United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres called for an end to fossil fuel advertising yesterday in a fiery call to action following the release of alarming new climate data. “I urge every country to ban advertising from fossil fuel companies. And I urge news media and tech companies to stop taking fossil fuel advertising,” Guterres said during…
It’s been an interesting couple of weeks for people who want ways to get their Samsung phone fixed, between revelations about the company’s onerous repair shop contracts and a failed iFixit contract renegotiation. To add to that, Best Buy’s Geek Squad is in the middle of shutting down its Samsung authorized service provider program (ASP),…
Google on Thursday is issuing new guidance for developers building AI apps distributed through Google Play, in hopes of cutting down on inappropriate and otherwise prohibited content. The company says apps offering AI features will have to prevent the generation of restricted content — which includes sexual content, violence and more — and will need…
Last year, during the Q3 2023 earnings call, Mark Zuckerberg talked about leveraging AI to have business accounts respond to customers for purchase and support queries. Today, Meta announced AI-powered features for WhatsApp Business apps, such as helping with the creation of click-to-WhatsApp ads and generating responses to frequent customer messages. Mark Zuckerberg announced these…
Dr. Michael H. Stone, a psychiatrist and scholar who sought to define evil and to differentiate its manifestations from the typical behavior of people who are mentally ill, died on Dec. 6 at his home in Manhattan. He was 90. The cause was complications of a stroke he had in January, his son David said….
Efforts to fight global warming could suffer a setback next year when new rules reduce the number of electric cars that qualify for a federal tax credit. The credits, up to $7,500 a vehicle, have helped make electric cars more affordable, bringing the cost of some models below $30,000. Next year, for the first time,…
Law enforcement agencies have obtained the prescription records of thousands of Americans from the country’s largest pharmacy chains without a warrant, a congressional inquiry found, raising concerns about how the companies handle patient privacy. Three of the largest pharmacy groups — CVS Health, Kroger and Rite Aid — do not require their staff members to…
Vera Molnar, a Hungarian-born artist who has been called the godmother of generative art for her pioneering digital work, which started with the hulking computers of the 1960s and evolved through the current age of NFTs, died on Dec. 7 in Paris. She was 99. Her death was announced on social media by the Pompidou…
The Supreme Court announced on Wednesday that it would decide on the availability of a commonly used abortion pill, the first major case involving abortion on its docket since it overturned the constitutional right to the procedure more than a year ago. The Biden administration had asked the justices to intervene after a three-judge panel…
Neanderthals were morning people, a new study suggests. And some humans today who like getting up early might credit genes they inherited from their Neanderthal ancestors. The new study compared DNA in living humans with genetic material retrieved from Neanderthal fossils. It turns out that Neanderthals carried some of the same clock-related genetic variants as…