Elon Musk Sparks Online Frenzy After Accusing US Media And Elite American Colleges Of Racism

The CEO of SpaceX and Tesla is making headlines again and this time around, it has nothing to do with actions taking place on the Twitter platform.

The billionaire accused the US media as well as elite colleges and respective schools of showing racism against both Asians as well as whites. But the news started a whole new debate as the Twitter chief failed to justify the behavior and why he felt that way, to begin with.

Many hoped to see some sort of evidence but they ended up getting nothing after the fiasco struck. Moreover, the news came after Musk set forward a series of comments on the Twitter app which currently has 130 million followers across it.

This was in response to news about media organizations after a recent comic strip called Dilbert had been cut out after the creator delivered a very racist tirade in one of his posts across the YouTube channel in the previous week.

That particular content had a poll too that went on to discuss how 26% of Blacks did not agree with the statement about it being alright if you’re white. This particular phrase further emphasized the likes of the poll being questionable as such a slogan is very hateful and is called out as one that’s anti-defamation. In the video post, Adams referred to all Blacks that did not like the statement as ones belonging to the hate group.

Adams similarly mentioned how he preferred to live in communities where there were minimal blacks and then later went on to advise others who were white that they needed to steer clear of such communities as he felt that he did not want anything to do with the Blacks.

This video was put out during America’s famous Black History Month and came about in the year 1976. It is a time period that gives praise and respect to all Black Americans who struggled immensely for their rights during this time.

Other leading media agencies that remove the Dilbert comic strip included the LA Times, Cleaveland Plain Dealer, and USA Today. But not everyone is a fan of what Musk is saying and what he believes in.

One leading civil rights lawyer mentioned how systemic racism needs widespread bigotry for it to be called out in a particular group. Similarly, it needs some sort of structural part that gives rise to both oppression and even discrimination and it ends up getting imposed on minorities due to advantages linked to power as well as easy access.

Let’s not forget how many people feel that Elon Musk may not be in the best position himself to make such comments. His own Tesla firm was bashed after it refused to pay an ex-employee for damages linked to hostile working conditions at his company Tesla. Similarly, the firm was accused of racist abuse taking place in the factory where the individual worked in the position of an elevator operator.

Creator: Trevor Cokley / Credit: U.S. Air Force Academy Copyright (Public Domain)

Read next: 38% of Americans Say They’re Worried About What AI Might Do
by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

New Study Highlights The Global Trends Of Unnecessary Spam Phone Calls

There can truly be nothing worse than being bombarded by spam on a daily basis.

Be it phone calls or text messages or even unnecessary ads- it’s an absolute nuisance and users around the world are suffering from the likes of this behavior.

But what if we told you that it’s not just Americans who are going through the act of spam phone calls. On average, we hear that one of out every three such calls that the American citizen gets are spam related. These are from those that aren’t saved as contact and the stats are very recent, highlighting figures from last year’s final quarter.

However, a new study shows that it’s not as bad as some other nations around the globe. And by that, we mean saying hello to phone spam in nations like Argentina where it’s a new ballgame altogether.

This is never great news for obvious reasons. Thanks to a new report, we’re getting more insights on the global trends of spam phone calls and how the USA is facing spam 35% as per stats from a Seattle-based firm called Hiya that provides call screening.

Their apps managed to track down a mega 7 billion spam calls taking place in Q4 of last year and the peak time period was delineated to be between October 17 to October 22. This is where it was able to flag more than 655 million spam phone calls.

The great news about this is how a lot of US citizens get calls that are annoying and not fraud related. And there was also a decline in the most dangerous spam call of them all, the auto-warranty robocall.

In the same way, this report shows some huge regulatory moves made by the FCC that took against one scammer generating robocalls. They were penalized with a huge $300 million fine. Similarly, other huge actions included sending out orders to voice providers to prevent traffic from one telecom provider that it felt was allowing the action to occur.

As far as which type of spam in the world of phone calls was leading the pack across the US was concerned, it’s those selling fake healthcare policies or advice linked to the world of health.

Some scammers want your medicare numbers so they can send bills to the government for treatment and procedures that didn’t even take place.

Meanwhile, some nations do have more of a problem than others. The report shed light on how Argentina is the worst around the globe including the rates for fraud calls too. Furthermore, the figures outlined included 52% and 22% respectively and as you can imagine, it’s huge.

The second place for the most spam phone calls was Indonesia where the spam rate was outlined to be 51%. Both Hong Kong and Chile were runner-ups for the third position and stood out with a 48% rate for spam.

In terms of fraud calls rates, it’s Mexico that managed to take the second position with 16% while the UK was third with 13%. And if you wish to answer your phone calls without having any anxiety about who it’s from, well, Ireland is there with the lowest spam call rates. The rate here was just 5%.

Furthermore, the lowest rate for fraud calls was seen in the Czech Republic with just 0.23%.

The solution to the problem as outlined by the report is not to shift to other regions. Instead, it wants carriers to take on stricter call screening measures so citizens don’t have to go through all of this in the first place.

Read next: Fraud Related Financial Losses Increased by 30% in 2022
by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

Google Announces New Features For Gadgets Running On Its Android, Chrome OS, and Wear OS Systems At MWC

Leading tech giant Google is saying no to taking up a lot of floor space for the event that is being held at the MWC. But that does not mean it is making a huge bid toward the start of the wireless industry’s huge gathering.

It hopes to occupy some screen time with its Android, Chrome OS, and Wear OS systems with the launch of a few new features that would be included in future gadgets that run such systems. And the latest update on this front is how four of these features are getting rolled out right now.

For starters, the Drive application for Android devices would provide support for PDF annotations that are conducted freehand. It’s quite frequently seen on different desktop apps like Mozilla and macOS but it’s quite different for mobile applications.

Meanwhile, the Google Meet app is designed to carry out noise cancellation across various Android devices. It’s quite different and separate from the respective noise cancellation feature which the tech giant shipped for a few of its Pixel devices.

Another feature worth a glance at is the Emoji Kitchen offering for the company’s Gboard application. This enables users to carry out some additional mixes of emojis. Moreover, Chrome would provide users the chance to expand the respective content seen across web pages by nearly 300%. This is in correlation to the app-content feature that allows for Zoom in the new Android 14.

But there are a series of more features coming up that were highlighted in the Coming Soon objective for the press release by Google.

For instance, you’ll see Google Pay popping up new animations toward the end of the tap-to-pay feature. The company hopes to include some interesting features like a cheerful penguin and a few more characters.

Meanwhile, other offerings would be Chromebooks that enable users to utilize Bluetooth headphones using the Fast Pair quick connection offering that came out last year in June. Furthermore, Google Keep would be more user-friendly and allow for widgets across Android devices and the Wear OS shortcuts regarding smartwatches that are run through Google’s system of operations.

Google hopes to add several accessibility modes to the Wear OS that simplifies the audio using monophonic sounds and enables people to cut out all visual data using modes like color correction and grayscale.

Google’s new MWC news also gives rise to another new feature where Google Messages would be the default for texting on all Android phones. This means customers will be switching the messaging to Google’s RCS format to attain chat features that entail typing indicators while encrypting texts.

Last but not least, we’re hearing more about a new eSim capability for transfer across its Android devices during the end of this year. Deutsche Telekom would be introducing the latest addition to Android’s support so it can be availed on the card-free service feature that needs a sign-up.

Read next: Here’s How Much Apps Can Earn From Each Individual User
by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

Businesses Put On Alert As Fraud Attempts And Cyberattacks Are On The Rise

Deepfake technology that allows malicious actors to conduct fraud attempts and cyberattacks against businesses is on the rise again.

Businesses are being targeted at a more frequent rate than before as per reports from new research. This gives rise to a very important point of how many products and services are required to assist organizations in defending themselves against the likes of theft. And this can be done by stopping identity theft.

ID proofing platform ID R&D says that around 42% of companies have fallen victim to such attacks where actors disguise themselves to be someone else. Meanwhile, 37% claim they’ve been through some serious injection attacks. The latter is the name reserved for an attract where threat actors can bypass security protocols in a place like cameras.

Another method is by adding digital content in data streams. So as you can imagine, this sort of deep fake technology may help to overcome biometric authentication in certain cases. And in nearly half of the cases, fraud that arises due to chatbots is a huge threat.

All of this is linked to a lot of worries and pressure that firms are now feeling, explain experts. Around 90% of such companies and their clients are very worried about fraud arising but 84% of them were expressing a similar concern in terms of injection attacks. And by the looks of it, we might be seeing 20% successful account takeovers soon to counteract such technology.

Deepfake is the name given to highly sophisticated AI-powered technology. Users can produce some very convincing videos of others. And by adding this type of content with videos to a certain platform, they come up with something that’s unique and so the person being copied ends up saying or doing things that they may never have thought about.

The initial application was dangerous and so many actors ended up adding the faces of leading celebs into the adult video content.

Meanwhile, we also saw a number of apps that were more entertainment based. They began to produce fake videos of the likes of Trump who said a number of things that we would expect him to say. But in this case, it was all made up.

And then there were videos that showed how during the process of entertaining, some things might be a little dangerous and damaging. It’s hard on most occasions to see which video is real and which is made up. But as days go by, the problem continues to get worse and it seems to be no way out.

Now more than ever, it’s necessary to come up with the right solution to overcome such challenges before it’s too late, as revealed by experts.

As per the experts at ID R&D, the best solution forward is to have the ID Live Face Plus. This manages to do just that. But whether or not it’s the only solution forward, we’re not quite sure but for the time being, it’s better than nothing.

Illustration by pikisuperstar / freepik
Read next: This New Malware is Putting Facebook and YouTube Users at Risk
by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

Canadian Government Workers Asked To Delete TikTok As White House Gives Agencies 30 Days To Impose Ban Against The App

Things are not looking great for TikTok as the leading social media app is being ruled out as a threat to government employees in Canada and the US.

An official statement was sent out by the head of the Canadian Treasury Board. He says that all employees working in the government must delete it from official devices. Moreover, the justification provided had to do with a huge level of risk attached in terms of both privacy and security.

They feel it is the best precaution considering the high levels of threat linked to such apps collecting information from the government via mobile phones. In the same way, the statement went on to add how TikTok on such mobile phones gives rise to a type of data collection protocol that provides great access to content located on that same device.

• Also read: Here’s How Much Apps Can Earn From Each Individual User

There was no indication mentioned about the platform compromising private data yet but the risk is high to the Canadian population and that’s why such respective measures are now coming into place.

On the other hand, the representative of TikTok Canada says the news is a huge disappointment as there was no move to discuss the matter with the company first.

But this is just one of the recent decisions taken by the government regarding the ban of TikTok on respective mobile phones. A similar decision was brought into place by the respective Europen Commission which informed all staff members to delete the application by March 15 on all devices owned by Government employees.

Similarly, the US Congress also spoke about some efforts made to ban the app across the nation and not only on devices owned by employees.

Yesterday, the White House told government agencies that they had just one month to make sure the leading app was removed from the entire system as well as devices owned by the government.

A memorandum would also be issued in this regard to make sure all vendors keep data owned by US officials safe and sound by getting rid of TikTok across the respective system.

But as one can expect, the news is not making TikTok happy. In fact, it’s giving rise to reports that it feels get instigated by the likes of misinformation with little to no truth attached.

In December of last year, we saw Congress vote to ban employees in the Federal Government from having the app on their devices. Similarly, it gave the current Biden administration a period of just two months to provide directives on this matter.

It is the latest crackdown against the app that is owned by Chinese parent firm ByteDance as many fear there is a huge national security threat looming where officials in the government may end up spying on US citizens.

Moreover, the country’s chief of Security mentioned how these are the necessary measures required to make sure the digital infrastructure in place is as safe as can be. He also said the country would do whatever it takes to make sure the security, as well as the privacy of the American population, is as safe as possible.

Read next: 38% of Americans Say They’re Worried About What AI Might Do
by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

38% of Americans Say They’re Worried About What AI Might Do

AI is the most cutting edge form of technology out there, which means that there is no telling what shape it might take in the future. When the rotary telephone was first invented, no one could have imagined the smartphones that it would eventually evolve into well over a century later. What’s more, the rate of progress of tech has started to change, which means that AI could undergo such a dramatic type of transformation far more quickly than might have been the case otherwise.

With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that 38% of Americans are saying that they are currently worried about AI for various reasons. In spite of the fact that this is the case, 46% said that they were neither enthusiastic nor were they concerned. Rather, their feelings fell somewhere in the middle of the two. As for the people that are simply excited, they comprise 15% of survey respondents.

Knowing more about AI might get people more excited because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up unveiling its massive potential in the future. 21% of people who claimed to have a high awareness of AI claimed said that they were excited about it popping up everywhere, while only 12% of those who cited low awareness ended up saying the same.

There is a bit of a consensus on two things, however. Firstly, a majority of Americans or 59% to be precise have acknowledged that AI will most likely become central to the manner in which they live their lives at some point or another in the future.

Secondly, as many as 73% agreed that any development that occur in the field of AI would have to be monitored. This is useful since it will help people to ensure that AI is not being used for any malicious purposes, something that can be a real problem if steps are not taken to prevent it from happening. AI is already being used maliciously, and something needs to be done to stop that.

H/T: PewResearch

Read next: Shutterstock’s Generative AI Could Be a Game Changer, Here’s Why
by Zia Muhammad via Digital Information World

4 Day Work Week Improved Sleep Quality for 40% of Workers

The concept of a four day work week might seem strange to some, but in spite of the fact that this is the case it has the potential to provide a number of different advantages to people all around the world. A trial for a four day work week has been occurring in the UK, and it has indicated that people who can work four days a week instead of five end up sleeping better than might have been the case otherwise.

With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that a survey of around 2,900 workers who have been participating in the trial revealed that 40% experienced better sleep quality. However, 15% actually reported that their sleep quality decreased, with 45% saying that their sleep quality remained more or less the same as it was before.

One of the most astounding revelations from this trial was that around 92% of companies stated that they would be willing to continue with the four day week because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up improving work life balance.

There are likely practical reasons for them to want to keep the shortened workweek as well, and given the sleep advantages it might be worth it. Companies can lose up to $1,967 per worker per year due to fatigue, which suggests that a four day work week could actually help them save money.

38% of US based workers said that they are fatigued. 45% of workers participating in the four day work week trial stated that they don’t feel as fatigued as they used to. This could translate to massive financial benefits for companies that are willing to take the step, and 18 companies in the UK have already decided to do so.

One out of every 3 Americans sleep fewer than 7 hours a night. This can cause significant long term health problems. Such findings make the 40 hour work week seem like a problem, since it can lead to things like a reduced life expectancy.

Read next: Top Professional Development Trends and Most In-Demand Skills for the Contemporary Job Market, according to LinkedIn's 2023 Work-based Learning Survey
by Zia Muhammad via Digital Information World