

    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • Apple supplier Foxconn is on the hunt for semiconductor and EV deals in India | CNN Business

    Apple supplier Foxconn is on the hunt for semiconductor and EV deals in India | CNN Business

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    Hong Kong
    CNN
     — 

    Apple supplier Foxconn says it is seeking Indian partners to cooperate in areas such as chips and electric vehicles, as its chief executive wrapped up a visit to the country.

    Taiwan’s Foxconn has been looking to expand its operations in the South Asian giant after suffering severe supply disruptions in China last year. The firm bounced back from the disruptions early this year.

    “India is a country with a large population,” Young Liu, the company’s chairman and CEO, said in a Saturday statement. “My trip this week supported Foxconn’s efforts to deepen partnerships … and seek cooperation in new areas such as semiconductor development and electric vehicles.”

    “Foxconn will continue to communicate with local governments to seek the most beneficial development opportunities for the company and all stakeholders,” he added.

    The company, best known for making Apple

    (AAPL)    ’s iPhones, is one of the world’s biggest contract makers of electronics. It’s now expanding into other areas including electric vehicles.

    Liu did not specify any investment spending in India during his trip, which included a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

    The company already has factories in the states of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.

    On Friday, the investment promotion office of the southern Indian state of Karnataka said Foxconn had announced a major deal there and that 300 acres of land had been allocated for a facility. The investment will generate 100,000 jobs over 10 years in the state, it said.

    According to a report from Bloomberg citing unnamed sources, the company plans to invest about $700 million on a new plant in Bengaluru, the capital of Karnataka, to make iPhone parts.

    India has emerged as an attractive potential alternative to China for the likes of Apple. One of India’s top ministers, Piyush Goyal, said in January that Apple wants to ramp up its production in the South Asian country to a quarter of its overall total from between 5% and 7% now.

    For years, Apple had relied on a vast manufacturing network in China to mass produce iPhones, iPads and other popular products. But its dependence on the country was tested last year by Beijing’s strict zero-Covid strategy, which was rapidly dismantled last December.

    Apple devices are currently manufactured in India by Foxconn, Wistron and Pegatron, which are all Taiwanese companies.

    – CNN’s Diksha Madhok contributed reporting

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  • SpaceX capsule carrying 4 astronauts docks at International Space Station

    SpaceX capsule carrying 4 astronauts docks at International Space Station

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    SpaceX capsule carrying 4 astronauts docks at International Space Station – CBS News


    Watch CBS News



    A SpaceX Dragon capsule carrying two NASA astronauts, a Russian cosmonaut and a United Arab Emirates astronaut successfully docked on the International Space Station Friday.

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  • How to check that you’re not accidentally sharing your location

    How to check that you’re not accidentally sharing your location

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    Our phones have a knack of sharing more about our lives even after we think we’ve asked it not to — especially tracking your exact location.  There is a lot to consider when sharing your location, and there is still a lot to think about even when you want this feature turned off. 

    It is common for people to think that they have switched off and blocked location sharing only to find out that they are still being tracked somehow. That’s why we’re going over all the ways for you to be sure you aren’t accidentally sharing information that you do not want to. 

    However, before you turn off location sharing to everything on your devices, you need to know the consequences of doing so.  That’s because several applications use your location services, like location-based apps, which include your map, navigation, photo, weather and fitness apps. 

    Also, your browser uses your location to provide relevant search results. In addition, emergency services could be affected if you turn off location sharing. In fact, your location may not be automatically shared with emergency services, which could delay response times or make it difficult for emergency personnel to find you. 

    MICROSOFT IMPOSES LIMITS ON BING CHATBOT AFTER MULTIPLE INCIDENTS OF INAPPROPRIATE BEHAVIOR

    How is my location being tracked? 

    Even if you think you have turned your location-sharing settings off, there is still a chance you are being tracked. 

    This is because you are not only tracked by your devices themselves. It is also possible for you to be tracked by the apps you use and the websites you visit. 

    You can also still be tracked if you have turned off location sharing on your smartphone yet forgot to disable it on your iPad. You need to factor in all the different ways that your devices have of keeping tabs on where you are. 

    Where do I start? 

    One way you can start is if you have a Google account. This account might have a history of the devices that are tracking you. 

    To check your location history via your Google account, follow these steps on your Mac or PC.  

    CLICK TO GET KURT’S CYBERGUY NEWSLETTER WITH QUICK TIPS, TECH REVIEWS, SECURITY ALERTS AND EASY HOW-TO’S. IT’S FREE. 

    Here’s how to check your location history using your Google account. (CyberGuy.com)

    Google Account 

    • How to check your location history in your Google account on Mac or PC
    • Log in to your Google account
    • Click on the profile picture icon in the top right-hand corner
    • Click Manage Your Google Account
    • Click Data & privacy in the menu bar on the left
    • Scroll down and select Location History

    Any devices tracking you will be listed. If you do not want this, select Turn off 

    Note: Your location might still be logged by your mobile devices by the Find My Device service that helps you recover lost hardware and by Google Maps when you’re navigating or searching around the area you’re in. 

    HOW TO STOP GOOGLE FROM ITS CREEPY WAY OF USING YOU FOR FACIAL RECOGNITION

    How to turn off location data in Google Maps and other apps and websites on Mac or PC 

    You can still navigate to other places where your location gets logged and shared on Google as well. To turn off location data saved by Google Maps and other apps and websites:  

    • Log in to your Google account on your Mac or PC
    • Click on the profile picture icon in the top right-hand corner
    • Click Manage Your Google Account
    • Click Data & privacy in the menu bar on the left
    • Scroll down and select Web & App Activity 
    • Select Turn Off

    And if you wish to stop sharing your location with any contacts of yours via Google: 

    • Log in to your Google account on your Mac or PC
    • Click on the profile picture icon in the top right-hand corner
    • Click Manage Your Google Account
    • Click Data & privacy in the menu bar on the left
    • Scroll down and select Info you can share with others
    • Tap Location Sharing to see if you are sharing your location with anyone and turn the feature off if you wish to stop

    EX-GOOGLE AI EXPERT SAYS THAT ‘UNHINGED’ AI IS THE ‘MOST POWERFUL TECHNOLOGY’ SINCE ‘THE ATOMIC BOMB’

    How to check your location history in your Google account on iPhone or Android 

    Once you see how Google tracks your every move and location, you may want to consider turning this feature off. If you have an iPhone or Android and want to check your location history via your Google account: 

    • Log in to your Google account on Chrome (Android) or Google app (iPhone)
    • Click on the profile picture icon in the top corner
    • Tap your email (on Android)
    • Click Manage Your Google Account or just Google account 
    • Click Data & privacy in the menu bar at the top
    • Scroll down and select Location History
    • Any devices tracking you will be listed. If you do not want this, select Turn off

    To turn off location data saved by Google Maps and other apps and websites on your iPhone or Android:  

    • Log in to your Google account
    • Click on the profile picture icon in the top right-hand corner
    • Click Manage Your Google Account
    • Click Data & privacy in the menu bar at the top
    • Scroll down and select Web & App Activity 
    • Select Turn Off

    And if you wish to stop sharing your location with any contacts of yours via Google on your iPhone or Android: 

    • Log in to your Google account
    • Click on the profile picture icon in the top right-hand corner
    • Click Manage Your Google Account
    • Click Data & privacy in the menu bar at the top
    • Scroll down and select Info you can share with others

    Tap Location Sharing to see if you are sharing your location with anyone and turn the feature off if you wish to stop 

    HOW TO KEEP YOUR BROWSING HISTORY PRIVATE AND SAFE 

    What to know about location settings on your iPhone.

    What to know about location settings on your iPhone. (CyberGuy.com)

     What about other location settings on my iPhone? 

    There are multiple ways for you to get your iPhone to stop tracking your location. 

    Start with these steps: 

    • Go to your Settings app
    • Scroll down and click Privacy & Security
    • Select Location Services
    • Toggle off Location Services 
    • Then go back by hitting the back button on the upper left and then tap Location Services and select Share My Location
    • Turn off Share My Location by toggling off if you no longer wish to share with contacts

    You will also notice a list of apps underneath the Share My Location option. Each app will state how often it tracks your location, with the options being Never, Ask Next Time of When I Share, or While Using the App. Click on each app and select Never if you do not want the app tracking you. Also, make sure that the Precise Location within each app is turned off 

    You can also control which apps track you using your iPhone. 

    • Go to your Settings app
    • Scroll down and click Privacy & Security
    • Select Tracking 

    A list of apps that you have permitted to track your activity will appear here. You can turn off ones that have no use tracking you by toggling off, like Twitter or Instagram. However, apps that actively use location services like Uber and Door Dash should be left on so that you can be located when using them. 

    Read on to learn about location settings on a Mac computer.

    Read on to learn about location settings on a Mac computer. (CyberGuy.com)

    MOST CREEPY IPHONE SETTING NEEDS TO BE ADJUSTED 

    How to turn off location settings on a Mac 

    • Click on the apple in the upper right-hand corner of your computer
    • Scroll down and click system settings
    • Scroll down and click Privacy & Security
    • Click Location Services 
    • Toggle off Location Services at the top and type in your password to confirm
    Here's how you turn off your Android location settings.

    Here’s how you turn off your Android location settings. (CyberGuy.com)

    How do I turn off location settings on my Android? 

    • Swipe down twice from the top of the screen to reveal quick settings
    • Touch and hold Location
    • Tap App permission
    • Find the apps that use your phone (i.e. Facebook or Instagram) location under:
    • Allowed all the time
    • Allowed only while in use
    • Ask every time
    • Tap the relevant app to change the permissions

    If you want to completely turn off location tracking, do the following: 

    • Click Settings
    • Then, click Location
    • On the next screen, click toggle location off.
    Follow these steps to turn off location settings on your Windows PC.

    Follow these steps to turn off location settings on your Windows PC. (CyberGuy.com)

    How to turn off location settings on a PC 

    • Go to Start > Settings > Privacy & Security
    • Tap Location
    • Switch off Let apps access your location 
    • Go to Location history and select Clear to clear out the location history on that device

    Why would you not want to turn off location services on your devices? 

    If you disable location services, be aware of a few limitations: 

    • You won’t be able to use navigation apps such as Waze, Apple, and Google maps.
    • Your device’s location cannot be used to help you locate you in an emergency.
    • If you use social media, you wouldn’t be able to tag your location when you share a post.
    • Many apps use your location to provide personalized content to you, so your device wouldn’t be able to serve up recommendations such as nearby restaurants, local news, weather updates, etc.

    What is your decision on whether to turn off location sharing? Let us know your thoughts. We’d love to hear from you.

    CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

    For more of my tips, subscribe to my free CyberGuy Report Newsletter by clicking the “Free newsletter” link at the top of my website. 

    Copyright 2023 CyberGuy.com. All rights reserved. CyberGuy.com articles and content may contain affiliate links that earn a commission when purchases are made. 

    Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson is an award-winning tech journalist who has a deep love of technology, gear and gadgets that make life better with his contributions for Fox News & FOX Business beginning mornings on “FOX & Friends.” Got a tech question? Get Kurt’s CyberGuy Newsletter, share your voice, a story idea or comment at CyberGuy.com.

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  • Meta is cutting prices for its VR headsets | CNN Business

    Meta is cutting prices for its VR headsets | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Meta is cutting prices for two of its virtual reality headsets as it continues trying to boost adoption for the nascent technology on which it has bet its future.

    The company announced Friday that it is slashing the price of its higher-end Meta Quest Pro headset by some $500, bringing its cost to $999, roughly six months after it was released. Meta is also lowering the price of its Quest 2 headset from $499.99 to $429.99.

    The price cut for the Quest 2 will go into effect in more than a dozen countries including the United States on Sunday. The Quest Pro price drop will take effect the same day in the United States and Canada and on March 15 in all other countries where it is sold.

    “Our goal has always been to create hardware that’s affordable for as many people as possible to take advantage of all that VR has to offer,” the company said in a blog post.

    Facebook rebranded as Meta in late 2021 as it outlined a bold vision to build a future, immersive version of the internet called the “metaverse,” powered by VR technology. But more than a year later, its metaverse ambitions still feel far away.

    The Quest 2 headset is popular in its category but remains a niche product overall. The Quest Pro launched with a high price tag intended for enterprise customers, making it unlikely to move the needle with everyday consumers. And Meta’s flagship social VR app Horizon Worlds can feel like a ghost town (albeit a ghost town with laser tag).

    Meta lost $13.7 billion last year in its “Reality Labs” unit, which houses its VR and metaverse efforts. The company said that Reality Labs revenue fell 17% in the fourth quarter compared to the year prior due to lower sales of its Quest 2 headset.

    Those losses may be harder for Meta to stomach at a time when the company is cutting thousands of jobs and focusing on making 2023 a “year of efficiency.” But in the blog post Friday, Meta said it is “committed to building a successful VR market for developers, businesses, and creators to thrive in.”

    “VR is a powerful social platform and creative technology, and the more people with access to it, the better,” the company said. “Like you, we’re in this for the long haul.”

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  • Daily Crunch: Japanese marketing tech firm Geniee acquires Zelto for $70M

    Daily Crunch: Japanese marketing tech firm Geniee acquires Zelto for $70M

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    To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PST, subscribe here.

    Hello, you crunchy Crunchers! If you’ve been slacking and not bought yourself a Disrupt ticket yet, that’s cool, we still love you. But here’s a hot tip: This is your last chance for super-early-bird tickets, so maybe get on that sooner rather than later!  — Christine and Haje

    The TechCrunch Top 3

    • All roads lead to acquisition: Manish writes that after Japan’s Geniee acquired AdPushup-operator Zelto for $70 million. He called the deal “a remarkable turnaround” for Zelto, a company that has stared down a few near-death experiences, including cash flow and product market fit problems, during its 10-year-old life.
    • Sweet (South) Carolina, bup, bup, bup: VW-backed Scout Motors has plans to build a $2 billion factory in South Carolina to produce its all-electric vehicles. Tim Stevens has more.
    • Fined: Manish also writes about India’s central bank, which fined Amazon’s payments unit over $370,000, claiming the company was noncompliant with certain know-your-customer guidelines.

    Startups and VC

    While most established automotive players call the shots from sprawling, corporate palaces, Scout bases much of its operations — at least for now — out of a WeWork near Washington, D.C., Tim Stevens reports. Scout Motors’ base of operations will eventually “anchor” near the $2 billion factory in South Carolina that was announced Friday, and the company plans to bring rugged, retro cred to the EV era.

    And we have five more for you:

    To fix the climate, these 10 investors are betting the house on the ocean

    Image Credits: Liang Wendong/VCG (opens in a new window) / Getty Images

    Tapping the ocean for energy led to disasters like the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, which released nearly 5 million barrels of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. Today, wind power and wave action are just two technologies leading investors to take a closer look at ocean conservation technology, reports Tim De Chant. To learn more about the opportunities they’re chasing and to discover how climate change is shaping their investment thesis, he surveyed:

    • Daniela V. Fernandez, founder and CEO of Sustainable Ocean Alliance, managing partner at Seabird Ventures
    • Tim Agnew, general partner, Bold Ocean Ventures
    • Peter Bryant, program director (oceans), Builders Initiative
    • Kate Danaher, managing director (oceans and seafood), S2G Ventures
    • Francis O’Sullivan, managing director (oceans and seafood), S2G Ventures
    • Stephan Feilhauer, managing director (clean energy), S2G Ventures
    • Sanjeev Krishnan, senior managing director and chief investment officer, S2G Ventures
    • Rita Sousa, partner, Faber Ventures
    • Christian Lim, managing director, SWEN Blue Ocean Partners
    • Reece Pacheco, partner, Propeller

    Three more from the TC+ team:

    TechCrunch+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams get ahead of the pack. You can sign up here. Use code “DC” for a 15% discount on an annual subscription!

    Big Tech Inc.

    It was only a matter of time before another company would try to mimic what Instacart has going for it. Today that is Uber. Rebecca writes that Uber is coming for Instacart with some updates to its one-year-old Shop and Pay feature that lets delivery workers opt in to receiving trips to do grocery or other retail shopping for customers before dropping off orders at the customer’s door. “Basically, it’s Uber’s attempt to follow the Instacart model, which is working well for the incumbent grocery delivery company,” she reports.

    Autonomous trucking company Embark Trucks, which went public in 2021, is now laying off about 230 workers as it explores liquidating its self-driving truck assets, Kirsten reports.

    And now here’s six more for your Friday:

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    Christine Hall

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  • Ford to raise production as US auto sales start to recover

    Ford to raise production as US auto sales start to recover

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    DEARBORN, Mich. — Ford will increase production of six models this year, half of them electric, as the company and the auto industry start to rebound from sluggish U.S. sales in 2022.

    The automaker announced Friday that it plans to build more of the Mustang Mach-E, the Bronco Sport SUV and Maverick small pickup, the F-150 Lightning electric pickup, and the Transit and E-Transit gas and electric full-size vans.

    To help increase production, Ford last year said it would add a third shift and 1,100 jobs at its full-size van plant in Claycomo, Missouri, near Kansas City, and another 3,200 jobs related to building the F-150 Lightning which is made in Dearborn, Michigan.

    Ford will also hire an unspecified number of new workers this year at plants in Cuautitlan and Hermosillo, Mexico, where the Mach-E, Maverick and Bronco Sport are made, according to spokesman Said Deep. Production line speeds will increase shortly to raise output, with more workers coming later, he said.

    For more than two years, U.S. auto sales have been depressed largely due to a shortage of computer chips during the coronavirus pandemic. But the chip shortage is easing and automakers like Ford are starting to increase production and build supplies on dealer lots.

    Overall in the U.S., auto sales fell almost 8% last year to just under 14 million, with Ford’s dropping just over 2%, according to Autodata Corp. But in February, overall industry sales rose 9.5% over the same month a year ago, according to LMC Automotive, which sees sales increasing to 15 million this year. Ford sales were up almost 22% in February.

    “The industry is on its track back,” said Jeff Schuster, executive vice president of automotive for LMC and Global Data.

    Shares of Ford closed Friday up 4.2%, getting a boost after the production announcement was made.

    At crosstown rival General Motors, full-size pickup truck inventory rebounded enough that it will shut down a factory in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, for two weeks starting March 27 to control it.

    Ford suspended production of the F-150 Lightning in February after a battery caught fire during a pre-delivery quality check. Deep said the battery issue has been resolved and production will resume March 13 to an annual rate of 150,000.

    Mach-E production will rise to an annual rate of 210,000 by year’s end, while the company plans to boost Bronco Sport and Maverick production by 80,000 vehicles this year. Transit and E-Transit production will rise by 38,000 this year.

    Sales are up so far this year for all the models that will see production increases.

    The production jumps are good news for consumers, who have had long wait times for some more popular models and have been forced to pay high prices due to strong demand and short supplies.

    J.D. Power reported that the average U.S. new vehicle sold for $46,229 last month, a record for the month of February.

    But as the chip shortage eases and automakers can produce more this year, Schuster said there should be some easing of prices even on hot-selling models.

    “I would expect some relief on the pricing front,” he said, adding that sticker prices could come down or automakers could offer discounts.

    But he said prices will remain high and aren’t expected to return to pre-pandemic levels.

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  • Amazon pauses construction on 2nd headquarters in Virginia

    Amazon pauses construction on 2nd headquarters in Virginia

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    NEW YORK — Amazon is pausing construction of its second headquarters in Virginia following the biggest round of layoffs in the company’s history and its shifting plans around remote work.

    The Seattle-based company is delaying the beginning of construction of PenPlace, the second phase of its headquarters development in northern Virginia, Amazon’s real estate chief John Schoettler said in a statement. He said the company has already hired more than 8,000 employees and will welcome them to the Met Park campus, the first phase of development, when it opens this June.

    “We’re always evaluating space plans to make sure they fit our business needs and to create a great experience for employees, and since Met Park will have space to accommodate more than 14,000 employees, we’ve decided to shift the groundbreaking of PenPlace (the second phase of HQ2) out a bit,” Schoettler said.

    He also emphasized the company remains “committed to Arlington” and the local region, which Amazon picked — along with New York City — to be the site of its new headquarters, known as HQ2, several years ago. More than 230 municipalities had initially competed to house the projects. New York won the competition by promising nearly $3 billion in tax breaks and grants, among other benefits, but opposition from local politicians, labor leaders and progressive activists led Amazon to scrap its plans there.

    In February 2021, Amazon said it would build an eye-catching, 350-foot Helix tower to anchor the second phase of its redevelopment plans in Arlington. The new office towers were expected to welcome more than 25,000 workers when complete. Amazon spokesperson Zach Goldsztejn said those plans haven’t changed and the construction pause is not a result — or indicative of — the company’s latest job cuts, which affected 18,000 corporate employees.

    The layoffs were part of a broader cost-cutting move to trim down Amazon’s growing workforce amid more sluggish sales and fears of a potential recession. Meta, Salesforce and other tech companies — many of which had gone on hiring binges in the past few years — have also been doing the same.

    Amid the job cuts, Amazon has urged its employees to come back to the office. Last month, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said the company would require corporate employees to return to the office at least three days a week, a shift from from the prior policy that allowed leaders to make the call on how their teams worked. The change, which will be effective on May 1, has ignited some pushback from employees who say they prefer to work remotely.

    Goldsztejn said the company is expecting to move forward with what he called pre-construction work on the construction in Virginia later this year, including applying for permits. He said final timing for the second phase of the project is still being determined.

    When Virginia won the competition to land HQ2, it did so less with direct incentives, and more with promises to invest in the regional workforce, particularly a graduate campus of Virginia Tech that is under construction just a couple of miles from Amazon’s under-construction campus in Crystal City.

    Still, there were significant direct incentives. The state promised $22,000 for each new Amazon job on the condition that the average worker salary for those new jobs is $150,000, annually. Those incentives were about $550 million for 25,000 projected jobs.

    Arlington County also promised Amazon a cut of its hotel-tax revenue on the theory that hotel occupancies would increase significantly once Amazon builds out its campus. That incentive, projected initially at about $23 million, is dependent on how many square feet of office space Amazon occupies in the county.

    Suzanne Clark, a spokeswoman for the Virginia Economic Development Partnership, said state officials are not concerned about Amazon filling its commitments. The total of 8,000 workers now employed at the new headquarters is already running about 3,000 ahead of what was expected at this point, she said.

    She said no incentive money has been paid out yet to Amazon. The company is scheduled to submit its first application for payment on April 1, which will be based on the job creation from 2019 through 2022. Amazon would then receive its first grant payment on or after July 1, 2026.

    In a statement, Democratic U.S. Rep. Don Beyer, who represents the district, called on the company to “promptly update leaders and stakeholders about any new major changes in this project, which remains very important to the capital region.”

    Arlington County Board Chair Christian Dorsey said during a news briefing Friday that Amazon hasn’t earned any of the performance-based incentives and it has not received any funds from the county. He said it’s unclear how long the delay might be, but it’s “not really disappointing” since officials there had initially projected the buildout to be completed by 2035. Amazon had previously said it planned to complete the project by 2025.

    “Amazon is still very much committed — as we understand it — to certainly fulfilling all of their plans and obligations within the window that was envisioned when they struck the deal to come here,” Dorsey said.

    Dorsey shared the company notified him about the pause in advance of releasing the information to the public. He said Amazon didn’t provide a reason for the delay, but it wasn’t challenging to guess it was tied to the economic uncertainty in the county.

    “They are really trying to take a pause and think about this consciously. And make decisions that not only make sense in light of current conditions but expected future conditions.”

    ___

    Barakat reported from Falls Church, Virginia.

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