Under Elon Musk’s rule, Twitter employees have been required to work from a company office for at least 40 hours per week since November 2022. But following that mandate might get a lot more difficult for a subset of the platform’s Colorado-based workers. To get to their desks, some of the site’s Boulder employees…
Former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes, who was estimated to have a personal wealth of $4.5 billion in the heyday of her failed fraud of a blood testing company, can’t afford to pay the victims she bilked $250 per month in restitution, her attorneys said this week.
Ah, Megaupload, the long-defunct file-sharing site that definitely wasn’t a haven for piracy during the mid-2000s. If you were hoping to catch up with what some of its leaders were doing after feds seized the domain in 2012, then you’ll have to do it during prison visitation. On Thursday, a New Zealand court sentenced…
“The campus day care sent me a memo giving them legal permission to hit my son, which they instructed me to sign and return.”
Video of the exchange has gone viral on Twitter.
Fujifilm’s line of instant cameras has grown again with the launch of the Instax SQ40. The new model borrows retro cues from the Mini 40, while shooting larger-format square film like previous SQ models.
Unlike the shiny plastic square format models of the past, the SQ40 is wrapped in faux black leather with silver accents. It measures 5.25 inches wide by 4.5 inches tall by 2.25 inches thick, so it’s considerably larger than the Mini 40 and other rectangular cameras. For easy carrying, it comes with a shoulder strap with quick release loops.
The lens is retractable and has three modes, starting with the fully retracted “off” position that makes the camera relatively flat and closes the protective cap. In the “on” position, it extends and the lens cap opens, giving a field of view equivalent to 65.75 mm (35mm equivalent, presumably) for shooting no closer than 19.7 inches. And finally, there’s a “macro” mode for selfies that lets you shoot between 11.8 and 19.7 inches, with a small mirror at the front so you can see yourself and friends.
It has automatic exposure and shoots on the Instax Square frame to a 2.4- by 2.4-inch image area on a 3.4- by 2.8-inch film size. Unlike some Instax models, there doesn’t appear to be any saving to a digital format, so this is about as analog as modern cameras get.
The SQ40 costs $150 and is expected to be available for purchase by the end of June 2023. The basic white-border version of the square film costs around $19 for 20 exposures, and a new version called Instax Square “Sunset” with pastel shaded borders (above) is $15.75 for a 10-pack. Finally, Fujifilm released a new brown colorway for the Mini Evo priced at $200, also available at the end of June.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/fujfilms-instax-sq40-marries-retro-charm-with-larger-square-film-091047370.html?src=rss
The former prime minister attacked the committee for conducting a “witch hunt.”
Twitter has yet another major lawsuit to contend with. A group of more than a dozen music publishers has filed a $250 million lawsuit against the company over allegations of “massive” copyright infringement on the platform.
The suit, filed by the National Music Publishers Association, alleges Twitter users have violated artists’ copyrights on thousands of occasions and that the company has done little to stop it. It notes that Twitter is among the only major social platforms that doesn’t have licensing agreements in place.
According to The New York Times, Twitter had been in negotiations for such a deal but those talks eventually broke down. “While numerous Twitter competitors recognize the need for proper licenses and agreements for the use of musical compositions on their platforms, Twitter does not, and instead breeds massive copyright infringement that harms music creators,” the filing states.
The lawsuit also accuses Twitter of ignoring music publishers’ requests to take copyright infringing material off its platform despite weekly notices from publishers.“The reality is that Twitter routinely ignores known repeat infringers and known infringements, refusing to take simple steps that are available to Twitter to stop these specific instances of infringement of which it is aware,” the lawsuit says,
The suit also claims many offending tweets are now shared by verified users, and that Twitter is likely to take action against verified accounts. “Twitter suspended virtually none of the verified accounts identified in the NMPA Notices and which have large follower bases,” the suit says. “Twitter gives them preferential treatment, viewing accounts that are verified and have large follower bases as more valuable and monetizable than accounts that are unverified and have a small number of followers.”
Though the lawsuit says that copyright infringement has been a problem at Twitter for years, it says things have gotten worse since Elon Musk took over the company and that things are in “disarray” internally. Of note, the suit also cites tweets from Musk himself, in which he criticized copyright law, calling the “overzealous DMCA [Digital Millennium Copyright Act]” a “plague on humanity.”
“This statement and others like it exert pressure on Twitter employees, including those in its trust and safety team, on issues relating to copyright and infringement,” the music publishers say.
Twitter didn’t respond to a request for comment.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/music-publishers-are-suing-twitter-for-250-million-over-massive-copyright-infringement-082421118.html?src=rss
It could “end up a curse” for the former president, argued the Biden White House press secretary-turned-MSNBC anchor.
Lawmakers from the European Union have taken a big step towards regulating the use of artificial intelligence systems in the region by passing a draft law known as the AI Act. As The New York Times notes, it’s merely one part of a longer process, and the soonest we can see the final version of the law is most likely later this year. But if the law gets enforced in its current form, then the European Union will be banning the use of real-time and remote biometric systems, such as facial recognition scanning.
It will also prohibit devices that exhibit cognitive behavioral manipulation, such as voice activated toys deemed to encourage dangerous behavior in children. Technologies that classify people based on their socio-economic status or personal characteristics will be banned, as well. Meanwhile, technologies considered “high risk” will need to be registered in an EU database. These include AI systems for biometric identification and those for use by law enforcement.
The European Commission first proposed the AI Act back in April 2021. That was way before the meteoric rise in popularity of generative AI systems, which led to a rise in calls for artificial intelligence to be regulated. The version the lawmakers have voted on included rules for generative AI companies like OpenAI, including requiring them to disclose any content generated by artificial intelligence. These companies will also be required to ensure that their large language models can’t generate illegal content. Also, they will have to publish summaries of copyrighted data used to train their models.
Representatives from the European Parliament, the European Commission and the Council of the European Union still have to negotiate details for the final version of the law. They could decide to change some aspects of it and add certain exemptions, such as allowing the use of facial recognition for national security purposes. The AI Act would likely go through several iterations after this vote, though EU officials are hoping to finalize details by the end of the year.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/eu-officials-pass-draft-law-to-regulate-ai-and-ban-facial-recognition-systems-070056032.html?src=rss
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