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This week, Figma CEO Dylan Field said the company would temporarily shut down its “Make Design” AI feature after it was accused of “heavily” training the tool on existing apps. The feature, unveiled at the company’s annual Config conference, was intended to speed up the design process by generating UI layouts and components from text prompts, but was criticised after it copied the layout of Apple’s weather app.
YouTube quietly made a policy change this week that allows people to request the removal of AI-created or other synthetic content that mimics their face or voice. The move marks a shift in YouTube’s opinion, with the company now viewing deepfakes as a privacy issue rather than just a content moderation issue.
Fisker has asked the Delaware bankruptcy court judge overseeing its Chapter 11 case to approve the sale of its remaining all-electric Ocean SUV. If approved, the company would be able to sell its finished EVs to a New York-based vehicle leasing company for about $14,000 per vehicle — well below the $70,000 starting price of some EVs.
news
Twitter meets MySpace for Generation Z: Aiming to put the “social” back in “social media,” a new app called NoPlace acts as a modern-day MySpace with colorful, customizable profiles — and it’s risen to the top of the App Store. Read more
How to avoid AI-powered scams: Generative AI has made online fraud easier, cheaper, and even more reliable. We’ve put together a helpful guide on what you can do to keep yourself and your loved ones safe. Read more
Stop those silly video call reactions: If you’ve ever seen thumbs-ups and confetti flashing on your screen during a video call, you’re not alone. Here’s how you can turn it on on your Apple device. Read more
Amazon retires Astro for business: Amazon has decided to discontinue its Astro for Business security robot just seven months after its launch, as the company shifts its focus to a home version of Astro. Read more
A natural 1 for protection: Popular online tabletop and role-playing game platform Roll20 suffered a data breach, exposing some users’ personal information. The platform is currently notifying users about the breach. Read more
Cloudflare takes action on AI bots: The publicly traded cloud services provider has launched a new, free tool to prevent bots from scraping websites hosted on its platform for data to train AI models. Read more
Is Gemini as good as Google claims? Google has claimed that its AI models can perform previously impossible tasks like summarizing several hundred pages of documents. But new research shows that these models are not as good as the company claims. Read more
1 billion stolen records and counting: This year has seen some of the biggest and most damaging data breaches in recent history. From AT&T to Ticketmaster, these are the biggest data breaches of 2024 so far. Read more
Analysis
A Year of Threads: Threads, Meta’s alternative to Twitter, recently celebrated its first birthday. The social network has reached 175 million monthly active users, but it’s still trying to find its voice. Threads hasn’t found itself as popular as X and not as open as Mastodon or BlueSky – at least for now. Evan Mehta reflects on the app’s first year and what it can learn from other social networks. Read more
Supreme Court declares free hand for regulators: In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court made its most important ruling yet on the tech industry, overturning the 1984 case of Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council. On paper, wetlands and the EPA have nothing to do with technology, but as Devin Koldeway writes, the decision has opened up regulators to endless interference. Read more
