Business, Financial & Legal - Page 37

Telly, a company founded and unveiled by Ilya Pozin, has announced it will be giving away half a million 55-inch 4K TVs that feature a second display that permanently runs advertisements in an effort to create the first sustainable advertising business around free televisions.

Pozin announced Telly on Monday, and its unveiling went off with a bang when the company said it would be giving away millions of premium TV sets completely free of charge, and to kick things off, it will be starting with a batch of 500,000 TVs. The Hollywood Reporter spoke to Pozin, where he explained the motivation behind giving away the televisions, saying that "Companies are making billions of dollars from ads served on televisions, yet consumers have historically had to pay for both the TV and the content they watch. All of that changes today."

So, what's the catch? As with most things you get for free, there is a downside, and Telly's free 4K TV is no exception. Firstly, The Hollywood Reporter managed to get a guided tour of one of Pozin's TVs located in Telly's New York office, as photographed above, where he said each TV set features a 55-inch 4K HDR screen, microphone at the top of the display for voice command interaction, a five driver sound bar, LED strips to illuminate the back of the TV, a HD camera for video calling/workout classes, motion sensor and a second display.

It wasn't long ago that Elon Musk sat down for an interview with Fox News to discuss various topics, one of which was the evolution of artificial intelligence and the company he originally founded, OpenAI.

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO sat down with Tucker Carlson about a month ago and shared his concerns about the exponential development of artificial intelligence, how it can develop bias, and his plan to create his own AI chatbot that will be dedicated to generating truthful responses. Throughout this interview, Musk was asked about the origin of OpenAI, a company that he originally founded with the principal of a non-profit dedicated to developing AI safety and transparently.

Musk said that since his departure from the company in 2018, many of its founding principles have been tossed out, such as OpenAI being a for-profit company, closed source, and being effectively bought by Microsoft. Musk said that OpenAI was created to be a "counter-weight to Google," and he admits that he "took my eye off the ball" as the company has now partnered with Microsoft, forming a relationship where Microsoft has a big say or even direct control over OpenAI. According to Musk, there are only two big players in the artificial intelligence game, Google and its AI division DeepMind, and now Microsoft and OpenAI.

Google has made some changes to its policies regarding Gmail accounts, and the newly updated policy may put your Gmail account at risk of being deleted.

A new report from 9to5Google recounts a policy change that Google made in 2020 when it stated it would remove content from any Google account that hasn't been accessed in two years. Notably, this 2020 policy change outlined that Google would keep the account available for use but would remove the content attached to it.

However, that is about to change as Google has announced that any Google Account that hasn't been signed into for at least 2 years will be deleted, along with its contents and email address. The contents that would be deleted would be Gmail messages, Calendar events, Drive, Docs, Workspace files, and Google Photos backups. Notably, Google won't be removing any YouTube videos attached to Google accounts as some of those videos could have historical significance.

A letter sent by Twitter to affected users has revealed the platform experienced a glitch or, more accurately described as a "security incident" that leaked private tweets to the public.

The security incident can be traced back to Twitter Circles, a feature on the platform that enables users to select followers to join a private group where they can share tweets and other exclusive content. Twitter Circle is designed to be a private group of users that share exclusive content that doesn't or shouldn't, appear on Twitter's homepage. However, that very premise of the feature was undermined in early April when users began noticing followers that weren't in their Twitter Circle interacting with posts within their exclusive group.

In an email from Twitter obtained by Fortune, the platform explains that this security flaw enabled users that weren't within a Twitter Circle to see some content that was posted within it, presumably from Twitter's homepage. As you can probably imagine, Twitter Circle users were immediately concerned about the privacy of their Twitter Circle group, with one user even proving the security flaw in early April by posting screenshots of users liking his Twitter Circle's tweets that weren't a part of his Twitter Circle.

Tesla, SpaceX, and Twitter CEO Elon Musk has tested out an old Twitter feature in front of his nearly 140 million followers.

Musk began a Twitter livestream from what appears to be Twitter HQ in San Francisco, and the Tesla CEO can be seen laughing at the quality of the livestream, the fact that people are able to see him, and that "hearts" kept appearing on the screen, presumably people liking the livestream. Musk can also be heard explaining to the viewers that they are simply testing out Twitter's livestreaming feature and identifying areas of improvement, such as the resolution.

Musk goes on to say that despite the resolution, the feature "works," which is quickly followed up by a Twitter staff member saying the livestream is using code from Periscope. Notably, Twitter acquired Periscope in 2015, and much of the popular apps' video/streaming code was integrated into Twitter. According to Musk's fellow Twitter engineers, this code has never been updated, and given the quality of the livestream, that seems to be true.

CEO of Meta, Mark Zuckerberg, was at home on parental leave following the birth of his third child when Meta made its latest round of mass layoffs.

Facebook, along with its parent company Meta has been going through multiple rounds of mass layoffs in an effort to reduce running costs amid declining revenue. Meta began handing out pink slips to employees on April 19 that informed them that their position was no longer needed. Individuals familiar with the matter informed The Washington Post that an internal analysis estimated the company could lay off as many as 4,000 workers on April 19.

This figure was confirmed by people that were on a call with Mark Zuckerberg while he was at home on parental leave. Notably, the call with Zuckerberg isn't a free-for-all as the questions Zuckerberg answers are submitted by employees, and then the most popular ones are selected for a response by the CEO. The most recent call with Zuckerberg focused on questions about further layoffs and why senior management and executives were receiving even larger bonuses than last year when the company is going through a massive layoff period.

Twitter's owner Elon Musk has shifted gears from discussing Twitter's legacy blue checkmark fiasco to promoting his social media platform's revised Creator Subscription Program.

The social media platform calls the new feature "Subscriptions" and enables creators to opt in to subscribing directly to a specific creator in return for exclusive access to bonus content, exclusive previews, tweets, subscriber-only Twitter Spaces, and other perks. Essentially, Subscriptions are very similar to Only Fans, or Patreon, in the sense that fans are able to directly support their favorite creators in return for exclusive content, features, experiences, etc.

To promote Twitter's new way to support creators on its platform, Twitter owner Elon Musk took to his personal Twitter account with a screenshot of his account UI. The screenshot showed he is following 240 accounts, has 136.4 million followers, and has 24,700 paying subscribers. Navigating to Musk's subscription option on his account, it can be seen that he charges $4 for exclusive access to "this and that". A calculation of 24,700 x $4 gives us an approximate figure on how much Musk is making from his Twitter subscribers, which is just shy of $100,000 per month at $98,800/month.

In a move to make Twitter's verification checkmark a purchasable verification aesthetic, Twitter has gone ahead and removed blue checkmarks from accounts that were given them before Elon Musk took over the company in October 2022.

These blue checkmarks were given to accounts that went through Twitter's now-legacy verification system, which Twitter's CEO, Elon Musk, calls "deeply corrupted" and caused a "lord & peasants" system. Prior to Musk's takeover, accounts that were given blue checkmarks were typically journalists, celebrities, public figures, organizations, politicians, and any other account that applied, met Twitter's stringent guidelines, and passed an independent verification review.

Twitter announced on April 20 that it would be removing all legacy blue checkmarks and referred any account that previously had a blue checkmark to the Twitter Blue signup page, where the user would have to pay $8 a month to reacquire it. Many celebrities such as Bill Gates, Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, Selena Gomez, Kim Kardashian, Kylie Jenner, Shark Tank star Barbara Corcoran, Doja Cat, and more have lost their legacy blue checkmark.

Twitter, SpaceX, and Tesla CEO Elon Musk has sat down for an exclusive interview with the BBC, where he revealed some details about his acquisition of Twitter.

The Twitter CEO sat down for an interview last week where he made some honest confessions about some of his recent business ventures, as well as putting some long-standing rumors to rest. Musk revealed during the interview that the acquisition of Twitter and now being at the helm of the company has been "quite painful" and an overall "rollercoaster" of an experience. The tech billionaire conceded that he doesn't "have a stone-cold heart" and that he's been "under constant attack".

Musk added that this "constant criticism" is arriving to him in various forms, either through the media and/or regurgitated on Twitter. Musk described his situation and this constant criticism as "rough". Despite these challenges, Musk said that he still keeps his Twitter replies open to read the public's comments and has completely removed his entire block list. If Musk is telling the truth here, and we have no reason to believe otherwise, the Twitter CEO has left himself completely exposed to all forms of criticism, which speaks to his overall push for more freedom of speech on his platform.

Twitter is once again experiencing what appears to be a major problem as users are reporting their secret nude photographs are appearing in the public For You tab.

New Yor Times best-selling author Abraham Josephine Riesman took to Twitter to sound the alarm on nude photos appearing in Twitter's For You tab by writing that Twitter Circles "is broken" as Riesman noticed an account that they don't follow like one of their nudes they posted in a Twitter Circles. As you can probably imagine, Riesman wasn't alone in experiencing this glitch, as more users began reporting the same problem happening to them over the weekend.

Daric L. Cottingham took to her personal Twitter account to write that Twitter Circles is "no longer private" and that she hopes the glitch isn't retroactive. Cottingham continued and said that some of the leaked nudes are appearing in users' For You tab through a mutual follower of an account that likes a Twitter Circles photograph. Accounts that are posting these Twitter Circle nudes only know what tweets are slipping through by which ones that are liked by accounts they aren't following.

A part of Twitter's source code was uploaded to GitHub on Friday last week, and immediately the public began diving through the files.

The revealed code suggested that Twitter's algorithm would identify tweets by Elon Musk and label tweets by other users as "Democrat", "Republican," or "power user". The portion of the code that revealed these details has since been removed from GitHub, but a screenshot of it can be found above. Twitter CEO Elon Musk appeared in a Twitter Spaces call to address these concerns of his name being hardcoded into Twitter's algorithm, saying that he found it "weird" and that "This is the first time I'm learning of this by the way."

During the Twitter Spaces call, Twitter engineer Brian Wichers explained that these categories or labels were implemented into the algorithm about 10 years ago, and they are not a valuable variable throughout the entire code base. The point of the labeling not being an important factor throughout the entire code base was backed up by another Twitter engineer on the call, who said that these categories were only used for tracking purposes to identify if the platform was swaying too far towards one side.

Earlier this year, we reported that cost-cutting measures at Google went beyond things like cutting thousands of jobs, with employees set to share desks in the company's Cloud division. "Most Googlers will now share a desk with one other Googler," wrote the internal memo that leaked.

And now CNBC's Jennifer Elias is back with another leaked memo, a companywide note from Google CFO Ruth Porat, outlining more cost-cutting measures.

It's all about cutting costs, ranging from removing staplers and tape from all Google print stations (apparently, you need to go to the reception desk and ask to borrow a stapler if you need one) to fewer offerings when it comes to laptop replacements.

Google testing whether it's come up with a solution to not knowing when is the best time to buy plane tickets, as the price can sometimes fluctuate drastically.

Most people have been in the situation where they aren't sure whether now is a good time to pay for the tickets for an upcoming trip or if it would be better to wait a few more days to potentially save some money. Google believes its come up with a solution that is an extension of its already implemented price tracking feature on Google Flights. Introducing Google's 'Price Guarantee', a new feature that has just gone into a new pilot program across the US.

Google's new feature adds a new Price Guarantee badge that will appear next to an available flight. The badge represents Google's guarantee that the price you are looking at when you see the badge won't go lower than the current figure. Google believes this new feature will enable users to confidently purchase tickets without worrying that within the days leading up to their departure, their flights will suddenly become cheaper.

Following the promises made by Twitter CEO Elon Musk about making Twitter's source code transparent, the platform's internal source code has leaked online.

Elon Musk took to his personal Twitter account on March 18, writing that Twitter will be making its internal code that's used to recommend tweets open source on March 31, but, according to a recent report from The New York Times (NYT), parts of Twitter's code have already been uploaded to GitHub, an online collaboration platform for software developers. The NYT cites a legal filing made by Twitter that requests that GitHub remove the files uploaded to its server.

GitHub complied and pulled them down on the same day as the filing, but this occurred after the files were available for download for several hours. At the moment, it remains unknown just how long the code could be accessed by the public, but the NYT writes it could have been public for "at least several months". Notably, Twitter requested the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California to issue an order to GitHub to identify the individual that uploaded the file, or any other people that downloaded it.

Tesla, SpaceX, and Twitter CEO Elon Musk reportedly attempted to takeover OpenAI in 2018 but ended up cutting ties with the company after his plan was rejected.

The news comes from Semafor, which recently published an article that claims Musk, a founder and board member at the time, said to Sam Altman, current OpenAI CEO, and other fellow board members that OpenAI was losing to Google. Musk then followed up by offering to lead OpenAI himself, which was rejected by Altman and the other board members. According to the article Musk then stepped down from the board and pulled out his planned donation to the company.

At the time of Musk's departure, the Tesla CEO cited a conflict of interest between Tesla and OpenAI as the reason for his leaving. Musk said that Tesla was creating its own artificial intelligence system and would be competing for talent with OpenAI. However, according to the eight people familiar with the inside story that spoke to Semafor, a power struggle and rivalry started between Musk and Altman following Musk's rejection, which resulted in Musk stepping down from the board of directors and immediately stopping payments of his promised $1 billion donation that would have been rolled out over many years.

Not many people would pay a lot of money for someone else's signature. But that's probably exactly what is going to happen when this Steve Jobs autograph goes up for sale.

Jobs was famously one of the two Apple co-founders who brought us the company responsible for the Mac, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and much more. But Jobs was also famously awkward when it came to getting his autograph. In fact, it just didn't happen. Except when it did. And this is one of those times.

The signature is part of a plaque that was given to an Apple employee back in 2000. In fact, that employee was former Apple marketing exec Suzanne Lindbergh and the plaque comes with a letter and a handwritten signature.

Twitter CEO Elon Musk has entered into a heated exchange with a Twitter employee over his role at the company and the amount of value he has/was providing.

The storm of tweets began yesterday when Twitter user "Halli" asked about their employment status at Twitter after not hearing a response from the company for over 9 days. Halli publicly tagged Elon Musk in a series of tweets that explained that access to his computer was cut off, along with approximately 200 other Twitter employees, and that Twitter's HR department wasn't able to confirm if they were an employee or not. After thousands of retweets on that post, Musk replied by asking what "work" Halli had been doing at Twitter.

The thread continued, and Musk approved of Halli's request to break confidentiality on explaining what they were doing at the company, which resulted in Musk firing back with rebuttal questions asking specifically about the work and the value it provided Twitter. Additionally, Musk wrote that Halli "did no actual work", and claimed that "his excuse that he had a disability that prevented him from typing, yet was simultaneously tweeting up a storm." Musk then added, "Can't say I have a lot of respect for that," while posting a link to the video found below.

Elon Musk has taken to his personal Twitter account to shine a light on a recent article penned in the BBC about Twitter purportedly failing to protect its users from "trolls".

The article titled "Twitter can't protect you from trolls anymore, insiders say" was written by Marianna Spring and claims that Twitter is no longer able to protect its users from "trolling, state-coordinated disinformation, and child sexual exploitation". The article cites Twitter insiders that spoke to the BBC as well as "exclusive academic data" as the source of the new information.

These Twitter insiders also told the publication that these purported shortcomings of Twitter only became an issue after Elon Musk took over the company in late October, laid off thousands of employees, and rolled out changes to Twitter's content policy.

One of the most famous investors has warned of "terrible consequences for America" if President Joe Biden's student loan forgiveness plan comes to fruition.

Michael Burry, known for one of the most ambitious trades in finance history (betting against the housing market ahead of the 2008 collapse), has taken to Twitter to share his thoughts on the rumblings of Biden's student loan forgiveness plan. The famed investor posted a series of tweets where he warned that if student loans are forgiven, it will lead to higher college tuition, a compounding debt crisis, and overall "terrible consequences".

Burry continued and wrote that a government bailout of student loan debt would only compound the overall issue. For those wondering, under Biden's proposed student loan forgiveness plan, student loan borrowers could get $20,000 wiped away from their overall debt. Currently, the Supreme Court is revising Biden's plan and will determine when federal student loan payments will resume following a nearly three-year COVID-19-related pause.

Guinness World Records has awarded Jeff Reitz for ridiculous 2,995 consecutive visits to Disneyland between 2021 and 2020.

The Disneyland fanatic was given a Guinness World Record for his daily trips to the theme park that began as a method of distracting himself from job-hunting. The LA Times reports that Reitz, a 50-year-old man from Huntington Beach, California went to Disneyland in Anaheim nearly 3,000 days in a row, leading him to become somewhat of a park celebrity, with Reitz saying to the publication that he began having guests in the park stop him to ask for photos.

Reitz made a 20 mile trip to Disneyland in Anaheim every day for 8 years, 3 months and 13 days. The visits to the happiest place on Earth began when he was unemployed, with Reitz saying that he was gifted an annual pass to Disneyland and used the theme park as a source of free entertainment. The celebrity side of Reitz's trips to the theme park began shortly after his 60th consecutive visit when the park-goer was interviewed by a news reporter.