Category: Technology

Meta has announced that Patrick Collison and Dina Powell McCormick are joining its board of directors on April 15. Collison is the co-founder and CEO of Stripe, the payment processor and financial services company that he started with his brother. He is also the co-founder of the Arc Institute, a biomedical science and technology institution. Meanwhile, Powell McCormick was a partner at Goldman Sachs and ran its Global Sovereign investment banking business. She also worked for the US government and served as Deputy National Security Advisor to President Donald Trump during his first term. 

Powell McCormick helped shape the Trump administration’s foreign policy, especially in regards to the Middle East as an Egyptian-American. She served as an Assistant to the President and Senior Counselor for Economic Initiatives during Trump’s first term, as well. Her Trump-era appointments weren’t the first time she worked in the US government, though: Back during the George W. Bush administration, she served as the Assistant to the President for Presidential Personnel, Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs and Deputy Undersecretary of State for Public Affairs and Public Diplomacy. She is married to Republican senator Dave McCormick. 

“Patrick and Dina bring a lot of experience supporting businesses and entrepreneurs to our board. Patrick is deeply committed to expanding economic opportunity, and Dina has a long career advocating for economic development and supporting entrepreneurs. Their perspective will be extremely valuable to businesses that rely on our services to grow,” Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg said in a statement. 

In January, Meta also welcomed UFC CEO Dana White, who’s a known friend and associate of Donald Trump and a supporter of his re-election bid, to its board of directors. White’s and Powell McCormick’s additions to Meta’s board are signs that the company is tacking right now that Trump is back in power, and perhaps one of the ways the company is ingratiating itself to the current administration. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/metas-new-board-members-include-former-trump-security-advisor-121510374.html?src=rss 

The Social Security Administration is planning to stop issuing press releases and move all of its official communications to X, according to Wired. The change is happening amidst cuts at the department directed by DOGE, the organization created by Elon Musk, the CEO of X.

“We are no longer planning to issue press releases or those dear colleague letters to inform the media and public about programmatic and service changes,” SSA regional manager Linda Kerr-Davis reportedly told staff in a meeting. “Instead, the agency will be using X to communicate to the press and the public.”

Like any other government organization, the SSA uses press releases to inform the public and update employees about any changes they should be aware of. That could be simpler things, like correcting the record on how the SSA’s death record works, to more vital updates like changes being made to how the SSA does identity verification.

The SSA using X for official announcements will do little to dissuade anyone who sees Elon Musk’s presence in government as a way to benefit him and his companies. X is not most retirees’ preferred social media app, nor is it reasonable to expect them to know how to make an account. Moving official communication there makes it more likely elderly people will miss important updates.

That fits with DOGE’s other moves, though. The department reportedly cut jobs at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which has butted heads with Musk’s Tesla, and has a plan to deploy a custom government chatbot.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/the-social-security-administration-is-reportedly-moving-all-official-communication-to-x-223201698.html?src=rss 

The never-ending Trump tariff saga continues. Tesla has halted Model S and X sales in China, according to reporting by Bloomberg. These particular vehicles are imported to the country from the US so they are impacted by a 125 percent tariff on goods flowing into China. This was enacted by China in response to President Trump placing a 145 percent tariff on imported goods from the country. 

This isn’t a huge deal for Tesla, as the high-end Model S and Model X are some of the company’s least-popular vehicles in the region. It’s still selling off pre-existing inventory, but the models will be unavailable after that. The more affordable Model 3 and Model Y vehicles are actually made at Tesla’s Shanghai Gigafactory, so they aren’t impacted by the tariffs. 

Trump’s tariffs on China and the ones the country has put on the US in response could seriously harm the EV industry here in the states. The European Union has been thinking about opening up its doors to more Chinese electric vehicles, which would likely ding American automakers. Many Chinese-made EVs are significantly more budget-friendly than their American-made counterparts.

For instance, the BYD Seagull hatchback would cost just $9,600 in US dollars. Chinese EV manufacturers are also making strides in the world of autonomous driving.

As for the tariffs, who knows what the future will bring. Maybe they’ll go away tomorrow or maybe President Trump will whip out his poison pen and increase them tenfold on a whim. What a nice predictable world we live in.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/evs/tesla-halts-model-s-and-x-sales-in-china-due-to-tariffs-185752814.html?src=rss 

Tequila Works, the Spanish developer that created games like Rime and Gylt and published games like The Sexy Brutale, is auctioning off its intellectual property (via VGC). The studio filed for insolvency in 2024 after “prolonged market conditions” made it financially-difficult to stay above water.

The games and IP rights available to bid on at auction site Escrapalia include Tequila Works’ first game Deadlight, Rime and its horror adventure game Gylt. The company is also auctioning off in-development projects, including “The Ancient Mariner,” “Dungeon Tour” and “Brawler Crawler.” 

Prior to it filing for insolvency and Tequila Works’ founders stepping down, the studio released Song of Nunu: A League of Legends Story, one of the games on the short-lived Riot Forge publishing label. Riot announced it was shutting down Riot Forge in January 2024. The label published League of Legends spin-off games in variety of different genres, including turn-based RPG Ruined King, 2D action RPGThe Mageseeker, and more.

Back in 2022, Tencent acquired a controlling stake in Tequila Works, a connection that made sense given the Chinese company also owns Riot. Contraction across the games industry, the failure of Riot Forge games to connect with a larger audience and Tequila Work’s Gylt starting life as a Google Stadia-exclusive all likely contributed to the studio’s current position.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/the-rights-for-tequila-workss-games-are-up-for-auction-after-insolvency-filing-193627934.html?src=rss 

Ireland’s data privacy regulator is investigating Elon Musk’s X. The country’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) said on Friday (via Reuters) that it’s opening an inquiry into the social platform’s use of European users’ public posts to train its Grok AI chatbot. In this case, Ireland handles EU regulation enforcement because X’s European headquarters are in Dublin.

The DPC said it will probe “the processing of personal data comprised in publicly-accessible posts posted on the ‘X’ social media platform by EU/EEA users.” Under Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) rules, Ireland has the legal muscle to fine X up to four percent of its global revenue.

“The purpose of this inquiry is to determine whether this personal data was lawfully processed in order to train the Grok LLMs,” Ireland’s DPC said.

If this sounds familiar, the DPC took X to court in 2024, seeking an order to stop it from training Grok on EU user data without consent. That followed a platform policy change in July that let the social site use public posts to train its AI chatbot. However, Ireland’s data regulator ended the legal proceedings weeks later, saying the company had agreed to permanently limit its use of EU users’ personal data in Grok. The DPC hasn’t specified why it now believes the company may be violating GDPR rules.

The DPC’s last fine against the company (then known as Twitter) was a €450,000 penalty in 2020 for failing to notify the regulator about a data breach within the 72-hour window.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/irelands-privacy-regulator-is-investigating-xs-use-of-public-data-to-train-grok-182010855.html?src=rss 

With the recent confirmation of Mark Meador as Federal Trade Commissioner, the Republicans now have a 3-0 majority at the FTC, giving President Donald Trump broad control over what was once an aggressive business regulator under former FTC chair Lina Khan.

The vote fell along party lines, with all Senate Democrats voting against confirming Meador. Under normal circumstances three Republican members at the FTC is expected. Whichever party the president represents typically holds three seats, while the other party holds two. What makes the new Republican majority unusual is that Trump fired the Democrat Commissioners Alvaro Bedoya and Rebecca Kelly Slaughter in March, something that’s not supposed to happen without “good cause.”

The FTC, like the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), is technically part of the executive branch, but exists independently of the rest of the government, with the current president adding new members as terms end or in the rare case there’s good cause to remove a commissioner, like if they’re found guilty of malfeasance or neglecting their duties. 

An executive order Trump signed in February 2025 sought to exert more control over these independent organizations in the name of “accountability.” That was the primary justification for removing Bedoya and Slaughter, both of which are fighting their termination in court. 

Given the actions Biden’s FTC took against corporate America, like suing John Deere over unfair practices and leading antitrust investigations into Meta, Amazon, Google and Apple, it makes sense business-friendly Republicans would prefer less pushback from Democrats. That doesn’t make anything that’s happening legal, though.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/trump-now-has-full-control-of-the-ftc-180816016.html?src=rss 

It hasn’t been that long since the Pixel Watch 3 dropped, but excitement is already building for the follow-up device. An industry leaker who goes by OnLeaks, whose real name is Steve Hemmerst, has partnered with 91mobiles to publish images and a video render of the upcoming smartwatch

Surprise, it looks like a Pixel Watch. It maintains the iconic circular design, though does look a bit thicker than the previous model. The screen bezels appear to be slightly slimmer. Otherwise, the design remains mostly unchanged. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

However, there are some minor hardware changes that allude to new features. The watch is missing the four pins at the back, which suggests that it could support wireless charging. The Pixel Watch 3 charges via a USB-C port. Also, there are two buttons on both sides of the speaker. We don’t know what they do. It’s also possible that the added thickness could be hiding a bigger battery, which would be much appreciated.

Google’s next smartwatch is expected to launch later this year, likely alongside the Pixel 10 series. We don’t have too many concrete details regarding specs, but reports have indicated that it will include a new chipset. The Pixel Watch 3 uses a Snapdragon W5 Gen 1. Some rumors have suggested that the company is developing an in-house Tensor chip for Pixel Watches, but that might not be ready until the Watch 5.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/wearables/the-pixel-watch-4-could-be-thicker-and-offer-wireless-charging-164555210.html?src=rss 

GPT-4, OpenAI’s first big upgrade to ChatGPT months after unleashing it on the world, is on its way out. A changelog the company published on Thursday said the model will be retired from ChatGPT on April 30. GPT-4o, which has been available since last May, will fully replace it.

Despite GPT-4’s significance in modern AI’s brief but world-changing history, its sunsetting isn’t a great loss for customers. OpenAI says GPT-4o improves on it in writing, coding and STEM. Recent upgrades have boosted the newer model further, enhancing its instruction following, problem-solving and conversational flow. The company describes the multimodal GPT-4o as the “natural successor” to the soon-to-be-retired GPT-4.

Despite its upcoming removal from ChatGPT, API users will still be able to access GPT-4 after April 30.

The announcement comes as OpenAI reportedly prepares a slew of new models for launch. Reverse engineer Tibor Blaho posted images on Friday (via TechCrunch) that seemingly confirm that o3, o4-mini and GPT-4.1 (including nano and mini offshoots) models are in the pipeline. In February, the company introduced a research preview of GPT-4.5, a better, more natural conversationalist that will serve as a stepping stone to GPT-5.

OpenAI’s release notes included a nod to the role GPT-4 played in the company’s development. “GPT‑4 marked a pivotal moment in ChatGPT’s evolution,” the notes read. “We’re grateful for the breakthroughs it enabled and for the feedback that helped shape its successor. GPT‑4o builds on that foundation to deliver even greater capability, consistency and creativity.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/openai-prepares-to-send-gpt-4-out-to-pasture-163643868.html?src=rss