Elon Musk’s X Loses Lawsuit Against Bright Data Over Scraping

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A federal judge in California dismissed a lawsuit filed by Elon Musk’s X against Israel’s Bright Data, in a case that involved the scraping of public online data and its appropriate uses, CNBC reported.

X, formerly Twitter, sued Bright Data, alleging the company “scrapes data from X” and sells it “using elaborate technical measures to evade X Corp.’s anti-scraping technology.” X also claimed the company violated its terms of service and copyright.

In dismissing the complaint, Judge William Alsup wrote, “X Corp. wants it both ways: to keep its safe harbors yet exercise a copyright owner’s right to exclude, wresting fees from those who wish to extract and copy X users’ content.”

Giving social networks complete control over the collection and use of public data “risks the possible creation of information monopolies that would disserve the public interest,” the judge wrote. He added that X was not “looking to protect X users’ privacy,” and was “happy to allow the extraction and copying of X users’ so long as it gets paid.”

Reuters reported U.S. District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco ruled on Thursday that X, formerly Twitter, failed to plausibly allege that Bright Data Ltd had violated its user agreement by allowing the scraping and evading X’s own anti-scraping technology.

Alsup said using scraping tools is not inherently fraudulent, and giving social media companies free rein to decide how public data are used “risks the possible creation of information monopolies that would disserve the public interest. 

The judge also said X was not entitled to “de facto copyright ownership” in copyrighted content that X’s user made available to the public.

Or Lenchner, Bright Data’s chief executive, said in a statement: “Bright Data’s victory over X makes it clear that the world of public information on the web belongs to all of us, and any attempt to deny the public access will fail.”

ArsTechnica reported a US district judge William Alsup has dismissed Elon Musk’s X Corp’s lawsuit against Bright Data, a data-scraping company accused of improperly accessing X (formerly Twitter) systems and selling data.

According to Alsup, X failed to state a claim while arguing that companies like Bright Data should have to pay X to access public data posted by X users.

“To the extent the claims are based on access to systems, they fail because X Corp. has alleged no more than threadbare recitals,” parroting laws and finding in other cases without providing any evidence, Alsup wrote. “To the extent the claims are based on scraping and selling of data, they fail because they are preempted by federal law,” specifically standing as an “obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of” the Copyright Act.

“X Corp. wants it both ways: to keep its safe harbors yet exercise a copyright owner’s right to exclude, wresting fees from those who wish to extract and copy X user’s content,” Alsup said.

In my opinion, it appears that Elon Musk wants to prevent other companies from scraping X’s user data, but also wants to be paid for that data. I see why the judge dismissed Mr. Musk’s complaint.

Microsoft’s New Xbox Mobile Gaming Store Is Launching In July

Microsoft,

Microsoft has been talking about plans for an Xbox mobile gaming store for a couple of years now, and the company plans to launch it in July. Speaking at the Bloomberg Technology Summit earlier today, Xbox president Sarah Bond revealed the launch date and how Microsoft is going to avoid Apple’s strict App Store rules, The Verge reported.

“We’re going to start by bringing our own first-party portfolio to [the Xbox mobile store], so you’re going to see games like Candy Crush show up in that experience, games like Minecraft” says Bond. “We’re going to start on the web, and we’re doing that because that really allows us to have it be an experience that’s accessible across all devices, all countries, no matter what and independent of the policies of closed ecosystems.

Although Bond alluded to games and an actual store in her statement during her interview at the Bloomberg Tech Summit, a statement provided to The Verge paints a slightly different picture. “This year we will debut our first mobile offering where mobile players can find deals on our firs mobile offering where mobile game players can find deals on their favorite in-game items and discover new games, starting on the web so players can access it anywhere,” Bond says, “This web-based store is the first step in our journey to building a trusted app store with its roots in gaming.”

The store will be focused on first-party mobile games from Microsoft’s various studios, which include huge hits like Call of Duty: Mobile, and Candy Crush Saga, Bond says. The company will extend this to partners at some point in the future, too.

TechCrunch reported reported that by launching the store on the web, as opposed to an app, Microsoft would present an alternative to Apple and Google, which charge a 30% fee on sales.

The official announcement comes as Microsoft has been talking about launching an Xbox mobile gaming store for quite some time now. Last December, Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer said the company was in discussions with partners about launching an Xbox mobile store, and noted that it would arrive sooner than later.

Microsoft first hinted at a mobile store back in 2022 when it announced deal to acquire Activision Blizzard. Microsoft had said in filings that one of the major reasons it wanted to acquire Activision Blizzard was to build out its mobile gaming presence. In October 2022, Microsoft’s filings with the CMA revealed that it planned to create a new “Xbox Mobile Platform” that includes mobile games by Activision and King.

GameSpot reported reported Microsoft stated that it planned to launch a gaming storefront last year after the European Union’s Digital Markets Act made it easier for tech companies to start their own direct-to-consumer stores, eschewing Apple’s dominant “walled garden” approach. Bond said that the store will initially feature games from Microsoft-owned studios, such as Candy Crush Saga.

The storefront marks Microsoft’s latest attempt at entering the lucrative mobile gaming space, a market segment that Xbox is not usually associated with. The platform holder’s $69 million acquisition of Activision Blizzard helped set up this move, as the publisher includes Candy Crush developer King, one of the biggest players in the mobile space.

In my opinion, Microsoft is likely to attract players that might not have had access to Activision Blizzard King’s games. This could open a whole new world of mobile gaming for everyone.

TikTok To Automatically Label AI-Generated Content In Global First

TikTok,

TikTok will become the first social media platform to automatically label some artificial intelligence-generated content, as rapid advances in generative AI deepen concerns about the spread of online disinformation and deepfakes, Financial Times reported.

Online groups, such as Facebook owner Meta and TikTok, already require users to disclose if realistic images, audio or videos are made through AI software.

The visual video app, owned by China’s ByteDance, went a step further on Thursday, announcing its own features to ensure that videos it can identify as AI-generated will be labeled as such. This will include content made in Adobe’s Firefly tool, TikTok’s own AI image generators and OpenAI’s Dall-E.

“The challenge is, we know from many experts that we work with, that there is a rise in … harmful AI-generated content,” said Adam Presser, TikTok’s head of operations and trust and safety.

“This is really important for our community because authenticity is really one of the elements that has made TikTok such a vibrant and joyful community … they want to be able to understand what has been made by a human and what has been enhanced or generated with AI.”

TikTok posted on its newsroom “Partnering with our industry to advance AI transparency and literacy”

Today, we’re sharing updates on our continued efforts to help creators safely and responsibility express their creativity with AI-generated content (AIGC). TikTok is starting to automatically label AI-generated content (AIGC) when it’s uploaded from certain other platforms.

To do this, we’re partnering with the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA) and becoming the first video sharing platform to implement their Content Credentials technology. To help our community navigate AIGC and misinformation online, we’re also launching new media literacy resources, which we developed with guidance from experts including MediaWise and WITNESS.

NBC News reported TikTok said it will begin automatically labeling artificial intelligence-generated content (AIGC) uploaded from other platforms in an effort to combat misinformation on the app.

The app, which first announced the news on “Good Morning America” on Thursday, said it is partnering with the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA), a project that aims to provide the right tools and resources needed for people to identify AI-generated content.

TikTok will use C2PA’s “content credential” technology, which attaches metadata to a piece of content that indicates it was created with AI. It will be attaching content credentials to AI-generated content created on the app in the coming months.

In my opinion, TikTok is doing something good by labeling AI-content on its platform. Ideally, I’d like to see more social media companies label AI-generated content as such – especially if the post contained misinformation.

US Revokes Licenses For Supply Of Chips To China’s Huawei

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The Biden administration has revoked export licenses that allow Intel and Qualcomm to supply Huawei with semiconductors as Washington increases the pressure on the Chinese telecoms equipment company, Financial Times reported.

The move by the US Department of Commerce affects the supply of chips for Huawei’s laptop computers and mobile phones, according to people familiar with the situation.

The commerce department confirmed to the Financial Times that it had “revoked certain licenses for exports to Huawei” but did not name which US companies would be affected.

“We continuously assess how our controls can best protect our national security and foreign policy interests, taking into consideration a constantly changing threat environment and technological landscape,” said a spokesperson for the department. “As part of this process, as we have done in the past, we sometimes revoke export licenses.”

One person familiar with the situation said the commerce department had notified the companies that would be affected, but did not provide details.

Washington already has tough restrictions on the sale of US technology to Huawei, but Republican lawmakers have urged President Joe Biden to take even tougher action against the Chinese group, which national security officials say helps Beijing engage in cyber espionage around the world. Huawei has denied the claims.

CNBC reported Huawei was placed on a U.S. trade blacklist in 2019, which banned U.S. firms from selling technology – including 5G chips – to the Chinese tech giant over national security concerns. In 2020, the U.S. tightened chip restrictions on Huawei, requiring foreign manufacturers using American chipmaking equipment to obtain a license before they can sell semiconductors to Huawei.

Huawei’s consumer business, which includes smartphones and laptops, is seeing a resurgence after launching the Mate 60 Pro smartphone in August.

A TechInsights analysis of Huawei’s Mate 60 Pro smartphone revealed an advanced chip made by China’s top chip maker, SMIC. The smartphone is also said to be equipped with 5G connectivity – a feature which U.S. sanctions had sought to block.

U.S. firms Qualcomm and Intel, are two of the companies that supply chips to Huawei. Qualcomm in an SEC filing earlier this moth said it expects operations to be “further impacted” from its customers, such as Huawei, developing their own chips. 

ArsTechnica reported the U.S. crackdown on exports to Huawei now includes even stronger restrictions than the company has already faced. The Financial Times reported that Intel and Qualcomm have had their Huawei export licenses revoked, so Huawei will no longer be able to buy chips from either company.

The export ban has been around since 2020 and means that any company wishing to ship parts to Huawei must get approval from the government on a case-by-case basis. Sometimes these come with restrictions, like Qualcomm’s license, which allowed it to ship smartphone chips to Huawei, but not “5G” chips. 

That led to Qualcomm creating special 4G-only versions of its 5G chips for Huawei, and the company ended up with 4G-only Snapdragon 888 phones in 2021.

In my opinion, this is not the first time the U.S. government placed restrictions on companies who wanted to send 4G or 5G chips to China. It seems like Huawei “keeps turning up like a bad penny”. 

Apple Announces New iPad Pros With OLED Displays And The Thinnest Design Ever

Apple

At its “Let Loose” virtual event this morning, Apple introduced its long-awaited iPad Pro updates.

The new 13-inch and 11-inch tablets have a fresh design, more powerful internals, and a thinner profile than ever before, and they come with a major display upgrade, The Verge reported.

As rumored, Apple has switched to OLED screens on both sizes, bringing perfect blacks, richer color saturation, and enhanced contrast to its flagship iPads. Oh, and the front-facing camera is now in the correct (landscape) position for video calls.

The iPad Pros use a tandem OLED structure that allows the display to reach 1,000 nits of peak full-screen brightness — just like the Mini LED model before it — and 1,600 nits for HDR content. The 13-inch model measures just 5.1 millimeters thick, which Apple says is its thinnest device ever. (The 11-inch is 5.3 millimeters thick.) For those who prefer a matte display finish, a nano-texture glass coating will be available for the first time with these iPad Pros.

The base storage for both models is now 256GB, with prices starting at $999 for the 11-inch and $1,299 for the 13 inch. Both are available for preorder today and will be available in stores on May 15th.

Apple posted: Apple today unveiled the groundbreaking new iPad Pro in a stunningly thin and light design, taking portability and performance to the next level. Available in silver or space black finishes, the new iPad Pro comes in two sizes: an expansive 13-inch model and a super-portable 11-inch model. 

Both sizes feature the world’s most advanced display — a new breakthrough Ultra Retina XDR display with state-of-the-art tandem OLED technology – providing a remarkable visual experience. 

The new iPad Pro is made possible with the new M4 chip, the next generation of Apple silicon, which delivers a huge leap in performance and capabilities. M4 features an entirely new display engine to enable the precision, color, and brightness of the Ultra Retina XDR display. With a new CPU, a next-generation GPU that builds upon the GPU architecture debuted on M3, the most powerful Neural Engine yet, the new iPad Pro is an outrageously powerful device for artificial intelligence. 

The versatility and advanced capabilities of iPad Pro are also enhanced with all-new accessories. Apple Pencil Pro brings powerful new interactions that take the pencil experience even further, and a new thinner, lighter Magic Keyboard is packed with incredible features. The new iPad Pro, Apple Pencil Pro, and Magic Keyboard are available to order starting today, with availability in stores beginning Wednesday, May 15.

9to5Mac reported Apple’s M4 iPad Pro and new iPad Air are both on sale, and the company’s website has revealed some key additional info about the devices that were not mentioned during the announcement.

One such tidbit has to do with a change in how SIMs are handled on both iPads.

Both the M4 iPad Pro and the iPad Air 6 have removed the physical SIM slot entirely. Gone are the days of physical SIMs, as all cellular models now support eSIM only.

In my opinion, Apple stores are likely to see a long line of people who want to purchase the M4 iPad Pro or the new iPad Air on May 15th. I think the price of these new devices will be out of reach for most people.

New Microsoft AI Model May Challenge GPT-4 and Google Gemini

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For the first time since it invested more than $10 billion into OpenAI in exchange for the rights to reuse the startup’s AI models, Microsoft is training a new, in-house AI model large enough to compete with state-of-the-art models from Google, Anthropic and OpenAI itself, The Information reported. 

The new model, internally referred to as MAI-1, is being overseen by Mustafa Suleyman, the ex-Google AI leader who recently served as CEO for the AI startup Inflection before Microsoft hired the majority of the startups’s staff and paid $650 million for the right to its intellectual property in March.

But this is a Microsoft model, not one carried over from Inflection, although it may build on training data and other tech from the startup. It is separate from the models that Inflection previously released, according to two Microsoft employees with knowledge of the effort.

MAI-1 will be far larger than any of the smaller, open source models that Microsoft has previously trained, meaning it will require more computing power and training data and will therefore be more expensive, according to the people. MAI-1 will have roughly 500 billion parameters, or settings that can be adjusted to determine what models learn during training. 

By comparison, OpenAI’s GPT-4 has more than 1 trillion parameters, while smaller open source models released by firms like Meta Platforms and Mistral have 70 billion parameters.

ArsTechnica reported this marks the first time Microsoft has developed in-house AI model of this magnitude since investing over $10 billion in OpenAI for the rights to reuse the startup’s AI models. OpenAI’s GPT-4 powers not only ChatGPT but also Microsoft Copilot.

The development of MAI-1 is being led by Mustafa Suleyman, the former Google AI leader who recently served as CEO of the AI startup inflection before Microsoft acquired the majority of the startup’s staff and intellectual property for $650 million in March. Although MAI-1 may build on techniques brought over by former inflection staff, it is reportedly an entirely new large language model (LLM), as confirmed by two Microsoft employees familiar with the project.

With approximately 500 billion parameter, MAI-1 will be significantly larger than Microsoft’s previous open source models (such as Phi-3, which we covered last month), requiring more computing power and training data. This reportedly places MAI-1 in a similar league as OpenAI’s GPT-4, which is rumored to have over 1 trillion parameters (in a mixture-of-experts configuration) and well above smaller models like Meta and Minstrel’s 70 billion parameter models.

The Verge reported Microsoft’s head of communications Frank Shaw posted that “sometimes news is just a blinding flash of the obvious,” and linked to a longer statement on LinkedIn by CTO Kevin Scott. There, Scott says that Microsoft plans to keep working closely with OpenAI “well into the future” while continuing to train and release its own models.

In my opinion, there certainly seems to be a trend happening with big companies that are creating various AI models. It kind of feels like an “everyone else is doing it” situation.

Jack Dorsey Departs Bluesky Board

Bluesky,

Bluesky’s most prominent backer has left its board. On Saturday, Jack Dorsey posted on X about grants for open protocols from his philanthropic Start Small initiative.

This prompted someone to ask Dorsey if he was still on the Bluesky board, and he responded with a terse “no.” Dorsey did not answer any of the follow-up posts asking hime to explain his departure TechCrunch reported.

It is not clear when Dorsey left the board; as of Sunday morning, Bluesky’s corporate FAQ still identified him as a board member. Later that afternoon, the company published the following statement:

“We sincerely thank Jack for his help funding and initiating that Bluesky project. Bluesky is thriving as an open source social network running on atproto, the decentralized protocol we have built.

With Jack’s departure, we are searching for a new board member for the Bluesky public benefit company who shares our commitment to building a social network that puts people in control of their experience. More to come!”

Dorsey first announced Bluesky in 2019, back when he was still CEO of Twitter. He wrote that Twitter (now X) was “funding a small independent team of up to five open source architects, engineers, and designers to develop an open and decentralized standard for social media.”

The Verge reported that Twitter founder Jack Dorsey is no longer on the board of Bluesky, the decentralized social media platform he helped start.

Neither Bluesky nor Dorsey himself seem to have said how or what he left the board. For now, two board members remain: CEO, Jay Graeber, and Jabber / XMPP inventor Jeremie Miller. Dorsey originally backed Bluesky in 2019 as a project to develop an open-source social media standard that he wanted Twitter to move to. He later joined its board of directors when it split from Twitter in 2022.

But Dorsey hadn’t seemingly been a particularly active participant at the company. In March, when The Verge’s Nilay Patel asked Graeber for Decoder, about his level of involvement with Bluesky, she said she gets “some feedback occasionally,” but implied he’s otherwise “being Jack Dorsey on a cloud,” as Nilay put it. Months after that interview, Dorsey had closed his Bluesky account.

Engadget reported Jack Dorsey has apparently exited the Bluesky board. The former Twitter CEO who was previously Bluesky’s highest-profile proponent shared the life update this weekend on X, where he’s been posting a lot lately.

The decentralized social network started as a project by a team at then-Twitter back in 2019, but it eventually split off on its own. It only opened to the public this March after being invite-only for almost year.

Dorsey has said mixed things about X since Elon Musk’s takeover, but it seems he’s now swung back around. On Saturday, he posted on X “don’t depend on corporations to grant you rights. Defend them yourself using freedom technology (you’re on one).”

In my opinion, Jack Dorsey appears to be someone who puts a lot of himself into a social media site, and then leaves it in favor of the next big thing.