Tech

Jumpscare: A Twitter bug allows legacy blue check holders to update their bio and temporarily regain their badge of (dis)honor. I added a few spaces and got my check back. It even said I’m “notable in government, news, entertainment, or another designated category,” even though I didn’t pay for it. …

Elon Musk’s ten-billion-dollar defamation case against critic Randeep Hothi is nearing its end. In March, Hothi’s lawyers said Musk asked to settle the nearly three-year-old case. “For a modest $10k,” Hothi tweeted on Monday. The Tesla skeptic said he “look[s] forward to receiving a check from him in the mail.” …

Apple released its first “rapid security” patches on Monday to fix security vulnerabilities that are actively exploited or pose a significant risk to customers. Rapid Security Response updates “deliver important security improvements between software updates,” a notice states. Apple introduced Rapid Security Responses to update devices faster than usual. Some …

Noisy world. Delivery drones and air taxis, also known as electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, will make cities and neighborhoods noisier if investors succeed in saturating the market. That’s assumed. Whisper Aero seems unconcerned about assumptions. The two-year-old startup believes you should be able to silently mow your …

Drake and The Weeknd’s “Heart on My Sleeve” has over 250,000 Spotify streams and 10 million TikTok views. However, “Ghostwriter,” an AI-generated artist, wrote the song. Drake recently commented on AI-generated music that steals his voice, but The Weeknd and Drake have not responded to the song. Drake remarked on …

It is unknown who is currently evaluating Meta’s platforms in sub-Saharan Africa, as the social media behemoth has been prohibited from using its primary content review partners in Africa to provide moderation services. A Kenyan court issued temporary injunctions prohibiting Meta from hiring its new partner, Majorel, and reserving that …

Canal+, a leading French premium TV channel and streaming service, and Apple have signed a multi-year deal. All Canal+ subscribers in France and some other European countries will be able to stream Apple TV+ content for free starting on April 20. Canal+ isn’t just offering Apple TV+, so this is …

Amazon enters generative AI. Instead of building AI models, it’s recruiting third parties to host them on AWS. Amazon Bedrock lets developers build generative AI apps using pretrained models from startups like AI21 Labs, Anthropic, and Stability AI. Bedrock offers AWS-trained Titan FMs (foundation models) in a “limited preview.” “Applying …

Western Digital was breached by hackers who stole 10 terabytes of data, including customer data. The extortionists want the company to pay a “minimum 8 figures” ransom to keep the data private. Western Digital reported “a network security incident” on April 3, saying hackers stole data from “a number of …

Italy’s data protection watchdog has laid out what OpenAI must do to lift an order against ChatGPT issued at the end of last month, when it suspected the AI chatbot service of violating the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and ordered the U.S.-based company to stop processing locals’ data. …