Technology News of the last 24 hours

A violent selloff of chip and AI stocks sent markets plunging Thursday, erasing all the gains of yesterday’s post-election rally and then some by close. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1,800 points, or about 3.4%. The S&P 500 was down 4%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq took the worst hit, falling 5.2%. Chip makers Nvidia […]

Two days after voters overwhelmingly rejected data centers, the companies that make the chips, networking gear, and other tech for the facilities saw their stocks crushed.

Google, Meta and TikTok filed separate lawsuits seeking to block a California law designed to protect children from the risks of social media, arguing that it violates their rights under the First Amendment

Law bans social media platforms from providing minors features such as autoplay that lead to compulsive use Google, Meta and TikTok sued California to block enforcement of ⁠a new state law intended ⁠to limit the risk of addicting children under 16 to social media platforms. The law, known as Assembly Bill 1709, prohibits such platforms from offering underage children “psychologically exploitative features” that could lead to compulsive use, such as providing ⁠personal recommendations and sending videos through autoplay features. It also requires the deletion of children’s accounts with those features. Continue reading...

Delivering net zero also at risk, say MPs as they call for centralised policy and funding for mines and diversification The UK is “dangerously” dependent on China for critical raw materials needed for the military, renewable energy infrastructure and AI, a parliamentary investigation has found. MPs on the business select committee called for an urgent centralised policy and the creation of a “critical minerals finance facility” to help fund rare earth and other critical mineral mines, and deploy grants, equity and debt to accelerate a diversification programme. Continue reading...

Three tech giants — Google, Meta and TikTok — sued the state of California over a recently passed law designed to restrict social media platforms from offering “addictive” features to children under 16. In its lawsuit, filed on Wednesday, Google claimed that the law would ban features like YouTube’s recommendation system and autoplay feature, even […]

AI chatbots are directing users to potentially misleading health information pushed by private medical providers, according to a new Simon Fraser University study published in BMJ Connections Digital Health & AI.

According to a new report from Counterpoint Research, Apple just recorded its highest-ever global smartphone revenue for a third calendar quarter. Here are the details. more…

It's Friday, November 6 in Australia and New Zealand, which means customers who preordered a PROLED touchscreen MacBook Pro, OLED iPad mini, M6 ‌MacBook Pro‌, or M6 iMac are now starting to receive their devices. People will soon be sharing photos and first impressions of the new products on the MacRumors forums, Reddit, Instagram, and other platforms, giving us a first look at what real-world users think of the ‌OLED‌ upgrade for the ‌iPad mini‌ and the PROLED and touchscreen update for the ‌MacBook Pro‌. Apple's new high-end ‌MacBook Pro‌ models come with M5 Pro or M5 Max, and the major change is the display. It's touch-enabled and is the first Mac with an ‌OLED‌ display. The design has been updated, so the new machines are thinner and lighter than the mini-LED models, which Apple is still selling. Apple also brought back the glowing Apple logo, and replaced the notch with a Dynamic Island. Pricing on the PROLED ‌MacBook Pro‌ starts at $2,899 for the 14-inch model and $3,399 for the 16-inch model. The ‌OLED‌ ‌iPad mini‌ is Apple's first smaller-screened iPad to get ‌OLED‌, and it's also the most affordable ‌OLED‌ ‌iPad‌. It's almost a millimeter thinner than the prior version and has an Acoustic Display that does away with speaker holes. Without them, the enclosure is sealed, making it the first ‌iPad‌ with a water and dust resistance rating (IP67). It uses Apple's A20 Pro chip. The ‌OLED‌ ‌iPad mini‌ starts at $699. The 14-inch entry-level ‌MacBook Pro‌ and 24-inch ‌iMac‌ got little in the way of updates beyond an M6 chip. The ‌MacBook Pro‌ is priced starting at $1,999, and the ‌iMac‌ starts at $1,499. Australia is the first country where customers can buy one of the new products in an Apple retail location. Online orders of the PROLED ‌MacBook Pro‌ don't ship until late November or early December, so it's possible in-store stock will be limited. The ‌OLED‌ ‌iPad mini‌, 14-inch ‌MacBook Pro‌, and ‌iMac‌ should be readily available. After Australia and New…

Blue Origin has developed a third stage for its New Glenn rocket, which it says will make the launcher even more flexible and capable. The company has also built a new engine, called Northstar.

Spacewalkers Anil Menon and Joshua Kutryk installed the final ISS Roll-Out Solar Array on Thursday (Nov. 5), wrapping up a multiyear effort to boost the station's power generation by 30%.

CesiumAstro Inc., a global leader in space and defense communications systems and satellites, today announced the closing of $730 million in Series D financing, valuing the company at more than […] The post CesiumAstro Secures $730 Million in Janus Henderson-Led Series D at a Valuation Above $4.5 Billion; Unveils Synchronicity Satellite Constellation Following Fully Successful Element-1 Mission appeared first on SpaceNews.

Amazon and Uber are teaming up to make Uber Eats the official restaurant delivery partner for Prime subscribers in the US. The news comes as Uber faces a drastically reshaped competitive landscape with the merging of rivals DoorDash and Instacart. Under the new partnership, Amazon Prime subscribers will get $0 delivery fees on restaurant orders […]

Tech CEO hearings. Tougher AI and data center guardrails. Investigations of Elon Musk's DOGE cuts. The gates are open for Democrats once they regain control of committee gavels come January after a historic win of majorities in both the House and Senate on Tuesday. "LAWYER UP," the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee wrote […]

After four of the biggest competitors in the AI race held quarterly earnings calls late last month, two things are clear: Big Tech is not done spending record amounts on the AI data center buildout, and the AI data center buildout is not any closer to yielding its promised returns. A third thing is also […]

This week on “Uncanny Valley,” we discuss the historic blue wave that swept the midterms and delivered a rebuke to the Trump administration, Big Tech, and data centers.

Google made Gemini Omni 1.2 Flash, its AI video model, generally available. It makes 15-second clips, up from 10, lets users edit them over several chat turns and costs 30% less, at about $0.07 a second for 720p video. Google has made Gemini Omni 1.2 Flash, the latest version of its AI video model, generally […] This story continues at The Next Web

The tech industry spent big on the midterms, but it turned out to be a poor investment. Elon Musk poured a staggering $446m dollars into Republican-aligned political action committees (Pacs) and groups since last year, but his efforts didn’t pay off. Democrats won every one of the five Senate races where Musk’s America Pac spent the most money backing Republican candidates. Carter Sherman and Kai Wright are joined by the Guardian’s US tech editor, Blake Montgomery, to ask what the ‘blue tsunami’ will mean for Musk and the wider tech industry. Will this spell the end of AI datacenters? And if so, what could this mean for the US economy? Continue reading...

Philippe Jaenada told French radio that he used ChatGPT to ‘play with the reader’, after the prize removed a different book from its longlist over allegations of AI use The winner of France’s most prestigious literary prize has admitted using artificial intelligence while writing his novel, barely a day after collecting an award whose jury had thrown out another book over suspected AI use. Philippe Jaenada, who won the Prix Goncourt on Tuesday for L’Inconnue du quai de Javel (The Unknown Woman of the Quai de Javel), told France Inter radio on Wednesday that he had turned to AI “three times” while writing it. Continue reading...

The tech billionaire set spending record as he poured $446m into campaigns for failed Republican candidates Elon Musk set a record for election spending this year after pouring nearly half a billion dollars into backing Republicans in the US midterm elections. It turned out to be a poor investment. The SpaceX and Tesla CEO contributed at least $446m to Republican-aligned Super Pacs and groups over the course of the elections, specifically targeting several key Senate races in an effort to help the Trump administration retain Republican control of Congress. He outdid his own 2024 spending of nearly $290m. Yet as Democrats swept to power across the country on Tuesday night, it became clear that Musk would get nearly nothing in return for his hundreds of millions in spending. Continue reading...

Ted Cruz is pushing to confirm another Republican commissioner, potentially clearing the way for an all-Republican FCC that critics say would violate federal law.