|
His statement to his employees is not exactly forceful.
|
|
 Google today announced that it is expanding its more affordable Google AI Plus subscription plan to 35 countries and territories, including the United States.
|
|
The French government is saying au revoir to Microsoft Teams and Zoom as it embraces a home-grown alternative. By next year, civil servants across all departments will have switched to French videoconference platform Visio, as EuroNews reports.
As with Teams and Zoom, Visio has an AI-powered transcription tool. Visio runs on a French company's cloud infrastructure as well. The platform has around 40,000 users and it's been in testing for the last year. The government expects the switch to help reduce costs by as much as €1 million ($1.2 million) each year for every 100,000 users.
The decision to ditch Microsoft Teams and Zoom is part of a broader effort to rely less on foreign software services — particularly US ones. Under the Suite Numérique project, France also plans to jettison the likes of Gmail and Slack for government use.
"The aim is to end the use of non-European solutions and guarantee the security and confidentiality of public electronic communications by relying on a powerful and sovereign tool," David Amiel, minister for the civil service and state reform, said. "This strategy highlights France's commitment to digital sovereignty amid rising geopolitical tensions and fears of foreign surveillance or ser
|
|
TikTok has reached a settlement in a closely-watched lawsuit over social media addiction, narrowly avoiding a trial that's scheduled to begin jury selection Tuesday. Terms of the deal, which was reported by The New York Times, weren't disclosed.
TikTok's settlement comes about one week after Snap reached a settlement in the same case. The trial is expected to move forward in Los Angeles with Meta and YouTube as the only defendants. Mark Lanier, a lawyer for the plaintiff, said in a statement to NYT that they were "pleased" with the settlement and that it was "a good resolution." TikTok didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
The trial stems from a 2023 lawsuit brought by a California woman known in court documents as "K.G.M." She sued Meta, Snap, TikTok and YouTube and alleged that their platforms were addictive and had harmed her as a child. The judge in the case previously ordered the companies' executives, including Mark Zuckerberg and Adam Mosseri, to testify. YouTube's top exec, Neal Mohan, is also likely to testify, according to The New York Times.
The lawsuit is the first among several high-profile cases against social media companies to go to trial this year. Meta is expected to head to court in New Mexico in early February in a case brought by the state's attorney general, who
|
|
Meta has started blocking links to ICE List, a website that compiles information about incidents involving Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol agents, and lists thousands of their employees' names. It seems that the latter detail is what caused Meta to take action in a move that was first reported by Wired.
ICE List is a crowdsourced Wiki that describes itself as "an independently maintained public documentation project focused on immigration-enforcement activity" in the US. "Its purpose is to record, organize, and preserve verifiable information about enforcement actions, agents, facilities, vehicles, and related incidents that would otherwise remain fragmented, difficult to access, or undocumented," its website states.
Along with notable incidents, the website also lists the names of individual agents associated with ICE, CBP and other DHS agencies. According to Wired, the website's creators said much of that information had come from a "leak," though it appears to be based largely on public LinkedIn profiles. As Wired notes:
Links to ICE List have been spreading widely for several weeks, including on Meta's platforms. There are numerous links to the website on Threads, some of which go back several w
|
|
In one 30-second clip, you've caught someone breaking the law-but you might also have broken one yourself.
Smart cameras are everywhere now—mounted on porches, tucked under eaves, perched on fences, and watching over driveways, garages, and balconies. They're cheaper, easier to install, and produce sharper video than ever. But with that convenience comes a degree of legal uncertainty. Can you record anything your camera sees? What about what it hears? Can a neighbor make you take it down? And what if you rent instead of own?
We'll break down what the law actually says about surveillance at home—what's legally allowable, where things get complicated, and how to protect your home without accidentally violating someone else's privacy.
|
|
