Google enjoys a competitive edge in generative AI due to its trove of data and AI-optimised chips, Microsoft has told EU antitrust regulators, underscoring the rivalry between the two tech giants. From a report: The comments by Microsoft were in response to a consultation launched by the European Commission in January on the level of competition in generative AI. The growing popularity of generative AI, which can generate human-like responses to written prompts and is exemplified by Microsoft-backed OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's chatbot Gemini, has triggered concerns about misinformation and fake news. "Today, only one company - Google - is vertically integrated in a manner that provides it with strength and independence at every AI layer from chips to a thriving mobile app store. Everyone else must rely on partnerships to innovate and compete," Microsoft said in its report to the Commission. It said Google's self-supply AI semiconductors would give it a competitive advantage for the years to come, while its large sets of proprietary data from Google Search Index and YouTube enabled it to train its large language model Gemini. "YouTube provides an unparalleled set of video content; it hosts an estimated 14 billion videos. Google has access to such content; but other AI developers do not," Microsoft said.

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The FCC passed new rules that will require cable and satellite providers to clearly disclose the "all in" price of subscriptions in promotional materials. From a report: "The advertised price for a service should be the price you pay when your bill arrives," FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said. "It shouldn't include a bunch of unexpected junk fees that are separate from the top-line price you were told when you signed up." Rosenworcel cited fees like "broadcast subscription" and "regional sports assessments." "It is not just annoying," she said. "It makes it hard for consumers to compare service in a market that is evolving and has so many new ways to watch." The new rules passed 3-2. Commissioners Brendan Carr and Nathan Simington voted against it. Rosenworcel has also proposed other measures aimed at "junk fees," while the White House has focused on the elimination or limitation of things like surcharges and late fees in areas like concert ticketing, airline reservations and banking.

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The Supreme Court clarified when public officials can block critical constituents from their personal profiles without violating their constitutional protections in a unanimous decision Friday. From a report: After hearing appeals of two conflicting rulings -- one filed against school board members in Southern California and another filed against the city manager of Port Huron, Mich. -- the justices provided no definitive resolution to the disputes and instead sent both cases back to lower courts to apply the new legal test. In a unanimous decision authored by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the court said state officials cannot block constituents on their personal pages when they have "actual authority to speak on behalf of the State on a particular matter" and "purported to exercise that authority in the relevant posts." "For social-media activity to constitute state action, an official must not only have state authority -- he must also purport to use it," Barrett wrote. The case marked the latest battle over public officials' social media presence when they mesh their official and personal roles. The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which heard the Michigan case, sided with the city manager, James Freed, who deleted comments on his Facebook page left by a resident and blocked several of the resident's profiles. The resident, Kevin Lindke, had criticized Freed over his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, court filings indicate.

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Apple reached a $490 million settlement of a class-action lawsuit brought by a group of investors who accused Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook of misleading them in 2018 about the company's sales prospects. From a report: Cook made false statements about the company's business in China that caused Apple stock to trade at artificially inflated prices, the investors said in their complaint, which alleged violation of securities laws. Lawyers disclosed the proposed settlement in a request for judicial approval filed Friday in federal court in Oakland, California. The settlement comes as Apple continues to face headwinds in China, where iPhone sales fell by a surprising 24% over the first six weeks of this year, according to independent research released earlier this month. Attorneys for the investors described the settlement as the third-largest securities class-action recovery in the district's history.

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Mercedes-Benz is the latest automotive company to trial how humanoid robots could be used to automate "low skill, physically challenging, manual labor." From a report: On Friday, robotics company Apptronik announced it had entered into a commercial agreement with Mercedes to pilot how "highly advanced robotics" like Apollo -- Apptronik's 160-pound bipedal robot -- can be used in manufacturing. The news follows a similar pilot announced by BMW in January. Apptronik says that Mercedes is exploring use cases like having Apollo inspect and deliver components to human production line workers. Neither company has disclosed any figures for the agreement or how many Apollo robots are being trialed. According to Apptronik, humanoid robots would allow vehicle manufacturers to start automating manufacturing tasks without having to redesign their existing facilities. The company says its approach instead "centers on automating some physically demanding, repetitive and dull tasks for which it is increasingly hard to find reliable workers."

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Microsoft has been pushing Bing pop-up ads in Chrome on Windows 10 and 11. The new ad once again encourages Chrome users (in bold lettering) to use Bing instead of Google search. From a report: "Chat with GPT-4 for free on Chrome! Get hundreds of daily chat turns with Bing Al," the ad reads. If you click "Yes," the pop-up will install the "Bing Search" Chrome extension while making Microsoft's search engine the default. If you click "Yes" on the ad to switch to Bing, a Chrome pop-up will appear, asking you to confirm that you want to change the browser's default search engine. "Did you mean to change your search provider?" the pop-up asks. "The âMicrosoft Bing Search for Chrome' extension changed search to use bing.com,'" Chrome's warning states. Directly beneath that alert, seemingly in anticipation of Chrome's pop-up, another Windows notification warns, "Wait -- don't change it back! If you do, you'll turn off Microsoft Bing Search for Chrome and lose access to Bing Al with GPT-4 and DALL-E 3. Select Keep it to stay with Microsoft Bing."

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Sam Bankman-Fried should spend between 40 and 50 years in prison after being convicted for stealing $8 billion from customers of his now-bankrupt FTX cryptocurrency exchange, prosecutors said on Friday. From a report: "His life in recent years has been one of unmatched greed and hubris; of ambition and rationalization; and courting risk and gambling repeatedly with other people's money," federal prosecutors in Manhattan wrote. "And even now Bankman-Fried refuses to admit what he did was wrong." A jury found Bankman-Fried, 32, guilty in November on seven counts of fraud and conspiracy. Lawyers for the former billionaire told U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan that a 5-1/4 to 6-1/2 year prison term would be appropriate. They said FTX clients would get most of their money back, and that Bankman-Fried did not set out to steal. Kaplan is scheduled to sentence Bankman-Fried on March 28 in Manhattan federal court. Bankman-Fried plans to appeal his conviction and sentence.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: India is walking back on a recent AI advisory after receiving criticism from many local and global entrepreneurs and investors. The Ministry of Electronics and IT shared an updated AI advisory with industry stakeholders on Friday that no longer asked them to take the government approval before launching or deploying an AI model to users in the South Asian market. Under the revised guidelines, firms are instead advised to label under-tested and unreliable AI models to inform users of their potential fallibility or unreliability. The March 1 advisory also marked a reversal from India's previous hands-off approach to AI regulation. Less than a year ago, the ministry had declined to regulate AI growth, identifying the sector as vital to India's strategic interests. The new advisory, like the original earlier this month, hasn't been published online, but TechCrunch has reviewed a copy of it. The ministry said earlier this month that though the advisory wasn't legally binding, it signals that it's the "future of regulation" and that the government required compliance. The advisory emphasizes that AI models should not be used to share unlawful content under Indian law and should not permit bias, discrimination, or threats to the integrity of the electoral process. Intermediaries are also advised to use "consent popups" or similar mechanisms to explicitly inform users about the unreliability of AI-generated output. The ministry has retained its emphasis on ensuring that deepfakes and misinformation are easily identifiable, advising intermediaries to label or embed content with unique metadata or identifiers. It no longer requires firms to devise a technique to identify the "originator" of any particular message.

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Walmart is teaming up with Apple to sell the Mac for the first time. From a report: In a press release today, the company said that it is now selling the base model M1 MacBook Air online and in select stores for $699. The move comes a week after Apple introduced the new M3 MacBook Air and stopped selling the M1 MacBook Air itself. While Walmart has historically sold Apple devices like the iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch, it has never sold Macs directly. Instead, it's relied on third-party partners to sell the Mac through its online marketplace.

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The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed a legal complaint against two companies based in Cyprus on Wednesday that it claims are behind a wave of malicious pop-ups that trick people into downloading a fake piece of antivirus software that generated tens of millions of dollars for its operators, according to court records. From a report: The scam also involved misrepresenting results on malware repository VirusTotal as infections on the user's own computer. (Update: after the publication of this piece the FTC announced that Restoro and Reimage will pay $26 million to settle the FTC's charges.) The move is the latest from the FTC in a series of actions in the privacy and cybersecurity space. In January, the FTC banned a data broker called X-Mode from selling sensitive location data after I revealed it was harvesting location data from Muslim prayer and dating apps. In this case, the FTC says it went "undercover" against the two related companies, called Restoro and Reimage, to buy the deceiving software and have phone calls with company representatives. "Since at least January 2018, Defendants have operated a tech support scheme that has bilked tens of millions of dollars from consumers, particularly older consumers," the FTC's complaint reads. The complaint is seeking a permanent injunction against the two companies as well as monetary relief.

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In a blog post Thursday, Broadcom CEO and President Hock Tan acknowledged the discomfort VMware customers and partners have experienced after the sweeping changes that Broadcom has instituted since it acquired the company nearly four months ago. "Of course, we recognize that this level of change has understandably created some unease among our customers and partners," writes Tan. "But all of these moves have been with the goals of innovating faster, meeting our customers' needs more effectively, and making it easier to do business with us." Ars Technica reports: Tan believes that the changes will ultimately "provide greater profitability and improved market opportunities" for channel partners. However, many IT solution provider businesses that were working with VMware have already been disrupted. For example, after buying VMware, Broadcom took over the top 2,000 VMware accounts from VMware channel partners. In a March earnings call, Tan said that Broadcom has been focused on upselling those customers. He also said Broadcom expects VMware revenue to grow double-digits quarter over quarter for the rest of the fiscal year. [...] In his blog post, Tan defended the subscription-only licensing model, calling it "the industry standard." He said VMware started accelerating its transition to this strategy in 2019, (which is before Broadcom bought VMware). He also linked to a February blog post from VMware's Prashanth Shenoy, VP of product and technical marketing for the Cloud, Infrastructure, Platforms, and Solutions group at VMware, that also noted acquisition-related "concerns" but claimed the evolution would be fiscally prudent.

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The city council of Minneapolis on Thursday voted 10-3 to allow rideshare drivers to be paid the local minimum wage of $15.57 an hour, overriding the mayor's veto of the bill. As a result, Lyft and Uber said they will cease operations in the city. From a report: Lyft said in a statement the bill was "deeply flawed" and that the ordinance makes its "operations unsustainable." "We support a minimum earning standard for drivers, but it should be done in an honest way that keeps the service affordable for riders," said a Lyft spokesperson. Uber said in a statement obtained by CNN that it's "disappointed the council chose to ignore the data and kick Uber out of the Twin Cities, putting 10,000 people out of work and leaving many stranded." The ordinance mandates rideshare drivers make at least $1.40 per mile and $0.51 per minute within Minneapolis. However, the analysis Frey referred to showed lower numbers -- $0.89 per mile and $0.49 per minute -- to make minimum wage. The mayor is imploring local politicians to come up with a solution before May 1. The rideshare services say that user prices would double if they stayed in the city.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from BleepingComputer: McDonald's restaurants are suffering global IT outages that prevent employees from taking orders and accepting payments, causing some stores to close for the day. The outages started overnight and are impacting restaurants globally, including those in the USA, Japan, Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, Italy, New Zealand, and the UK. "We are aware of a technology outage, which impacted our restaurants; the issue is now being resolved," McDonald's said in a statement to BleepingComputer. "We thank customers for their patience and apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. Notably, the issue is not related to a cybersecurity event." In an updated statement, McDonald's says that the outage was caused by a third-party provider during a configuration change. "Many markets are back online, and the rest are in the process of coming back online. This issue was not directly caused by a cybersecurity event; rather, it was caused by a third-party provider during a configuration change."

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According to Bloomberg, Apple has acquired Canada-based AI startup DarwinAI for an undisclosed sum. Macworld reports: Apple has reportedly folded the DarwinAI staff into its own AI team, including DarwinAI co-founder Alexander Wong, an AI researcher at the University of Waterloo who "has published over 600 refereed journal and conference papers, as well as patents, in various fields such as computational imaging, artificial intelligence, computer vision, and multimedia systems." According to its LinkedIn profile, DarwinAI is "a rapidly growing visual quality inspection company providing manufacturers an end-to-end solution to improve product quality and increase production efficiency." In layman's terms, that means Apple is likely interested in DarwinAI to streamline its manufacturing to be more efficient. That's something that could save Apple a ton of money in annual costs. Far more interesting to our consumer devices, however, is Bloomberg's report that DarwinAI's tech can be used to make AI models more efficient in general. Apple has been said to want any generative AI features to run on the device rather than the cloud, so models will need to be as small as possible and DarwinAI could definitely help there. Last month, Apple CEO Tim Cook said the iPhone maker sees "incredible breakthrough potential for generative AI, which is why we're currently investing significantly in this area. We believe that will unlock transformative opportunities for users when it comes to productivity, problem solving and more."

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Days before Reddit's upcoming initial public offering (IPO), the company announced that the FTC has launched an inquiry into the company's licensing of user data to AI companies. Reddit says that it's "not surprised" by the FTC's inquiry, given the novel nature of these agreements. Axios reports: Reddit says it received a letter on Thursday, March 14, in which the FTC said it's "conducting a non-public inquiry focused on our sale, licensing, or sharing of user-generated content with third parties to train AI models." The FTC also is expected to request a meeting with Reddit, plus various documents and information. Reddit isn't the only company receiving these so-called "hold letters," according to a former FTC official who spoke with Axios on background.

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Alex Koller reports via CNBC: Since the start of the year, more than 50,000 workers have been laid off from over 200 tech companies, according to tracking website Layoffs.fyi. It's a continuation of the predominant theme of 2023, when more than 260,000 workers across nearly 1,200 tech companies lost their jobs. Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft have all taken part in the downsizing this year, along with eBay, Unity Software, SAP and Cisco. Wall Street has largely cheered on the cost-cutting, sending many tech stocks to record highs on optimism that spending discipline coupled with efficiency gains from artificial intelligence will lead to rising profits. PayPal announced in January that it was eliminating 9% of its workforce, or about 2,500 jobs. All told, 2023 was the second-biggest year of cuts on record in the technology sector, behind only the dot-com crash in 2001, according to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. Not since the spectacular flameouts of Pets.com, eToys and Webvan have so many tech workers lost their jobs in such a short period of time. Last month's job cut count was the highest of any February since 2009, when the financial crisis forced companies into cash preservation mode. CNBC spoke to a dozen people who have been laid off from tech jobs in the past year or so about their experiences navigating the labor market. Some spoke on the condition that CNBC not use their names or write about the details of their situation. Taken together, they paint a picture of an increasingly competitive market with job listings that include exacting requirements for qualification and come with lower pay than their prior gigs. It's a particularly confounding situation for software developers and data scientists, who just a couple of years ago had some of the most marketable and highly valued skills on the planet, and are now considering whether they need to exit the industry to find employment.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: America's first commercial-scale offshore wind farm is officially open, a long-awaited moment that helps pave the way for a succession of large wind farms. Danish wind energy developer Orsted and the utility Eversource built a 12-turbine wind farm called South Fork Wind 35 miles (56 kilometers) east of Montauk Point, New York. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul went to Long Island Thursday to announce that the turbines are delivering clean power to the local electric grid, flipping a massive light switch to "turn on the future." Interior Secretary Deb Haaland was also on hand. Achieving commercial scale is a turning point for the industry, but what's next? Experts say the nation needs a major buildout of this type of clean electricity to address climate change. Offshore wind is central to both national and state plans to transition to a carbon-free electricity system. The Biden administration has approved six commercial-scale offshore wind energy projects, and auctioned lease areas for offshore wind for the first time off the Pacific and Gulf of Mexico coasts. New York picked two more projects last month to power more than 1 million homes. This is just the beginning, Hochul said. She said the completion of South Fork shows that New York will aggressively pursue climate change solutions to save future generations from a world that otherwise could be dangerous. South Fork can generate 132 megawatts of offshore wind energy to power more than 70,000 homes. "It's great to be first, we want to make sure we're not the last. That's why we're showing other states how it can be done, why we're moving forward, on to other projects," Hochul told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview before the announcement. "This is the date and the time that people will look back in the history of our nation and say, 'This is when it changed,'" Hochul added. South Fork will generate more than four times the power of a five-turbine pilot project developed earlier off the coast of Rhode Island, and unlike that subsidized test project, was developed after Orsted and Eversource were chosen in a competitive bidding process to supply power to Long Island. Orsted CEO Mads Nipper called the opening a major milestone that proves large offshore wind farms can be built, both in the United States and in other countries with little or no offshore wind energy currently. Another large U.S. offshore wind farm began producing energy in January, with plans to eventually power 62 turbines, enough to generate electricity for 400,000 homes.

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With funding from NASA, researchers from Villanova University have obtained a never-before-seen view of the central engine at the heart of our galaxy. Space.com reports: The new map of this central region of the Milky Way, which took four years to assemble, reveals the relationship between magnetic fields at the heart of our galaxy and the cold dust structures that dwell there. This dust forms the building blocks of stars, planets, and, ultimately, life as we know it. The central engine of the Milky Way drives this process. That means a clearer picture of dust and magnetic interactions builds a better understanding of the Milky Way and our place within it. The team's findings also have implications beyond our galaxy, offering glimpses of how dust and magnetic fields interact in the central engines of other galaxies. "The center of the Milky Way and most of the space between stars is filled with a lot of dust, and this is important for our galaxy's life cycle," David Chuss, research team leader and a physics professor at Villanova University, told Space.com. "What we looked at was light emitted from these cool dust grains produced by heavy elements forged in stars and dispersed when those stars die and explode." [...] Chuss and colleagues received funding from NASA to investigate this dusty central zone using the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), which was a telescope that circled the globe at an altitude of 45,000 feet (13,716 meters) aboard a Boeing 747 plane. The project's Far-Infrared Polarimetric Large Area CMZ Exploration (FIREPLACE) created an infrared map that spans around 500 light-years across the center of the Milky Way over nine flights. Using measurements of the polarization of the radiation emitted from dust that is aligned with magnetic fields, the intricate structure of those magnetic fields themselves was inferred by the team. This was then overlaid onto a three-color map that shows warm dust with a pink hue and cool dust clouds in blue. The image also shows radio-wave-emitting filaments in yellow. "This is a journey, not a destination, but what we've found is this is a very complicated thing. The directions of the magnetic field vary all across the clouds at the center of the Milky Way," Chuss explained. "This is the first step in trying to figure out how the field that we see in the radiowaves across these large organized filaments may relate to the rest of the dynamics of the center of the Milky Way." Chuss explained that this complicated picture of magnetic fields was something that he and the FIREPLACE team had expected to see with the new SOFIA map; the observations agreed with smaller-scale infrared and radio wave observations previously made of the heart of the Milky Way. Where this new map, however, really comes into its own is the sheer scale. It manages to reveal some never-before mapped regions. The fine detail woven into it is stunning as well. A preprint version of the SOFIA data is available on arXiv.

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Emily Dreibelbis reports via PCMag: Etsy's reputation as a haven for small, independent creators has come into question as tools like Midjourney have made it easy to list art without disclosing that it's been AI-generated, and shoppers are not happy. "The fact that it's AI isn't listed anywhere," says one Reddit user who purchased a stock photo on Etsy that seemed suspiciously low cost with glowing reviews. "I was so mad at myself for not noticing it was AI before purchasing." [...] "Being avid user of Etsy, I really enjoy supporting small businesses and the talent that goes into their work," the buyer tells PCMag in a private message. "Shops such as we discussed selling massive amounts of AI-generated images take away from genuine sellers who put hours into perfecting their craft." Etsy's seller policy does not mention artificial intelligence. The platform is still determining the place AI-generated works have on the site, a source tells PCMag. Complicating matters, some sellers take AI-generated images and modify them, adding a hint of human artistry. Etsy also has a policy regarding when sellers can claim an item is "handmade," but it also does not mention AI and appears virtually unenforceable. [...] Beyond the legalities, Etsy shoppers debate the ethical and economic implications. One argues it devalues the work, citing an ancient example of explorer Mansa Musa handing out fake gold during his travels, inflating the overall supply and tanking the market. If anyone can create art at the push of a button, what defines an artist's work? And what role does Etsy play in answering that question?

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