Tag: elon musk

Meta’s Threads Emerges as First Real Threat to Twitter as It Racks Up Over 30 Million Users in 18 Hours

Meta‘s Threads racked up more than 30 million sign-ups within about 18 hours of its launch, emerging as the first real threat to Elon Musk-owned Twitter, as it took advantage of its access to billions of Instagram users and a similar look to that of its rival.

Dubbed as the “Twitter-Killer”, Threads was the top free app on Apple’s App Store in the UK and the US on Thursday. Its arrival comes after Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter’s Musk have traded barbs for months, even threatening to fight each other in a real-life mixed martial arts cage match in Las Vegas.

“The cage match has started, and Zuckerberg delivered a major blow. In many ways, it’s exactly what you’d expect from Meta: Stellar execution and an easy-to-navigate user interface,” Insider Intelligence principal analyst Jasmine Enberg said.

Numerous competitors to Twitter have sprung up following Musk’s $44 billion (nearly Rs. 3,64,130 crore) purchase of the social media platform last year, which was followed by a series of chaotic decisions that have alienated both users and advertisers. Musk’s latest move involved limiting the number of tweets users can read per day.

Twitter’s stumbles make room for a well-funded competitor like Meta Platforms, analysts and experts said, particularly because of its access to Instagram users and its advertising strength.

“Meta’s release of Threads came at the perfect time to give it a fighting chance to unseat Twitter,” said Niklas Myhr, professor of marketing at Chapman University, referring to the turmoil at Twitter after it limited the number of tweets users can see.

“Threads will be off to a running start as it is built upon the Instagram platform with its massive user base and if users adopt Threads, advertisers will be following closely behind.”

Other competitors have found limited success. Mastodon, another Twitter-like app, has 1.7 million monthly active users, according to its website, while Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey-backed Bluesky has about 265,000 users.

Twitter had 229 million monthly active users in May 2022, according to a statement made before Musk’s buyout.

Threads has certain limitations

While Threads is a standalone app, users can log in using their Instagram credentials, which makes it an easy addition for Instagram’s more than 2 billion monthly active users.

Threads’ launch was clearly a first stab at a service as it currently lacks the bells and whistles of Twitter.

“There should be a public conversations app with 1 billion+ people on it. Twitter has had the opportunity to do this but hasn’t nailed it. Hopefully we will,” Zuckerberg said on Threads, where he now has a million followers.

Threads does not have hashtags and keyword search functions, which means users cannot follow real-time events like on Twitter. It also does not yet have a direct messaging function and lacks a desktop version that certain users, such as business organizations, rely on.

Some users including tech reviewer Marques Brownlee posted about the need for a feed that only consists of the people one follows. Users currently have little control over the main feed.

Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino, who was hired by Musk in May to shore up advertiser confidence, said in tweet on Thursday that “everyone’s voice matters” on the app. “We’re often imitated — but the Twitter community can never be duplicated.”

Currently there are no ads on the Threads app and Zuckerberg said the company would only think about monetization once there was a clear path to 1 billion users.

Existing ad relationships from Instagram and Facebook should help Threads’ revenue, said Pinar Yildirim, associate professor of marketing at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.

“Facebook is a less uncertain bet compared to Twitter and a bigger player in the ad market.”

Some analysts said Threads was reminiscent of Meta’s success in integrating crucial features of platforms such as Snapchat and TikTok in the case of Instagram’s Stories and Reels.

At least four brokerages raised their price target on Meta, whose shares have already more than doubled in value this year.

On Thursday, Meta shares were down 0.3 percent amid a broader market selloff, after rising 3 percent on Wednesday ahead of Threads’ launch.

The app is available in over 100 countries, but Bloomberg News reported that it won’t be launched in the European Union as of now as Meta works out how data sharing between the new platform and its Instagram app will be regulated.

© Thomson Reuters 2023 

Affiliate links may be automatically generated – see our ethics statement for details.

Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

Meta’s Twitter-Rival Threads App Said to Skip Launch in EU

Facebook owner Meta‘s new Threads app, meant to rival Twitter, will not be available in the European Union when it launches Thursday because of regulatory concerns, a source close to the company said.

The app is seen as the biggest challenge yet to Twitter since the takeover by Elon Musk sent the social media platform, hugely popular with politicians and celebrities, into chaos.

A source close to Meta said Wednesday that the tech giant was holding back from a Threads release in the EU’s 27 countries as it sought clarity on the bloc’s Digital Markets Act that will come into full force next year.

The DMA is a landmark law that sets strict rules for the internet’s biggest companies in Europe.

One of those regulations prohibits platforms from sharing data across different services. It also restricts companies directing platform users to their own products.

The description of Threads on app stores in the United States indicated that a user’s personal data, including contact and geolocation information, will be collected and used for advertising purposes.

Meta has already run afoul of EU rules for its attempts to use data from WhatsApp to strengthen Instagram and Facebook, something European regulators forbade it from doing.

A spokesman for Ireland’s Data Protection Commission told the Irish Independent that Meta confirmed that it would not be releasing the app in Europe “at this point”.

Ireland is home to Meta’s EU headquarters, and the national regulator is in charge of oversight of the company in Europe.

Contacted by AFP, Meta did not immediately comment. 

Meta was one of seven companies, including Amazon and Apple, that informed the EU on Tuesday that they meet the threshold to come under the new rules when they come into force next year.

Affiliate links may be automatically generated – see our ethics statement for details.

Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino Backs Elon Musk’s Controversial Tweet-Reading Rate Limits: Details

Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino on Tuesday tweeted a defense of the temporary cap announced July 1 on the number of tweets users can read in a day, and the company said advertising has been stable in the days since the step that drew heavy criticism from users and marketing professionals.

Yaccarino wrote in her tweet: “when you have a mission like Twitter — you need to make big moves to keep strengthening the platform.” It was her first public comment on the limits announced on Saturday by owner Elon Musk, who said the step was meant to discourage “extreme levels” of data scraping and system manipulation.

In the days since Musk’s announcement, Twitter users posted screenshots showing they were unable to see any tweets, including on the pages of corporate advertisers, after hitting the limit. And marketing professionals said it could undermine Yaccarino’s efforts to attract advertisers.

Twitter said only a small percentage of people using the platform have been affected by the limits.

“To ensure the authenticity of our user base we must take extreme measures to remove spam and bots from our platform,” the company said in a blog post on Tuesday.

The limit took affect soon after Twitter began requiring users to log into an account on the social media platform to view tweets.

Facebook parent Meta Platforms said it plans to launch microblogging app called Threads, a rollout that represents a direct challenge to Twitter which has been heavily criticized since Musk bought the company for $44 billion (roughly Rs. 3,37,465 crore) in 2022.

Asked in an email why the CEO did not comment on the move until three days after it was announced, Twitter did not comment but sent Reuters a poop emoji, the company’s standard response to media inquiries.

© Thomson Reuters 2023 

From the Nothing Phone 2 to the Motorola Razr 40 Ultra, several new smartphones are expected to make their debut in July. We discuss all of the most exciting smartphones coming this month and more on the latest episode of Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.

 

Affiliate links may be automatically generated – see our ethics statement for details.



Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

Draft EU Artificial Intelligence Rules Could Hurt Europe

The proposed EU Artificial Intelligence legislation would jeopardise Europe’s competitiveness and technological sovereignty, according to an open letter signed by more than 160 executives at companies ranging from Renault to Meta.

EU lawmakers agreed to a set of draft rules this month where systems like ChatGPT would have to disclose AI-generated content, help distinguish so-called deep-fake images from real ones and ensure safeguards against illegal content.

Since ChatGPT became popular, several open letters have been issued calling for regulation of AI and raising the “risk of extinction from AI”.

Signatories of previous letters included Elon Musk, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and Geoffrey Hinton and Yoshua Bengio – two of the three so-called “godfathers of AI”.

The third, Yann LeCun, who works at Meta, signed Friday’s letter challenging the EU regulations. Other signatories included executives from a diverse set of companies such as Spanish telecom company Cellnex, French software company Mirakl and German investment bank Berenberg.

Those companies, along with Renault and Meta, did not respond immediately to requests for comment.

We are principally aiming at the European Parliament version because they decided to move from a risk-based approach to a technology-based approach, which was not in the initial text, Cedric O, former digital minister of France and one of the three organizers of the letter, told Reuters.

He, along with Jeannette zu Fürstenberg, founding partner of La Famiglia VC, and René Obermann, Airbus chairman, organised the open letter.

The letter warned that under the proposed EU rules technologies like generative AI would become heavily regulated and companies developing such systems would face high compliance costs and disproportionate liability risks.

Such regulation could lead to highly innovative companies moving their activities abroad and investors withdrawing their capital from the development of European AI in general, it said.

OpenAI’s Altman, who had in May threatened to pull ChatGPT from Europe if it becomes too hard to comply with upcoming AI laws, later reversed his position and said the company has no plans to exit.

“I am convinced they have not carefully read the text but have rather reacted on the stimulus of a few who have a vested interest in this topic,” Dragos Tudorache, who co-led the drafting of EU proposals, told Reuters.

The suggestions made in the letter are already in the draft legislation, he said.

© Thomson Reuters 2023

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

Affiliate links may be automatically generated – see our ethics statement for details.

Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

EU Industry Chief Defends Draft Rules to Prevent Illegal Access to EU Data

European Union industry chief Thierry Breton on Thursday defended draft rules aimed at preventing non-EU governments from gaining illegal access to EU data, saying they were not protectionist.

The draft Data Act, which Breton proposed early last year, is in the final stage of negotiations between the European Commission, EU countries, and EU lawmakers. The parties are expected to reach a deal next week on the final details before the legislation is adopted.

It lays out rights and obligations on the use of EU consumer and corporate data generated in smart gadgets and machinery as well as consumer goods and is the latest in a series of regulations designed to curb the power of US tech giants.

“Our European data strategy is to unlock a wealth of big data and set out how that data should be shared, stored, and processed. This will benefit all businesses – European, American, and others alike,” Breton said in the text of a speech to be delivered at the opening of an EU Office in San Francisco.

“Assertiveness is not protectionism,” he said.

Big US tech companies have said the Data Act could impede international data transfer, and European companies have also criticised it.

Siemens and SAP last month said a provision forcing companies to share data with third parties to provide aftermarket or other data-driven services could endanger trade secrets.

In San Francisco, Breton will meet Twitter owner Elon Musk, Meta Platform CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. He will seek to persuade them to sign up to his AI Pact which aims to get companies to implement EU AI rules ahead of their enforcement in two years’ time.

He also said he would head to Asia next week to discuss the digital agenda and AI with the Korean and Japanese governments, adding Europe had also launched a digital partnership with Singapore. 

© Thomson Reuters 2023  

Affiliate links may be automatically generated – see our ethics statement for details.

Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

Tesla’s NACS to Become Important Component for All EVs in Washington State

Washington state plans to require electric vehicle charging companies to include Tesla‘s plug if they want to be part of a state program to electrify highways using federal dollars, an official told Reuters on Thursday.

Washington follows the move by Texas to mandate Tesla’s technology, The North American Charging Standard (NACS), adding momentum to CEO Elon Musk‘s hope of making it the national charging technology.

GM, Ford and Rivan have said they would embrace Tesla’s NACS, shunning efforts by the Biden administration to make the Combined Charging System (CCS) the dominant charging standard in the United States.

“I’m actually really happy about NACS and how finally automakers are gearing towards one standard. We want to provide access to as many makes and models as possible,” said Tonia Buell, alternative fuels program manager at Washington state’s Department of Transportation.

“It hasn’t necessarily been tested and certified for other auto manufacturers, so we want to make sure it’s going to work but we are planning to require NACS at our state funded and federally funded sites in the future.”

The state plans to begin the requests for proposals process in the fall.

Buell said the decision is about “future proofing” the state’s investments.

Buell said state officials are still trying to determine the right mix of NACS chargers based on current federal requirements. Under federal rules, each taxpayer-backed site must have at least four CCS chargers and Buell said the state may require at least two of them to work with NACS or perhaps all four.

The plan by Washington may add pressure on other states and the federal government to adopt Tesla’s NACS.

© Thomson Reuters 2023

Apple’s annual developer conference is just around the corner. From the company’s first mixed reality headset to new software updates, we discuss all the things we’re looking forward to seeing at WWDC 2023 on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.
Affiliate links may be automatically generated – see our ethics statement for details.

Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

Karnataka Government Invites Elon Musk to Set Up Business in State

The Karnataka government has extended an invitation to business magnate Elon Musk to set up businesses in the southern state. 

Karnataka’s Minister for Commerce and Industries, Infrastructure MB Patil, in a Twitter post, wrote his state Karnataka is the “ideal destination” for Tesla‘s expansion into India.

“If Tesla considers setting up a plant in India, Karnataka, with its great potential and capabilities, I must say is The Destination,” he added.

“As a progressive state and a thriving hub of innovation and technology, Karnataka stands ready to support and provide the necessary facilities for Tesla and other ventures of Elon Musk, including Starlink,” Patil wrote, tagging Musk’s Twitter handle.

Karnataka, Patil said, is focused on being the hub for technology and manufacturing 5.0, to propel the state for the next decades.

Meanwhile, during the ongoing State visit to the US, Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Tesla and Twitter chief Elon Musk and invited him to explore opportunities in India for investments in electric mobility and the rapidly expanding commercial space sector.

Speaking to reporters after meeting with PM Modi, Musk, who is also CEO of SpaceX, said he was incredibly excited about the future of India and added that India has more promise than any large country in the world.

“I am tentatively planning to visit India again next year. I am looking forward to it,” Musk added.

Musk, responding to questions from reporters, said he was confident that his car company Tesla will be in India “as soon as humanly possible”. “I would like to thank PM Modi for his support and hopefully, we will be able to announce something in the not-too-distant future.”

To a question on when Tesla will be in India, Musk said, “We don’t want to jump the gun with an announcement but it’s quite likely that there will be a significant investment for India in the future.”

In a quick counter question by reporters asking what changed his mind about Tesla’s investments inIndia, he smilingly said, “I have never changed my mind”.

Tesla is reportedly expected to announce the location of its new factory by the end of 2023.

Further, Musk also showed interest in bringing his Starlink services to India. Starlink is a satellite-based internet services provider which is operated by Musk’s company SpaceX.

India intends to leverage the space sector’s potential by inviting private players into the field.

Apple unveiled its first mixed reality headset, the Apple Vision Pro, at its annual developer conference, along with new Mac models and upcoming software updates. We discuss all the most important announcements made by the company at WWDC 2023 on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.
Affiliate links may be automatically generated – see our ethics statement for details.

Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

Elon Musk Expects Brain-Chip Startup Neuralink to Start First Human Trial This Year

Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk expects his brain-chip startup Neuralink to start its first human trial this year, he said on Friday in France.

Speaking at the VivaTech event in Paris, co-founder Musk said Neuralink plans to implant a tetraplegic or paraplegic patient during a webcast monitored by Reuters. While Musk didn’t specify how many patients his company would implant or for how long, “it’s looking like the first case will be later this year,” said Musk, who is also CEO of electric carmaker Tesla, social media platform Twitter and the SpaceX rocket launch company.

Last month, Neuralink said it received US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) clearance for its first-in-human clinical trial, a critical milestone for the startup as it faces US probes over its handling of animal experiments. The FDA acknowledged in an earlier statement to Reuters that the agency cleared Neuralink to use its brain implant and surgical robot for trials but declined to provide more details.

If Neuralink can prove its device is safe in humans, it would still take several years, potentially more than a decade, for the start-up to secure commercial use clearance, experts earlier told Reuters. The company is also competing with other neurotech companies which have already implanted their devices in people.

Musk has missed timelines on his public pronouncements about Neuralink before, however. On at least four occasions since 2019, Musk predicted that Neuralink would soon start human trials.

The company, founded in 2016, first sought permission from the FDA in early 2022, and the agency rejected the application, citing dozens of safety concerns, Reuters has reported. Some of the issues involved the lithium battery of the device, the possibility of the implant’s wires migrating within the brain, and the challenge of safely extracting the device without damaging brain tissue.

Neuralink also faces federal scrutiny following Reuters reports about its animal experiments.

Last year, Neuralink employees told Reuters the company was rushing and botching surgeries on monkeys, pigs and sheep, resulting in more animal deaths than necessary, as Musk pressured staff to receive FDA approval. The animal experiments produced data intended to support the company’s application for human trials, the sources said.

In one instance in 2021, the company implanted 25 out of 60 pigs with the wrong-sized devices. All the pigs were subsequently killed – an error that employees said could have been easily avoided with more preparation.

In May, US lawmakers urged regulators to investigate whether the makeup of Neuralink’s panel overseeing animal testing contributed to botched and rushed experiments after Reuters reported on potential financial conflicts on the board.

The Department of Transportation is separately probing whether Neuralink illegally transported dangerous pathogens on chips removed from monkey brains without proper containment measures. An agency spokesperson said on Friday the investigation is ongoing.

Neuralink has also been under investigation by the US Department of Agriculture’s Office of Inspector General for potential animal-welfare violations. This probe has been looking at the USDA’s oversight of Neuralink. An agency spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to a comment request.

Meanwhile, the company’s valuation has shot up in recent months. The start-up was valued at close to $2 billion (roughly Rs. 16,382 crore) in a private fundraising round two years ago and is now worth around $5 billion (roughly Rs. 40,955 crore) based on privately executed stock trades, Reuters reported this month. Neuralink employees who sat on the company’s animal board, which has come under federal scrutiny for potential financial conflicts, stood to benefit from the implant’s quick development. Neuralink stock that some of the employees hold has jumped around 150% in value in just two years, based on the secondary trades, Reuters reported.

© Thomson Reuters 2023

Apple unveiled its first mixed reality headset, the Apple Vision Pro, at its annual developer conference, along with new Mac models and upcoming software updates. We discuss all the most important announcements made by the company at WWDC 2023 on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.
Affiliate links may be automatically generated – see our ethics statement for details.

Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

Twitter to Focus on Video, Creator and Commerce Partnerships, Says CEO Yaccarino

Twitter plans to focus on video, creator and commerce partnerships to revitalise the social media company’s business beyond digital advertising, according to an investor presentation by owner Elon Musk and new Chief Executive Linda Yaccarino that was reviewed by Reuters.

Yaccarino, who started as CEO on June 5, told Twitter investors on Thursday that the company is in early conversations with political and entertainment figures, payments services and news and media publishers on potential partnerships, said a source familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a private investor call.

The presentation was Yaccarino’s first time addressing the company’s investors, the source said.

After Musk acquired Twitter in October, the social media firm faced months of chaos, including layoffs of thousands of employees, criticism over lax content moderation, and an exodus of many advertisers who did not want their ads appearing next to inappropriate content.

Musk’s hiring of Yaccarino, a longtime advertising executive who modernised ad sales at Comcast-owned entertainment and news conglomerate NBCUniversal, was a signal that digital ads remained a priority for Twitter.

Some ad-buying firms had recommended their clients pause ad spending on Twitter after Musk’s takeover. Those recommendations have been reversed and none of the major advertising holding companies are currently recommending a pause, according to a slide shown during the presentation.

Well-known brands including Warner Bros, Mondelez, McDonald’s and Walmart have resumed advertising on Twitter after initial pauses, the slide said.

Yaccarino told investors that ad spending in several advertiser categories is now up at least 40% year-over-year, including health, consumer packaged goods and financial services, the source said.

A Twitter executive declined to comment.

Video and Commerce

Under Musk, Twitter changed its business name to X, reflecting the billionaire’s vision to create a “super app,” like China’s WeChat, that he has said would include digital payments and other services.

Twitter is applying for “money transmitter licenses” in all 50 US states, according to a slide from the presentation.

The company has also focused on growing video content on the platform. Vertical video now accounts for more than 10 percent of time spent on Twitter, another slide said.

Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson launched a new show earlier this month on the platform called “Tucker on Twitter.”

Twitter envisions that it could sell ads and sponsorships alongside videos from Carlson and other content creators, the source said.

Yaccarino has also told colleagues in recent days that Musk has expressed strong support for her ideas and the working relationship was off to a positive start, the source added.

© Thomson Reuters 2023

Affiliate links may be automatically generated – see our ethics statement for details.

Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

Exit mobile version