Tech is reshaping the world — and not always for the better. Whether it’s the rules for Apple’s App Store or Facebook’s plan for fighting misinformation, tech platform policies can have enormous ripple effects on the rest of society. They’re so powerful that, increasingly, companies aren’t setting them alone but sharing the fight with government regulators, civil society groups, and internal standards bodies like Meta’s Oversight Board. The result is an ongoing political struggle over harassment, free speech, copyright, and dozens of other issues, all mediated through some of the largest and most chaotic electronic spaces the world has ever seen.
The nation suffered a total disconnection today, according to its energy ministry. The country’s energy woes have only intensified with the US’ oil blockade and incursion into Venezuela, which had been a major oil supplier for Cuba.
Automotive News ran the numbers based on public filings and found that Toyota was the hardest hit, at $9.1b, while Detroit’s Big Three paid a total $6.5b. It’s unclear how refunds might play out now that the Supreme Court overturned the tariffs as they were originally enacted, but either way that’s a lot of cash stuck in limbo that could have gone to hybrid and EV incentives while Trump’s Iran disaster continues to spike gas prices.
[Car and Driver]
It’s a joke so good half the comments section had to make it, but sad to say it’s the other Sotomayor who dropped Terrence’s album of the week (which, I’m happy to confirm, is indeed a total bop).
jarman1992:
Me, a lawyer, reading this headline: “Damn, is there anything Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor can’t do?”
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He was commenting on deepfakes about Iran war being used to create online chaos. It’s quite the turn from a man who’s been aggressively deregulating the AI industry, blocking states from implementing their own safety guardrails, and personally using AI to spread political disinformation, smear opponents, and fabricate endorsements.
The FCC chairman has already targeted NBC, Comcast, ABC, NPR, PBS, and The View. And seems to believe it’s the media’s job to serve up propaganda. Now he’s trying to bully CNN over its coverage of the war in Iran. It’s not too surprising, though. We know Brendan Carr is a dummy.
The company recently hosted a series of speakers at AIPCon, including Cameron Stanley, the Department of War’s Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Officer, who gave a chilling demo of Palantir’s Maven Smart System, where anyone or anything can be targeted for a military strike with a “Left click, right click, left click.”
MS NOW reports that content creators were offered $1,500 to make videos attacking Kat Abughazaleh, a former journalist now running for office in Illinois’s 9th Congressional District. The offer came from a group called Democracy Unmuted, which has since updated its website to attack the MS NOW reporter who broke the story.
Search-and-rescue operations lacked access to pinpoint data on where tornadoes touched down, because Kristi Noem’s DHS spending policies are holding up approval of a $200k contract, reports CNN:
As the storms spread, officials from several states started contacting FEMA, asking why they couldn’t access the tornado tracking data… As of earlier this week, the tornado mapping contract still had not been renewed, the two sources said.
Minnesotans who are active in anti-ICE organizing say they’ve spotted drones in their neighborhoods — and in at least one instance, hovering right outside their houses — in recent weeks. The Department of Homeland Security won’t confirm whether the drones are theirs, but ICE has reportedly used license-plate readers and facial recognition technology to surveil activists in Minneapolis.
The decision reverses a 2024 order for TikTok to shut down its operations in the country, and comes after an agreement that TikTok will implement “enhanced protection” for Canadians’ personal information.
The Canadian Security Intelligence Service, which previously warned against using TikTok, said Canadians should “proceed cautiously” when joining new platforms and “conduct their own research on the type of data being collected,” CTV News reports.
In a court filing, US Customs and Border Protection official Brandon Lord says parts of the agency’s new refund processing system are currently 40 to 80 percent complete. According to Lord, the CBP will begin “performance testing in the next few weeks.”
The CBP previously estimated that the system would be done in April, as its existing tech wasn’t equipped to handle $166 billion in refunds.
IDC, Omdia, and Gartner agree: the PC market will shrink because of RAMaggedon. Respectively, they’re forecasting 11 percent, 12 percent, and 10 percent declines in 2026, far bigger than previously predicted.
“The sub-$500 entry-level PC segment will disappear by 2028,” Gartner said in late February. Phones will drop similarly. And these forecasts don’t include the impacts of Trump’s war on Iran.
Parent advocates were determined to make their presence known to Meta’s CEO.
Techdirt’s Mike Masnick on the history of the NSA and mass surveillance in America, and why Anthropic’s fight with the Pentagon should worry us.
Epic and Google are settling, but the US version of the plan still rests in Judge Donato’s hands. He’s asking for “friend of the court” briefs in early April, meaning it’ll be longer before he makes a decision.
The judge just scheduled a 3 PM hearing ordering “principal decisionmakers” for the states and Live Nation to attend. I expect we’ll hear about the status of their settlement talks, and whether at least some portion of the 27 states plus DC pushing ahead will go back to trial Monday.
You can find more details on the tech billionaire-backed plan to build a new 400,000-resident city in Northern California in this episode of the Volts podcast. Host David Roberts is interviewing its leader, former Goldman Sachs trader Jan Sramek, and in this first segment, starts to dive into things like water, urban design, and wildfires.
”The hacker expressed disgust at the presence of child abuse images on the device and left a message threatening to turn its owner over to the FBI, the person said.” Apparently they didn’t realize they were on an FBI server.
The attacks have led to thousands of flight cancellations, stranding travelers in Dubai and elsewhere.
It follows a similar suit filed two weeks ago by New York. Both allege that the loot boxes in games like Counter-Strike 2 are essentially gambling, and the class action accuses Valve of “deceptive, casino-style psychological tactics.”
