Technology News: Tech Updates and Controversies: Koo, WhatsApp, Google, YouTube

The Twitter alternative from India, Koo, winds down over failed partnership and fundraising talks. According to the co-founders, it had been challenging to secure long-term capital for growth in a fiercely competitive atmosphere. Salary cuts and other financial setbacks have hit their operations hard, even while this team had big visions to localize social media across the world and finally crack India's market for it. Its demise underlines the exacting landscape for tech startups that require massive support and investment to thrive.

WhatsApp has begun testing the use of Meta AI chatbot to let users generate AI images of them, which would be created after uploading a selfie. Currently in development for Android beta users, this feature will prompt users to type in "imagine me…" into Meta AI chat or @metaAI imagine me… to other chats to trigger it. At any moment, users can delete setup photos in Meta AI settings, therefore providing privacy since the AI process is absolutely isolated from the rest of the message content.

From Bill Gates to Mark Zuckerberg and Sundar Pichai, they all put up a very good fight about little screen time for their children while creating technology that has literally joined the whole world into one. Strict rules were put into effect: no mobile phone use until the age of 14, as compelled by Gates; only video chatting was allowed in the case of Zuckerberg for communicating; and last but not least, personal responsibility as inflicted by Pichai. Family interaction is stressed by these CEOs. They limit screen exposure during meal times and balance digital activities with real-world experiences, thus raising their children a bit healthier.

Apple showed off its AI at WWDC 2024, with an indicator of features coming to the iPhone 16 series. While basic AI features will be available across the board on the iPhone 15 Pro models, there have been rumors suggesting that Apple will offer a premium version: Apple Intelligence Plus with paid enhancements. It does this to keep up revenue between cycles of iPhone upgrades, much like the Apple TV+ and Apple Music subscriptions do. This move places Apple as a competitor to AI services from Google, and bumps Google to position correctly for the Pixel 9 launch ahead of the release of the iPhone 16.

Mustafa Suleyman, the boss of Microsoft AI, sparked controversy when he said that all data on the internet was essentially fair game for training AI models. His comments reflect broader concerns with data privacy and the moral dimensions surrounding data scraping by tech giants such as OpenAI and other players. This simply points out the acute need for very strict regulations to protect user data from possible exploitation in AI.

A federal judge ordered Gene Levoff, a former senior lawyer at Apple who was convicted on insider trading charges, to pay $1.15 million in fines as part of a civil case brought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Although Levoff himself dodged prison for his crimes of trading on nonpublic Apple earnings information when he was in charge of Apple's insider trading policies, the judge thought his actions especially merited the $1.15 million fine; that is, Levoff obviously was trying to conceal what he was doing—it wasn't stress-induced "self-sabotage," as he had claimed.