Thirty-six years ago, Gary Brinson cracked open Stephen Hawking’s “A Brief History of Time,” a bestseller in which the renowned physicist sought to explain the mysteries of the universe in layman’s terms. It accomplished more than that for the Chicago-based asset manager, igniting a decades-long interest in science — and, ultimately, leading to a $100-million … Read more
Cheaper app subscriptions. Additional payment options. Greater freedom for app developers on the App Store. More consumer choice. Those are some of the possibilities that consumer advocates hope will come to pass for users of Apple iPhones, iPads and other products if the U.S. Department of Justice wins its long-awaited antitrust lawsuit against the Cupertino, … Read more
Research and development lab Aerospace Corp. moved its headquarters this week to Virginia from El Segundo but reaffirmed its commitment to its South Bay campus by announcing a $100-million investment there. The federally funded nonprofit corporation, which supports government and private-sector space work, said there would be no “significant relocation of current employees” in the … Read more
Artificial intelligence is coming to Hollywood — but is Hollywood ready for it? OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, is meeting with entertainment industry players, including executives at talent agencies and film studios, to demonstrate and explain its latest technology, Sora, which conjures videos based on what users describe in text. It’s a delicate dance for … Read more
The House of Representatives passed a bipartisan bill this month threatening to ban TikTok unless its parent company ByteDance sells the app. It may take the Senate months to address the legislation, which faces some opposition, so a ban is not imminent. But the relative success of this approach highlights the narrow, problematic pathway for … Read more
The age of artificial intelligence has begun, and it brings plenty of new anxieties. A lot of effort and money are being devoted to ensuring that AI will do only what humans want. But what we should be more afraid of is AI that will do what humans want. The real danger is us. That’s … Read more
As advancements in artificial intelligence proliferate, talent agencies are bulking up their defenses to protect Hollywood stars against misleading, manipulated images or videos that can put them at risk. The rise of generative AI and “deepfakes” — or videos and pictures that use a person’s image in a false way — has led to the … Read more
Late last month, the San Francisco-based startup HeHealth announced the launch of Calmara.ai, a cheerful, emoji-laden website the company describes as “your tech savvy BFF for STI checks.” The concept is simple. A user concerned about their partner’s sexual health status just snaps a photo (with consent, the service notes) of the partner’s penis (the … Read more
Getty Images A major international study suggests there has been a sharp rise in what it calls “problematic” social media use among young people since the pandemic. Researchers came to the conclusion after surveying almost 280,000 children aged 11, 13 and 15 across 44 countries. The Health Behaviour In School-aged Children (HBSC) study found, on … Read more
Word got out that there was a whistleblower wanting to meet. The company was suspicious, but this was the first overt notice that our place of work was corrupt. Should we investigate and see what ethics were being breached, or play dumb and stay loyal to the firm? We were divided. I wanted to link … Read more