Author: Eldin Yovlz

Some of President Donald Trump’s steepest tariffs are on products like washing machines, and on Thursday, GE Appliances said it would spend a half a billion dollars to make even more of them in the United States. Tariffs, however, weren’t the driving factor behind the decision, the company’s CEO says, but they did serve as an accelerant. GE Appliances announced it would spend $490 million to move some washing machine production from China and build a high-tech clothes care operation at its massive industrial park and headquarters in Louisville, Kentucky, where it already churns out washers and dryers for the…

Meta on Wednesday prevailed against a group of 13 authors in a major copyright case involving the company’s Llama artificial intelligence model, but the judge made clear his ruling was limited to this case. U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria sided with Meta’s argument that the company’s use of books to train its large language models, or LLMs, is protected under the fair use doctrine of U.S. copyright law. Lawyers representing the plaintiffs, including Sarah Silverman and Ta-Nehisi Coates, alleged that Meta violated the nation’s copyright law because the company did not seek permission from the authors to use their books for…

Salesforce is accelerating its use of artificial intelligence in automating workloads, according to CEO Marc Benioff. “All of us have to get our head around this idea that AI could do things, that before, we were doing, and we can move on to do higher-value work,” he said in an interview with Bloomberg, noting that the technology currently accounts for about 30% to 50% of the company’s work. Technology companies are hunting for new ways to trim costs, boost efficiencies and transform their workforce with the help of AI. The aftershocks have already hit the tech industry, with the software giant cutting more than 1,000…

Trump Mobile, the wireless service provider and phone company launched by the Trump Organization, no longer promises on its website that its upcoming smartphone will be made in America. The company adjusted language on its website on or around June 22 to drop the “Made in USA” claim, according to captures of the site by the Internet Archive. As of June 25, the company says the T1 8002 phone was “designed with American values in mind.” The website previously said the phone was “Made in the USA,” according to screenshots taken by NY Budgets earlier in June and archived versions of the…

Every few weeks, the Earth cries out for an artificial intelligence scare on a frequency heard only by tech CEOs. And lo, like a rain cloud over a parched valley, here comes Amazon boss Andy Jassy to shower us with fresh fear and dread. In a memo sent to employees titled “Some thoughts on Generative AI,” Jassy spent 1,200 words largely rattling off examples of Amazon’s AI progress. It is making Alexa, its personal assistant software, “meaningfully smarter,” and turning its customer service chatbot into “an even better experience.” (How, and by what measure? He didn’t say. But “you get the…

Pope Leo XIV says tech companies developing artificial intelligence should abide by an “ethical criterion” that respects human dignity. AI must take “into account the well-being of the human person not only materially, but also intellectually and spiritually,” the pope said in a message sent Friday to a gathering on AI attended by Vatican officials and Silicon Valley executives. “No generation has ever had such quick access to the amount of information now available through AI,” he said. But “access to data — however extensive — must not be confused with intelligence.” He also expressed concern about AI’s impact on…

Cybercriminals have breached insurance giant Aflac, potentially stealing Social Security numbers, insurance claims and health information, the company said Friday, the latest in a spree of hacks against the insurance industry. With billions of dollars in annual revenue and tens of millions of customers, Aflac is the biggest victim yet in the ongoing digital assault on US insurance companies that has the industry on edge and the FBI and private cyber experts scrambling to contain the fallout. Erie Insurance and Philadelphia Insurance Companies have also reported hacks this month, which in those cases have caused widespread disruptions to IT systems used to…

The explosion of a SpaceX Starship vehicle during a routine ground test Wednesday sent out a shock wave of fire and smoke that appeared to engulf the company’s testing facilities in Starbase, Texas. The mishap raised questions about the company’s ability to hash out significant design and engineering challenges on a vehicle considered crucial to SpaceX’s founding goal of eventually carrying convoys of people to Mars. When SpaceX CEO Elon Musk spoke to employees in South Texas in late May, aiming to once again stoke support for his Mars ambitions, he emphasized the metric by which he would gauge success: “Progress…

TikTok just got another lifeline from the White House, with President Donald Trump set to delay enforcement of the sale-or-ban law by another 90 days. “President Trump will sign an additional Executive Order this week to keep TikTok up and running,” Karoline Leavitt, White House press secretary, said in a statement on Tuesday. “As he has said many times, President Trump does not want TikTok to go dark. This extension will last 90 days, which the Administration will spend working to ensure this deal is closed so that the American people can continue to use TikTok with the assurance that…

President Donald Trump on Friday demanded Apple and other smartphone makers like Samsung make their phones in the United States or face a 25% tariff. “I have long ago informed Tim Cook of Apple that I expect their iPhone’s that will be sold in the United States of America will be manufactured and built in the United States, not India, or anyplace else,” Trump posted Friday morning on Truth Social. “If that is not the case, a Tariff of at least 25% must be paid by Apple to the U.S.” Speaking to press in the Oval Office on Friday after signing executive…