Victoria Fox's Blog, page 119

Twitter successor: X unblocks extremist Identitarian Movement account

The US platform X has reactivated the accounts of the right-wing extremist Identitarian Movement . They had previously been blocked in July 2020 due to several violations of Twitter’s rules on terrorism or violent extremism at the time.

Almost two weeks ago, the account of the Austrian right-wing extremist Martin Sellner , who was also affected by the blocking campaign in summer 2020, was reactivated. Sellner is considered one of the leaders of the right-wing extremist Identitarian movement. This week he was banned from entering Germany.

Until it was blocked almost four years ago, the Identitarian Movement Germany account was followed by around 30,000 Twitter users, and Sellner was followed by almost 40,000. There are currently around 54,000 X users following the right-wing extremist, and around 5,000 fewer followers on the Identitarian Movement account than in the summer of 2020.

Right-wing extremist conspiracy myths

The Identitarian Movement spreads right-wing extremist conspiracy myths and propagates an image of society that is directed against multicultural societies. In Germany, the group is monitored by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. Sellner recently spread his plans for a mass deportation of immigrants.

In an interview with former CNN anchor Don Lemon, X owner Elon Musk defended his company’s decision not to delete several anti-Semitic and racist posts because they were not illegal. Musk refuses to moderate the content. “Moderation is a propaganda word for censorship,” he said in the interview.

“Ask whether Elon Musk is suitable as a selfie partner”

“Politicians should ask themselves again in the future whether Elon Musk is suitable as a selfie partner,” said Green Party politician Misbah Khan. The Bundestag member added that more constitutional enforcement is urgently needed against social networks that “approach right-wing extremist actors in a benevolent manner” in order to make money from their misanthropy.

In the past few months, the Federal Minister for Digital and Transport Volker Wissing (FDP) and Brandenburg’s Prime Minister Dietmar Woidke (SPD), among others, have had their photos taken. However, Wissing later expressed criticism of the platform and said: “Twitter should be aware of its special responsibility in dealing with disinformation.”

With the new moderation rules put into effect by Musk, X could be violating the European Digital Services Act (DSA). With the DSA, the EU wants to enable a better fight against misinformation and hate speech.

The US platform X has reactivated the accounts of the right-wing extremist Identitarian Movement . They had previously been blocked in July 2020 due to several violations of Twitter’s rules on terrorism or violent extremism at the time.

Almost two weeks ago, the account of the Austrian right-wing extremist Martin Sellner , who was also affected by the blocking campaign in summer 2020, was reactivated. Sellner is considered one of the leaders of the right-wing extremist Identitarian movement. This week he was banned from entering Germany.

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"Alone in the Dark": An Interior Designer's Dream

Is this supposed to be a haunted house? It doesn’t really look that scary. Rather, the Derceto villa in Alone in the Dark (PC, Playstation 5, Xbox Series X/S) is a real eye-catcher. And contrary to what the title suggests, it’s not dark here all the time. This means that players have enough time to enjoy this interior away from the horror and solving puzzles: the bright green shell lamps in Art Deco style, the huge tree in the winter garden. And the light that shines through the wooden windows onto the polished marble from which a piano protrudes. A piano in the marble floor? Okay, that’s more reminiscent of a haunted house. What happened here?

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Andrés Vicente is promoted to head of Ericsson's Asian market

Andrés Vicente, until now CEO of Ericsson in Spain and Portugal, has been promoted to manage Ericsson’s Southeast Asia, Oceania and India market, one of the company’s three large business areas, responsible for 20% of revenues. and the fastest growing by far. In addition, Vicente will be the first Spaniard to form part of the Swedish group’s management committee and will report directly to Börje Ekholm, the CEO of the telecommunications network manufacturer.

Andrés Vicente , until now president and CEO of Ericsson in Spain and Portugal and responsible for Telefónica’s global account within the Swedish telecommunications networks giant, has been promoted to head of the Southeast Asia, Oceania and India area of the cluster. The area for which Andrés Vicente will be responsible includes all the countries in the area with the exception of China, Japan and South Korea, although it encompasses markets that have a total population of about 2.4 billion inhabitants.

With his appointment, Vicente becomes one of the most important managers within the structure of the Swedish company, since, according to the group’s report, the area for which he will be the most responsible in 2023 contributed 53.3 billion Swedish crowns (4,700 million euros), which represents 20.23% of the 263.4 billion crowns that the entire Swedish group invoiced.

In addition, Southeast Asia, Oceania and India is, by far, the market that grew the most in the last financial year, with an increase in revenue of 61% due especially to the strong pull of the deployment of 5G networks in India, where in 2023 In just one year, 700,000 base stations were deployed, a figure greater than the entire market for mobile telecommunications sites installed in Western Europe. Additionally, according to the company, in 2023 Ericsson achieved significant market share increases in India.

Andrés Vicente will replace Nunzio Mirtillo, who is leaving the Swedish company due to his retirement as announced in October 2023. Vicente will assume his new position on May 1, 2024 and will be based in Singapore, as indicated by the Swedish company in a statement. .

Member of the steering committee

In addition, Vicente will be part of the management committee of the Swedish group and will report directly to the company’s CEO, Börje Ekholm. It is the first time that a Spaniard is part of the highest management body of the Scandinavian company.

Ekholm, said: “We are very pleased that Andrés has agreed to take on this role. His knowledge of our industry and his deep understanding of the business aspects that are vital to our continued success will prove invaluable to me and his colleagues in the area.” market”.

The appointment of Andrés Vicente already broke traditions at Ericsson, since he was the first executive of the Spanish subsidiary in its entire history who did not come from the Swedish company itself but came from an external company, from an operator like Vodafone Spain. Andrés Vicente joined as president and CEO of Ericsson in Spain – which represents 2% of the Swedish group’s total revenues – in September 2021, which means that he has been promoted to the Asian area only two and a half years after having entered in the group.

Vicente has been a historical director of Vodafone Spain, a company with which he was linked for 26 years, since he joined in 1995 and in which he held different positions of responsibility. His two highest responsibilities were the management of the Business business, which he was in charge of starting in 2011 and for 7 years, and that of head of the Residential business, a position for which he was appointed in June 2018.

To succeed Andrés Vicente as head of Ericsson Iberia (Spain and Portugal), Jorge Navais has been elected on an acting basis until a definitive successor is named. Navais was, until now, the Global Account Manager for the Telefónica group.

Growth potential

Southeast Asia, Oceania and India have enormous growth potential due to their constantly expanding demographic weight and involve areas such as the gigantic market of India (the most populated country in the world, with 1.43 billion inhabitants), Indonesia (280 million), Pakistan (234 million), Bangladesh (170 million), the Philippines (114 million) or Vietnam (100 million).

The other two major markets of the group, along with the one that Andrés Vicente will take over, are Europe and Latin America and North America , both with a similar scale to Southeast Asia, Oceania, and India , but which present a much less evolution. optimistic. Thus, Europe and Latin America in 2023 was responsible for revenues of 64.9 billion crowns (5.72 billion euros), 25% of the Swedish group’s income, but experienced a year-on-year drop of 9% in comparable terms. North America, which had a turnover of 59.2 billion crowns (5.22 billion euros) last year, is responsible for 22% of revenues, but in 2023 it experienced a 41% drop in revenues due to the peak of investment in 5G is already behind us, after the great growth of 2021 and 2022.

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Steve Jobs' most unusual auction: a business card for $47,000

The most sought-after piece in the bidding opened by auction house RR Auction based in Boston (Massachusetts) is a business card signed by Steve Jobs himself that dates back to 1983, when the company launched Lisa, the first personal computer with a graphical interface. and mouse.

Its starting price was set at $10,000, but the bidding is already at $47,163 ($43,417) on the eve of the closing of the sale in which you can participate online. “It is an extremely rare and perfectly preserved Apple Computer business card,” explains the auction house about the object.

The white card bears the iconic original logo of the apple painted with a rainbow and reads: “Steven Jobs, Chairman of the Board of Directors” along with the address of Apple’s first commercial headquarters at number 10260 of Bandley Drive in Cupertino (California) and the phone number, (408) 996-1010, which is still working to connect with the company.

Although the auction includes models of the first computers, iPhones and iPads, the most desired pieces are the papers signed by the visionary who always dressed in blue jeans and a black turtleneck, who died on October 5, 2011 from breast cancer. pancreas.

Through them, you can follow the chronology of the company’s beginnings and they have great historical value for document collectors. Two of the pieces that attract the most interest are two simple checks signed by Jobs in the first months of the company.

One of them is the payment of a bill of $201.4 to the telephone company Pacific Telephone, for calls made from the address of the famous Jobs family garage at number 770 Welch Road in Palo Alto (California). , where the three young men founded Apple. The bidding has reached $39,710.

The other is the third bank check ever issued by Apple Computer, signed by “Steven Jobs” in red ink in March 1976, for a payment of $13.86 to Elmar Electronics. The beneficiary was an electronics store, where they acquired the components for the prototypes of the Apple-1 computer, one of the first personal computers that worked right out of the box.

The address is also that of the signatory’s parents’ home. And the payment was sent thirteen days before April 1, 1976 when the three computer engineers signed the association agreement to found Apple Computer. The price stands at $43,387.

The Apple-1 would not have been a computer made for direct use if it had not been for Paul Terrell, the owner of The Byte Shop in Mountain View, one of the world’s first home computer stores. Terrell offered to buy 50 models for $500 each, to retail for $666.66, but only if they came fully assembled.

Wozniak later put Terrell’s purchase order in perspective: “That was the most important episode in the entire history of the company. Nothing in the years that followed was so great or so unexpected,” he said.

Origin of the Jobs speaker

Seven years later, with Apple already fully involved in the pioneering business of personal computers, Jobs received an invitation to participate as a keynote speaker at Computer Day from Kevin Kucera, then president of the newly launched Computer Club aimed at promoting the use of these machines.

But the businessman was very busy preparing the development of the Macintosh, the advanced microcomputer, launched on January 24, 1984 , which established itself as the development standard for Apple computers, gave its name to future Macs, and was in the first of real commercial success.

So Jobs declined the invitation in a typewritten letter signed in his own handwriting that is included in the auction. “Unfortunately I will not be able to attend due to prior commitments,” he apologized. This refusal prevented that public intervention from becoming the first of the inspiring speeches that Jobs gave during his life in which he managed to convey complex ideas in a simple way and give advice on how to live.

The first of his talks, known to the public as ‘Stevenotes’ (‘Stevenotes’, in Spanish), was given six months later in Hawaii when he presented the new Macintosh to the sales teams of the Pacific archipelago. The last bid for the letter is $12,977.

The internal crisis

Another of the auction gems allows us to take a look at Jobs’ movements during the twelve years he spent on the sidelines of Apple. This is a letter typed and signed by the executive in January 1986 addressed to Caroline Rose, a candidate for a job at the NextX company.

The computer scientist founded this company after his forced departure from Apple , as a result of the power struggle with the then executive director, John Scully, due to doubts about his leadership capacity. “If she is as good as she tells us (and we hope), her salary will increase,” Jobs promises in his response.

The candidate accepted the offer of a first salary of $50,000 and the opportunity to buy 1,250 Next shares, plus a raise to $67,000 in two years. Above the employee’s signature line is written: “I accept this incredibly cool offer!!!”; “Incredibly cool” is a famous Jobism used to introduce the Macintosh in 1984.

Caroline Rose ended up working for NeXT and later joined Apple as an editor and project supervisor for developers and end users. She was in charge of creating the first Publications department and was co-author of many of the manuals for the first software for Macintosh. The price of the document is $8,793.

The conflict between Jobs and Apple was settled in 1997 when the technology giant bought NeXT for $429 million and 1.5 million shares of the company with the return of the co-founder as part of the deal.

The smallest document tells something about Jobs’s intimate life. In the summer of 2003, four years before launching the first iPhone and in the middle of the war between Microsoft and Apple to monopolize the market , the already established manager went to the cinema with his children to see the recently released first installment of ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ starring Johnny Depp and Keira Knightley.

A researcher from Stanford University, a fan of Jobs, recognized him in the seats of the Century Cinema in Mountain View (California) during the 7:35 p.m. session. At the end of the film, the viewer approached him to ask for an autograph. The only paper they had was the signed entry included in the auction for which $8,000 has already been offered.

The auction also includes one of the first models of the Apple-1 computer, signed by its creator, Steve Wozniak , used as a demonstration at the Data Domain store in Columbus, Indiana, in 1977, before being delivered to its first owner in 1978. It still works and its price has reached $176,920.

You could also bid on one of the first Macintosh from 1984 with the original box, which bore the logo of a computer inspired by Picasso, and the first in history with an integrated screen and mouse. The computer boots but the drive does not read. That is why the maximum offer, at the moment, is $242. A prototype of this first mouse , which introduced clicking as a way of moving on the screen, reaches $3,076.

Also on sale is a complete collection of 13 Apple iMac G3 computers, each in a different color, released in 1998, which were crucial to the company’s marketing strategy. Their egg-shaped, translucent plastic displays took the company from losing $878 million in 1997 to making its first profit in three years in 1998. So far, they’ve only offered $4,604.

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The objects up for auction that tell the story of Apple

By:Esperanza Balaguer

Updated: 03-20-2024 02:57 hours

See gallery

Computer collectors are in luck. A United States auction house has put up for sale a collection of documents signed by Steve Jobs and several models of the first Apple computers that have become relics of the history of the technological revolution. These are the most surprising.

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Apple and Google: Perhaps the fastest pursuer

Rarely has there been a technology that all major tech companies have jumped on as quickly as artificial intelligence: Microsoft is funding OpenAI and thus ChatGPT, Google wants to improve its search with the AI model Gemini, Meta has published its Llama model as open source Amazon is supposed to let retailers create their product pages with AI, and chip manufacturer Nvidia is earning a golden chip with all the hype.

Are you missing a company from this list? That’s right, Apple. Little has been heard of an AI from Cupertino so far.

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Artificial intelligence: Data protection officer calls for compliance with fundamental rights in AI

The Federal Government’s data protection officer, Ulrich Kelber , has called for binding framework conditions for the use of artificial intelligence (AI). “Data protection and privacy are core elements without which the safe use of AI is inconceivable,” writes Kelber in his activity report for 2023. Data protection and privacy must be protected in research, application, evaluation and regulation in the AI area. Depending on how artificial intelligence is used, it has “the potential for restrictions on fundamental rights and discrimination.”

Kelber handed his report to Bundestag President Bärbel Bas (SPD). In it he urges the federal government to take the General Data Protection Regulation into account when implementing the AI regulation recently passed at European level. “I recommend that the legislature determine the national AI supervisory structure resulting from the EU AI regulation as soon as possible,” writes Kelber. The European Parliament’s AI regulation includes stricter requirements for facial recognition systems and other applications.

The data protection officer is also critical of the planned EU regulation on chat control. This is about spying on encrypted private chats. In his report, Kelber recommends that the Bundestag press the federal government and the EU legislature “for a significant revision” of the draft regulation on chat control that complies with fundamental rights.

The draft must ensure “continuous end-to-end encryption” that protects German and European fundamental rights and “prohibits comprehensive and unprovoked reading of private communications.” Otherwise a draft should be “rejected in its entirety”.

Citizens are concerned about health data

In his report, Kelber also describes that citizens had contacted his authority because they were concerned about the security of their data in the health sector. “I welcome the digitalization of the healthcare system and care,” wrote Kelber. “However, digitization must be carried out in accordance with data protection regulations.” The planned contradiction solution for the electronic patient file “significantly interferes with the fundamental right to informational self-determination”.

In February, the Federal Council approved a draft law by Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) and thus the expansion of the e-patient file. Their use should become the norm for all legally insured people from 2025. However, patients can object to this.

The Federal Government’s data protection officer, Ulrich Kelber , has called for binding framework conditions for the use of artificial intelligence (AI). “Data protection and privacy are core elements without which the safe use of AI is inconceivable,” writes Kelber in his activity report for 2023. Data protection and privacy must be protected in research, application, evaluation and regulation in the AI area. Depending on how artificial intelligence is used, it has “the potential for restrictions on fundamental rights and discrimination.”

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MásMóvil's revenue grew 3% in 2023 before its merger with Orange

MásMóvil’s total income in 2023 reached 2,979 million euros, 3% more, while income from telecommunications services alone, of 2,496 million, grew by 6.2% in the last year before the merger with Orange. However, the adjusted gross operating margin (ebitda), of 1,189 million, fell 1%. The reported ebitda, which stood at 1,136.9 million, also fell 1%. The net result recorded losses of 240 million compared to the profits of 443 million of the previous year, while the group’s net debt rose by 259 million more, to 6,541 million (+4%), which represents a debt ratio ebitda of 5.4 times.

The total income of the telecommunications operator MásMóvil during 2023 grew by 3% to 2,979 million euros. Service revenues increased by 3.3%, to 2,734 million euros. For its part, income from services

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Apple and Samsung have increased the price of mobile phones by 20%

Manufacturers sold 8 million phones, one million less than in 2022, but revenue, at 3,415 million, rose 6% because the average price grew driven by the two leaders.

The Spanish mobile phone market has maintained an upward trend in the price of terminals in recent years, which continued in 2023, the year in which the average cost of mobile phones (which are fundamentally smartphones) rose.

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Social media: TikTok throttles AfD politician's reach

The online platform TikTok has significantly limited the reach of AfD politician Maximilian Krah. The company told Spiegel that his contributions are currently no longer being shown in the so-called For You feed. This means that Krah’s videos will no longer be shown to users who do not follow his account.

The videos on Krah’s profile have had a few thousand views for a good week, whereas in the previous months there were usually well over a hundred thousand. The spokeswoman did not say since when the restrictions on his account took effect.

At the request of Spiegel , TikTok confirmed that the account had been throttled for a total of 90 days. The company said Krah had committed “repeated violations of our community guidelines.” TikTok therefore left unanswered which posts exactly led to the measure.

According to the report, Krah violated the platform’s rules with homophobic statements, hate speech against refugees and statements in line with the conspiracy theory of a “large population exchange”.

Krah confirmed to the dpa news agency that his reach on the platform had been throttled. TikTok also blocked five of his videos on the grounds that they contained hate speech and hateful behavior.

The AfD ‘s presence on social media has recently made headlines more often. According to media reports, politicians from the AfD parliamentary group have more than 400,000 followers on TikTok. All other factions together have around 220,000 followers.

The online platform TikTok has significantly limited the reach of AfD politician Maximilian Krah. The company told Spiegel that his contributions are currently no longer being shown in the so-called For You feed. This means that Krah’s videos will no longer be shown to users who do not follow his account.

The videos on Krah’s profile have had a few thousand views for a good week, whereas in the previous months there were usually well over a hundred thousand. The spokeswoman did not say since when the restrictions on his account took effect.

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