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Tag: computer science and information technology

  • Parents urged to delete their kids’ social media accounts ahead of possible Israeli hostage videos | CNN Business

    Parents urged to delete their kids’ social media accounts ahead of possible Israeli hostage videos | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    Schools in Israel, the UK and the US are advising parents to delete their children’s social media apps over concerns that Hamas militants will broadcast or disseminate disturbing videos of hostages who have been seized in recent days.

    A Tel Aviv school’s parent’s association said it expects videos of hostages “begging for their lives” to surface on social media. In a message to parents, shared with CNN by a mother of children at a high school in Tel Aviv, the association asked parents to remove apps such as TikTok from their children’s phones.

    “We cannot allow our kids to watch this stuff. It is also difficult, furthermore – impossible – to contain all this content on social media,” according to the parent’s association. “Thank you for your understanding and cooperation.”

    Hamas has warned that it will post murders of hostages on social media if Israel targets people in Gaza without warning.

    There are additional concerns that terrorists will exploit social media algorithms to specifically target such videos to followers of Jewish or Israeli influencers in an effort to wage psychological warfare on Israelis and Jews and their supporters globally.

    During the onslaught on Saturday, armed Hamas militants poured over the heavily-fortified border into Israel and took as many as 150 hostages, including Israeli army officers, back to Gaza. The surprise attacks killed at least 1,200 people, according to the Israel Defense Forces, and injured thousands more.

    Since Israel began airstrikes on the Palestinian enclave Saturday, at least 1,055 people have been killed in Gaza, including hundreds of children, women, and entire families, according to the Palestinian health ministry. It said a further 5,184 have been injured, as of Wednesday.

    As the war wages on, some Jewish schools in the US are also asking parents not to share related videos or photos that may surface, and to prevent children – and themselves – from watching them. The schools are also advising community members to delete their social media apps during this time.

    “Together with other Jewish day schools, we are warning parents to disable social media apps such as Instagram, X, and Tiktok from their children’s phones,” the head of a school in New Jersey wrote in an email. “Graphic and often misleading information is flowing freely, augmenting the fears of our students. … Parents should discuss the dangers of these platforms and ask their children on a daily basis about what they are seeing, even if they have deleted the most unfiltered apps from their phones.”

    Another school in the UK said it asked students to delete their social media apps during a safety assembly.

    TikTok, Instagram and X – formerly known as Twitter – did not immediately respond to requests for comment on how they are combating the increase of videos being posted online and for comment on schools asking parents to delete these apps.

    But X said on its platform is has experienced an increase in daily active users in the conflict area and its escalation teams have “actioned tens of thousands of posts for sharing graphic media, violent speech, and hateful conduct.” It did not respond to a request to comment further or define “actioned.”

    “We’re also continuing to proactively monitor for antisemitic speech as part of all our efforts,” X’s safety team said. “Plus we’ve taken action to remove several hundred accounts attempting to manipulate trending topics.”

    The company added it remains “laser focused” on enforcing the site’s rules and reminded users they can limit sensitive media they may encounter by visiting the “Content you see” option in Settings.

    Still, misinformation continues to run rampant on social media platforms, including X.

    A post viewed more than 500,000 times – featuring the hashtag #PalestineUnderAttack – claimed to show an airplane being shot down. But the clip was from the video game Arma 3, as was later noted in a “community note” appended to the post.

    Another video that is purported to show Israeli generals after being captured by Hamas fighters was viewed more than 1.7 million times by Monday. The video, however, instead shows the detention of separatists in Azerbaijan.

    On Tuesday, the European Union warned Elon Musk of “penalties” for disinformation circulating on X amid Israel-Hamas war.

    The EU also informed Meta CEO Zuckerberg on Wednesday of a disinformation surge on its platforms – which include Facebook – and demanded the company respond in 24 hours with how it plans to combat the issue.

    In an Instagram story on Tuesday, Zuckerberg called the attack “pure evil” and said his focus “remains on the safety of our employees and their families in Israel and the region.”

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  • Threads user count falls to new lows, highlighting retention challenges | CNN Business

    Threads user count falls to new lows, highlighting retention challenges | CNN Business

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    Washington, DC
    CNN
     — 

    Threads, Meta’s Twitter rival, is struggling to retain users roughly a month after its highly publicized launch, according to fresh industry estimates showing that app engagement has fallen to new lows.

    The data from market research firms Similarweb and Sensor Tower highlight the challenges facing Meta as it seeks to exploit the opening created by the chaos surrounding Twitter’s management.

    Threads’ daily active user count is down 82% from launch as of July 31, according to Sensor Tower, with just eight million users accessing the app each day. That is the lowest it has been since the day after the app’s release when daily active users peaked at roughly 44 million, Sensor Tower said.

    People are also opening the app less frequently and spending less time there, Sensor Tower added.

    On its launch day, Threads users opened the app an average of 14 times and spent an average of 19 minutes scrolling through it, the company reported. By the end of the month, however, those figures had fallen sharply.

    As of August 1, Threads’ daily average time spent fell to just 2.9 minutes a day, and people spent only 2.6 sessions per day using the app, said Abe Yousef, a senior insights analyst at Sensor Tower.

    Findings from Similarweb showed the same pattern of decline. Threads’ user count peaked at roughly 49 million on July 7, the day after launch, and fell steadily to just over 11 million by July 29, said David Carr, a senior insights manager at Similarweb.

    The steepest drop-off occurred in the two weeks immediately following Threads’ launch. But the new data show how the decline has continued and is ongoing.

    According to Sensor Tower, Threads’ daily active user count is still falling at a rate of roughly 1% per day.

    Speaking on the company’s earnings call last month, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said he was “quite optimistic” about the app.

    “We saw unprecedented growth out of the gate and more importantly we’re seeing more people coming back daily than I’d expected,” he said. “And now, we’re focused on retention and improving the basics. And then after that, we’ll focus on growing the community to the scale we think is possible.”

    Threads launched with only a handful of features and later promised to add in highly requested tools like a reverse-chronological content feed, a desktop version of the app and direct messages.

    On July 10, Zuckerberg announced that more than 100 million people had signed up for Threads, making it one of the fastest-growing apps in history. The company has reportedly looked into adding “retention-driving hooks” that can keep users engaged.

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  • The identities behind the 30 unindicted co-conspirators in Trump’s Georgia case | CNN Politics

    The identities behind the 30 unindicted co-conspirators in Trump’s Georgia case | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Fulton County’s sweeping indictment against former President Donald Trump and 18 additional co-defendants also includes details involving 30 “unindicted co-conspirators” – people who Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis alleges took part in the criminal conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election.

    Some of the co-conspirators are key Trump advisers, like Boris Epshteyn, while several others are likely Georgia officials who were the state’s fake electors for Donald Trump.

    One of the unindicted co-conspirators who appears multiple times in the indictment is Georgia’s Republican Lt. Gov. Burt Jones. Willis was barred by a state judge from investigating Jones after she hosted a fundraiser last year for Jones’ Democratic opponent when he was a state senator running for lieutenant governor.

    The 98-page document alleges the 30 unindicted co-conspirators, who are not named, “constituted a criminal organization whose members and associates engaged in various related criminal activities” across the 41 charges laid out in the indictment.

    “Prosecutors use the ‘co-conspirator’ label for people who are not charged in the indictment but nonetheless were participants in the crime,” said Elie Honig, a CNN senior legal analyst and former federal and state prosecutor. “We do this to protect the identity and reputation of uncharged people – though they often are readily identifiable – and, at times, to turn up the pressure and try to flip them before a potential indictment drops.”

    CNN was able to identify some of the co-conspirators by piecing together details included in the indictment. Documents reviewed from previous reporting also provide clues, especially the reams of emails and testimony from the House January 6 Committee’s report released late last year.

    CNN has been able to identify or narrow down nearly all of the unindicted co-conspirators:

    The indictment refers to Trump’s speech on November 4, 2020, “falsely declaring victory in the 2020 presidential election” and that Individual 1 discussed a draft of that speech approximately four days earlier, on October 31, 2020.

    The January 6 committee obtained an email from Fitton sent on October 31 to Trump’s assistant Molly Michael and his communications adviser Dan Scavino, which says, “Please see below a draft statement as you requested.”

    The statement Fitton wrote also says in part, “We had an election today – and I won.”

    The indictment states that co-conspirator 3 appeared at the infamous November 19, 2020, press conference at the Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington, with Rudy Giuliani, one of the defendants in the case. Epshteyn was there.

    A November 19, 2020 photo shows Trump campaign advisor Boris Epshteyn at the Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington, DC.

    The indictment also includes two emails between co-conspirator 3, John Eastman and Kenneth Chesebro, two lawyers who pushed the strategy of then-Vice President Mike Pence trying to overturn the election on January 6, 2021, including one with a draft memo for options of how to proceed on January 6.

    According to emails released by the January 6 committee, Epshteyn was the third person on those emails.

    Individual 4 received an email from co-defendant David Shafer, who was then Georgia’s Republican Party chair, on November 20, 2020, that said Scott Graham Hall, a Georgia bail bondsman, “has been looking into the election on behalf of the President at the request of David Bossie,” according to the indictment.

    CNN obtained court documents that show Shafer sent this email to Sinners in November 2020: “Scott Hall has been looking into the election on behalf of the President at the request of David Bossie. I know him.” Hall is one of the 19 defendants charged in the indictment.

    The indictment notes an additional email from December 12, 2020, from Shafer to Individual 4 advising them to “touch base” with each of the Trump presidential elector nominees in Georgia in advance of the December 14, 2020, meeting to confirm their attendance.

    CNN reporting from June 2022 reveals an email exchange between Sinners and David Shafer on December 13, 2020, 18 hours before the group of alternate electors gathered at the Georgia State Capitol.

    “I must ask for your complete discretion in this process,” Sinners wrote. “Your duties are imperative to ensure the end result – a win in Georgia for President Trump – but will be hampered unless we have complete secrecy and discretion.”

    Kerik’s attorney, Tim Parlatore, confirmed to CNN that his client is the unnamed individual listed in the indictment as co-conspirator 5. The indictment refers to co-conspirator 5 taking part in several meetings with lawmakers in Pennsylvania and Arizona, states Trump was contesting after the 2020 election.

    That included the meeting Kerik attended at the White House on November 25, 2020, with a group of Pennsylvania legislators, along with Trump, then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, Giuliani, Jenna Ellis and individual 6.

    Former New York Police Department Commissioner Bernie Kerik at Trump National Golf Club on June 13.

    Parlatore took issue with Willis’ definition of co-conspirator in the case of Kerik, saying that the indictment only refers to him in the context of receiving emails and attending meetings.

    The indictment says on November 25, 2020, Trump, Meadows, Giuliani, Ellis, Individuals 5 and 6 met at the White House with a group of Pennsylvania legislators.

    According to the January 6 committee report, Waldron was among the visitors who were at the White House that day, along with Kerik and attorney Katherine Freiss. Cassidy Hutchinson, former aide to Meadows, explained that their conversation with the president touched on holding a special session of the Pennsylvania state legislature to appoint Trump electors.

    The indictment also says on December 21, 2020, Sidney Powell, a defendant in the case, sent an email to Individuals 6, 21 and 22 that they were to immediately “receive a copy of all data” from Dominion’s voting systems in Michigan.

    The Washington Post reported last August that the email stated Waldron was among the three people to receive the data, along with Conan Hayes and Todd Sanders.

    Waldron at a hearing in front of Michigan lawmakers in December 2020.

    Waldron is the only person who was involved in both the White House meeting and received the Powell email.

    The indictment says Giuliani re-tweeted a post from co-conspirator 8 on December 7, 2020, calling upon Georgia voters to contact their local representatives and ask them to sign a petition for a special session to ensure “every legal vote is counted.” The date and content of the tweet match a tweet posted by Jones, who was at the time a state senator.

    Burt Jones, Georgia's Republican Lieutenant Governor

    Jones, who was elected lieutenant governor in November, appears more than a dozen times throughout the indictment as co-conspirator 8, including as a fake elector.

    After the 2020 election, Jones was calling for a special session of the Georgia legislature, something Gov. Brian Kemp and former Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan refused to do.

    On Thursday, Pete Skandalakis, the executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneys Council of Georgia, told CNN that he will appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Jones’ role in the state’s 2020 election interference case, after a judge blocked Willis from investigating him last year.

    The indictment lists several emails sent to co-conspirator 9 related to preparations for the fake electors who met on December 14, 2020, including an email from Chesebro “to help coordinate with the other 5 contested States, to help with logistics of the electors in other States hopefully joining in casting their votes on Monday.”

    According to emails obtained by the January 6 committee, that email was sent to an account belong to the Georgia GOP treasurer, which at the time was Brannan.

    Co-conspirator 9 is also included in the indictment as one of the 13 unindicted co-conspirators who served as fake electors.

    Co-conspirators 10 and 11 are Georgia GOP officials Carolyn Fisher and Vikki Consiglio

    The indictment says on December 10, 2020, Ken Chesebro sent an email to Georgia state Republican Chair David Shafer and Individuals 9, 10 and 11, with documents that were to be used by Trump electors to create fake certificates.

    The January 6 committee obtained as part of its evidence an email from Chesebro sent on December 10 sent to Shafer and three other email addresses. One is for Carolyn Fisher, the former Georgia GOP first vice chair, one is for the Georgia Republican Party treasurer and one is for the Georgia GOP assistant treasurer, the role Consiglio was serving in 2020.

    The email contains attachments of memos and certificates that could be used to help swap out the Biden electors with a slate of electors for Trump.

    Both co-conspirators 10 and 11 also served as fake electors in Georgia.

    Co-conspirators 2 and 8-19 are the fake electors

    Of the 30 unindicted co-conspirators, 13 are listed as the fake electors for Donald Trump, who signed papers “unlawfully falsely holding themselves out as the duly elected and qualified presidential electors from the State of Georgia,” according to the indictment.

    Three of the 16 Georgia fake electors were charged in the indictment: David Shafer, Shawn Still and Cathleen Alston Latham.

    The other 13 fake electors, according to the fake electors certificate published by the National Archives, are Jones (co-conspirator 8), Joseph Brannan (co-conspirator 9), James “Ken” Carroll, Gloria Godwin, David Hanna, Mark Hennessy, Mark Amick, John Downey, Daryl Moody, Brad Carver, CB Yadav and two others who appear to be Individuals 10 and 11.

    Several of the fake electors who were not charged are only listed in the indictment for their role signing on as electors for Trump, while others, like Jones, appear in other parts of the indictment as being more actively involved with the alleged conspiracy.

    The indictment says Individual 20 was part of a meeting at the White House on December 18, 2020, with Trump, Giuliani and Powell, known to have discussed the possibility of seizing voting machines.

    The December 18 meeting featured prominently during some of the hearings from the January 6 committee. All but two of the outside advisers who attended have been named as co-defendants in the indictment already: former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn and former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne.

    The meeting featured fiery exchanges between Trump’s White House lawyers and his team of outside advisers, including on whether to appoint Sidney Powell as special counsel to investigate voter fraud, according to the indictment and previous details that have been disclosed about the meeting.

    The outside advisers famously got into a screaming match with Trump’s White House lawyers – Pat Cipollone and Eric Herschmann – at the Oval Office meeting. Cipollone and Herschmann, along with Meadows, pushed back intensely on the proposals, Cipollone and Herschmann testified to the January 6 committee.

    Co-conspirators 21 and 22 are Conan Hayes and Todd Sanders

    Co-conspirators 21 and 22 are Conan Hayes and Todd Sanders – who are both affiliated with Byrne’s America Project, a conservative advocacy group that contributed funding to Arizona’s Republican ballot audit. Hayes was a former surfer from Hawaii and Sanders has a cybersecurity background in the private sector.

    The indictment says on Dec. 21, 2020, Sidney Powell sent an email to the chief operations officer of SullivanStrickler, saying that individual 6, who CNN identified as Waldron, along with individuals 21 and 22, were to immediately “receive a copy of all data” from Dominion’s voting systems in Michigan.

    According to the Washington Post, Conan and Todd were the other two people listed on the email to receive the data.

    The final eight co-conspirators listed in the indictment are connected to the effort to access voting machines in Georgia’s Coffee County.

    Co-conspirator 25 and 29 are a Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan and analyst Jeffrey Lenberg

    The indictment says that Misty Hampton allowed co-conspirators 25 and 29 to access non-public areas of the Coffee County elections office on January 18, 2021. Logan and Lenberg were the two outsiders granted access to the elections office that day by Hampton, according to surveillance video previously obtained by CNN. No one else was given access to the office that day, according to a CNN review of the footage.

    The indictment also notes that co-conspirator 25 downloaded Coffee County election data that SullivanStrickler then had uploaded to a separate server. Documents previously obtained by CNN show five accounts that downloaded the data – one account belongs to Logan and none of them belong to Lenberg. Still, CNN could not definitively determine who exactly downloaded the data.

    Logan and his company conducted the so-called Republican audit of the 2020 ballots cast in Arizona’s Maricopa County.

    The indictment says that co-conspirator 28 “sent an e-mail to the Chief Operations Officer of SullivanStrickler LLC” directing him to transmit data copied from Coffee County to co-conspirator 30 and Powell. CNN has previously reported on emails Penrose and Powell arranged upfront payment to a cyber forensics firm that sent a team to Coffee County.

    This story has been updated with additional developments.

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  • Snapchat adds new safety features for teen users | CNN Business

    Snapchat adds new safety features for teen users | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    Snapchat says it’s working to make its app even safer for teen users.

    Parent company Snap said Thursday that it is rolling out a suite of new features and policies aimed at better protecting 13- to 17-year-old users, including restrictions on friend suggestions and a new system for removing age-inappropriate content. The company also launched a series of YouTube videos for parents about the features and an updated website laying out its teen safety and parental control policies.

    The new features come amid increasing pressure on social media platforms by lawmakers, educators and parents to protect young users from inappropriate content, unwanted adult attention, illicit drug sales and other issues. A Snap executive testified alongside leaders from TikTok and YouTube in a fall 2021 Senate committee hearing about youth safety on social media, promising new tools to help parents keep their teens safe. And since then, Snapchat — like other platforms — has rolled out a variety of new teen safety and parental supervision tools.

    Thursday’s announcement follows the launch last year of Snapchat’s Family Center, which offers parents more insight into who their teenagers are communicating with on the messaging app. The app’s other existing teen safety measures include prohibiting young users from having public profiles and having teens’ Snap Map location-sharing tool turned off by default.

    As part of Thursday’s feature rollout, Snapchat will now require 13-to-17-year-old users to have a greater number of mutual friends in common with another account before that account will show up in Search results or as a friend suggestion, in an effort to avoid teens adding users on the app who they don’t know in real life. The app will also send a pop-up warming to teens if they are about to add an account that doesn’t share any mutual Snapchat friends or phone book contacts.

    “When a teen becomes friends with someone on Snapchat, we want to be confident it is someone they know in real life — such as a friend, family member, or other trusted person,” the company said in a blog post.

    Snapchat will also impose a new strike system for accounts promoting content inappropriate for teens in its Stories and Spotlight sections, where users can share content publicly on the app. If inappropriate content is reported or detected by the company, it will immediately remove the content and issue a strike against the poster’s account. If a user accrues “too many strikes over a defined period of time, their account will be disabled,” the platform says, although it does not lay out how many strikes would lead to a suspension.

    Teen users will also start to see in-app content aimed at educating them on online risks such as catfishing and financial sextortion — when someone persuades a victim to share nude photos and then blackmails them for money — and letting them know what to do if they see it, including providing hotlines to contact for help. The PSA-style content will be featured on Snapchat’s Stories platform and in response to certain search terms or keywords.

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  • Fortnite players can now apply for a portion of its $245 million FTC settlement | CNN Business

    Fortnite players can now apply for a portion of its $245 million FTC settlement | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    Millions of Fortnite users can now claim their small part of the $245 million that the game’s parent company agreed to pay as part of a settlement with the US Federal Trade Commission.

    Epic Games in December settled allegations with the FTC that it used deceptive tactics that drove users to make unwanted purchases in the multiplayer shooter game that became wildly popular with younger generations a few years ago. The FTC said Tuesday it has now opened the claims process for the more than 37 million potentially affected users who could qualify for compensation.

    Epic Games agreed in December to pay a total of $520 million to settle US government allegations that it misled millions of players, including children and teens, into making unintended purchases and that it violated a landmark federal children’s privacy law.

    In one settlement, Epic agreed to pay $275 million to the US government to resolve claims that it violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act by gathering the personal information of kids under the age of 13 without first receiving their parents’ consent. In a second and separate settlement, Epic also agreed to pay $245 million as refunds to consumers who were allegedly harmed by user-interface design choices that the FTC claimed were deceptive.

    The FTC said in a statement Tuesday that the Fortnite maker “used dark patterns and other deceptive practices to trick players into making unwanted purchases” and also “made it easy for children to rack up charges without parental consent.”

    (“Dark patterns” refer to the gently coercive design tactics used by countless websites and apps that critics say are used to manipulate peoples’ digital behaviors.)

    The FTC is now notifying users who may be eligible to receive part of that $245 million settlement fund. Affected users may receive an email from the FTC over the next month with a claim number, or they can go directly to the settlement site and file a claim using their Epic account ID.

    Here’s who can apply: Users who were charged in-game currency for items they didn’t want between January 2017 and September 2022, parents whose children made charges to their credit cards on Fortnite between January 2017 and November 2018 or users whose accounts were locked sometime between January 2017 and September 2022 after they complained to their credit card company about wrongful charges. Claimants must be 18 years old; for younger users, their parents can submit a claim on their behalf.

    Users have until January 17, 2024, to submit a claim to be included in the settlement class. It is not yet clear how much the individual settlement payments will be.

    Epic’s agreement with the FTC also prohibits the company from using dark patterns or charging consumers without their consent, and forbids Epic from locking players out of their accounts in response to users’ chargeback requests with credit card companies disputing unwanted charges.

    Epic said in a blog post in December when it reached the agreement that, “no developer creates a game with the intention of ending up here.” It added, “We accepted this agreement because we want Epic to be at the forefront of consumer protection and provide the best experience for our players.”

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  • Chinese artists boycott big social media platform over AI-generated images | CNN Business

    Chinese artists boycott big social media platform over AI-generated images | CNN Business

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    Editor’s Note: Sign up for CNN’s Meanwhile in China newsletter which explores what you need to know about the country’s rise and how it impacts the world.


    Hong Kong
    CNN
     — 

    Artists across China are boycotting one of the country’s biggest social media platforms over complaints about its AI image generation tool.

    The controversy began in August when an illustrator who goes by the name Snow Fish accused the privately owned social media site Xiaohongshu of using her work to train its AI tool, Trik AI, without her knowledge or permission.

    Trik AI specializes in generating digital art in the style of traditional Chinese paintings; it is still undergoing testing and has not yet been formally launched.

    Snow Fish, whom CNN is identifying by her Xiaohongshu username for privacy reasons, said she first became aware of the issue when friends sent her posts of artwork from the platform that looked strikingly similar to her own style: sweeping brush-like strokes, bright pops of red and orange, and depictions of natural scenery.

    “Can you explain to me, Trik AI, why your AI-generated images are so similar to my original works?” Snow Fish wrote in a post which quickly circulated online among her followers and the artist community.

    The controversy erupted just weeks after China unveiled rules for generative AI, becoming one of the first governments to regulate the technology as countries around the world wrestle with AI’s potential impact on jobs, national security and intellectual property.

    Screenshots of AI-generated artworks on Xiaohongshu, taken by the artist Snow Fish.

    Trik AI and Xiaohongshu, which says it has 260 million monthly active users, do not publicize what materials are used to train the program and have not publicly commented on the allegations.

    The companies have not responded to multiple requests from CNN for comment.

    But Snow Fish said a person using the official Trik AI account had apologized to her in a private message, acknowledging that her art had been used to train the program and agreed to remove the posts in question. CNN has reviewed the messages.

    However, Snow Fish wants a public apology. The controversy has fueled online protests on the Chinese internet against the creation and use of AI-generated images, with several other artists claiming their works had been similarly used without their knowledge.

    Hundreds of artists have posted banners on Xiaohongshu saying “No to AI-generated images,” while a related hashtag has been viewed more than 35 million times on the Chinese Twitter-like platform Weibo.

    The boycott in China comes as debates about the use of AI in arts and entertainment are playing out globally, including in the United States, where striking writers and actors have ground most film and television production to a halt in recent months over a range of issues — including studios’ use of AI.

    Many of the artists boycotting Xiaohongshu have called for better rules to protect their work online — echoing similar complaints from artists around the world worried about their livelihoods.

    These concerns have grown as the race to develop AI heats up, with new tools developed and released almost faster than governments can regulate them — ranging from chatbots such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT to Google’s Bard.

    China’s tech giants, too, are rapidly developing their own generative artificial intelligence, from Baidu’s ERNIE Bot launched in March to SenseTime’s chatbot SenseChat.

    Besides Trik AI, Xiaohongshu has also developed a new function called “Ci Ke” which allows users to post content using AI-generated images.

    For artists like Snow Fish, the technology behind AI isn’t the problem, she said; it’s the way these tools use their work without permission or credit.

    Many AI models are trained from the work of human artists by quietly scraping images of their artwork from the internet without consent or compensation.

    Snow Fish added that these complaints had been slowly growing within the artist community but had mostly been privately shared rather than openly protested.

    “It’s an outbreak this time,” she said. “If it easily goes away without any splash, people will maintain silent, and those AI developers will keep harming our rights.”

    Another Chinese illustrator Zhang, who CNN is identifying by his last name for privacy reasons, joined the boycott in solidarity. “They’re shameless,” said Zhang. “They didn’t put in any effort themselves, they just took parts from other artists’ work and claimed it as their own, is that appropriate?”

    “In the future, AI images will only be cheaper in people’s eyes, like plastic bags. They will become widespread like plastic pollution,” he said, adding that tech leaders and AI developers care more about their own profits than about artists’ rights.

    Tianxiang He, an associate professor of law City University of Hong Kong, said the use of AI-generated images also raises larger questions among the artistic community about what counts as “real” art, and how to preserve its “spiritual value.”

    Similar boycotts have been seen elsewhere around the world, against popular AI image generation tools such as Stable Diffusion, released last year by London-based Stability AI, and California-based Midjourney.

    Stable Diffusion is embroiled in an ongoing lawsuit brought by stock image giant Getty Images, alleging copyright infringement.

    Fareed Zakaria special MoMA AI Art

    GPS web extra: How does AI make art?

    Despite the speed at which AI image generation tools are being developed, there is “no global consensus about how to regulate this kind of training behavior,” said He.

    He added that many such tools are developed by tech giants who own huge databases, which allows them to “do a lot of things … and they don’t care whether it’s protected by the law or not.”

    Because Trik AI has a smaller database to pull from, the similarities between its AI-generated content and artists’ original works are more obvious, making an easier legal case, he said.

    Cases of copyright infringement would be harder to detect if more works were put in a larger database, he added.

    Governments around the world are now grappling with how to set global standards for the wide-ranging technology. The European Union was one of the first in the world to set rules in June on how companies can use AI, with the United States still holding discussions with Capitol Hill lawmakers and tech companies to develop legislation.

    China was also an early adopter of AI regulation, publishing new rules that took effect in August. But the final version relaxed some of the language that had been included in earlier drafts.

    Experts say major powers like China likely prioritize centralizing power from tech giants when drafting regulations, and pulling ahead in the global tech race, rather than focusing on individuals’ rights.

    He, the Hong Kong law professor, called the regulations a “very broad general regulatory framework” that provide “no specific control mechanisms” to regulate data mining.

    “China is very hesitant to enact anything related to say yes or no to data mining, because that will be very dangerous,” he said, adding that such a law could strike a blow to the emerging market, amid an already slow national economy.

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  • Microsoft Outlook will soon write emails for you | CNN Business

    Microsoft Outlook will soon write emails for you | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    Artificial intelligence could soon be writing more company emails in Microsoft Outlook, as the company expands its rollout of AI tools for corporate users.

    The Microsoft 365 Copilot tool – “your everyday AI companion,” as the company bills it – will help users write their emails to “keep your sentences concise and error-free.” The tool also summarizes long email threads to quickly draft suggested replies.

    Users with Microsoft 365 Personal or Family subscriptions will get more advanced AI help through Microsoft Editor, an intelligent writing assistant. The update will include suggested edits for “clarity, conciseness, inclusive language and more” to help workers create more “polished and professional” emails, according to a blog post from the company in September.

    The company said the tool will be available to more corporate clients starting on November 1. It has already been in months-long testing with customers including Visa, General Motors, KPMG and Lumen Technologies.

    In March, Microsoft outlined its plans to bring artificial intelligence to its most recognizable productivity tools, including Outlook, PowerPoint, Excel and Word, with the promise of changing how millions do their work every day. The addition of its AI-powered “copilot” – which will help edit, summarize, create and compare documents – is built on the same technology that underpins ChatGPT.

    In addition to writing emails, Microsoft 365 users will be able to summarize meetings and create suggested follow-up action items, request to create a specific chart in Excel, and turn a Word document into a PowerPoint presentation in seconds.

    Corporate customers will also get to use Microsoft 365 Chat, previously called Business Chat, which can scan the internet and employee emails, meetings, chats and files, to behave as a sort of personalized secretary.

    The expansion will come less than a year after OpenAI publicly released viral AI chat tool ChatGPT, which stunned many users with its impressive ability to generate original essays, stories and song lyrics in response to user prompts. The initial wave of attention on the tool helped renew an arms race among tech companies to develop and deploy similar AI tools in their products.

    In the months since, many other companies have rolled out features underpinning or similar to the technology. Microsoft rival Google, for example, has also brought AI to its productivity tools, including Gmail, Sheets and Docs.

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  • India restricts laptop, PC imports to boost local manufacturing | CNN Business

    India restricts laptop, PC imports to boost local manufacturing | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    India has placed restrictions on the import of computers and laptops in a surprise move from the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi which has been trying to encourage domestic manufacturing in the tech sector.

    Importers will now need to apply for licenses in order to bring laptops, tablets, personal computers and other electronic devices into the country, according to a notice issued by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry on Thursday. Previously, the import of such items was unrestricted.

    The ministry didn’t provide a reason for the change in rules, however Modi has aggressively pushed his “Make in India” campaign, which promotes local manufacturing in a bid to create more jobs. It follows a similar curb on smart TV imports in 2020.

    India’s electronic imports stood at $19.7 billion in the April to June period, up 6.25% from the same period in 2022, according to Reuters.

    CNN has contacted Apple

    (AAPL)     and Samsung

    (SSNLF)    , top laptop sellers in the South Asian country, for comment but has not yet received responses.

    India’s push to manufacture domestically comes at a crucial time for the world’s most populous nation, as companies look beyond China to secure crucial supply chains.

    India’s working-age population is expected to hit one billion over the next decade, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Its large and young labor force makes the country a big draw for global companies seeking alternative manufacturing hubs to China.

    Earlier this year, India’s commerce minister, Piyush Goyal, said Apple was already making between 5% and 7% of its products in India.

    “If I am not mistaken, they are targeting to go up to 25% of their manufacturing,” he said at an event in January.

    In June, US chipmaker Micron

    (MICR)     announced a new factory in the western state of Gujarat, calling it the country’s first semiconductor assembly and test manufacturing facility.

    The venture will see Micron invest up to $825 million and create “up to 5,000 new direct Micron jobs and 15,000 community jobs over the next several years,” according to the company.

    Foxconn, the world’s largest contract electronics maker and a key supplier to Apple, is also looking to expand its manufacturing operations in India.

    Last month, it abruptly announced it was exiting an ambitious $19.4 billion joint venture with Vedanta

    (VEDL)    , an Indian metals and energy conglomerate, to help build one of the country’s first chip factories.

    But, the company said it was still committed to investing in Indian chipmaking and was applying to a government program that subsidizes the cost of setting up semiconductor or electronic display production facilities in the country.

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  • Arm’s mega IPO could be just around the corner, a year after the biggest chip deal in history fell apart | CNN Business

    Arm’s mega IPO could be just around the corner, a year after the biggest chip deal in history fell apart | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    A hotly anticipated IPO for a company that designs chips for 99% of the world’s smartphones is just around the corner, after it filed paperwork Monday to go public.

    Arm is a British tech company that architects power-sipping microchips for phones and tablets and licenses them to CPU makers, including Apple and Samsung. The company was public until 2016, when Japan’s Softbank bought it for $32 billion.

    Softbank tried to offload Arm to Nvidia for $40 billion, in what would have been the biggest chip deal of all time. But global antitrust regulators put a stop to it, and the deal fell apart in February 2022.

    Arm had been a hot commodity for decades, when the smartphone business was booming. But sales of smartphones have subsided recently, as customers opt to keep their phones for longer and new tech features have become less enticing to consumers.

    The company, in its regulatory filing, said sales slipped 1% to $2.7 billion in the year that ended March 31, 2023. In the following quarter, which ended in June, sales fell 2.5%.

    Still, Arm has piqued the interest of tech investors who are looking to catch the AI wave. Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son has touted Arm as an AI company that could have “exponential growth.” He promised ChatGPT-like services would eventually be offered on Arm-designed machines.

    In its IPO filing, Arm said the company “will be central” to the transition to AI.

    “Arm CPUs already run AI and [machine learning] workloads in billions of devices, including smartphones, cameras, digital TVs, cars and cloud data centers,” the company said. “In the emerging area of large language models, generative AI and autonomous driving, there will be a heightened emphasis on the low power acceleration of these algorithms.”

    But Son and Arm’s AI promises may overstate the company’s potential, at least somewhat. Arm-based chips have appeared in some gadgets beyond smartphones and tablets, such as servers that are less power-hungry. But Arm said it does not make AI chips and is not a direct competitor to Nvidia and others that make chips that are purpose-built for AI. Nvidia’s stock has exploded more than 200% this year.

    Arm did not list the number of shares it planned to sell, so a valuation wasn’t determinable yet. But Reuters reported Softbank is looking to basically double its investment from seven years ago with a $60 billion to $70 billion valuation for Arm when it IPOs, likely next month.

    Softbank also this week bought the 25% stake in Arm that it did not own directly but that had been held by the Saudi Vision Fund, which Softbank manages. That purchase valued Arm at $64 billion, according to the Financial Times.

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  • South Korea’s Hynix is looking into how its chips got into Huawei’s controversial smartphone | CNN Business

    South Korea’s Hynix is looking into how its chips got into Huawei’s controversial smartphone | CNN Business

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    Hong Kong/Seoul
    CNN
     — 

    SK Hynix, a South Korean chipmaker, is investigating how two of its memory chips mysteriously ended up inside the Mate 60 Pro, a controversial smartphone launched by Huawei last week.

    Shares in Hynix fell more than 4% on Friday after it emerged that two of its products, a 12 gigabyte (GB) LPDDR5 chip and 512 GB NAND flash memory chip, were found inside the Huawei handset by TechInsights, a research organization based in Canada specializing in semiconductors, which took the phone apart for analysis.

    “The significance of the development is that there are restrictions on what SK Hynix can ship to China,” G Dan Hutcheson, vice chair of TechInsights, told CNN. “Where do these chips come from? The big question is whether any laws were violated.”

    A Hynix spokesperson told CNN Friday that it was aware of its chips being used in the Huawei phone and had started investigating the issue.

    The company “no longer does business with Huawei since the introduction of the US restrictions against the company,” it said in a statement.

    “SK Hynix is strictly abiding by the US government’s export restrictions,” the company said.

    Industry insiders said it was possible that Huawei had purchased the memory chips from the secondary market and not directly from the manufacturer. It’s also possible Huawei may have had a stockpile of components accumulated before the US export curbs kicked in fully.

    TechInsights had previously revealed that the “brains” of the phone were powered by a 5G Kirin 9000s chip made by China’s top chipmaker Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation, better known as SMIC.

    It is still examining the Mate 60 Pro and does not rule out the possibility of finding more components made by companies subject to US trade sanctions. So far, it has found that most of the phone’s components were provided by Chinese suppliers.

    Analysts have said the smartphone is a major breakthrough for China as it clashes with the United States over access to advanced technology.

    The development prompted two US congressmen, Mike Gallagher and Michael McCaul, to call on the White House – which is seeking more information about the phone – to further restrict technology export sales to Chinese companies.

    Huawei and SMIC have not replied to requests for comment.

    In 2019, the US government banned American companies from selling software and equipment to Huawei. It also restricted international chipmakers using US-made technology from working with the company.

    That is why, four years later, last week’s launch of the Mate 60 Pro shocked industry experts who didn’t understand how Huawei, which is headquartered in Shenzhen, would have the ability to manufacture such an advanced smartphone following sweeping efforts by the United States to restrict China’s access to foreign chip technology.

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  • The iPhone’s new Action Button is more than a one-trick pony | CNN Business

    The iPhone’s new Action Button is more than a one-trick pony | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    The new iPhone 15 Pro lineup offers the typical slate of new features designed to persuade customers to upgrade: They’re slimmer and thinner than last year’s crop. The new cameras are professional-grade and the switch to USB-C charging will make your life easier.

    But one new feature easily stands out: The Action Button.

    Apple has repurposed its physical mute button on the side of its high-end models into a more customizable tool, allowing users to carry out a handful of commands, from recording a voice memo and taking a picture to turning on the flashlight. The button can also be programmed to launch any app or shortcut, essentially turning it into a remote control or launching pad to gain quick access to something you want on demand.

    In the days since Apple’s iPhone 15 event at its Cupertino, California, headquarters, I’ve used it to load a variety of apps in a single press, including CNN, Amazon and Instagram. It’s certain the Action Button will become a viable resource for anyone who revisits an app time and time again throughout the day.

    But it also has the potential to become an even more powerful tool; you could program it to play your favorite playlist, turn on the smart lights in your living room or use it to open the garage door. You could even turn it into a dedicated button to call mom. It builds on iOS’s existing offering of ready-made or custom shortcuts, and Apple is encouraging developers to build other unique shortcuts that other users could activate on the Action Button.

    The change is subtle but it’s one of the few noticeable tweaks to the iPhone’s design this year. The Action Button is about the same size as the existing button, and users still hold it down to switch between muting and turning on the ringer. Commands are accompanied with visual feedback from the Dynamic Island bar — home to alerts and notifications at the top of the screen.

    The Action Button update, along with changes in the phone’s charging and camera systems, comes as Apple looks to give consumers more reasons to upgrade their iPhones. Last month, Apple’s sales fell for the third consecutive quarter. iPhone revenue came in at $39.7 billion for the quarter, marking an approximately 2% year-over-year decline, as people update their devices less often.

    Another selling point to splurge for the iPhone 15 Pro ($1,099) or iPhone 15 Pro Max ($1,199): The phones come with a titanium casing — the same alloy used to build the Mars Rover — making them what Apple calls the thinnest and lightest Pro models to date. Apple’s entry level iPhones, the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus, cost $799 and $899, respectively. The entire lineup starts shipping on Friday.

    To program the Action Button, iPhone 15 Pro users can visit the button’s section in Settings, scroll through and select from a series of functionalities — such as flashlight or camera. By picking the shortcuts option, however, users can sift through their list of apps or previously established commands.

    Once set, there’s a slight learning curve following years of falling into the habit of using the physical button to turn the volume on and off. For this reason, it could take quite a while for some of iPhone’s loyalists to change how they use the device.

    The Action Button isn’t entirely new; the company unveiled it last year on the Apple Watch Ultra. Apple told CNN it was inspired to bring it to the iPhone after hearing anecdotes from users who said they consistently leave their phone on silent, rendering that button essentially useless. Considering iPhone usage has changed a lot since the iPhone debuted 16 years ago, revisiting a hallmark feature like the mute button was only a matter of time, according to the company.

    Ramon Llamas, a director at market research firm IDC, believes last week’s announcement is only the first step toward making the Action Button more dynamic. “I’d like to think that the Action Button could be expanded a bit more, like one click will take you to one feature; two clicks takes you to another, and three clicks gets you something else,” Llamas said. “But I think that would be it. Any more than that and you risk launching the wrong app, like Wordle, at the wrong time (when you need your camera the most),” he said.

    It’s also a strategic way for Apple to make the most of already tight real estate on the device, according to Llamas. Annette Zimmerman, a VP analyst with market research firm Gartner, agrees, noting that “having one button to do exactly one thing isn’t really progressive in a time where everything has multi-functionality and can be programmed.”

    Although it’s unclear if the Action Button will come to more devices in the future, Apple continues its sweep to create a uniform ecosystem for its consumers. Similarly, Apple is adding a Double Tap feature that allows people to use a finger feature to control the Apple Watch, just months after it showed off a similar gesture on its upcoming Vision Pro mixed reality headset.

    For now, iPhone 15 Pro users will enjoy playing with the new Action Button. While the feature is not worth the upgrade to iPhone 15 alone, the switch to universal charging, a faster processor and advanced camera capabilities make it a solid package, especially if you haven’t upgraded in the last few years.

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  • Netflix shutters its DVD rental business, marking the end of the red envelope era | CNN Business

    Netflix shutters its DVD rental business, marking the end of the red envelope era | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Netflix will send out its last red envelope on Friday, marking an end to 25 years of mailing DVDs to members.

    The company announced earlier this year it is shutting down its DVD-by-mail service, 16 years after it gradually shifted its focus to streaming content online. Netflix will continue to accept returns of customers’ remaining DVDs until October 27.

    Introduced in 1998 when Netflix first launched, the DVD service promised an easier rental experience than having to drive to the nearest Blockbuster or Hollywood Video. The red envelopes, which have long been synonymous with Netflix itself, littered homes and dorm rooms across the country.

    Although the idea of receiving a DVD in the mail now may sound almost as outdated as dial-up internet, some longtime customers told CNN they continued to find value in the DVD option.

    Colin McEvoy, a father of two from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and a self-described film fanatic, said he rushed through 40 movies in the last few weeks to get through the remainder of his queue before the service ends. McEvoy has remained faithful to Netflix’s DVD service so he can keep watching Bollywood and obscure independent films not often found on streaming services.

    “I was basically watching them as soon as I got them, and then returning the discs as quickly as possible to get as many as I could,” said McEvoy, who has been using Netflix’s DVD-by-mail service since 2001, just three years after it launched.

    “I remember I was in high school when I first signed up for it, and the concept was so novel I had to really convince my dad that it was a legit service and not some sort of Internet scam,” said McEvoy, who uses an old Xbox 360 to play his Netflix DVDs. “Now I have friends who’ve seen my red Netflix envelopes arrive in the mail, and either didn’t remember what they were or couldn’t believe that I still got the DVDs in the mail.”

    Some other Netflix users stood by its DVD service not only for the selection but for added perks. Brandon Cordy, a 41-year-old graphic designer from Atlanta, previously told CNN he stuck with DVDs because many digital rentals don’t come with special features or audio commentaries.

    There are other factors, too. Michael Inouye, an analyst at ABI Research, said some consumers may still not have access to reliable or fast enough broadband connections, or simply prefer physical media to digital, much in the way that some audio enthusiasts still purchase and collect CDs and records.

    For Netflix, however, the offering has made less sense in recent years. “Our goal has always been to provide the best service for our members, but as the DVD business continues to shrink, that’s going to become increasingly difficult,” co-CEO Ted Sarandos wrote in a blog post in April.

    Shutting down its DVD business could help Netflix better focus resources as it expands into new markets such as gaming as well as live and interactive content. Its DVD business has also declined significantly in recent years. In 2021, Netflix’s non-streaming revenue – mostly attributable to DVDs – amounted to 0.6% of its revenue, or just over $182 million.

    The cost to operate its DVD business may also be a factor, especially as Netflix rethinks expenses broadly amid heightened streaming competition and broader economic uncertainty. “Moving plastic discs around costs far more money than streaming digital bits,” said Eric Schmitt, senior director analyst at Gartner Research. “Removing and replacing damaged and lost inventory are also cost considerations.”

    Even before Netflix announced the news, some longtime subscribers said they could see the writing on the wall.

    “The inventory of available titles, while still vast, had been contracting some over the years with some movies that were once available no longer being so,” Cordy said. “Turnaround times to get a new movie or movies also started to take longer, so I knew it was only a matter of time. But I didn’t want it to end if I could help it.”

    Other DVD subscribers were hoping for a happy ending. Bill Rouhana, the CEO of Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment – which owns DVD rental service Redbox – told The Hollywood Reporter in April he hoped to purchase Netflix’s DVD business. “I’d like to buy it… I wish Netflix would sell me that business instead of shutting it down,” he said. Redbox remains popular despite the shift in streaming, but took a hit during the pandemic because of the lack of new movies and TV shows to fill the boxes.

    A Netflix spokesperson told CNN it has no plans to sell the DVD business and will be recycling the majority of its DVDs through third-party companies that specialize in recycling digital and electronic media. It will also donate some of its inventory to organizations focused on film and media.

    Netflix is also offering subscribers a “finale surprise” where they could opt-in to receive up to 10 DVDs selected at random from their queue.

    McEvoy, who already subscribes to Disney+, Hulu, the Criterion channel and Mubi, said he’s now testing out other services such as Eros (Indian cinema) and Viki (Korean and Chinese films) for harder-to-find content. Still, he said, he’s “sad” to see Netflix’s DVD service depart.

    “I absolutely would not have been able to find all of those movies [I’ve watched] if not for the Netflix DVD service,” he said.

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  • Adobe previews new AI editing tools | CNN Business

    Adobe previews new AI editing tools | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    Photo-editing software maker Adobe unveiled a slew of new AI-powered tools and features last week at its annual Max event, including a dress that transforms into a wearable screen and streamlined ways to delete elements from photos.

    The company previewed a series of prototype tools that make use of both generative AI and 3D image technology in the Adobe MAX Sneaks showcase. Covering photo, audio, video, 3D, fashion and design, the new capabilities are meant to give the public a sneak peak into early-stage ideas that might one day become widely used components of Adobe products.

    A highlight of the event was Adobe’s Project Primrose, an interactive dress that shifts into different colors and patterns as it’s worn.

    Other previewed items include a tool that automatically detects each object in an image and lets users perform a variety of tasks, labeled Project Stardust. For example, it can spot a suitcase within a photo to then be moved or deleted or predict and prompt likely tasks, such as deleting people from the background of an image.

    A screenshot of Project Stardust, a tool unveiled as part Adobe's annual

    Also on display was Project Dub Dub Dub, technology that can automatically dub audio over a video into all supported languages while preserving the speaker’s voice, as was a new tool that shows Adobe users what the ability to apply text-to-image generative AI tool Firefly to videos might look like.

    Adobe first began adding Firefly into a Photoshop beta app in May, with the goal of “dramatically accelerating” how users edit their photos. It allows users to add or delete elements from images with just a text prompt. It can also match the lighting and style of the existing images automatically, the company said.

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  • Cyberattack forces hospitals to divert ambulances in Connecticut and Pennsylvania | CNN Politics

    Cyberattack forces hospitals to divert ambulances in Connecticut and Pennsylvania | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    A cyberattack on Thursday knocked computer systems offline at hospitals in Connecticut and Pennsylvania, forcing them to send ambulances to other hospitals, hospital spokespeople told CNN.

    As of late Friday morning, Crozer Health, a network of three hospitals and a medical center in the Philadelphia suburbs, was still diverting ambulances for stroke and trauma patients to other hospitals because of a “ransomware attack,” Crozer Health spokesperson Lori Bookbinder told CNN.

    The hack hit Prospect Medical Holdings and affected all of their health care facilities, according to a statement from PMH affiliate Eastern Connecticut Health Network. PMH owns 16 hospitals in California, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island, according to its website.

    At Eastern Connecticut Health Network, which includes two hospitals, the urgent care center is closed and elective surgeries were canceled until further noticed because of the hack, according to the network’s website.

    Other Prospect Medical Holdings affiliates reported disruptions from the hack.

    “We are working closely with federal law enforcement to respond to this incident,” Prospective Medical Holdings said in a statement to CNN.

    National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson told CNN that the White House is “closely monitoring the ongoing incident,” adding that “the Department of Health and Human Services has been in contact with the company to offer federal assistance, and we are ready to provide support as needed to prevent any disruption to patient care as a result of this incident.”

    The company has so far declined offers of federal assistance, according to a US official.

    But Prospective Medical Holdings said later Friday that they “believe there may have been a miscommunication or a misunderstanding” and that they “welcome any assistance from the federal government.”

    CharterCARE Health Partners, which includes two hospitals in Rhode Island, said Thursday that the incident was affecting “inpatient and outpatient operations” and that “some patient procedures may be affected.”

    Patient care continues at the affected hospitals, but they’re operating with limited capacity in what is now a well-rehearsed routine. Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, ransomware and other cyberattacks hampered patient care at American hospitals that are often ill-equipped to deal with them.

    Eastern Connecticut Health Network ended ambulance diversion at 10 a.m. local time Friday, spokesperson Nina Kruse told CNN. The emergency rooms at ECHN’s two hospitals have been open throughout the incident, Kruse said.

    This isn’t Crozer Health’s first bout with ransomware. A June 2020 attack orchestrated by a prolific ransomware gang forced the hospital network to take its computer systems offline.

    This story has been updated with additional reporting.

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  • Microsoft gives ground on streaming in bid to remove UK block on Activision deal | CNN Business

    Microsoft gives ground on streaming in bid to remove UK block on Activision deal | CNN Business

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    London
    CNN
     — 

    Microsoft has made a major concession to UK authorities in a bid to remove the last remaining regulatory obstacle to its huge takeover of Activision Blizzard.

    The companies have submitted a new proposal to the UK antitrust watchdog — the only regulator worldwide standing in the way of the $69 billion deal — that would see Activision’s (ATVI) cloud streaming rights outside the European Union and three other European countries sold to a rival, Ubisoft Entertainment. Microsoft President Brad Smith said in a blog post Tuesday that the companies believe the new proposal “presents a substantially different transaction” for the CMA to consider than its previous merger agreement.

    “We believe that this development is positive for players, the progression of the cloud game streaming market, and for the growth of our industry,” Smith said.

    The restructured deal, announced by the UK Competition and Markets Authority Tuesday, follows a decision by the CMA to block the acquisition on its original terms. That move put it at odds with EU regulators, which approved the plan in May. A US federal court also said in July that it would not block the deal from closing.

    CMA chief executive Sarah Cardell said the regulator would now consider the new proposal.

    “Our goal has not changed — any future decision on this new deal will ensure that the growing cloud gaming market continues to benefit from open and effective competition driving innovation and choice.”

    Under the restructured deal, Ubisoft — a French video game developer — will be able to license out Activision’s content to any cloud gaming provider outside the European Economic Area, including in the United Kingdom. Shares in Ubisoft jumped 7% in Paris Tuesday.

    “This will allow gamers to access Activision’s games in different ways, including through cloud-based multigame subscription services,” Cardell said.

    Microsoft and Activision agreed last month to extend their merger deadline by three months to October 18, to allow more time to come to an agreement with the CMA. October 18 is now also the statutory deadline for a CMA decision on the new merger proposal, and Microsoft said it expects the agency’s review process to be completed ahead of that date.

    Microsoft (MSFT) announced the planned acquisition of Activision early last year. The transaction was valued at $69 billion at the time, making it one of the tech industry’s largest deals.

    Activision Blizzard is one of the world’s biggest video game developers, producing games such as “Candy Crush,” “Call of Duty,” “World of Warcraft” and “Overwatch.”

    –CNN’s Clare Duffy contributed to this report.

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  • Atari 2600+ sees its future in retro gaming | CNN Business

    Atari 2600+ sees its future in retro gaming | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    The Atari home video game system took the late1970s and early 1980s by storm, complete with faux wood paneling and a classic joystick with a big red button. Rival systems eventually surpassed the video-game pioneer but its iconic status, and fans, remained.

    Atari has been working to rebuild a lot of goodwill among those fans and within the broader video game industry ever since its new CEO Wade Rosen came on board in 2021.

    With Rosen at the helm, the company is taking a closer look at its own history to chart its future, releasing remastered or reimagined versions of its classics like “Missile Command” and “Centipede,” producing the critically acclaimed “Atari 50” interactive documentary, and introducing its soon-to-be released retro console the Atari 2600+.

    “I think the 2600+ has legs because there’ll be new content, new games coming out but also additional ways to play these games and to make them accessible to larger communities,” Rosen told CNN. “Do I think these things are going to replace modern consoles? Absolutely not. There’s like no way that would happen, nor would they need to. They’re radically different things.”

    The retro console arrives in November at a $130 price point and in a more compact version. While it comes packaged with 10 games in a single cartridge, the console will also play new titles and work with original Atari 2600 and 7800 game cartridges.

    Atari is reimagining the classic

    According to Rosen, retro games complement the times and reimagined Atari titles like “Haunted House,” arriving in October, or new, original games like “Days of Doom,” available now, reflect a speedy, pick-up-and-play style characteristic of the early days of the hobby.

    For instance, the remastered “Haunted House” is an elaborate stealth game where players evade colorful ghosts and monsters – but it retains the exploration mechanics of its namesake that simply featured floating eyes roaming a dark, 2D maze.

    What people want in video games has changed radically, Rosen noted, explaining that these experiences “are designed for an age of complexity,” he said. “Back when we had simplicity, I wanted 200-hour games with huge quests and branching narratives and all these things, and now I’m like: ‘I can do a couple of those a year, but life doesn’t allow for it very much.’ “

    In this photo taken on August 12, 2017, a visitor poses with a T-shirt depicting an Atari 2600 video game console from the early 1980s, during the Retro.HK gaming expo in Hong Kong.

    The company’s Atari Recharged line also takes classics like “Yar’s Revenge” and spruces them up for a modern audience. And its acquisition of Nightdive Studios earlier this year added new franchises to Atari’s stable of remasters like “Turok” and the upcoming “System Shock.”

    The recent “Atari 50” release actually did something different while mining nostalgia — it established the genre of the interactive video game documentary. The company looked at decades of its history, and invited viewers of the doc to become players.

    “As we come to view games as art, more and more, I think people want to understand all the pieces that went into that and all the history around it, but yet the medium is games so we probably should interact with it in a different way,” Rosen noted.

    While not in the company’s plans as yet, the Atari CEO also showed enthusiasm for a hypothetical handheld system that can play its retro games on the go like a Nintendo Switch.

    “I guess short answer, yeah, if there’d be an appetite for it. I’d worry the cartridges would be a little too big. That would be really fun,” he said.

    As the successor to Atari’s home console crown, Nintendo, pushes forward with its Switch system, and newer players like Microsoft’s Xbox and Sony’s PlayStation 5 traffic in blockbuster, Triple-A games this holiday season, the Atari 2600+ retro console (but not a handheld yet) will join the scrum. It’s set to launch November 17.

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  • The big bottleneck for AI: a shortage of powerful chips | CNN Business

    The big bottleneck for AI: a shortage of powerful chips | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    The crushing demand for AI has also revealed the limits of the global supply chain for powerful chips used to develop and field AI models.

    The continuing chip crunch has affected businesses large and small, including some of the AI industry’s leading platforms and may not meaningfully improve for at least a year or more, according to industry analysts.

    The latest sign of a potentially extended shortage in AI chips came in Microsoft’s annual report recently. The report identifies, for the first time, the availability of graphics processing units (GPUs) as a possible risk factor for investors.

    GPUs are a critical type of hardware that helps run the countless calculations involved in training and deploying artificial intelligence algorithms.

    “We continue to identify and evaluate opportunities to expand our datacenter locations and increase our server capacity to meet the evolving needs of our customers, particularly given the growing demand for AI services,” Microsoft wrote. “Our datacenters depend on the availability of permitted and buildable land, predictable energy, networking supplies, and servers, including graphics processing units (‘GPUs’) and other components.”

    Microsoft’s nod to GPUs highlights how access to computing power serves as a critical bottleneck for AI. The issue directly affects companies that are building AI tools and products, and indirectly affects businesses and end-users who hope to apply the technology for their own purposes.

    OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, testifying before the US Senate in May, suggested that the company’s chatbot tool was struggling to keep up with the number of requests users were throwing at it.

    “We’re so short on GPUs, the less people that use the tool, the better,” Altman said. An OpenAI spokesperson later told CNN the company is committed to ensuring enough capacity for users.

    The problem may sound reminiscent of the pandemic-era shortages in popular consumer electronics that saw gaming enthusiasts paying substantially inflated prices for game consoles and PC graphics cards. At the time, manufacturing delays, a lack of labor, disruptions to global shipping and persistent competing demand from cryptocurrency miners contributed to the scarce supply of GPUs, spurring a cottage industry of deal-tracking tech to help ordinary consumers find what they needed.

    But the current shortage is much different in kind, industry experts say. Instead of a disruption to supplies of consumer-focused GPUs, the ongoing shortage reflects the sudden, exploding demand for ultra high-end GPUs meant for advanced work such as the training and use of AI models.

    Production of those GPUs is at capacity, but the rush of demand has overwhelmed what few sources of supply there are.

    There is a “huge sucking sound” coming from businesses representing the unrivaled demand for AI, said Raj Joshi, a senior vice president at Moody’s Investors Service who tracks the chips industry.

    “Nobody could’ve modeled how fast or how much this demand is going to increase,” Joshi said. “I don’t think the industry was ready for this kind of surge in demand.”

    One company in particular stands to benefit massively from the AI surge: Nvidia, the trillion-dollar chipmaker that according to industry estimates controls 84% of the market for discrete GPUs. In a research note published in May, Joshi estimated that Nvidia would experience “unparalleled” revenue growth in the coming quarters, with revenue from its data center business outstripping that of rivals Intel and AMD combined.

    In its May earnings call, Nvidia said it had “procured substantially higher supply for the second half of the year” to meet the rising demand for AI chips. The company declined to comment on Tuesday, citing its latest pre-earnings quiet period.

    AMD, meanwhile, said Tuesday it expects to unveil its answer to Nvidia’s AI GPUs closer to the end of the year.

    “There’s very strong customer interest across the board in our AI solutions,” said AMD CEO Lisa Su on the company’s earnings call. “There is a lot more to do, but I would say the progress that we’ve made has been significant.”

    Compounding the issue is that GPU-makers themselves cannot get enough of a key input from their own suppliers, said Sid Sheth, founder and CEO of AI startup d-Matrix. The technology, known as a silicon interposer, works by marrying standalone computing chips with high-bandwidth memory chips and is necessary for completing GPUs.

    The Biden administration has made increasing US chip manufacturing capacity a priority; the passage of the CHIPS Act last year is set to provide billions in funding for the domestic chip industry and for chip research and development. But those investments are aimed at a broad swath of chip technologies and not specifically targeted at boosting GPU production.

    The chip shortage is expected to ease as more manufacturing comes online and as competitors to Nvidia also expand their offerings. But that could take as long as two to three years, some industry experts say.

    In the meantime, the shortage could force companies to find creative ways around the problem. Companies that can’t get their hands on enough chips are now having to be more efficient, said Sheth.

    “Necessity is the mother of invention, right?” Sheth said. “So now that people don’t have access to unlimited amounts of computing power, they are finding resourceful ways of using whatever they have in a much smarter way.”

    That could include, for example, using smaller AI models that may be easier and less computationally intensive to train than a massive model, or developing new ways of doing computation that don’t rely as heavily on traditional CPUs and GPUs, Sheth said.

    “Net-net, this is going to be a blessing in disguise,” he added.

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  • Meta’s Threads is finally available on desktop | CNN Business

    Meta’s Threads is finally available on desktop | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    Threads users, rejoice: the app is rolling out its highly anticipated web version Tuesday.

    The update — perhaps the most requested by users since Threads’ mobile-only launch last month — puts the new platform one step closer to recreating the functions offered by rival X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, and could help reignite user growth following a sluggish period.

    Parent company Meta says Threads users will soon be able to log in, post, view and interact with other posts via a browser on a desktop computer, as the web version rolls out to users in the coming days. The company says it plans to add more desktop features in the future. In an early access test of some of the web-based features, CNN was able to post on the platform but could not yet scroll the home feed.

    Threads launched in early July with stunning success, garnering more than 100 million sign-ups in its first week on the back of months of chaos at Twitter. But the buzz faded somewhat as users realized the bare-bones platform still lacked many of the features that made Twitter popular, such as trending topics, robust search functions and direct messaging. Threads has been steadily rolling out smaller updates but the hotly demanded web version could help reignite stronger user engagement.

    The new web version could also raise fresh competitive concerns for X, after owner Elon Musk sparked user backlash last week by suggesting he might do away with the platform’s block feature.

    Meta employees have for weeks teased that a desktop version of Threads was in the works and being tested internally. Just last week, Instagram head Adam Mosseri, who is also leading Threads, said he had been posting from the platform’s desktop version and suggested “it’ll be ready soon but it needs more work.”

    Web access is just one of a series of recent updates to Threads as Meta continues to build out the new platform. Other features added over the past month include new “reposts” and “likes” tabs that show users the posts they have reshared and liked in their profiles, a chronological following feed and a button to share threads posts to Instagram DMs.

    Continued updates to Threads are essential if Meta wants to maintain the early traction it had with users. Despite the app’s stunning success following its launch, by the end of July, Threads’ daily active user count had fallen 82% to around 8 million users, according to a report from market research firm Sensor Tower earlier this month. By August 16, updates to Threads had helped the app notch slight gains to 11 million daily active users, Sensor Tower said in a report Monday.

    Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said he is “quite optimistic” about the app’s potential.

    “We saw unprecedented growth out of the gate and more importantly we’re seeing more people coming back daily than I’d expected,” he said last month during the company’s earnings call. “And now, we’re focused on retention and improving the basics. And then after that, we’ll focus on growing the community to the scale we think is possible.”

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  • Google to require disclosures of AI content in political ads | CNN Business

    Google to require disclosures of AI content in political ads | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    Starting in November, Google will require political advertisements to prominently disclose when they feature synthetic content — such as images generated by artificial intelligence — the tech giant announced this week.

    Political ads that feature synthetic content that “inauthentically represents real or realistic-looking people or events” must include a “clear and conspicuous” disclosure for viewers who might see the ad, Google said Wednesday in a blog post. The rule, an addition to the company’s political content policy that covers Google and YouTube, will apply to image, video and audio content.

    The policy update comes as campaign season for the 2024 US presidential election ramps up and as a number of countries around the world prepare for their own major elections the same year. At the same time, artificial intelligence technology has advanced rapidly, allowing anyone to cheaply and easily create convincing AI-generated text and, increasingly, audio and video. Digital information integrity experts have raised alarms that these new AI tools could lead to a wave of election misinformation that social media platforms and regulators may be ill-prepared to handle.

    AI-generated images have already begun to crop up in political advertisements. In June, a video posted to X by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign used images that appeared to be generated by artificial intelligence showing former President Donald Trump hugging Dr. Anthony Fauci. The images, which appeared designed to criticize Trump for not firing the nation’s then-top infectious disease specialist, were tricky to spot: They were shown alongside real images of the pair and with a text overlay saying, “real life Trump.”

    The Republican National Committee in April released a 30-second advertisement responding to President Joe Biden’s official campaign announcement that used AI images to imagine a dystopian United States after the reelection of the 46th president. The RNC ad included the small on-screen disclaimer, “Built entirely with AI imagery,” but some potential voters in Washington, DC, to whom CNN showed the video did not notice it on their first watch.

    In its policy update, Google said it will require disclosures on ads using synthetic content in a way that could mislead users. The company said, for example, that an “ad with synthetic content that makes it appear as if a person is saying or doing something they didn’t say or do” would need a label.

    Google said the policy will not apply to synthetic or altered content that is “inconsequential to the claims made in the ad,” including changes such as image resizing, color corrections or “background edits that do not create realistic depictions of actual events.”

    A group of top artificial intelligence companies, including Google, agreed in July to a set of voluntary commitments put forth by the Biden administration to help improve safety around their AI technologies. As part of that agreement, the companies said they would develop technical mechanisms, such as watermarks, to ensure users know when content was generated by AI.

    The Federal Election Commission has also been exploring how to regulate AI in political ads.

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  • George R. R. Martin, Jodi Picoult and other famous writers join Authors Guild in class action lawsuit against OpenAI | CNN Business

    George R. R. Martin, Jodi Picoult and other famous writers join Authors Guild in class action lawsuit against OpenAI | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    A group of famous fiction writers joined the Authors Guild in filing a class action suit against OpenAI on Wednesday, alleging the company’s technology is illegally using their copyrighted work.

    The complaint claims that OpenAI, the company behind viral chatbot ChatGPT, is copying famous works in acts of “flagrant and harmful” copyright infringement and feeding manuscripts into algorithms to help train systems on how to create more human-like text responses.

    George R.R. Martin, Jodi Picoult, John Grisham and Jonathan Franzen are among the 17 prominent authors who joined the suit led by the Authors Guild, a professional organization that protects writers’ rights. Filed in the Southern District of New York, the suit alleges that OpenAI’s models directly harm writers’ abilities to make a living wage, as the technology generates texts that writers could be paid to pen, as well as uses copyrighted material to create copycat work.

    “Generative AI threatens to decimate the author profession,” the Authors Guild wrote in a press release Wednesday.

    The suit alleges that books created by the authors that were illegally downloaded and fed into GPT systems could turn a profit for OpenAI by “writing” new works in the authors’ styles, while the original creators would get nothing. The press release lists AI efforts to create two new volumes in Martin’s Game of Thrones series and AI-generated books available on Amazon.

    “It is imperative that we stop this theft in its tracks or we will destroy our incredible literary culture, which feeds many other creative industries in the US,” Authors Guild CEO Mary Rasenberger stated in the release. “Great books are generally written by those who spend their careers and, indeed, their lives, learning and perfecting their crafts. To preserve our literature, authors must have the ability to control if and how their works are used by generative AI.”

    The class-action lawsuit joins other legal actions, organizations and individuals raising alarms over how OpenAI and other generative AI systems are impacting creative works. An author told CNN in August that she found new books being sold on Amazon under her name — only she didn’t write them; they appear to have been generated by artificial intelligence. Two other authors sued OpenAI in June over the company’s alleged misuse of their works to train ChatGPT. Comedian Sarah Silverman and two authors also sued Meta and ChatGPT-maker OpenAI in July, alleging the companies’ AI language models were trained on copyrighted materials from their books without their knowledge or consent.

    But OpenAI has pushed back. Last month, the company asked a San Francisco federal court to narrow two separate lawsuits from authors – including Silverman – alleging that the bulk of the claims should be dismissed.

    OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.

    “We think that creators deserve control over how their creations are used and what happens sort of beyond the point of, of them releasing it into the world,” Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, told Congress in May. “I think that we need to figure out new ways with this new technology that creators can win, succeed, have a vibrant life.”

    US lawmakers met with members of creative industries in July, including the Authors Guild, to discuss the implications of artificial intelligence. In a Senate subcommittee hearing, Rasenberger called for the creation of legislation to protect writers from AI, including rules that would require AI companies to be transparent about how they train their models.

    More than 10,000 authors — including James Patterson, Roxane Gay and Margaret Atwood — also signed an open letter calling on AI industry leaders like Microsoft and ChatGPT-maker OpenAI to obtain consent from authors when using their work to train AI models, and to compensate them fairly when they do.

    But the AI issues facing creative professions doesn’t seem to be going away.

    “Generative AI is a vast new field for Silicon Valley’s longstanding exploitation of content providers. Authors should have the right to decide when their works are used to ‘train’ AI,” author Jonathan Franzen said in the release on Wednesday. “If they choose to opt in, they should be appropriately compensated.”

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