Google launched the Google Developer Program in June. It is a free program that gives developers access to tools that will help them make apps that use Google services. Google says that “millions” of developers have signed up, so the company is adding a second, paid level to make the program more business-like. The premium registration for the Google Developer Program started on Monday. It costs $299 a year and is an upgrade from the regular Google Developer Program. There are a lot of perks that come with it, like being able to talk to Google Cloud experts one-on-one and…
Author: David
The car company seems to be putting together a teleoperations team as it gets ready to start a robotaxi service in the next few years. A recent job posting says that Tesla is looking for a software engineer to help build a teleoperations system that will let people access and handle the company’s upcoming robotaxis and humanoid robots from afar. It was the job of the software engineer in Palo Alto to “drive requirements, make design decisions, and implement software integration for this custom teleoperation system.” The job posting doesn’t say if Tesla wants to add to a current teleops…
There was a bill in Australia that would have fined online platforms up to 5 percent of their global income if they didn’t stop the spread of false information. However, the government has taken the bill back. The Labour government backed the bill, which would have let the Australian Communications and Media Authority make rules about fake news on the internet that could be enforced. Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said in a statement that the bill would have “brought about a level of transparency that has never been seen before, holding big tech accountable for their systems and processes to…
A South Korean appeals court heard on Monday that Samsung Electronics Chief Jay Y. Lee should spend five years in jail and pay a 500 million KRW fine, which is about $375,000. Ten months ago, Lee and 13 other former Samsung executives were found not guilty of changing stock prices or committing financial fraud in connection with the 2015 merger of Samsung subsidiaries, which gave Lee more power over the tech giant. A news source in the area says that the appeals case will have a decision sometime between January and February 2025. Two things make the hearing important. First,…
Thanks for coming back to Week in Review. This week, we’ll talk about how the DOJ told Google to sell off Chrome to break up its monopoly, how OpenAI deleted possible evidence in The New York Times’ copyright case against it by accident, and how AI companies are using TikTok brainrot as study tools. Let’s do this. The U.S. Department of Justice said Google should sell its Chrome browser to help break up its illegal search market monopoly. In August, District Court judge Amit Mehta said that Google was an illegal monopoly because it abused its power in the search…
Binny Bansal, co-founder of Flipkart, has quit PhonePe’s board of directors. This is three quarters of a year after doing the same thing at Flipkart. PhonePe, based in Bengaluru, said it had hired Manish Sabharwal, a manager at the staffing and HR company Teamlease, as an independent member and chair of the audit committee. In 2016, Bansal was a key part of Flipkart’s deal to buy PhonePe. He has since been on the board of the fintech company. The Walmart-backed startup runs India’s best mobile payments app. It split off from Flipkart in 2022 and was valued at $12 billion…
As SpaceX’s Starship test program continues to move forward, the company signed its second business deal to send a package to the moon using a version of the huge vehicle called a lunar lander. Lunar Outpost, a company based in Colorado, said that Starship will bring Eagle, their tough robot, to the moon’s surface by 2029. CEO of Lunar Outpost Justin Cyrus wouldn’t say anything else about the trip, like how much it would cost or whether this would be a dedicated flight or part of a ride-share. Also, it’s not clear how Starship will get the rover, which looks…
With permission from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, nuclear company Kairos Power can begin building two test reactors in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Kairos signed a deal with Google in October to provide 500 megawatts of energy for Google’s data centres. This permit is a big step forward for the company. These high-temperature reactors that are cooled by fluoride salt are smaller versions of what Kairos hopes to build in the end so that Google can get power starting in 2030. Even though the new reactors are just test beds, Ashley Lewis, a spokeswoman for Kairos, told Paehlo World that the…
JERUSALEM (AP) — The chief prosecutor of the world’s top war crimes court sought arrest warrants Monday for leaders of Israel and Hamas, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, over actions taken during their seven-month war. While Netanyahu and his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, do not face imminent arrest, the announcement by the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor was a symbolic blow that deepened Israel’s isolation over the war in Gaza. The court’s prosecutor, Karim Khan, accused Netanyahu, Gallant, and three Hamas leaders — Yehya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh — of war crimes and crimes against humanity in…
Over the past few years, WhatsApp Business has gained more than 200 million new users every month. And that means that a lot of companies are sending messages to people. Some of these messages might be spam. For clients, the only choices were to either let them send texts and deals or block the business account completely. That will finally change with WhatsApp. Right now, the company is trying out new ways for people to tell businesses what kinds of messages they should get and shouldn’t get. For certain types of texts, this includes buttons like “interested/not interested” and “stop/resume.”…
In a statement with the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia on Wednesday, the US Department of Justice said that Google should give up its Chrome browser as a way to end the company’s illegal monopoly in online search. Google would not be able to get back into the search market for five years if the DOJ’s solution is accepted. Judge Amit Mehta of the District Court will decide what Google’s final sentence will be. This could have a huge impact on one of the biggest companies in the world and on how the internet works as we…
After making Google Lens to make it easier for people to shop online, the company is now improving it to help people shop in stores by giving them information about products, comparing prices, and seeing what’s in stock nearby. Along with this news, the company is also adding more shopping features to Maps and more ways to pay with Google Pay before the holiday shopping season. The changes to Google Lens add to what Google is already doing through its Google Shopping business. It’s thought that people should also be able to make similar well-informed shopping choices in real life.…
Would you rather send all of your Windows work to the cloud? Microsoft might have the small computer that you can use at your desk. At Microsoft Ignite 2024 on Tuesday, the tech giant showed off Windows 365 Link, a thin, fanless PC that links to Windows 365. Windows 365 is a virtual Windows machine that runs on a remote server and is stored in the cloud. It works like a regular Windows installation. Windows 365 Link will be available in “select markets” in April of next year for a recommended retail price of $349. Microsoft says it boots up…
Apple fixed two security bugs on Tuesday that were being used in active cyberattacks against Mac users. The company said the fixes are “recommended for all users.” A website security alert from Apple said the company knew of two holes that “may have been actively exploited on Intel-based Mac systems.” The bugs are called “zero day” flaws because Apple didn’t know about them until they were used. For macOS, Apple launched a software update that fixed the bugs. iPhones and iPads, even those with the older iOS 17 software, also got fixes. As of now, no one knows who is…
Graphics processing units (GPUs), which are the chips that most AI models are run on, need a lot of power. Goldman Sachs predicts that AI will cause a 160% rise in power demand by 2030. This is because GPUs are being used in data centers more and more quickly. Vishal Sarin, an analog and memory circuit creator, says the trend can’t last. After more than ten years working in the chip business, Sarin started Sagence AI (it used to be called Analog Inference) to make GPU alternatives that use less power. “The uses that could really make AI computing common…
One of India’s biggest news outlets, Asian News International, has sued OpenAI. This case could set a standard for how AI companies use protected news material in India, which has the most people in the world. Asian News International sued the AI company in 287 pages in the Delhi High Court on Monday, saying that the company illegally used its content to train its AI models and made up false information that it said came from the news agency. It’s the first time that an Indian news group has gone to court against OpenAI over copyright claims. At the meeting…
The company said on Tuesday that Instagram is trying a feature that will let users reset their suggestions. You would start over with your suggestions and teach the app’s algorithm again what material you like on your Explore page, home feed, and Reels tab if you reset them. This feature is made for people who feel like the content suggestions they get no longer match their styles. You might not be interested in cooking videos anymore, even though you liked them in the past. However, that’s what you might only see on your Reels and Explore pages. TikTok added a…
Quantization is one of the most common ways to make AI models work better, but it has boundaries, and the industry may be getting close to them quickly. In AI, quantization means reducing the number of bits that are needed to store information. Bits are the smallest units that a computer can handle. Think about this comparison: You would likely say “noon” instead of “oh twelve hundred, one second, and four milliseconds” when someone asks you what time it is. That’s quantizing. Both answers are right, but one is a little more accurate. It depends on the situation how precise…
There are only two companies in the United States that send cargo to and from the International Space Station right now. This is what the Exploration Company, which has offices in Germany, France, and Italy, wants to change: To help it reach its goal of making Europe’s first reusable space ship, it just closed a big funding round. With the $160 million Series B round, the Nyx spacecraft will continue to be built. It will be able to take 3,000 kilograms of cargo to and from Earth. Three years ago, aerospace engineers Hélène Huby, Sebastien Reichstat, and Pierre Vine started…
Bluesky is having a moment, and it’s been going on for almost three months now. After X (formerly Twitter) was temporarily banned in Brazil over the summer, a lot of new people signed up for the social media app. Bluesky’s growth seems to have sped up a lot in the US, where people are unhappy with changes at X and with owner Elon Musk’s close ties to President-Elect Donald Trump. SimilarWeb says that the day after the election was the busiest day for both X’s traffic and account deletions. Bluesky, on the other hand, says it’s been adding a million…
Security experts say that Apple’s new iPhone software has a unique security feature that restarts the phone after 72 hours of not being unlocked. 404 Media reported last week that police and forensic experts were worried that some iPhones were restarting themselves for unknown reasons, making it harder for them to get into the devices and get data from them. Later, 404 Media said that security experts had found that iOS 18 had a new feature called “inactivity reboot” that made the devices restart. We know the exact time it takes for this tool to work now. A researcher at…
Elon Musk sued OpenAI, saying the company had given up on its non-profit purpose. The lawsuit was dropped in July, but it was brought back in August. As of now, the lawsuit has added new defendants, such as Microsoft, Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn, and Dee Templeton, former board member of OpenAI and vice president of Microsoft. New plaintiffs are added in the amended file. They are Shivon Zilis, an executive at Neuralink and a former member of the OpenAI board, and Musk’s AI company, xAI. Musk was one of the original founders of OpenAI, a non-profit organization whose goal…
Over a million people signed up for Bluesky’s website in the last 24 hours, the company said Thursday evening. It was one of their busiest days ever. This also means that the social network now had more than 16 million users. It was just hours ago that Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri said that more than 15 million people signed up for Threads in November. He also said that for the past three months, one million people have signed up every day for the Meta-owned website. On Thursday, Bluesky also had some teething problems. Some users couldn’t connect because one of…
Amazon has come out with an answer to Temu and Shein’s sale and discount stores. The Amazon Haul store, which can only be accessed on the mobile app or mobile web browser right now, has similar cheap mass-produced things, most of which come from China. Even Amazon can’t cut down on the time it takes to get these goods from overseas, which goes against their long-standing image as a leader in fast delivery. Even the way the Amazon Haul home page is designed makes me think of Shein and Temu: Instead of Amazon’s usual list, items are shown in grids,…
A consumer rights group in the UK called “Which?” is suing Apple under competition law on behalf of the 40 million or so people who use its cloud storage service, iCloud. As of right now, the collective proceeding lawsuit is asking for £3 billion in damages, which is about $3.8 billion. It says that Apple has broken competition rules by giving its own cloud storage service special treatment and making people pay “rip-off” prices for iCloud. ‘iOS has a stronghold and controls all of Apple’s operating systems. Apple should not abuse this power to get an unfair edge in related…
In this world, there is now an MP3 file of Mark Zuckerberg humming the line “to the window, to the wall, ’til the sweat drop down my balls.” The founder of Meta met his wife, Priscilla Chan, at a college party where Lil Jon & The East Side Boyz’s song “Get Low” with the Ying Yang Twins was played. Because Zuckerberg wrote on Instagram, it looks like he and his wife listen to “Get Low” every year on their anniversary of dating. This year, though, the cocky Zuck went the extra mile by writing an acoustic version of the 2002…
Videos by some creators that Parhlo World watched show that TikTok is soon to have an integration with LTK, an app that lets users shop based on suggestions from creators and influencers. The partnership could make it easier for customers to find the clothes and accessories that fashion bloggers talk about and make it easier for bloggers to earn affiliate fees through LTK. If you watch fashion videos on TikTok, you already know about LTK, which used to be called LiketoKnow.it and RewardStyle. People who use the app can post pictures of what they’re wearing and include links to the…
On the outside, planes of the future may look a lot like planes of today, but what’s inside (or next to the tailfins) will probably be very different. That’s the kind of future NASA wants to build with five $11.5 million study grants. As of now, the Advanced Aircraft Concepts for Environmental Sustainability 2050 (AACES) program is just getting started. Its goal is to find “transformative solutions” that could help the carbon-emitting air travel business become more environmentally friendly. These awards aren’t even close to enough to make an airplane that can fly, and these ideas are still just that—ideas.…
Tuesday, President-elect Trump said that Elon Musk will co-lead the Department of Government Efficiency. DOGE is Musk’s favorite cryptocurrency, and the name for the department stands for it. Vivek Ramaswamy, biotech entrepreneur and former presidential candidate, will lead the department with the CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, xAI, Neuralink, and owner of X. Their goal is to make it easier for Trump’s administration to “dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies.” DOGE will “provide advice and guidance from outside of Government,” which means it won’t be a real government body that needs funding and approval…
Future and its partners may get paid more if you buy something after clicking on a link in one of our stories. During Apple’s M4 Mac week, the M4 Mac mini’s new, smaller design was meant to be the star of its launch. But a design flaw has been drawing all the attention. Because the power button on the Mac mini is on the bottom, some users have come up with clever ways to get around this, such as 3D printing power button extenders. Even though it’s a small thing, Mac fans have been talking about where the power button…
Sam Altman has some inspiring words for people who want to start their own tech businesses: Now is the best time to start a business ever because AI is becoming more popular. In a talk with Garry Tan, president and CEO of Y Combinator, the head of OpenAI compared the AI boom to other major turning points in technology, such as the rise of mobile, the start of the internet, and the semiconductor revolution. “With each successive major technological revolution, you’ve been able to do more than you could before,” he said. Having been able to solve OpenAI’s funding problem…
For video calls, the privacy-focused messaging app Signal is adding new features like responses, links, and a calls tab. This is done to try to compete with Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams. A new “Calls” tab is the best part of the update. It lets you make new calls, handle call links, and look at your call history. You can make links for calls on this tab, so instead of making a group, you can just send people the link, which is how Meet, Zoom, and Teams work. If you want to use the links more than once, you…
People in the US: A government “shield” bill called the PRESS Act has only a few weeks left to be passed by the Senate. It was passed by the House with unanimous, bipartisan support in January, but has been waiting there for a final vote ever since. Should the PRESS Act become law, it would protect journalists all over the United States from being forced to reveal or hand over their private sources, unless it’s an emergency like stopping a terrorist attack. The bill also protects people in other ways. For example, it limits what information the government can steal…
So far, social network X has only let its paid users use Grok, an AI robot made by Elon Musk’s other company, xAI. But it looks like the platform is getting ready to let free people use the chatbot. This past weekend, a number of app experts and users wrote that people in certain areas could get a free version of Grok. Parhlo World has confirmed that X is trying some way for free users in New Zealand to get to Grok. A expert who goes by the name Swak on X says that for now there are limits on…
Twenty years ago today, Mozilla released Firefox 1.0, the first version of its browser. You could download it or buy a Mozilla CD-ROM with a guidebook at the time. You might also have been able to get it on one of the free CDs that came with a lot of mags at the time. From the ashes of Netscape, Firefox rose to become the market leader, with more than 30% of the market. But after that, things didn’t change. Then, when faster and lighter Google Chrome came out, Firefox slowly but surely lost market share. At the time, Mozilla seemed…
Now it’s up to the social magazine app Flipboard to try to bring more news sources to the open social web, which is also called the fediverse. The companies that run Press.coop, a service that made mirror accounts of major news outlets like Reuters, AP, WSJ, NYT, BBC, CNN, and even this blog, revealed Thursday that they have moved their collection of nearly 100 accounts to Flipboard. A fediverse company called Hello.coop, which is run by Dick Hardt, started Press.coop a year ago. Like many others, he wanted more news to be available in the fediverse, especially on Mastodon, the…
WP Engine Tracker is a new website that shows how many sites have left hosting company WP Engine since September, when the company got into a fight with Matt Mullenweg, co-founder of WordPress. Mullenweg runs a competing web hosting service called Automattic, which admitted that it made this site. It’s funny that the full URL of the site is WordPressenginetracker.com because Mullenweg and Automattic have said during the fight that WP Engine used the WordPress trademark improperly and led people to believe that WP Engine is connected with WordPress.com. At the time this was written, the page showed that more…
Activision, a big name in video games, said in October that it had fixed a bug in its anti-cheat system that was banning “a small number of legitimate player accounts.” The hacker who found and was using the bug said that they were able to ban “thousands upon thousands” of Call of Duty players by making them look like they were cheating. Someone hacking under the name Vizor talked to Parhlo World about the flaw and gave their side of the story. Vizor said, “I could have done this for years and no one would have known as long as…
A company called Anthropic announced on Thursday that it is working with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and the data analytics company Palantir to give U.S. intelligence and defense agencies access to its Claude family of AI models. The news comes at a time when more and more AI companies are trying to make deals with U.S. defense users for both strategic and financial reasons. Meta recently said that its Llama models will be offered to defense partners. OpenAI, on the other hand, wants to get closer to the U.S. Defense Department. Anthropic’s head of sales, Kate Earle Jensen, said that…
Seagrass is stronger than it looks. Although the marine plant only takes up 0.1% of the ocean floor, it helps keep fish and plants alive in the ocean by cleaning the water and storing a lot of carbon. Seagrass is also dying because of climate change and other things, and each year, fields around the world lose 7% of their area. It’s something that Ulysses Ecosystem Engineering wants to fix up. The self-driving robot Ulysses can be designed to go to certain spots on the ocean floor and plant seagrass. Akhil Voorakkara, co-founder and CEO of San Francisco-based Ulysses, told…