In response to stalling growth and intense competition, Meta Platforms executives have spoken of cost cuts, hiring freezes and “ruthless prioritization.” One word the company hasn’t used: layoffs. But Meta has begun quietly nudging out a significant number of staffers by reorganizing departments and giving affected employees a limited window Read more…
Apple began assembling some of its devices in India and Vietnam a few years ago, slowly cutting its reliance on China. The Cupertino-giant is now gearing up to make the two nations key global manufacturing hubs, according to analysts at JP Morgan. From a report: In a report they sent Read more…
Telegram’s doxxing problem goes far beyond Myanmar. WIRED spoke to activists and experts in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Eastern Europe who said that the platform has ignored their warnings about an epidemic of politically motivated doxxing, allowing dangerous content to proliferate, leading to intimidation, violence, and deaths. Telegram, Read more…
On Tuesday, 40 civil rights groups published an open letter calling on MGM Television executives to cancel the studio’s upcoming reality show Ring Nation, which will feature former NSA employee and comedian Wanda Sykes presenting humorous surveillance footage captured from Ring doorbell cameras. The groups say the studio is “normalizing Read more…
The Pentagon has ordered a sweeping audit of how it conducts clandestine information warfare after major social media companies identified and took offline fake accounts suspected of being run by the U.S. military in violation of the platforms’ rules. From a report: Colin Kahl, the undersecretary of defense for policy, Read more…
“Whirring as it powered up, a hoverbike lifted directly into the air in Michigan, video shows.” That’s the lead from one news report about a big debut at a U.S. auto show in Detroit: a gasoline-and-electric powered hoverbike (using a Kawasaki motor) created by Japanese manufacturing company AERWINS Technologies. They’ve Read more…
“An encounter with the superhuman is at hand,” argues Canadian novelist, essayist, and cultural commentator Stephen Marche in an article in the Atlantic titled “Of Gods and Machines”. He argues that GPT-3’s 175 billion parameters give it interpretive power “far beyond human understanding, far beyond what our little animal brains Read more…