Apple is in talks to build Google's Gemini AI engine into the iPhone, Bloomberg News reported Monday, citing people familiar with the situation, setting the stage for a blockbuster agreement that would shake up the AI industry. From the report: The two companies are in active negotiations to let Apple license Gemini, Google's set of generative AI models, to power some new features coming to the iPhone software this year, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the deliberations are private. Apple also recently held discussions with OpenAI and has considered using its model, according to the people.

Last week 50 people were injured when a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner experienced a sudden mid-air drop — raising concerns about the possibility of a new safety issue. But the Wall Street Journal offers a follow-up report.

"A flight attendant hit a switch on the pilot's seat while serving a meal, leading a motorized feature to push the pilot into the controls and push down the plane's nose, according to U.S. industry officials briefed on preliminary evidence from an investigation." The switch, on the back of the chair, is usually covered and isn't supposed to be used when a pilot is in the seat. Boeing issued a memo late Thursday to operators of 787 jets recommending that they inspect the cockpit chairs for loose covers on the switches and instructing them how to turn off power to the pilot seat motor if needed. Boeing said it is considering updates to flight crew manuals. "Closing the spring-loaded seat back switch guard onto a loose/detached rocker switch cap can potentially jam the rocker switch, resulting in unintended seat movement," according to the memo, which was viewed by The Wall Street Journal. The memo says this was a known issue and that Boeing had issued a related service notice in 2017....

American Airlines issued a notice to 787 captains advising them of the potential hazard. It asked them to instruct the crew not to use the switch while the chair is occupied and said that its maintenance teams would check that the switches are properly secured.
Ipeco, the cockpit seat supplier, didn't respond to the Journal's request for a comment. But in a new CNN video, a pilot demonstrates the location of the button — and speculates that a seat pushing a pilot forward could abruptly override the plane's auto-pilot system.

"It would be good news for Boeing if it is cleared of any fault in the Latam flight," adds another CNN report. "The company is facing multiple investigations by both the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board..."

The Journal's article includes footage from inside the plane just moments after the incident and notes that some passengers had been "pinned to the ceiling as the airplane suddenly descended."

Israeli outlet Calcalist: Nvidia is in advanced negotiations to acquire AI infrastructure orchestration and management platform Run:ai, Calcalist has learned. The value of the deal is estimated at many hundreds of millions of dollars and could even reach $1 billion. The companies did not respond to Calcalist's request for comment.

Run:ai raised $75 million in a Series C round in March 2022 led by Tiger Global Management and Insight Partners, who also led the previous Series B round. The round included the participation of additional existing investors, TLV Partners, and S Capital VC, bringing the total funding raised to date to $118 million.

Databricks CTO Matei Zaharia "said that Databricks had to keep track of scheduling a million things," remembers adjunct MIT professor Michael Stonebraker. " He said that this can't be done with traditional operating system scheduling, and so this was done out of a Postgres database. And then he started to whine that Postgres was too slow, and I told him we can do better than that...."

This resulted in DBOS — short for "database operating system" — which they teamed up to build with teams Stanford and MIT, according to The Next Platform: They founded a company to commercialize the idea in April 2023 and secured $8.5 million initial seed funding to start building the real DBOS. Engine Ventures and Construct Capital led the funding, along with Sinewave and GutBrain Ventures...

"The state that the operating system has to keep track of — memory, files, messages, and so on — is approximately linear to the resources you have got," says Stonebraker. "So without me saying another word, keeping track of operating system state is a database problem not addressed by current operating system schedulers. Moreover, OLTP [Online Transaction Processing] database performance has gone up dramatically, and that is why we thought instead of running the database system in user space on top of the operating system, why don't we invert our thinking 180 degrees and run the operating system on top of the database, with all of the operating services are coded in SQL...?"

For now, DBOS can give the same kind of performance as that full blown Linux operating system, and thanks to the distributed database underpinnings of its kernel, it can do things that a Linux kernel just cannot do... One is provide reliable execution, which means that if a program running atop DBOS is ever interrupted, it starts where it left off and does not have to redo its work from some arbitrary earlier point and does not crash and have to start from the beginning. And because every little bit of the state of the operating system — and therefore the applications that run atop it — is preserved, you can go backwards in time in the system and restart the operating system if it experiences some sort of anomaly, such as a bad piece of application software running or a hack attack. You can use this "time travel" feature, as Stonebraker calls it, to reproduce what are called heisenbugs — ones that are very hard to reproduce precisely because there is no shared state in the distributed Linux and Kubernetes environment and that are increasingly prevalent in a world of microservices.

The other benefit of the DBOS is that it presents a smaller attack surface for hackers, which boosts security, and that you analyze the metrics of the operating system in place since they are already in a NoSQL database that can be queried rather than aggregating a bunch of log files from up and down the software stack to try to figure out what is going on...

There is also a custom tier for DBOS, which we presume costs money, that can use other databases and datastores for user application data, stores more than three days of log data, can have multiple users per account, that adds email and Slack support with DBOS techies, and that is available on other clouds as well as AWS.
The operating system kernel/scheduler "is itself largely a database," with services written in TypeScript, according to the article. The first iteration used the FoundationDB distributed key-value store for its scheduling core (open sourced by Apple in 2018), according to the article — "a blazingly fast NoSQL database... Stonebraker says there is no reason to believe that DBOS can't scale across 1 million cores or more and support Java, Python, and other application languages as they are needed by customers..."

And the article speculates they could take things even further. "There is no reason why DBOS cannot complete the circle and not only have a database as an operating system kernel, but also have a relational database as the file system for applications."

Mozilla Location Service offered "a free, open way to offer GPS-style location detection features" for developers on devices without GPS hardware, remembers the Linux blog OMG Ubuntu. It used signals like Wi-Fi access points and Bluetooth beacons "without any of the privacy implications most competing geolocation services have."

But Friday they reported that Mozilla "has announced it is ending access to Mozilla Location Service (MLS), which provides accurate, privacy-respecting, and crowdsourced geolocation data." Developers and 3rd-party projects that use MLS to detect a users' location, such as the freedesktop.org location framework GeoClue, which is used by apps like GNOME Maps and Weather, have only a few months left to continue using the service... In late March, POST data submissions will return 403 responses. Finally, on June 12, all 3rd-party API keys will be removed and MLS data only accessible by Mozilla...

MLS' accuracy has declined in recent years. Patent infringement claims in 2019 saw Mozilla reach a settlement to avoid litigation. As part of that settlement it was forced to make changes to MLS that impacted its ability to invest in (commercially exploit?) and improve the service.
The article notes that GeoClue "already supports multiple location detection methods, including IP-based ones," so it should continue operating.

"But the sad reality is that there just aren't a lot of free, open, privacy-friendly, accurate, and (rather importantly for a framework built in to Linux desktops) reliable alternatives to Mozilla Location Services, which has built up a colossal 'signal map' from which to pinpoint locations."

"We are grateful for the contributions of the community to MLS to both the code and the dataset," a Mozilla senior engineering manager said in a statement.

A new EFF web page is urging U.S. readers to "Tell Congress: Stop the TikTok Ban," arguing the bill will "do little for its alleged goal of protecting our private information and the collection of our data by foreign governments." Tell Congress: Instead of giving the President the power to ban entire social media platforms based on their country of origin, our representatives should focus on what matters — protecting our data no matter who is collecting it... It's a massive problem that current U.S. law allows for all the big social media platforms to harvest and monetize our personal data, including TikTok. Without comprehensive data privacy legislation, this will continue, and this ban won't solve any real or perceived problems. User data will still be collected by numerous platforms and sold to data brokers who sell it to the highest bidder — including governments of countries such as China — just as it is now.

TikTok raises special concerns, given the surveillance and censorship practices of the country that its parent company is based in, China. But it's also used by hundreds of millions of people to express themselves online, and is an instrumental tool for community building and holding those in power accountable. The U.S. government has not justified silencing the speech of Americans who use TikTok, nor has it justified the indirect speech punishment of a forced sale (which may prove difficult if not impossible to accomplish in the required timeframe). It can't meet the high constitutional bar for a restriction on the platform, which would undermine the free speech and association rights of millions of people. This bill must be stopped.

A Boeing quality manager for more than 30 years "learned of and exposed very serious safety problems with the Boeing 787 Dreamliner," according to his lawyers, "and was retaliated against and subjected to a hostile work environment."

After retiring in 2017 he'd filed a whistleblower retaliation case, and "was in the middle of giving deposition testimony... when he died, his lawyers, Robert Turkewitz and Brian Knowles, told NPR." "He was in very good spirits and really looking forward to putting this phase of his life behind him and moving on," the South Carolina-based attorneys said in a joint statement. "We didn't see any indication he would take his own life. No one can believe it."

Police said officers were sent to the hotel to conduct a welfare check after people were unable to contact Barnett, who had traveled to Charleston to testify in his lawsuit against Boeing. "Upon their arrival, officers discovered a male inside a vehicle suffering from a gunshot wound to the head," police said in a statement sent to NPR. "He was pronounced deceased at the scene...."

Barnett, who spent decades working for Boeing at its plants in Everett, Washington, and North Charleston, South Carolina, had repeatedly alleged that Boeing's manufacturing practices had declined — and that rather than improve them, he added, managers had pressured workers not to document potential defects and problems.

"We are saddened by Mr. Barnett's passing, and our thoughts are with his family and friends," Boeing said in a statement sent to NPR....

Barnett filed a whistleblower complaint against Boeing in early 2017; his case against the company was heading toward a trial this June, his family said. "He was looking forward to having his day in court and hoped that it would force Boeing to change its culture," the family said in a statement shared with NPR by his brother, Rodney Barnett. The family says Barnett's health declined because of the stresses of taking a stand against his longtime employer.

"He was suffering from PTSD and anxiety attacks as a result of being subjected to the hostile work environment at Boeing," they said, "which we believe led to his death."
"Two of his attorneys called on police to fully investigate how he had died," reports the BBC.

And for what it's worth, the New York Post says Barnett "made a grim prediction that he could potentially end up dead after raising safety concerns about the jetliner giant, allegedly telling a family friend: 'If anything happens, it's not suicide.'"

UPDATE: Fortune just published an article called "The last days of the Boeing whistleblower."

Thanks to Slashdot readers wgoodman and sinij for sharing the article.

America's National Transportation Safety Board "is investigating a fatal crash in San Antonio, Texas, involving a Ford electric vehicle that may have been using a partially automated driving system," reports the Associated Press: The NTSB said that preliminary information shows a Ford Mustang Mach-E SUV equipped with the company's partially automated driving system collided with the rear of a Honda CR-V that was stopped in one of the highway lanes.

Television station KSAT reported that the Mach-E driver told police the Honda was stopped in the middle lane with no lights on before the crash around 9:50 p.m. The 56-year-old driver of the CR-V was killed. "NTSB is investigating this fatal crash due to its continued interest in advanced driver assistance systems and how vehicle operators interact with these technologies," the agency statement said.

Ford's Blue Cruise system allows drivers to take their hands off the steering wheel while it handles steering, braking and acceleration on highways. The company says the system isn't fully autonomous and it monitors drivers to make sure they pay attention to the road. It operates on 97% of controlled access highways in the U.S. and Canada, Ford says.

After the mysterious disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, barnacles offer "a potential breakthrough" in the search for its wreckage, reports WION: These barnacles were discovered clinging to the initial piece of debris conclusively linked to MH370 — a flaperon bearing the distinctive marking "657 BB," which washed ashore on Reunion Island, situated off the coast of Africa, a year following the event...

Scientists now posit that barnacles could provide invaluable insights into solving this mystery. These small creatures offer a unique biological record akin to the growth rings found in trees. Researchers speculate that by deciphering this information, it may be feasible to retrace the barnacles' trajectory along the flaperon, potentially leading investigators to the crash site.
This week the Independent also reported a new theory from a British pilot: Simon Hardy believes that the Malaysian Airlines flight plan and technical log reveal last-minute changes to the cargo including an additional 3,000kg of fuel and extra oxygen that indicate Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah directed the plane "to oblivion... It's a strange coincidence that the last engineering task that was done before it headed off to oblivion was topping up crew oxygen which is only for the cockpit, not for the cabin crew...."

Hardy also said that the flaperon found on Reunion Island indicates there was an active pilot until the end of the flight: "If the flaps were down, there is a liquid fuel, then someone is moving a lever and it's someone who knows what they are doing. It all points to the same scenario."
In a kind of rebuttal, long-time Slashdot reader Maury Markowitz suggests there's more innocent explanations for the extra fuel and oxygen, arguing that Hardy's theory "sounds like yet more balonium from someone who likes being in the newspapers."

Thanks to Slashdot reader Press2ToContinue for sharing the news.

"The environment in which kids grow up today is hostile to human development," argues Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist and business school ethics professor, saying that since the early 2010s, "something went suddenly and horribly wrong for adolescents."

The Atlantic recently published an excerpt from his book The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness.: By a variety of measures and in a variety of countries, the members of Generation Z (born in and after 1996) are suffering from anxiety, depression, self-harm, and related disorders at levels higher than any other generation for which we have data... I think the answer can be stated simply, although the underlying psychology is complex: Those were the years when adolescents in rich countries traded in their flip phones for smartphones and moved much more of their social lives online — particularly onto social-media platforms designed for virality and addiction. Once young people began carrying the entire internet in their pockets, available to them day and night, it altered their daily experiences and developmental pathways across the board. Friendship, dating, sexuality, exercise, sleep, academics, politics, family dynamics, identity — all were affected...

There's an important backstory, beginning as long ago as the 1980s, when we started systematically depriving children and adolescents of freedom, unsupervised play, responsibility, and opportunities for risk taking, all of which promote competence, maturity, and mental health. But the change in childhood accelerated in the early 2010s, when an already independence-deprived generation was lured into a new virtual universe that seemed safe to parents but in fact is more dangerous, in many respects, than the physical world. My claim is that the new phone-based childhood that took shape roughly 12 years ago is making young people sick and blocking their progress to flourishing in adulthood. We need a dramatic cultural correction, and we need it now...

A simple way to understand the differences between Gen Z and previous generations is that people born in and after 1996 have internal thermostats that were shifted toward defend mode. This is why life on college campuses changed so suddenly when Gen Z arrived, beginning around 2014. Students began requesting "safe spaces" and trigger warnings. They were highly sensitive to "microaggressions" and sometimes claimed that words were "violence." These trends mystified those of us in older generations at the time, but in hindsight, it all makes sense. Gen Z students found words, ideas, and ambiguous social encounters more threatening than had previous generations of students because we had fundamentally altered their psychological development.
The article argues educational scores also began dropping around 2012, while citing estimates that America's average teenager spends seven to nine hours a day on screen-based activities. "Everything else in an adolescent's day must get squeezed down or eliminated entirely to make room for the vast amount of content that is consumed... The main reason why the phone-based childhood is so harmful is because it pushes aside everything else." (For example, there's "the collapse of time spent interacting with other people face-to-face.")

The article warns of fragmented attention, disrupted learning, social withdrawal, and "the decay of wisdom and the loss of meaning." ("This rerouting of enculturating content has created a generation that is largely cut off from older generations and, to some extent, from the accumulated wisdom of humankind, including knowledge about how to live a flourishing life.") Its proposed solution?

• No smartphones before high school
• No social media before 16
• Phoneâfree schools
• More independence, free play, and responsibility in the real world

"We didn't know what we were doing in the early 2010s. Now we do. It's time to end the phone-based childhood."

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 and sinij for sharing the article.

"Pornhub has disabled its site in Texas," reports the Hill, "to object to a state law that requires the company to verify the age of users to prevent minors from accessing the site." Texas residents who visit the site are met with a message from the company that criticizes the state's elected officials who are requiring them to track the age of users. The company said the newly passed law impinges on "the rights of adults to access protected speech" and fails to pass strict scrutiny by "employing the least effective and yet also most restrictive means of accomplishing Texas's stated purpose of allegedly protecting minors." Pornhub said safety and compliance are "at the forefront" of the company's mission, but having users provide identification every time they want to access the site is "not an effective solution for protecting users online... Attempting to mandate age verification without any means to enforce at scale gives platforms the choice to comply or not, leaving thousands of platforms open and accessible," the message said, adding that "very few sites are able to compare the robust Trust and Safety measures we currently have in place."
The article adds that the state's attorney general is suing the owners of Pornhub for $1.6 million failing to enact age verification, plus an additional $10,000 a day.

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader ArchieBunker for sharing the news.

Newsweek points out that a Chinese government post arguing the bill is "on the wrong side of fair competition" was flagged by users on X. "TikTok is banned in the People's Republic of China," the X community note read. (The BBC reports that "Instead, Chinese users use a similar app, Douyin, which is only available in China and subject to monitoring and censorship by the government.")

Newsweek adds that China "has also blocked access to YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and Google services. X itself is also banned — though Chinese diplomats use the microblogging app to deliver Beijing's messaging to the wider world."

From the Wall Street Journal: Among the top concerns for [U.S.] intelligence leaders is that they wouldn't even necessarily be able to detect a Chinese influence operation if one were taking place [on TikTok] due to the opacity of the platform and how its algorithm surfaces content to users. Such operations, FBI director Christopher Wray said this week in congressional testimony, "are extraordinarily difficult to detect, which is part of what makes the national-security concerns represented by TikTok so significant...."

Critics of the bill include libertarian-leaning lawmakers, such as Sen. Rand Paul (R., Ky.), who have decried it as a form of government censorship. "The Constitution says that you have a First Amendment right to express yourself," Paul told reporters Thursday. TikTok's users "express themselves through dancing or whatever else they do on TikTok. You can't just tell them they can't do that." In the House, a bloc of 50 Democrats voted against the bill, citing concerns about curtailing free speech and the impact on people who earn income on the app. Some Senate Democrats have raised similar worries, as well as an interest in looking at a range of social-media issues at rival companies such as Meta Platforms.

"The basic idea should be to put curbs on all social media, not just one," Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) said Thursday. "If there's a problem with privacy, with how our children are treated, then we need to curb that behavior wherever it occurs."
Some context from the Columbia Journalism Review: Roughly one-third of Americans aged 18-29 regularly get their news from TikTok, the Pew Research Center found in a late 2023 survey. Nearly half of all TikTok users say they regularly get news from the app, a higher percentage than for any other social media platform aside from Twitter.

Almost 40 percent of young adults were using TikTok and Instagram for their primary Web search instead of the traditional search engines, a Google senior vice president said in mid-2022 — a number that's almost certainly grown since then. Overall, TikTok claims 150 million American users, almost half the US population; two-thirds of Americans aged 18-29 use the app.
Some U.S. politicians believe TikTok "radicalized" some of their supporters "with disinformation or biased reporting," according to the article.

Meanwhile in the Guardian, a Duke University law professor argues "this saga demands a broader conversation about safeguarding democracy in the digital age." The European Union's newly enacted AI act provides a blueprint for a more holistic approach, using an evidence- and risk-based system that could be used to classify platforms like TikTok as high-risk AI systems subject to more stringent regulatory oversight, with measures that demand transparency, accountability and defensive measures against misuse.
Open source advocate Evan Prodromou argues that the TikTok controversy raises a larger issue: If algorithmic curation is so powerful, "who's making the decisions on how they're used?" And he also proposes a solution.

"If there is concern about algorithms being manipulated by foreign governments, using Fediverse-enabled domestic software prevents the problem."

A Boeing 737-800 "was discovered to be missing an external panel" on the bottom of its fuselage, reports CNN, "after it landed in Medford, Oregon, Friday afternoon after taking off from San Francisco."

They stress that it's not a 737 Max, but the previous generation of Boeing aircraft. The plane carrying 145 passengers and crew landed safely and was parked at the gate at Rogue Valley International Medford Airport when a person on the ground first noticed the panel was missing, United Airlines said in a statement. The crew of Flight 433 did not declare an emergency and there was no indication of the damage during the flight, the airline said...

United said the missing panel did not affect the flying characteristics of the airplane...

Rogue Valley International-Medford Airport Director Amber Judd indicated to the Rogue Valley Times the aircraft is not in condition to fly and "will be here for a while." Judd added it is unclear where the missing panel is.

"They don't know where they lost it," Judd told the RV Times.
"The Federal Aviation Administration said it will investigate the incident."

Yahoo Finance notes that shares of Boeing "have declined over 30% in 2024."

When it comes to TikTok, "The Chinese government is signaling that it won't allow a forced sale..." reported the Wall Street Journal Friday, "limiting options for the app's owners as buyers begin lining up to bid for its U.S. operations..."

"They have also sent signals to TikTok's owner, Beijing-based ByteDance, that company executives have interpreted as meaning the government would rather the app be banned in the U.S. than be sold, according to people familiar with the matter."

But that's not always how it plays out. McClatchy notes that in 2019 the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. ordered Grindr's Chinese owners to relinquish control of Grindr. "A year later, the Chinese owners voluntarily complied and sold the company to San Vicente Acquisition, incorporated in Delaware, for around $608 million, according to Forbes."

And CNN reminds us that the world's most-populous country already banned TikTok more than three years ago: In June 2020, after a violent clash on the India-China border that left at least 20 Indian soldiers dead, the government in New Delhi suddenly banned TikTok and several other well-known Chinese apps. "It's important to remember that when India banned TikTok and multiple Chinese apps, the US was the first to praise the decision," said Nikhil Pahwa, the Delhi-based founder of tech website MediaNama. "[Former] US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had welcomed the ban, saying it 'will boost India's sovereignty.'"

While India's abrupt decision shocked the country's 200 million TikTok users, in the four years since, many have found other suitable alternatives. "The ban on Tiktok led to the creation of a multibillion dollar opportunity ... A 200 million user base needed somewhere to go," said Pahwa, adding that it was ultimately American tech companies that seized the moment with their new offerings... Within a week of the ban, Meta-owned Instagram cashed in by launching its TikTok copycat, Instagram Reels, in India. Google introduced its own short video offering, YouTube Shorts. Homegrown alternatives such as MX Taka Tak and Moj also began seeing a rise in popularity and an infux in funding. Those local startups soon fizzled out, however, unable to match the reach and financial firepower of the American firms, which are flourishing.
In fact, at the time India "announced a ban on more than 50 Chinese apps," remembers the Washington Post, adding that Nepal also announced a ban on TikTok late last year.

Their article points out that TikTok has also been banned by top EU policymaking bodies, while "Government staff in some of the bloc's 27 member states, including Belgium, Denmark and the Netherlands, have also been told not to use TikTok on their work phones." Canada banned TikTok from all government-issued phones in February 2023, after similar steps in the United States and the European Union.... Britain announced a TikTok ban on government ministers' and civil servants' devices last year, with officials citing the security of state information. Australia banned TikTok from all federal government-owned devices last year after seeking advice from intelligence and security agencies.
A new EFF web page warns that America's new proposed ban on TikTok could also apply to apps like WeChat...

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: When Romeo Chicco tried to get auto insurance in December, seven different companies rejected him. When he eventually obtained insurance, it was nearly double the rate he was previously paying. According to a federal complaint filed this week seeking class-action status, it was because his 2021 Cadillac XT6 had been spying on him. Modern cars have been called "smartphones with wheels," because they are connected to the internet and packed with sensors and cameras. According to the complaint, an agent at Liberty Mutual told Mr. Chicco that he had been rejected because of information in his "LexisNexis report." LexisNexis Risk Solutions, a data broker, has traditionally kept tabs for insurers on drivers' moving violations, prior insurance coverage and accidents.

When Mr. Chicco requested his LexisNexis file, it contained details about 258 trips he had taken in his Cadillac over the past six months. His file included the distance he had driven, when the trips started and ended, and an accounting of any speeding and hard braking or accelerating. The data had been provided by General Motors -- the manufacturer of his Cadillac. In a complaint against General Motors and LexisNexis Risk Solutions filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, Mr. Chicco accused the companies of violation of privacy and consumer protection laws. The lawsuit follows a report by The New York Times that, unknown to consumers, automakers have been sharing information on their driving behavior with the insurance industry, resulting in increased insurance rates for some drivers.

Alex Koller reports via CNBC: Since the start of the year, more than 50,000 workers have been laid off from over 200 tech companies, according to tracking website Layoffs.fyi. It's a continuation of the predominant theme of 2023, when more than 260,000 workers across nearly 1,200 tech companies lost their jobs. Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft have all taken part in the downsizing this year, along with eBay, Unity Software, SAP and Cisco. Wall Street has largely cheered on the cost-cutting, sending many tech stocks to record highs on optimism that spending discipline coupled with efficiency gains from artificial intelligence will lead to rising profits. PayPal announced in January that it was eliminating 9% of its workforce, or about 2,500 jobs.

All told, 2023 was the second-biggest year of cuts on record in the technology sector, behind only the dot-com crash in 2001, according to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. Not since the spectacular flameouts of Pets.com, eToys and Webvan have so many tech workers lost their jobs in such a short period of time. Last month's job cut count was the highest of any February since 2009, when the financial crisis forced companies into cash preservation mode.

CNBC spoke to a dozen people who have been laid off from tech jobs in the past year or so about their experiences navigating the labor market. Some spoke on the condition that CNBC not use their names or write about the details of their situation. Taken together, they paint a picture of an increasingly competitive market with job listings that include exacting requirements for qualification and come with lower pay than their prior gigs. It's a particularly confounding situation for software developers and data scientists, who just a couple of years ago had some of the most marketable and highly valued skills on the planet, and are now considering whether they need to exit the industry to find employment.

Days before Reddit's upcoming initial public offering (IPO), the company announced that the FTC has launched an inquiry into the company's licensing of user data to AI companies. Reddit says that it's "not surprised" by the FTC's inquiry, given the novel nature of these agreements. Axios reports: Reddit says it received a letter on Thursday, March 14, in which the FTC said it's "conducting a non-public inquiry focused on our sale, licensing, or sharing of user-generated content with third parties to train AI models." The FTC also is expected to request a meeting with Reddit, plus various documents and information. Reddit isn't the only company receiving these so-called "hold letters," according to a former FTC official who spoke with Axios on background.

The city council of Minneapolis on Thursday voted 10-3 to allow rideshare drivers to be paid the local minimum wage of $15.57 an hour, overriding the mayor's veto of the bill. As a result, Lyft and Uber said they will cease operations in the city. From a report: Lyft said in a statement the bill was "deeply flawed" and that the ordinance makes its "operations unsustainable." "We support a minimum earning standard for drivers, but it should be done in an honest way that keeps the service affordable for riders," said a Lyft spokesperson. Uber said in a statement obtained by CNN that it's "disappointed the council chose to ignore the data and kick Uber out of the Twin Cities, putting 10,000 people out of work and leaving many stranded."

The ordinance mandates rideshare drivers make at least $1.40 per mile and $0.51 per minute within Minneapolis. However, the analysis Frey referred to showed lower numbers -- $0.89 per mile and $0.49 per minute -- to make minimum wage. The mayor is imploring local politicians to come up with a solution before May 1. The rideshare services say that user prices would double if they stayed in the city.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed a legal complaint against two companies based in Cyprus on Wednesday that it claims are behind a wave of malicious pop-ups that trick people into downloading a fake piece of antivirus software that generated tens of millions of dollars for its operators, according to court records. From a report: The scam also involved misrepresenting results on malware repository VirusTotal as infections on the user's own computer. (Update: after the publication of this piece the FTC announced that Restoro and Reimage will pay $26 million to settle the FTC's charges.)

The move is the latest from the FTC in a series of actions in the privacy and cybersecurity space. In January, the FTC banned a data broker called X-Mode from selling sensitive location data after I revealed it was harvesting location data from Muslim prayer and dating apps. In this case, the FTC says it went "undercover" against the two related companies, called Restoro and Reimage, to buy the deceiving software and have phone calls with company representatives. "Since at least January 2018, Defendants have operated a tech support scheme that has bilked tens of millions of dollars from consumers, particularly older consumers," the FTC's complaint reads. The complaint is seeking a permanent injunction against the two companies as well as monetary relief.

The Supreme Court clarified when public officials can block critical constituents from their personal profiles without violating their constitutional protections in a unanimous decision Friday. From a report: After hearing appeals of two conflicting rulings -- one filed against school board members in Southern California and another filed against the city manager of Port Huron, Mich. -- the justices provided no definitive resolution to the disputes and instead sent both cases back to lower courts to apply the new legal test. In a unanimous decision authored by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the court said state officials cannot block constituents on their personal pages when they have "actual authority to speak on behalf of the State on a particular matter" and "purported to exercise that authority in the relevant posts."

"For social-media activity to constitute state action, an official must not only have state authority -- he must also purport to use it," Barrett wrote. The case marked the latest battle over public officials' social media presence when they mesh their official and personal roles. The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which heard the Michigan case, sided with the city manager, James Freed, who deleted comments on his Facebook page left by a resident and blocked several of the resident's profiles. The resident, Kevin Lindke, had criticized Freed over his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, court filings indicate.