Category: Tech (Page 3 of 9)
- TSMC commits €3.5 billion to plant
- Germany to contribute up to €5 billion / EU approved
- Operational in 2027
Reuters »
The plant, which will be TSMC’s third outside of traditional manufacturing bases Taiwan and China, is central to Berlin’s ambition to foster the domestic semiconductor industry its car industry will need to remain globally competitive.
Reuters »
Taiwan chip maker TSMC’s €3.5 billion (US$3.83 billion) investment in Germany will drive deeper engagement between the island and Europe, Taiwan’s economy minister said on Wednesday, pitching the political benefits of the deal.
Bloomberg »
Dresden is a continuation down that path of working with clients to jointly own facilities, largely to supply the growing demand for components used in automobiles. TSMC will invest up to €3.5 billion ($3.8 billion) for a 70% share of newly formed European Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Robert Bosch GmbH, Infineon Technologies AG and NXP Semiconductors NV each take 10%, and total capex is expected to be around $11 billion, with the money coming from equity, debt and German and EU funding.
Since its founding by Morris Chang more than three decades ago, TSMC eschewed equity partnerships in favor of maintaining full control over its operations, and thus its destiny. But the global winds have changed, and its new leaders, Chairman Mark Liu and Chief Executive Officer CC Wei, have had little choice but to adapt. TSMC’s balance sheet is solid, its cash flow is stable, and its credit rating is high. It doesn’t need clients nor governments to hand it money in order to pay for these new facilities.
The Register | NY Times | DigiTimes | Euronews | DW
The decision could have wider European implications.
The regulator, Datatilsynet, had said on 17 July that the company would be fined if it did not address privacy breaches the regulator had identified.
Meta Platforms did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
Datatilsynet had said Meta cannot harvest user data in Norway, such as users’ physical locations, and use it to target advertising at them, called behavioural advertising, a business model common to big tech.
It had until 4 August to prove to the regulator that it had addressed the issue.
A message to the world, from: The Fairphone Community
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Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai was awarded compensation worth more than $225 million in 2022, which marked a staggering 3,474% increase from the previous year, making him the nation’s highest-paid CEO, according to Equilar data.
Near the outset of 2023, Alphabet announced plans to lay off 10,000 workers.
At Microsoft, which initiated plans to lay off 10,000 workers in January, CEO Satya Nadella received compensation worth nearly $55 million in 2022 — a 10% jump from the prior year, the data showed.
Meta, Uber and Salesforce are also among more than a dozen tech companies that gave their CEOs a compensation increase last year, despite announcing layoffs at some point since the start of 2022, according to the ABC News analysis of the Equilar data.
Roughly 389,000 tech workers have been laid off since the beginning of 2022, according to Layoffs.fyi, a site that tracks layoffs. The job cuts have befallen some of the nation’s most well-known and large companies.
Social media giant Meta’s [Facebook/Instagram/Messenger/WhatsApp/Threads…] ban on news access on its platforms in Canada is an “epic miscalculation” that could damage journalism and promote the spread of misinformation and fake news, experts are warning.
The company announced the move on Tuesday, saying they had begun the process to end access to news on Facebook and Instagram for users in Canada.
The policy came in retaliation for a new law, the Online News Act, created in an effort to help shore up revenue at Canadian journalism outlets by forcing intermediaries such as Meta and Google’s parent company Alphabet to chip in.
NY Times »
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the country’s public broadcaster, accused Meta of “an abuse of their market power” that would especially affect communities that rely on Facebook to access news articles, including those in northern Canada, rural areas and users from Francophone or multilingual backgrounds. Some of those communities have limited access to print publications.
“It’s another blow to democracy and to the opportunity for us to access fair and balanced, well-sourced journalism,” said Megan Boler, a professor of media and communication studies at the University of Toronto.
Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, is back on X, formerly know as Twitter.
WSJ | The Verge | The Guardian | Fortune
California’s new privacy regulator is embarking on its first-ever enforcement action to review of the privacy practices of connected automobiles.
WSJ »
The California Privacy Protection Agency—created under a ballot initiative in 2020 and the only regulator in the nation solely dedicated to privacy issues—will examine the growing amalgamation of data collected by smart vehicles and whether the business practices of the companies collecting that data comply with state law.
“Modern vehicles are effectively connected computers on wheels. They’re able to collect a wealth of information via built in apps, sensors, and cameras, which can monitor people both inside and near the vehicle,” Ashkan Soltani, the agency’s executive director, said in a statement.
U.S. regulators’ scrutiny of the data lags behind such efforts in Europe, which has forced automakers to update software to limit the collection and protect the privacy of consumers.
CCDH »
Elon Musk’s actions represent a brazen attempt to silence honest criticism and independent research in the desperate hope that he can stem the tide of negative stories and rebuild his relationship with advertisers.
Since Musk took over Twitter in late 2022, CCDH has been studying and publishing research on the startling rise in hate speech, disinformation and incitement to harm on Twitter, which has been echoed by the independent findings of other civil society organizations, and researchers around the globe.
The Guardian | Mercury News | NY Times | CNBC
The Guardian » Twitter sues anti-hate speech group over ‘tens of millions of dollars’ in lost advertising
Dell Cameron, writing in Wired »
Officials at the National Security Agency (NSA) have approached lawmakers charged with its oversight about opposing an amendment that would prevent it from paying companies for location data instead of obtaining a warrant in court.
Introduced by US representatives W
arren Davidson and Sara Jacobs, the amendment, first reported by WIRED, would prohibit US military agencies from “purchasing data that would otherwise require a warrant, court order, or subpoena” to obtain. The ban would cover more than half of the US intelligence community, including the NSA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and the newly formed National Space Intelligence Center, among others.
The House approved the amendment in a floor vote over a week ago during its annual consideration of the National Defense Authorization Act, a “must-pass” bill outlining how the Pentagon will spend next year’s $886 billion budget. Negotiations over which policies will be included in the Senate’s version of the bill are ongoing…
Ingordigious » (17th Century) Adj. » Motivated primarily by greed.
Steve Stecklow and Norihiko Shirouzu, writing for Reuters »
About a decade ago, Tesla rigged the dashboard readouts in its electric cars to provide “rosy” projections of how far owners can drive before needing to recharge, a source told Reuters. The automaker last year became so inundated with driving-range complaints that it created a special team to cancel owners’ service appointments.
Yet more reason to adapt Firefox.
WSJ »
Vienna has retained its crown as the world’s most liveable city, according to Economist’s annual index.
The 2023 Global Liveability Index quantifies the challenges presented to an individual’s lifestyle and standard of living in 173 cities worldwide. The 2023 Economist Intelligence Unit’s annual ranking has also included three Canadian cities among the worlds top 10 most liveable. Australia and Switzerland each have 2 entries. Denmark, Japan, and New Zealand each had one city in the top rankings.
1. Vienna 🇦🇹
2. Copenhagen 🇩🇰
3. Melbourne 🇦🇺
4. Sydney 🇦🇺
5. Vancouver 🇨🇦
6. Zurich 🇨🇭
7. Calgary 🇨🇦 (tie)
7. Geneva 🇨🇭 (tie)
9. Toronto 🇨🇦
10. Osaka 🇯🇵 (tie)
10. Auckland 🇳🇿 (tie)
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Amazing. Incredibly well done. Don’t miss it.
CBC »
Applications for the work permits opened on Sunday. By Monday the program had reached capacity, with 10,000 applicants bidding for a permit.
Canada’s H-1B visa holder work permit
So, if the internet is not safe for super-smart Google employees, who is it safe for?
CNBC »
The company originally selected more than 2,500 employees to participate, but after receiving feedback, the company revised the pilot to allow employees to opt out, as well as opening it up to volunteers. The company will disable internet access on the select desktops, with the exception of internal web-based tools and Google-owned websites like Google Drive and Gmail. Some workers who need the internet to do their job will get exceptions, the company stated in materials.
…
Last week, Microsoft said Chinese intelligence hacked into company email accounts belonging to two dozen government agencies, including the State Department, in the U.S. and Western Europe in a “significant” breach. Google has been pursuing U.S. government contracts since launching a public sector division last year.
Tara Deschamps, The Canadian Press »
Threads falls under Meta’s wider privacy policy that covers its other social media platforms, Facebook and Instagram. That policy details how Meta captures everything from the information you give it when you sign up for accounts, to what you click on or like, who you befriend online and what kind of phone, computer or tablet you use to access its products.
It also keeps tabs on what you’re doing on your device, like whether the app is in the foreground or if your mouse is moving, messages you send and receive and details on purchases you make, including credit card information.
Threads also has its own supplemental privacy policy, which says “we collect information about your activity on Threads, including the content you create, the types of content you view or interact with and how you interact with it, metadata about your content, the Threads features you use and how you use them, the hashtags you use, and the time, frequency, and duration of your activities on Threads.”
The privacy policy Threads has embedded in Apple’s app store shows it may collect, and link to your identity, data including your health and fitness, financial, browsing history, location and contact information, along with the broad category of “sensitive information.”
With generative artificial intelligence (AI) becoming all the rage these days, it’s perhaps not surprising that the technology has been repurposed by malicious actors to their own advantage, enabling avenues for accelerated cybercrime.
Statistics Canada says the new visualization tool presents the most recent data available from the Census of Population for census subdivisions.