Tag: Computers and the Internet

The Internet Is a Wasteland, So Give Kids Better Places to Go

In January, I had the odd experience of nodding along with Senator Lindsey Graham, who can usually be relied on to be wrong, as he berated supervillain Mark Zuckerberg, head of Facebook’s parent company, Meta, about the effect its products have on kids. “You have blood on your hands,” said Graham. That evening, I moderated […]

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What Elon Musk Said in Testy Interview on Don Lemon’s New Show

It was raw and occasionally tense. The former television anchor Don Lemon’s wide-ranging, testy interview with Elon Musk was released online on Monday morning, touching upon topics including politics, particularly the billionaire’s recent meeting with former President Donald J. Trump; Mr. Musk’s reported drug use; hate speech on X, the social media platform formerly known […]

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What Meltdown? Crypto Comes Roaring Back in the Philippines.

On a recent Tuesday night, around 20 people crowded into the second floor of Joniel Bon’s newly opened internet cafe in Quezon City, 10 miles from Manila. Seated at computers with 34-inch curved monitors, they began playing video games such as Heroes of Mavia and Nifty Island, as music from Taylor Swift and Maroon 5 […]

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The Department of Homeland Security Is Embracing A.I.

The Department of Homeland Security has seen the opportunities and risks of artificial intelligence firsthand. It found a trafficking victim years later using an A.I. tool that conjured an image of the child a decade older. But it has also been tricked into investigations by deep fake images created by A.I. Now, the department is […]

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Elon Musk to Open Source Grok Chatbot in Latest AI War Escalation

Elon Musk released the raw computer code behind his version of an artificial intelligence chatbot on Sunday, an escalation by one of the world’s richest men in a battle to control the future of A.I. Grok, which is designed to give snarky replies styled after the science-fiction novel “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” is […]

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Few Smartphones, Some Beer: A Christian Village Grapples With Modernity

It was early afternoon on a sunny winter Thursday, and the Fox Hill community looked like a well-manicured ghost town abandoned in the 1950s. Stately multistoried homes were scattered across a parklike landscape of gently rolling hills and ponds, a bucolic settlement of 60 acres in the Hudson Valley of New York State. But where […]

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Dating Apps Like Hinge, Tinder and Bumble Are Getting Worse

“The golden age of dating apps is over,” a friend told me at a bar on Super Bowl Sunday. As we waited for our drinks, she and another friend swiped through Bumble and Hinge, hunting for new faces and likes. Across the bar were two young men: phones out, apps open, clearly doing the exact […]

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How To Recognize Health Misinformation on Social Media

The Supreme Court will hear arguments on Monday in a case that involves the Biden administration’s efforts to communicate with social media sites about posts officials believed made false or misleading claims about Covid-19 vaccines and the pandemic. While the case primarily focuses on a debate around free speech, it also spotlights the potential harms […]

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TikTok Bill’s Progress Slows in the Senate

After a bill that would force TikTok’s Chinese parent company to sell the app or face a nationwide ban sailed through the House at breakneck speed this week, its progress has slowed in the Senate. Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader who determines what legislation gets a vote, has not decided whether […]

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Prosecutors Say Sam Bankman-Fried Should Get 40 to 50 Years in Jail

Federal prosecutors said on Friday that Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced cryptocurrency mogul, should receive a prison sentence of 40 to 50 years for his conviction on fraud charges. The prosecutors outlined the sentencing recommendation in a filing in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. Mr. Bankman-Fried’s sentencing hearing is scheduled for March 28, during which Judge […]

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Nvidia Stock Market Value Would Be Bigger Than the World Economy

It’s not a household name quite yet, but anyone who follows the stock market knows at least a little about Nvidia. The company is the wonder of the year, a stock by which all others are measured. Nvidia designs the chips that make artificial intelligence work, and because A.I. is being hailed as the most […]

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What China Is Saying About the TikTok Furor in Washington

This is not the first time that China has seen a frenzy over TikTok consume Washington. In 2020, former President Donald J. Trump issued an executive order that would have forced TikTok’s Chinese owners to sell the popular app. But Beijing foiled a takeover bid by American buyers by slapping curbs on technology exports. Last […]

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Russia Strengthens Its Internet Controls in Critical Year for Putin

Russia is ratcheting up its internet censorship ahead of elections this weekend that are all but assured to give President Vladimir V. Putin another six years in power, further shrinking one of the last remaining spaces for political activism, independent information and free speech. The Russian authorities have intensified a crackdown against digital tools used […]

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TikTok Is Its Own Worst Enemy

I was really rooting for TikTok. In 2020, when the Trump administration first tried to force TikTok’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, to sell the app or risk having it shut down, I argued that banning TikTok in the United States would do more harm than good. Why? Partly because TikTok seemed like a convenient scapegoat for […]

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Taiwan Is Building a Satellite Network Without Elon Musk

In Taiwan, the government is racing to do what no country or even company has been able to: build an alternative to Starlink, the satellite internet service operated by Elon Musk’s rocket company, SpaceX. Starlink has allowed militaries, power plants and medical workers to maintain crucial online connections when primary infrastructure has failed in emergencies, […]

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A Historic Visit to an Abortion Clinic, and What Could Happen to TikTok

The New York Times Audio app is home to journalism and storytelling, and provides news, depth and serendipity. If you haven’t already, download it here — available to Times news subscribers on iOS — and sign up for our weekly newsletter. The Headlines brings you the biggest stories of the day from the Times journalists […]

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The House Vote to Force Tik Tok’s Sale Is a Mistake

America is politically polarized. But there is an issue on which both sides agree: We need more privacy and TikTok should not be banned. A record 72 percent of Americans want “more government regulation” of what companies can do with their data, according to an October report from Pew Research Center. And only 31 percent […]

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TikTok Turns to Creators to Fight Possible Ban

Facing a possible ban in the United States, TikTok has scrambled to deploy perhaps its most powerful weapon: its creators. The hugely popular video service began recruiting dozens of creators at the end of last week, asking them to travel to Washington to fight a bill being debated in Congress. Under the proposal, TikTok’s Chinese […]

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What Happens Next With the TikTok Ban Bill

What happens next with TikTok? The video social media app isn’t disappearing from smartphones any time soon. The legislative process is still in its early stages after the House’s passage of a bill mandating a sale by the app’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, or be banned. Next, the bill is heading to a skeptical Senate, after […]

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Why a Sale of TikTok Would Not Be Easy

Legislation that could eventually mandate a sale of TikTok is moving forward. But any kind of divestiture by its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, is likely to prove challenging. The House on Wednesday approved the bill to ban TikTok unless ByteDance sells the app to a buyer the government signs off on. The bill would still […]

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After Testy Interview With Elon Musk, Don Lemon Says His Deal With X Is Canceled

In the wake of a testy interview with Elon Musk, the former television anchor Don Lemon’s deal for a new talk show on X combusted just days before it was scheduled to air. Mr. Musk called off Mr. Lemon’s partnership with X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, the day after filming an […]

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House Passes Bill to Force TikTok Sale From Chinese Owner or Ban the App

The House on Wednesday passed a bill with broad bipartisan support that would force TikTok’s Chinese owner to sell the hugely popular video app or be banned in the United States. The move escalates a showdown between Beijing and Washington over the control of technologies that could affect national security, free speech and the social […]

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China Condemns U.S. Proposal to Force the Sale of TikTok

China on Wednesday condemned U.S. lawmakers’ push to force the Chinese parent company of TikTok to sell the popular short video platform. In Washington, House lawmakers were expected to vote on a bill later in the day that would require the Chinese internet company ByteDance to cut ties with TikTok or face a nationwide ban. […]

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A Vote Targeting TikTok and an Unexpected Win for Ukraine

The New York Times Audio app is home to journalism and storytelling, and provides news, depth and serendipity. If you haven’t already, download it here — available to Times news subscribers on iOS — and sign up for our weekly newsletter. The Headlines brings you the biggest stories of the day from the Times journalists […]

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What to Know About the TikTok Ban Legislation

House lawmakers are expected to vote starting at around 10 a.m. on Wednesday on legislation meant to force ByteDance, the Chinese internet company, to sell its wildly popular social media app TikTok. The vote would be the latest development in a yearslong cold war between the United States and China over who controls valuable technology […]

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Reddit’s Long, Rocky Road to an Initial Public Offering

During a leadership crisis in 2015, Reddit asked Steve Huffman, one of its founders, to return to run the social media platform. Mr. Huffman, who was working on a travel site, was not eager to come back. Reddit was a headache. It was experiencing a revolving door of chief executives. Its sprawling community of users […]

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In Silicon Valley, Venture Capital Meets a Generational Shift

Reid Hoffman, a founder of LinkedIn and a longtime venture capitalist, is no longer the public face of the venture firm Greylock. Michael Moritz, a force at Sequoia Capital for 38 years, officially separated from the investment firm last summer. And Jeff Jordan, a top investor at Andreessen Horowitz for 12 years, left in May. […]

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Malaysia Rises as Crucial Link in Chip Supply Chain

Construction cranes still surround the brand-spanking new plant in Kulim’s industrial park in Malaysia. But inside, legions of workers hired by the Austrian tech giant AT&S are already gearing up to produce at full capacity by year’s end. Outfitted in head-to-toe coveralls, with oversized safety glasses and hard hats, they’re reminiscent of the worker bees […]

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Princess Kate’s Photo, The Royal Family, and a Conspiracy Obsessed Internet

Trace back the digitally altered photograph of Catherine, Princess of Wales, and its roots lie in a tragedy of another Princess of Wales, Diana, whose death in 1997 predated the creation of Facebook by nearly seven years. Diana’s fatal car accident, after a high-speed pursuit by photographers in Paris, left a lasting imprint on her […]

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How the A.I. That Drives ChatGPT Will Move Into the Physical World

Companies like OpenAI and Midjourney build chatbots, image generators and other artificial intelligence tools that operate in the digital world. Now, a start-up founded by three former OpenAI researchers is using the technology development methods behind chatbots to build A.I. technology that can navigate the physical world. Covariant, a robotics company headquartered in Emeryville, Calif., […]

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