Latest news with #TechNewsBriefing
Wall Street Journal
16 hours ago
- Business
- Wall Street Journal
TNB Tech Minute: Reddit Sues Anthropic, Alleging Unauthorized Data Use - Tech News Briefing
Full Transcript This transcript was prepared by a transcription service. This version may not be in its final form and may be updated. Julie Chang: Here's your TNB Tech minute for Wednesday, June 4th. I'm Julie Chang for the Wall Street Journal. Reddit is suing Anthropic, saying The AI startup used the site's data for commercial purposes without a licensing agreement violating user data policy. The lawsuit references a 2021 Anthropic research paper that details the usefulness of Reddit data in AI model training. Reddit has licensing deals with OpenAI and Google, but said it had tried and failed to reach an agreement with Anthropic. A spokeswoman for Anthropic said the company disagrees with Reddit's claims and will defend itself vigorously. Meta is in talks with Disney, A24, and other smaller production companies to feature exclusive content on its new premium virtual reality headset to be launched next year. Thus, according to people familiar with the matter, the new device known internally as Loma is set to rival Apple's Vision Pro. Meta is offering millions of dollars for episodic and standalone immersive video based on well-known intellectual property. A Meta spokesman referred to comments by its CTO about the company working on many prototypes, not all of which go into production. CrowdStrike says its cooperating with federal authorities in connection with an incident last July, when a bug in the company's software knocked millions of computers offline. The outage delayed thousands of flights, broke backend systems, and rendered laptops temporarily unusable. According to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the cybersecurity firms at the Justice Department and the SEC have requested information related to the incident and other matters. Shares of CrowdStrike fell more than 5% today. For a deeper dive into what's happening in tech, check out Thursday's Tech News Briefing podcast.
Wall Street Journal
05-05-2025
- Business
- Wall Street Journal
AI Listening Devices: Handy Helpers or Legal Minefields? - Tech News Briefing
Would you strap a device on your wrist that listens to your every word every day so it can send you relevant reminders and summarize your conversations? WSJ senior personal tech columnist Joanna Stern did just that and shares her insights about the usefulness of such devices and the legal questions around their use. Plus: We get an update on the courtroom showdown between Meta and the Federal Trade Commission over whether the social-media company is operating a monopoly. WSJ reporter Dave Michaels brings us up to speed. Full Transcript This transcript was prepared by a transcription service. This version may not be in its final form and may be updated. Victoria Craig: Hey TNB listeners, before we get started, a heads up, we're going to be asking you a question at the top of each show for the next few weeks. Our goal here at Tech News Briefing is to keep you updated with the latest headlines and trends on all things tech. Now we want to know more about you, what you like about the show, and what more you'd like to be hearing from us. We already asked you about some corners of tech you might be interested in. Now we've got a few others in mind. Biotech, data science, robotics. Let us know what sparks your interest. If you're listening on Spotify, look for our poll under the episode description, or you can send us an email to tnb@ Now onto the show. Welcome to Tech News Briefing. It's Monday, May 5th. I'm Victoria Craig for the Wall Street Journal. Weeks into a legal showdown between the Federal Trade Commission and Facebook parent company, Meta, what have we learned? Our reporter gives us an update from what he's seen and heard in the courtroom. Then, would you willingly allow a device to record your every word, every day? Our tech columnist did for three weeks. She'll share her insights from the experience. But first, is there enough competition in social media? That's the big question a judge is looking to answer, without a jury, in an ongoing legal battle between the Federal Trade Commission and Meta. The FTC argues that Meta created a monopoly by buying up its competition, WhatsApp and Instagram, more than a decade ago. But Meta says social media has become a lot more competitive since then, and it faces increasing competition from the likes of TikTok and YouTube. Dave Michaels, who covers antitrust litigation and corporate law enforcement for the Wall Street Journal has been in the courtroom as the trial unfolds. Dave, why is the FTC arguing that YouTube and TikTok don't actually compete with Meta's social media platforms? Dave Michaels: The FTC says that those services as well as X, formerly Twitter, are basically entertainment services, or they're apps that connect you with your interests. The FTC says those services are not built on what's called a social graph, meaning they're not built on the relationships that you as a user have with friends and family. And the FTC says that network of relationships is what is at the heart of the value proposition for Facebook and Instagram and even WhatsApp, which is a messaging service, but a lot of people use it in a way that they stay in touch with groups of friends or groups of family members within the app. That's important because if the court agrees with the FTC that the social media market for friends and family just includes the companies that the FTC says it does, then the FTC has a good chance of winning. But if the social media market is broader and TikTok is part of it, then it will be a lot harder for the FTC to be able to convince the court that Meta has a monopoly today. Victoria Craig: And I thought one of the interesting parts was what the Instagram co-founder had to say about the success, or not, of his platform before Meta bought it all those years ago. Dave Michaels: There were some really compelling testimony from the Instagram co-founder, Kevin Systrom, and he was saying that Instagram was growing superfast. It was doing something similar to what Facebook did, but with photos at the center of their offering. And he was insistent that after Meta bought Instagram, Meta's executives, including Mark Zuckerberg, were really conflicted about the effect of Instagram's growth on Facebook's. That is that there was concern that they were competing for users and that the marginal new user for Instagram was perhaps not using Facebook as much as a result. Systrom eventually was questioned by Meta's lawyers, and he conceded a point that is important for Meta when he said that today these products, these social media products, they're all about entertaining users with video content. That's what TikTok does, that's what YouTube Shorts does, that's what Facebook does, that's what Instagram does. Even Systrom conceded that the market for user attention today is very different than it was in 2012. Victoria Craig: You also mentioned in your story the judge presiding over this case. Can you just give us some context around some of the questions that he's been asking both sides in this case so far? Dave Michaels: It's US District Judge James Boasberg, and on the one hand it's pretty apparent that he doesn't use a lot of social media, and he has asked some questions that get at the heart of the issue such as whether the differences between social media today are really firm or if it's, as he questioned it, it's just a difference in degree. In other words, these projects share a lot of features, and so perhaps they're not as different as the FTC maintains. Victoria Craig: Dave, what's next in this case? Dave Michaels: We think there's at least a week more of testimony from the FTCs witnesses, including the FTCs main expert. And expert witnesses can play a really big role in these antitrust cases trying to explain to the court why the market is defined the way that the FTC says, and the expert has to be very credible in making that presentation. But then Meta will get its chance and it will put its witnesses up on the stand. It will question those witnesses and try to drive home its point that this stuff about Instagram and WhatsApp being acquired is just ancient history. It's going to try to drive home that point that Meta today faces just an onslaught of competition from TikTok and YouTube and other forms of social media and entertainment that were just not as prevalent in 2012 when this market was making that transition from desktop to mobile. Victoria Craig: That was WSJ reporter Dave Michaels. Coming up, if we want artificial intelligence to become all-knowing assistants in our daily lives, we got to let them learn by listening. At least that's the mantra our tech columnist followed recently. After the break, she'll explain how it's made her life easier and how it might cross some legal lines. Want AI to generate a to-do list for you or maybe remind you to send that email you keep forgetting? How about summarizing a long meeting you zoned out in? Well, 15 years ago I would've told you there's an app for that. Now I'll say there's an AI listening device that's always on for that. WSJ tech columnist, Joanna Stern strapped one to her wrist for three weeks. Joanna, first, why in the world would you do this? Joanna Stern: Back in January I read about this device called the Bee Pioneer Bracelet, and it was $50, it was announced at CES, and I saw people talking about this device that just records everything. It is nonstop recording when it hears your voice or other voices, and then it uses AI to summarize and analyze what you are saying. And I will say that within a few minutes or hours of wearing this thing, I was completely blown away, one by how creepy it was, the fact that everything I had said had been transcribed and now lived in an app. And that wasn't only everything I'd said, but anyone I had talked to, that transcription was there. And then two, how it was proactively listening to those conversations and adding things that I had said I would do or somebody had asked me to do to a to-do list. And so my memories and everything I need to remember has just been outsourced to this bracelet on my wrist. Victoria Craig: And that's the part that I'm so curious about because if you think about this device hearing absolutely everything you do in a day, what actionable information did it create for you from all that it was hearing you say and do? Joanna Stern: Here's an example. Me and you were talking about this and at the end of this conversation I'll say, "I'm going to send you that recording. I'll do it when I'm done with this next meeting." And it would take that and put it on my to-do list. It would say, "Send Victoria the recording of the podcast." It has that context, it's using AI, using large language models to make sense of all that's being said. Victoria Craig: A question that a lot of our listeners will probably have is, how exactly can it process all of that information, because you're talking about 24 hours a day, 365 days a year? What does it do with all that information and how does it process it so quickly? Joanna Stern: The way Bee does it, and I did review some other devices, but I'll talk about how Bee does it, is the device is listening, it's monitoring for audio. Once it hears that audio, it uses Bluetooth to take the microphone, what it's hearing on the bracelet, sending it to the phone, and then sending it to the cloud to do the processing of the transcription. And Bee is actually tossing out the audio. You can't listen back to your conversations, you can only read the transcriptions. And frankly, they're not great transcriptions. Like we use transcriptions of course, a lot in our work and we want them to be as close as possible because we want to get the quote perfect. This doesn't really need to get the quote perfect, it just needs to get a general sense of what that conversation was about. And so then they take that transcription and they run it through large language models and they're using that to summarize as you go. Yes, it's a lot of data, but it's also not as much because you don't have that big audio file and it's been turned into a text file which is smaller and they're doing special stuff to make those files smaller and then send it back to your phone and your app so you can always access it. Victoria Craig: What protections are in place to make sure that the private conversations that you do have, if you don't think about, because you mentioned in your story, there is a way that you can turn it off, make it stop listening, or is lack of privacy just something we're going to have to get used to as these things become wider spread? Joanna Stern: Look, this is a privacy nightmare, but Bee and Limitless, which is the other one I've talked to, they have the right ideas about privacy in mind if you're going to build something like this. Yes, both of them have buttons on them to turn off the mics. Limitless is this little pendant that works in a similar way, but actually also gives you the audio to listen back to. It has a little light on it that's always glowing when you've got the mic on. Bee is in the process of changing the light setup, but right now it does also have a button. You press it and actually when you press the button to turn off the microphone, it glows red, which doesn't make much sense since the universal light for recording is red. But they are planning to switch that soon in an update. Another thing you can do is you can delete any conversations or your account from the apps and they say that completely clears this from their servers. Limitless, they keep that audio. You can say in the app how long you want them to keep the audio so they can toss it after a number of days or they have some presets that you can do. On top of that, both of them say that this information is encrypted on their servers, nobody or no employees can access it. But of course there's always risk with all of this stuff. Victoria Craig: For the tech savvy first adopters out there though, one of the important things to consider as this, if this, becomes much more widespread, is that there are state by state restrictions on recording people's speech without their permission. Is this a minefield for individuals to navigate? Whose responsibility is this? Joanna Stern: Absolutely. The first questions I started getting when I would tell people I was recording, and I was really clear with most of my conversations, "This is recording," it's not recording the audio with the Bee, and I would explain all of that. But almost always the first question I would get from people is, "Is that legal? Can you even record me without my consent?" And so talked to a few lawyers about this, and it really depends on what state you're in. I was in New York and New Jersey, which are one party consent states where only one person, that's me, in that case has to agree to the recording. But if I were in one of the about a dozen other states that require two party consent, I would need that permission of the person I was talking to and possibly people within an earshot that might be getting picked up. And I asked the companies about this, they said they're going to start to get more aggressive about telling people this. But there is such usefulness and utility in this that I do think some will start to use it. And I do think also I heard from a lot of readers in response, especially those that are starting to experience memory loss and they were pretty game to try it. Victoria Craig: That was Wall Street Journal's senior personal tech columnist, Joanna Stern. And that's it for Tech News Briefing. Today's show was produced by Julie Chang with Deputy Editor Kristin Slee. I'm Victoria Craig for the Wall Street Journal. We'll be back this afternoon with TNB Tech Minutes. Thanks for listening.
Wall Street Journal
30-04-2025
- Business
- Wall Street Journal
TNB Tech Minute: Meta, Microsoft Post Strong Revenue Growth - Tech News Briefing
Full Transcript This transcript was prepared by a transcription service. This version may not be in its final form and may be updated. Speaker 1: Here's your TNB Tech Minute for Wednesday, April 30th. I'm Victoria Craig for the Wall Street Journal. After the closing bell on Wall Street, Microsoft said it registered 13% revenue growth last quarter with all of its main business units beating expectations. Profit meanwhile rose nearly 18% from a year earlier. The results sent shares solidly higher in after-hours trading. CEO, Satya Nadella, said Microsoft's results were boosted by continued demand for AI and cloud computing. Check out tomorrow's Tech News Briefing podcast where we'll take a deeper look at Microsoft's push to grow its cloud business in Europe and the geopolitical tensions that could threaten it. Also on the earnings front, Meta notched a 16% jump in sales last quarter, beating Wall Street forecasts. It said it expects revenue growth would remain steady in the current quarter, quashing worries that the Trump administration's latest tariffs will dent the company's global ad business. Meta relies on that advertising revenue to fund a plan for up to $65 billion in AI ambitions as it tries to take on giants in the space like OpenAI's ChatGPT. Earlier today, Meta rolled out a standalone app for its Meta AI chatbot, which it hopes will clock 1 billion users by the end of the year. And finally, Chinese e-commerce giant, Alibaba, rolled out a rapid delivery option to its shopping platform today. Customers can buy a range of things like food, apparel and footwear under a new Instant Commerce tab, and get their goods in less than an hour. A person familiar with the matter told The Journal the option is expected to roll out across China next week. The feature is seen as Alibaba's latest attempt to set up its super fast delivery options as it faces stiff competition from rivals like For a deeper dive into what's happening in tech, check out Thursday's Tech News Briefing podcast.
Wall Street Journal
26-04-2025
- Business
- Wall Street Journal
Quantum Communications Breakthrough Could Improve Online Security - Tech News Briefing
We want to hear from you! Our recent series ' Chatbot Confidential ' looked into privacy risks when using generative AI chatbots like ChatGPT or Claude. Do you have a question about using these chatbots and your privacy? Record a voice memo and send it to tnb@ or leave us a voicemail at (212) 416-2236. Scientists have made a huge leap in a highly technical practice known as coherent quantum communications . The WSJ's Aylin Woodward breaks down what that is and the effects it could have on everyday life. Plus, our Brussels-based reporter Kim Mackrael takes us through the trade implications of the European Union's fines on Apple and Meta Platforms. Katie Deighton hosts. Full Transcript This transcript was prepared by a transcription service. This version may not be in its final form and may be updated. Katie Deighton: Hey, TNB listeners, our recent series, Chatbot Confidential, dug into some of the privacy risks that come with using chatbots powered by generative AI. What questions do you have about bots like ChatGPT or Claude, and your privacy, like what kind of data they collect or how long companies hold onto it? Record a voice memo and send it to tnb@ or leave us a voicemail at 212-416-2236. That's 212-416-2236. We might answer your question in an upcoming episode. Now, onto the show. Welcome to Tech News Briefing. It's Thursday, April 24th. I'm Katie Deighton for The Wall Street Journal. The European Union slapped fines on Apple and Meta worth hundreds of millions of dollars yesterday. The move comes in the middle of an already frosty trading climate between the US and the EU. You might've heard something about tariffs. We dig into what the orders mean for international trade, the two companies at the heart of the matter, and other tech giants looking on. Then we are going quantum. Scientists say they use ordinary computers and fiber optic cables to send quantum information across a record-breaking 158 miles. What does that even mean? Stay with us to find out. But first, like we told you last night, Apple and Meta say they'll appeal the European Union's decision to slap them with multi-million dollar fines and force them to change their business operations there. The companies are, by now, used to dealing with slaps on the wrist from regulators, but as trade negotiations heat up, the cases have ended up in the political spotlight. Kim Mackrael, a WSJ reporter based in Brussels, has been following the story. So, Kim, these fines are tied to the EU's Digital Markets Act. What is that regulation designed to do? Kim Mackrael: The broadest way of speaking about that regulation, the broadest way to think about it is that the EU saw a situation where there are a very small number of very large tech companies. Many of them happen to be American, but the view is when you have a small number of tech companies that have a lot of access to data, a lot of access to users and a lot of power in the digital market, that that situation might not be such a great situation for having smaller rivals be able to compete. So, the idea, broadly speaking, is to try to level the playing field and make it easier for smaller companies, up-and-coming companies, to get into that market. Katie Deighton: And how does the EU say Apple and Meta fell foul of these laws? Kim Mackrael: These two cases deal with very different aspects of the Digital Markets Act. So, the Digital Markets Act covers quite a lot, and in Meta's case, the focus is on whether or not users have the ability to be able to say, "I don't want you to take my data and combine it with other products that you might offer." So, in Meta's case, there is data combination that goes on to provide personalized advertising, and the commission said that they had to offer basically an equivalent product that's also allowed users to opt out of that level of personalized advertising. For the Apple case, the question is whether Apple is allowing app developers to freely direct users to other ways to make purchases. If you want to, let's say, purchase a subscription to an app or purchase a digital product of some other kind, the question is whether you're able to see an advertisement about that opportunity to buy something else and take advantage of what might be a lower price or just an alternative way of getting it. And so, the argument against Apple in this case was that they restrict the way developers can communicate with users. Katie Deighton: And how have they responded? Kim Mackrael: They both said they would appeal. In Apple's case, they said the commission, in their view, the decision unfairly targets the company and they said it's one of a number of decisions that they say are bad for the privacy and security of users, bad for products, and force the company to give away their technology for free. Meta, again, also said it would appeal and it said it was being forced by the EU to change its business model in a way that's actually the equivalent of a multi-billion dollar tariff. And you can see them actually using the language of tariffs, which is interesting in the context of global trade talks right now. Katie Deighton: Right. We've got the EU going after two of America's biggest companies right in the middle of what is already an incredibly tense time for trade. What kind of impact do you think this will have on those negotiations between the US and the EU? Kim Mackrael: It's a really interesting thing to be watching right now. We reported last week that the EU actually delayed its plans to make this announcement. It had previously planned to announce it roughly a week ago, and that happened during a time of the EU really just starting to try to get going on trade talks. The European Commission has said that they do the decisions when they're ready and that this was the time it took for them to be ready. But at the same time, we know there's a lot of political sensitivity around these issues. We know that President Trump has spoken in the past about viewing EU antitrust fines, regulations as the equivalent to non-tariff barriers, and things that the US could consider targeting with tariffs of its own. Katie Deighton: Are other tech companies that operate in Europe paying attention to these cases? Kim Mackrael: Although the fines are a small portion of these companies overall revenue, they do come with substantial orders to change how they do their business. There is also the possibility beyond that, if they don't comply within about two months, the commission has the power to follow up with further fines. So, it's not just a one-time thing. I would think that seeing that there was follow-through and that cases were actually completed and fines issued, would be something that other companies regulated by this law would be paying attention to and thinking about. Katie Deighton: That was WSJ reporter Kim Mackrael. Coming up, why a new breakthrough in quantum communication may help you sleep easier at night. That's after the break. Scientists working in the field of quantum communication announced a breakthrough yesterday. They say they validated a new method of sending quantum information down miles of fiber optic cables, avoiding the need for expensive cooling technology. WSJ reporter Aylin Woodward has been deep in the quantum world this week and is here to explain what all that means to us non-scientists. So, Aylin, let's start with the big question. What is a quantum message? Aylin Woodward: Great question. So, when you think about typical things that are sent on the typical internet, they tend to be sent in the form of classical info. So, classical info, the units are called bits, and they have a fixed value. They're either going to be a one or a zero, think The Matrix. And by contrast, when you send quantum information, that information isn't sent in those classical bits. It's sent in the quantum version of them known as qubits. And rather than being a fixed value, those qubits can store multiple values at once, which means basically that when you send quantum information, so quantum communications as opposed to the more traditional ones, you can make them much more secure. Katie Deighton: Explain that a bit more. How is quantum communication more secure? Aylin Woodward: Today, our data is protected by encryption keys, and these encryption keys are based on algorithms like mathematical formulas that with enough computing power can be broken by a quantum computer, and these quantum computers are getting better and more powerful. So, eventually, it's possible that encryption keys could be broken. But if you were to encrypt something quantumly, so quantum cryptography, it basically generates a key that isn't based on any math, and therefore, is virtually uncrackable. So, we're talking about a 500-digit string of random values that you can't reverse engineer that. Katie Deighton: You have some fantastic diagrams in your article breaking this down, and the link is in the show notes. But for listeners, can you explain just what happened in the experiment that you wrote about? Aylin Woodward: This particular work was executed by researchers at Toshiba Europe Limited, and it's part of their efforts to make quantum communications possible at a national scale level network and sort of real world conditions. Essentially, what happened was a group of researchers took ordinary computers, so not quantum computers, ordinary computers, and they basically plugged into an existing telecommunications network at a national scale. So, they went over to Germany, they selected three commercial data centers in three German cities, and they plugged in their computers and they sent quantum information along existing fiber optic cables. This broke a distance record for this type of coherent quantum communication that hadn't been done before outside of a laboratory setting. Typically, what happens in order to send a piece of information quantumly, you need these very expensive superconducting detectors that are able to detect a single photon of light, which incorporates quantum information. And these superconducting detectors must be cryogenically cooled, usually with liquid helium to ridiculously cold temperatures. And that cooling mechanism is expensive and bulky. And so, rather than using those types of specialized equipment, they took something that was a little bit cheaper, a little bit more practical, that didn't have to be cooled quite so much. They could use it at room temperature or slightly below room temperature. And that's a big step towards making a breakthrough of having it be a little bit more widespread because it's cheaper. And quantum communications are critical to securing information. The ability to send info in this manner means that your health records, your financial records are far more impervious to cyber eavesdropping than they would be if sent otherwise. Katie Deighton: I'd love to dive a little bit more into those real-world implications. Can you take us through how this might affect everybody's daily lives if this becomes a mainstream piece of technology? Aylin Woodward: The ultimate goal here, and this is a step towards that goal, is the setup of a quantum internet. So, as opposed to the more traditional, regular internet that we think of today, a quantum internet would secure information, give us secure communications. And while you, in your living room, wouldn't really maybe be plugged into the quantum internet, you could rest easier at night knowing, for example, your hospital or your banking corporation had invested money in enabling these types of secure data transmissions and communications that involve your data. So, it ultimately means that your information could be more secure and that type of security can be bought for far less money. Katie Deighton: That was our reporter, Aylin Woodward. And that's it for Tech News Briefing. Today's show was produced by Julie Chang with Deputy Editor Chris Zinsli. I'm Katie Deighton for The Wall Street Journal. We'll be back this afternoon with TNB Tech Minute. Thanks for listening.
Wall Street Journal
15-04-2025
- Business
- Wall Street Journal
TNB Tech Minute: Japan Accuses Google of Being Anticompetitive - Tech News Briefing
Full Transcript This transcript was prepared by a transcription service. This version may not be in its final form and may be updated. Victoria Craig: Here's your TNB Tech Minute for Tuesday, April 15th. I'm Victoria Craig for the Wall Street Journal. Japan's antitrust regulator has ordered Google to stop what it says are monopolistic practices in mobile search. It's a first of its kind directive from Japan's Fair Trade Commission to a U.S. tech giant. The regulator said, since 2020, Google has prevented competition by pre-installing its own search platforms on the home screens of Android devices. Google said it's disappointed by the findings and believes its agreements with Japanese providers have boosted competition. But it said it would review the regulator's decision to determine its next steps. Elsewhere, some of America's biggest banks are pulling back on sending information electronically to their regulator. People familiar with the matter say that's due to ongoing security concerns after the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency said it's investigating a recent email hack. JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Bank of New York Mellon are looking at other ways to send sensitive information. The OCC posted on its website a notice about the hack in February, but people familiar with the situation said some of the banks only learned about the incident from media reports and are still largely in the dark about what information may have been disclosed to hackers. And finally, Johnson & Johnson says it expects President Trump's tariffs primarily on the company's medical technology products to add roughly $400 million to its costs this year. The healthcare giant's CEO said his company will work with the administration to prevent potential disruptions to its supply chain, but he said the best way to increase the supply of U.S.-made MedTech and pharmaceuticals is through tax policy rather than tariffs. For a deeper dive into what's happening in tech, check out Wednesday's Tech News Briefing podcast.
