Surveillance
The race to lead in AI is spurring a fresh wave of corporate acquisitions and investments as tech companies seek to show customers they aren’t sleeping on the red-hot technology.
Why it matters: AI is poised to reshape many industries, and the pressure is on CEOs to prove they have an AI strategy.
On the acquisition front, Databricks announced this week it is paying $1.3 billion (or $21 million per employee) to buy two-year-old startup MosaicML, which specializes in open source AI models.
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Read MoreAirports are slated to become more seamless and efficient, a new report finds, even as they get busier and larger to meet growing demand.
Why it matters: As the place where many trips begin and end, airports are a critical cog in the economy. Yet they’re also the source of many of our travel frustrations — flight delays, security bottlenecks and poor customer service.
But airports could wind up being a place where we actually enjoy hanging out — even if we’re not traveling.
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Read MoreThe first hydrogen-powered train in North America is taking riders on a two-and-a-half hour trip through central Quebec this summer.
It’s a demonstration that launched earlier this month to show how electricity stored as hydrogen can replace diesel fuel on railways where installing electrified rails or overhead wires would be challenging.
Advocates for the use of hydrogen in heavy transportation say it could raise awareness and boost confidence in the emerging technology in North America.
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Read MoreAlphabet-owned Google GOOGL.O on Tuesday said it is cutting jobs at mapping app Waze as it merges the app’s advertising system with Google Ads technology, without giving details on the number of layoffs.
“In order to create a better, more seamless long-term experience for Waze advertisers, we’ve begun transitioning Waze’s existing advertising system to Google Ads technology. As part of this update, we’ve reduced those roles focused on Waze Ads monetization,” Google, which acquired Waze for about $1.3 billion in 2013, said.
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Read MoreApple has criticised powers in the Online Safety Bill that could be used to force encrypted messaging tools like iMessage, WhatsApp and Signal to scan messages for child abuse material.
Its intervention comes as 80 organisations and tech experts have written to Technology Minister Chloe Smith urging a rethink on the powers.
Apple told the BBC the bill should be amended to protect encryption.
The government says companies must prevent child abuse on their platforms.
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Read MoreA senator who threatened to sue Canadian media over China coverage took more state-sponsored trips to the People’s Republic than any other parliamentarian, records show. Senator Victor Oh (Ont.), a Mississauga developer, accepted six junkets at China’s expense to promote trade and “cultural exchanges.”
Records show Senator Oh from his appointment in 2013 by then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper repeatedly toured China as a guest of the Communist Party. Senator Oh within months of his appointment visited Changchun on a trade junket sponsored by the People’s Government of Jilin Province.
In 2014 he traveled to Hainan with his wife on a “cultural exchange” sponsored by the People’s Government of Hainan Province. Senator Oh returned to Hainan in 2015 on another “cultural exchange” as a guest of state-run Hainan Airlines.
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Read MoreThe House of Commons Defence committee calls on the Trudeau government to impose sanctions on individuals and organizations that engage in “disinformation” campaigns targeting Canadians.
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Read MoreA new report from the Judiciary Committee’s select committee on the weaponization of the federal government has released an interim report about the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), which became one of the most important deep state outposts pushing the censorship of Americans.
The report, which is linked in full at the House Judiciary Committee’s webpage, details how CISA, set up in 2018 to combat cybersecurity threats against critical infrastructure in the U.S., quickly reinterpreted its mission to include protecting the apparently fragile minds of Americans from “misinformation and disinformation.”
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Read MoreA sealed indictment in South Korea, revealed to the public for the first time by Reuters on Tuesday, accuses former Samsung executive Choi Jinseog of stealing company secrets from his old employer so he could help Taiwan-based Foxconn build a chip factory in China.
South Korean prosecutors announced the indictment on June 12, but without naming Choi or providing many details of the case. South Korean media deduced the identity of the defendant fairly quickly and the unreleased indictment confirmed their guess.
Choi was arrested in May and is jailed awaiting trial, which is scheduled to begin on July 12. He has denied all of the charges against him.
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Read MoreDavid Johnston concluded his tenure as special rapporteur by submitting his last report on foreign interference to the prime minister Monday evening. The report was marked as confidential.
Earlier this month, Johnston said he resigned because of the increasingly partisan atmosphere surrounding his work.
Johnston committed to delivering a final report to the government by the end of June.
Instead of publicly releasing his last report, a brief cover letter consisting of two paragraphs was released and addressed to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
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