This Little-Known US State is a Hidden Gem for Tech Careers – See If Yours Made the List!

TorGuard conducted a research to find out which states in the USA are best for tech-careers. When we think about high-tech jobs and digital careers, California’s Silicon Valley always comes to mind. But it isn’t the only place where techs are in high demand. The researchers conducted the study by keeping some key factors in mind like hourly salaries, local tech forces, local cost of living, and career opportunities in each state.

The research found that California remains the best state in the USA for tech opportunities. It has an average of $64 hourly salary for techs techs with an average $142,270 annual salary. You may think that second best state for tech careers would be bigger states like New York or Florida, but it’s actually Virginia. Researchers found that Virginia has the second highest job opportunities for tech experts, with Washington coming in third place. Washington offers the highest number of tech jobs for every 1,000 jobs in the state.

The fourth and fifth place was for Maryland and Colorado. Connecticut, which was the 10th best state for tech opportunities, has the most free tech events. Other states in the top ten included Massachusetts, New Jersey, Texas and Utah. New York was the 11th best state for tech jobs while Florida was 12th.

On the other hand, the states which had the least amount of tech opportunities were Louisiana (46th), Kentucky (47th), Wyoming (48th) and Mississippi (49th). The state which would be the hardest to find a tech career in is West Virginia. According to researchers, Virginia had a very low cost of living, with low salaries and almost no tech and business events.

Rank	State	Mean annual wage for tech jobs	Median hourly wage per tech jobs	No. of jobs per 1000 jobs	Total tech employees	No. of business establishments	No. of job postings per 1,000 people	Free tech events per 1,000 people	Cost of living as per tech salary	Total score
1	California	1	1	4	1	1	4	5	34	75.83
2	Virginia	6	6	2	3	17	1	26	45	66.19
3	Washington	2	2	1	2	11	14	7	46	65.74
4	Maryland	4	4	3	4	22	2	10	33	63.89
5	Colorado	7	7	5	6	16	3	9	44	58.21
6	Massachusetts	3	3	6	9	9	6	16	4	57.38
7	New Jersey	8	8	8	8	19	5	15	32	51.40
8	Texas	16	17	11	7	4	7	8	39	49.27
9	Utah	19	21	7	5	23	8	6	28	47.84
10	Connecticut	11	11	22	21	25	15	1	20	47.53
11	New York	5	5	19	15	3	34	20	22	47.37
12	Florida	21	23	21	10	2	16	3	19	45.36
13	North Carolina	12	12	9	12	6	11	19	42	44.46
14	Arizona	19	20	13	11	20	12	17	17	41.99
15	Georgia	18	19	15	14	13	13	13	41	40.51
16	Delaware	9	9	12	27	43	17	22	40	40.09
17	Oregon	13	13	18	18	14	22	23	14	39.83
18	Rhode Island	10	10	10	29	39	19	32	26	38.51
19	New Hampshire	14	14	14	22	36	23	38	13	37.81
20	Minnesota	15	15	16	13	15	24	36	38	37.68
21	Illinois	17	18	32	16	7	9	21	43	37.07
22	New Mexico	20	22	27	34	35	36	2	35	36.81
23	Michigan	29	31	24	26	5	20	14	27	34.70
24	Idaho	15	16	34	33	31	10	33	23	33.81
25	Pennsylvania	23	25	25	24	10	40	31	21	32.72
26	Kansas	27	29	20	20	32	13	42	36	32.40
27	Nebraska	33	35	17	17	37	18	27	29	32.31
28	Ohio	25	27	26	25	12	33	40	29	31.60
29	Hawaii	24	26	39	37	39	27	35	2	30.82
30	Alabama	25	27	28	30	24	21	24	37	30.75
31	Wisconsin	34	36	23	19	27	35	18	15	30.73
32	Missouri	38	41	21	23	18	26	29	25	30.42
33	Tennessee	36	39	33	29	8	41	11	24	29.74
34	Nevada	28	30	44	38	29	29	4	11	29.50
35	Vermont	22	24	29	42	42	31	42	5	28.87
36	South Carolina	31	33	31	28	21	41	25	17	28.73
37	Iowa	30	32	30	29	33	25	44	31	27.51
38	Oklahoma	40	43	36	32	32	30	12	29	26.65
39	Indiana	39	42	38	31	28	38	34	16	25.06
40	Alaska	32	34	45	46	46	32	30	3	24.58
41	South Dakota	42	46	37	35	44	28	39	9	23.64
42	Maine	45	37	35	36	38	37	37	1	23.30
43	Arkansas	43	47	40	39	34	39	46	12	21.04
44	North Dakota	41	45	41	40	45	42	41	10	20.90
45	Montana	37	40	42	43	41	47	43	6	20.42
46	Louisiana	26	28	48	45	30	44	45	30	20.20
47	Kentucky	43	48	43	41	26	45	48	8	19.12
48	Wyoming	35	38	47	48	45	46	28	18	18.26
49	Mississippi	44	49	46	44	39	43	47	7	15.20
50	West Virginia	45	44	41	47	40	48	49	1	14.75

This study ranked U.S. states for tech careers using eight weighted metrics. Each metric was scored, scaled, and totaled to determine the rankings. Factors included wages, job numbers, postings, tech businesses, free events, and cost of living, with assigned weights reflecting their impact.

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French President Confirms No Political Motives Behind Arrest Of Telegram’s CEO

The world was stunned to see the CEO of the famous texting platform Telegram arrested after landing in France recently.

A lot of questions were raised including whether or not the decision had a political intention. Now, French President Macron has released a statement on this matter. He confirmed that it was part of an independent investigation and therefore had nothing to do with the country’s politics.

A judicial inquiry was launched last month where Paul Durov was questioned for being involved in a series of criminal acts that went against the law. This is why he was detained after his private jet landed in the country.

In another statement rolled out regarding the matter, a series of violations were so serious and involved child abuse material, fraud, criminal transactions, and even drug trafficking. Also, the fact that his company was unwilling to cooperate with the investigation and share documents with the authorities was concerning.

Macro’s statement on the matter is actually the first ever public comment made regarding this arrest. He posted more on the matter through his social media account on X, adding how France stands by its freedom of expression. But that has its limits and when things go out of the framework and citizens are at risk, no one is above the law.

Macron also called reports terming the CEO’s arrest policy as false information. He says it has nothing to do with politics and the judges will now determine the final verdict on the issue. Durov is currently under detention and it could extend to the evening hours of Wednesday. He would either be released or charged for the allegations put up against him.

Durov holds citizenship in several countries including the UAE, France, the Caribbean Island of St. Kitts, and Russia. Therefore, Russian officials were not happy about the news. They expressed anger at the detention decision.

Russia has gone as far as to call it politics and is a clear proof of hypocrisy linked to freedom of speech concepts in the Western world. Similarly, the decision to put Durov in detention upset Kremlin officials as well. Many Russian critics opposed the Kremlin's decision of blocking Telegram but could not do so and that’s why the ban was withdrawn.

The UAE has also spoken out on the matter and says it’s keeping tabs on the case. They similarly requested France to provide more details on the Durov case on an urgent basis.

The French and UAE military forces have a strong military bond with France in full control of a naval base in the city of Abu Dhabi.

Telegram has close to one billion users around the globe and was first founded by Durov to combat intensifying pressure from Russia over freedom of speech.

Since then, it’s been targeted by many and threatened to be taken down as it didn’t participate in censorship despite being pressured to do so. Countries like Russia did not appreciate it showing the truth about the war with Ukraine and Durove was pressurized to take the site down. He refused and opted to leave the nation.

Russians were able to share news freely and they were very happy to use the app to communicate. Let’s not forget how the platform also served as a famous choice for Ukrainians to get the latest news and updates including those about the war. Interestingly, they were also informed about any air raids and alerts for missile strikes.

After his arrest in France, the app released a statement about how it is following all EU laws. It similarly highlighted its moderation of content to be improving and as per standards.

Image: DIW-Aigen

Read next: TikTok’s New AI Feature Will Change How You Create Content Forever!
by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

TikTok’s New AI Feature Will Change How You Create Content Forever!

TikTok has been the top social media app for some years now and it continues to add interesting features on the app. The new features keep users engaged on the app and this way users create new fun content for their followers. There are several third-party text-to-speech tools available, but TikTok as a go to platform creator was lagging behind when it comes to such handy built-in feature, by which users can add voices to their texts. But now TikTok has introduced a new AI text-to-speech feature which will let users create AI voices.

To get the AI voice feature, users have to record some sentences in their voice on TikTok and TikTok will create an AI duplication of their own voice. When you’ll record a TikTok with a text on it, TikTok will recommend you an “AI Voice” feature. Once you click on “Create your own AI Voice”, you will be directed to record your voice so TikTok can create a voice that is similar to yours using AI. After the voice is recorded, you can save it and use it whenever you want.

AI Voice created on TikTok will be private but users can make it public whenever they want. Users will be able to find AI Voice feature in the “Recommended” section.

H/T: Jonahmanzano / Threads

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OpenAI, Microsoft, And Adobe Garner Support For New California Bill That Watermarks AI Content

Tech giants are now garnering support for watermarking AI content. The first three to do so include OpenAI, Microsoft, and Adobe.

The companies are strongly supporting the bill from California. It’s a huge turn of events as they had previously opposed the decision to do so. Now, thanks to new amendments in the bill, it looks like they’ve changed their minds.

The bill would ensure everything produced using AI including pictures, videos, and audio features a watermark signaling AI production. As it is, a lot of firms are already in the practice of doing so. However, experts did realize how not a lot of people like to read metadata. Similarly, the AB 3211 law forces big tech giants including X and Instagram to add watermarks in a manner that the average person can understand. This way, nothing remains hidden.

Microsoft, Adobe, and OpenAI are all part of the C2PA coalition that helped better the law and produce metadata. This is the standard practice for marking any AI material.

In April of this year, we saw one trade group oppose the AB 3211 law and refer to the bill as burdening the tech sector. They also felt it was not going to work and therefore issued a letter to the state’s lawmakers. Seeing changes made to the bill has drastically altered their minds and now they’re all for supporting it.

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• World-Leading Workplace Applications are Becoming Unreliable

• TikTok is Now the Frontier for Political Discourse
by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

World-Leading Workplace Applications are Becoming Unreliable

Want to look for the best and most reliable workplace application? Well, here is the list of the most unreliable applications for the workplace that you can skip right away to save yourself a lot of time and energy. TRG Datacenter's survey found that Gmail, Microsoft, and Monday.COM had the most disrupted services in 2023 alongside Slack, Outlook, and Google Drive.

The TRG survey had 30 best workplace platforms under analysis as they came across shocking insights that raised several questions against their credibility. Outlook had the longest crashes lasting for an average of 5 hours. On the other hand, Gmail disruptions negatively affected 1.8 billion users all around the world, accounting for 20% of the global population.

The most intriguing thing that came out of the analysis was the fact that almost all corporate American companies outsource important functions to third-party applications. On the other hand, another study conducted by CIO Dive, which surveyed almost 5,000 employees showed that in May 2023, 11 applications were used by an average American desk worker as compared to 6 applications in 2019 to complete their task.

As per TRG Datacenter's finding, Monday.COM had outrages once a month making it the worst service of all. Whereas Slack and Outlook had 5 significant outrages in 2023, however, the only difference was that the Slack disruptions were short duration and had a much better response time for the fix compared to Microsoft Suite.

The fourth place goes to Google Drive for its crashes which affected one billion users at work and for about 90 minutes per average. Similarly, Zoom also had four major crashes of a time duration of 2.5 hours affecting 300 million users.

Service	Major Crashes	Duration in Hours	Users	Reliability Score
Monday.com	10	0.75	225,000	25.5
Gmail	6	3.5	1,800,000,000	55.0
Microsoft Teams	6	5	280,000,000	20.7
Slack	5	0.75	18,000,000	45.8
Outlook	5	5	400,000,000	26.7
Google Drive	4	1.5	1,000,000,000	61.7
GitHub	4	1.5	100,000,000	46.7
ClickUp	4	1.5	4,000,000	45.1
Salesforce	4	1.5	150,000	45.0
Zoom	4	2.5	300,000,000	44.0
Notion	4	2	30,000,000	42.5

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TikTok is Now the Frontier for Political Discourse

Over the decades information broadcasting has been through several shifts that completely changed how we view content, particularly news. At first, it was the radio that was the primary source of information for most people, then came the newspaper and later digital networks like news channels. It wasn’t until the last decade that social media became prominent in its ability to share news within seconds from multiple sources at the same time. In the last few years, Twitter (not known as X) took over and in the last 2 years, the spot is equally taken by TikTok.

Despite TikTok being famous for its short spam entertainment clips. A Pew Research Center survey has shown that almost 50% of TikTok users under 30 use the app to get news updates regarding politics. TikTok is so popular among the masses that American presidential campaigns for the 2024 elections are also advertised on the app for voter outreach.

The survey also showed that 48% of the people who are between the ages of 18 to 29 use TikTok for political news and issues. While 36% of people between the ages of 30 to 49 use TikTok for political updates. Additionally, the stats also include TikTok being used by 22% of users aged 50 to 64 years and 24% of those aged 65 and older getting the political news.

TikTok is the frontrunner for political news sharing as compared to other social media platforms. 7% of the age groups of 18 to 29, 8% of the 30 to 49, and 50 to 64 years old used social media platforms for politics as the figures make up only 2% of the TikTok users sharing news who belong to the age group of 65 and older.

Furthermore, a total of 36% of TikTok users post on the platform, out of which 44% of the age group of 30 to 49 post on the app. Whereas, 37%of those who are between 18 to 29 and 26% of those 50 to 64 years old ever post on TikTok.

What's more interesting about the survey is that the researchers also found that 84% of the TikTok users say that they ever encountered posts that are related to current events and 80% have ever seen other people sharing their opinions about those current events. Moreover, 57% of the users on TikTok see the news articles reported, posted, shared, or linked and 55% ever see the content of breaking news of an event as it's happening. However, users under the age of 30 are more likely to see the content relevant to public opinion about current events than any other age group.

The insights from the survey regarding TikTok being the front runner for political content viewing, the researchers were more intrigued to understand whether or not democracy itself is impacted by the platform users and if yes then in what ways. One thing that the researchers pointed out right away was the fact that American politics was impacted by the debates that went around TikTok, particularly for the young voters.

Comparatively, 33% of TikTok users think that the political discourse on the platform is a good thing for advancing democracy compared to 17% against this notion, while 49% beg to differ that it has no impact on the overall status of democracy. Meanwhile, 45% of the 30 and under age group thinks that TikTok and political discussion on the platforms is a good thing, in comparison to 30% for 30 to 49 years old, 23% for 50 to 64 years old, and 15% for 65 years old and older.

Oftentimes just like X, TikTok becomes a warzone for political bashing and debates between Republicans and Democrats which even led to the attempts by lawmakers to ban the app over national security issues. However, the March survey of the Pew Research Center found that there are very few differences between political parties on TikTok on the subject of how democracy is overall impacted.

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Telegram CEO Pavel Durov's Arrest in France Sparks Debate on Privacy, Crime Prevention, and Censorship

French authorities have extended the detention of Pavel Durov, the founder of Telegram, after arresting him at a Paris airport on Saturday. The Russian-born tech entrepreneur is accused of several crimes related to his messaging app, including fraud, drug trafficking, organized crime, terrorism promotion, and cyberbullying.

Durov, 39, was apprehended at Le Bourget airport after flying in from Baku. The investigating judge has extended his detention for up to 96 hours to continue questioning. At the end of this period, the judge will decide whether to release him or press charges.

The arrest follows allegations that Durov did not do enough to prevent criminal activity on Telegram. Despite knowing he was wanted, he arrived in Paris on his private jet. Telegram, in a statement, defended its actions, claiming compliance with EU regulations and maintaining that Durov regularly travels across Europe without hiding.

The Russian embassy in Paris has accused France of avoiding cooperation, requesting access to Durov. Russian officials have criticized his decision to leave Russia, suggesting it has complicated his position with international authorities.

Durov left Russia in 2014 after refusing Kremlin demands to shut down opposition groups on VK, a social network he founded. He then focused on Telegram, which has grown into a major platform with 950 million monthly users and is heavily used for sharing news and information, especially about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The app is also known for its encryption and minimal content moderation, making it popular among political figures and controversial groups.

Critics argue Telegram has become a hub for extremists and conspiracy theorists, with little effort to curb hate speech or illegal content. Despite these concerns, the app remains a preferred tool for those seeking privacy and uncensored communication.

After Durov's arrest, Elon Musk and Tucker Carlson publicly supported him, emphasizing their stance against censorship and promoting the idea of free expression.

Image: DIW-Aigen

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