Business

Instead, this hearing was all about puncturing the aura of these CEOs and their companies, in the spirit of discontent with Big Tech. The committee chair, Representative David Cicilline (D-Rhode Island), made that clear in his opening statement when he decried the massive power of these men as a threat to the economy, to innovation, …

Above all, the hearing represents the investigators’ best chance to present their case to the American public. With four CEOs who preside over sprawling corporate empires, however, there’s no way to cover everything. Here’s what the hearing is most likely to focus on. Facebook Facebook isn’t just the world’s biggest social media network; it also …

In 2018, Canton organized a “risk-a-thon” in which people from across Facebook spent three days competing to find the most striking way to trip up those systems. Some teams found weaknesses that Canton says convinced him the company needed to make its AI systems more robust. One team at the contest showed that using different …

I admitted it was gorgeous. But I had a question for him. Earlier in the conversation, he had drawn Apple’s product matrix, four squares representing laptop and desktop, high and low end. Since returning to Apple in 1997, he had filled in all the quadrants with the iMac, Power Mac, iBook, and PowerBook. The Cube …

Opinions about wearing masks and maintaining social distancing are sharply divided, largely along red and blue lines. Conservatives Republicans are the least likely to wear a mask, according to poll data from Pew Research. Some neuroscientists believe that lessons from their field, applied appropriately, could help break the impasse and persuade more people to follow …

On March 1, the Bay Area’s Caltrain rail system was in the midst of a $2 billion plan to electrify its tracks, replace its aging diesel locomotives, and run more trains between San Francisco and Silicon Valley. Now, officials warn that without serious funding help—about $100 million annually—Caltrain could shut down altogether. There are plenty …

The stock market appears strangely indifferent to Covid-19 these days, but that wasn’t true in March, as the scale and breadth of the crisis hit home. By one measure, it was the most volatile month in stock market history; on March 16, the Dow Jones average fell almost 13 percent, its biggest one-day decline since …

TED made the risky decision to maintain its high ticket cost, and Anderson says that about half of the initial attendees chose to stick it out. “People are effectively paying 10 grand for a virtual experience,” he says. “It’s kind of amazing, a combination of an act of generosity on people’s part, and a willingness …

In 2018, Silicon Valley, like Hamlet’s engineer, was hoist with its own petard. Citizens were panicking about data privacy, researchers were sounding alarms about artificial intelligence, and even industry stakeholders rebelled against app addiction. Policymakers, meanwhile, seemed to take a renewed interest in breaking up big tech, as a string of congressional hearings put CEOs …

A spokesperson for DJI said its products don’t send customer data to China and cited the results of a recent security audit by consultants Booz Allen Hamilton. It discovered some security vulnerabilities in DJI’s drones, which the company says it is addressing, but no evidence of connections to China. DJI argues that it would be …