Hasta La Gadget!

Meta is once again at risk of getting fined heavily by the European Commission. The bloc’s regulatory arm is preparing its findings that Meta linked its Marketplace service to Facebook to undermine competitors, the Financial Times reports, citing sources familiar with the case.

If found guilty, Meta could be on the hook for 10 percent of its global annual revenue — a number that reached almost $135 billion last year. However, the fine could be much smaller, and Meta will almost certainly appeal it.

The Commission launched its initial probe in 2019, announcing its preliminary findings three years later that “Meta ties its dominant social network Facebook to its online classified ad services called Facebook Marketplace,” Margrethe Vestager, executive vice-president in charge of competition policy, stated at the time. “Furthermore, we are concerned that Meta imposed unfair trading conditions, allowing it to use of data on competing online classified ad services. If confirmed, Meta’s practices would be illegal under our competition rules.” Meta faces other investigations from the Commission into its election policies, addiction and safety concerns for minors and its consent or pay model.

The news comes at a transitionary time for the European Commission, with President Ursula von der Leyen announcing her new team just yesterday. The shakeup for her second term will see Margrethe Vestager, head of competition for the last decade, replaced by Teresa Ribera. Reports that Vestiger would be stepping down this year first surfaced in August.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/meta-could-face-massive-eu-fines-over-marketplace-competition-113033743.html?src=rss

Kremlin-affiliated Russian troll farms are running disinformation campaigns that aim to interfere with this year’s US presidential elections, and according to Microsoft, they’re focusing their efforts on discrediting Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. The company has published a new report detailing the movements of two troll farms being monitored by the Microsoft Threat Analysis Center. 

These Kremlin-backed actors apparently struggled to find the right approach shortly after President Biden stepped down as a candidate, but in late August and early September, one of them started circulating inauthentic videos that managed to generate millions of views. One video depicted a supposed attack by Harris supporters on Trump rally attendees. Another video used an actor to accuse Harris of being involved in a 2011 hit-and-run incident that paralyzed a 13-year-old girl. The second video, which went viral, was released by a days-old website pretending to be a San Francisco based media outlet. 

Meanwhile, the second troll farm stopped producing content about the 2024 Paris Olympics games and started creating videos showing Harris in a bad light. One fake video showed a New York City billboard claiming that Harris wants to change children’s gender. It was initially published on Telegram, before being shared on X and getting more than 100,000 views within just a few hours.

Microsoft warned that people should expect more Russian-made disinformation materials, including more staged and AI-edited videos, to circulate online as we get closer to the election. Earlier this month, the US government indicted two employees of Russian state media outlet RT, accusing them of planning to pay a Tennessee company $10 million to spread 2,000 propaganda videos on social media. The Treasury Department also sanctioned ANO Dialog, a Russian nonprofit that was allegedly involved with a campaign known as “Doppelganger,” to create fake websites that would appear to American readers as legitimate major news sites. Microsoft said in its new report that it suspended more than 20 accounts connected to ANO Dialog. 

Meta also recently banned RT and other Russian state media outlets “for foreign interference activity.” According to its notes, which the company shared with Engadget, it had seen Russian state-controlled media try to interfere with foreign governments and to evade detection in the past. It said that it expects them to keep trying to “engage in deceptive influence attempts across the internet.”

It’s not just Russia that’s trying to influence the outcome of this year’s US presidential elections, though. Microsoft, Google and even the feds published reports back in August that Iranian hackers had been trying to spear-phish several advisers of the Biden-Harris and Trump campaigns. Microsoft also found campaigns made to sway votes in the US by groups connected with the Iranian government. One such group created a website that attacks and insults former President Donald Trump.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general/microsoft-says-russian-troll-farms-are-targeting-the-harris-walz-campaign-031321352.html?src=rss

Kremlin-affiliated Russian troll farms are running disinformation campaigns that aim to interfere with this year’s US presidential elections, and according to Microsoft, they’re focusing their efforts on discrediting Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. The company has published a new report detailing the movements of two troll farms being monitored by the Microsoft Threat Analysis Center. 

These Kremlin-backed actors apparently struggled to find the right approach shortly after President Biden stepped down as a candidate, but in late August and early September, one of them started circulating inauthentic videos that managed to generate millions of views. One video depicted a supposed attack by Harris supporters on Trump rally attendees. Another video used an actor to accuse Harris of being involved in a 2011 hit-and-run incident that paralyzed a 13-year-old girl. The second video, which went viral, was released by a days-old website pretending to be a San Francisco based media outlet. 

Meanwhile, the second troll farm stopped producing content about the 2024 Paris Olympics games and started creating videos showing Harris in a bad light. One fake video showed a New York City billboard claiming that Harris wants to change children’s gender. It was initially published on Telegram, before being shared on X and getting more than 100,000 views within just a few hours.

Microsoft warned that people should expect more Russian-made disinformation materials, including more staged and AI-edited videos, to circulate online as we get closer to the election. Earlier this month, the US government indicted two employees of Russian state media outlet RT, accusing them of planning to pay a Tennessee company $10 million to spread 2,000 propaganda videos on social media. The Treasury Department also sanctioned ANO Dialog, a Russian nonprofit that was allegedly involved with a campaign known as “Doppelganger,” to create fake websites that would appear to American readers as legitimate major news sites. Microsoft said in its new report that it suspended more than 20 accounts connected to ANO Dialog. 

Meta also recently banned RT and other Russian state media outlets “for foreign interference activity.” According to its notes, which the company shared with Engadget, it had seen Russian state-controlled media try to interfere with foreign governments and to evade detection in the past. It said that it expects them to keep trying to “engage in deceptive influence attempts across the internet.”

It’s not just Russia that’s trying to influence the outcome of this year’s US presidential elections, though. Microsoft, Google and even the feds published reports back in August that Iranian hackers had been trying to spear-phish several advisers of the Biden-Harris and Trump campaigns. Microsoft also found campaigns made to sway votes in the US by groups connected with the Iranian government. One such group created a website that attacks and insults former President Donald Trump.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general/microsoft-says-russian-troll-farms-are-targeting-the-harris-walz-campaign-031321352.html?src=rss

Kremlin-affiliated Russian troll farms are running disinformation campaigns that aim to interfere with this year’s US presidential elections, and according to Microsoft, they’re focusing their efforts on discrediting Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. The company has published a new report detailing the movements of two troll farms being monitored by the Microsoft Threat Analysis Center. 

These Kremlin-backed actors apparently struggled to find the right approach shortly after President Biden stepped down as a candidate, but in late August and early September, one of them started circulating inauthentic videos that managed to generate millions of views. One video depicted a supposed attack by Harris supporters on Trump rally attendees. Another video used an actor to accuse Harris of being involved in a 2011 hit-and-run incident that paralyzed a 13-year-old girl. The second video, which went viral, was released by a days-old website pretending to be a San Francisco based media outlet. 

Meanwhile, the second troll farm stopped producing content about the 2024 Paris Olympics games and started creating videos showing Harris in a bad light. One fake video showed a New York City billboard claiming that Harris wants to change children’s gender. It was initially published on Telegram, before being shared on X and getting more than 100,000 views within just a few hours.

Microsoft warned that people should expect more Russian-made disinformation materials, including more staged and AI-edited videos, to circulate online as we get closer to the election. Earlier this month, the US government indicted two employees of Russian state media outlet RT, accusing them of planning to pay a Tennessee company $10 million to spread 2,000 propaganda videos on social media. The Treasury Department also sanctioned ANO Dialog, a Russian nonprofit that was allegedly involved with a campaign known as “Doppelganger,” to create fake websites that would appear to American readers as legitimate major news sites. Microsoft said in its new report that it suspended more than 20 accounts connected to ANO Dialog. 

Meta also recently banned RT and other Russian state media outlets “for foreign interference activity.” According to its notes, which the company shared with Engadget, it had seen Russian state-controlled media try to interfere with foreign governments and to evade detection in the past. It said that it expects them to keep trying to “engage in deceptive influence attempts across the internet.”

It’s not just Russia that’s trying to influence the outcome of this year’s US presidential elections, though. Microsoft, Google and even the feds published reports back in August that Iranian hackers had been trying to spear-phish several advisers of the Biden-Harris and Trump campaigns. Microsoft also found campaigns made to sway votes in the US by groups connected with the Iranian government. One such group created a website that attacks and insults former President Donald Trump.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general/microsoft-says-russian-troll-farms-are-targeting-the-harris-walz-campaign-031321352.html?src=rss

Apple has temporarily paused the rollout of iPadOS 18 for M4 iPad Pro models, some of the most expensive iPads that the company sells, after some users complained that the update bricked their devices. Apple acknowledged the issue in a statement to Engadget, saying, “We have temporarily removed the iPadOS 18 update for M4 iPad Pro models as we work to resolve an issue that is impacting a small number of devices.”

The issue first came to light through Reddit, where a growing number of M4 iPad Pro users described how their iPads became unusable after they tried installing the latest version of iPadOS. “At some point during the update my iPad turned off, and would no longer turn on,” a user named tcorey23 posted on Reddit. “I just took it to the Apple Store who confirmed it’s completely bricked, but they said they had to send it out to their engineers before they can give me a replacement even though I have Apple care.”

Another Reddit user called Lisegot wrote that the Apple Store they took their bricked M4 iPad Pro to did not have a replacement in stock, which meant they they would need to wait five to seven days for a working iPad. “No one was particularly apologetic and they even insinuated that there was no way for them to know whether the update caused this,” they wrote.

Having a software bug brick an iPad is rare. ArsTechnica, which first reported this story, pointed out that iPads can typically be put into recovery mode if a software update goes bad.

If you own an M4 iPad Pro, Apple will no longer offer you iPadOS 18 until it fixes the issue. It’s not clear when it will be fixed.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/tablets/apple-halts-ipados-18-update-for-m4-ipad-pro-after-bricking-reports-000258237.html?src=rss