Brazil lifts X block after Musk pays $5m fine
Brazil has lifted its ban on social media platform X after the company paid more than $5 million worth of fines.
Up to 20 million Brazilian users will be able to access their X accounts again after Judge Justice Alexandre de Moraes said he was authorising the “immediate return” of the former Twitter’s activities.
Moraes had previously blocked the Elon Musk-owned social media platform after it refused to block several profiles accused of spreading misinformation about the 2022 Brazilian Presidential Election.
Musk argued he was defending free speech, but when Brazil’s Supreme Court threatened to bring prosecutions, the Tesla billionaire sacked all of the company’s staff in the country and closed X’s office there.
Moraes imposed the fine and ordered watchdog Anatel to shut access to X after Musk refused to appoint a representative for the country inside Brazil. The regulator now has 24 hours to reopen access to the platform.
States sue TikTok over teen mental health
More than a dozen US states have launched legal action against TikTok, accusing the platform of playing a key role in a growing mental health crisis among teenagers.
Fourteen attorneys general from across the US have sued TikTok, claiming the platform uses addictive features to get children hooked to its app and “wreaking havoc” on their mental health, their filing says.
TikTok has called the lawsuit “disappointing”, adding that many of the claims made by the bipartisan group of AGs were “misleading and inaccurate”.
It comes as the platform — owned by Chinese firm ByteDance — is already fighting a law passed by Congress that would see it banned in the US unless it is sold.
Amazon to roll out AI assistant for delivery drivers
Amazon has unveiled plans to deploy 1,000 new electric delivery vans featuring an AI assistant that helps drivers identify the correct package for delivery.
The e-commerce giant says its new Vision-Assisted Package Retrieval solution means delivery drivers will no longer have to spend time organising packages by stop. Instead, an AI will highlight the correct packages using either a green circle or a red light.
In its announcement, Amazon revealed it has been working on the VAPR technology since 2020, with the first deployments to take place early next year.
Once a van arrives at a location, VAPR will automatically project a green circle on all packages to be delivered at that stop. Packages not due for delivery will be marked with a red X.
“Before, it could take me anywhere between 2 and 5 minutes to empty a tote and organise packages for the next stops. Now, with VAPR, this whole step just takes me about a minute,” said Bobby Garcia, a driver with Bloomfield Logistics, who has been testing VAPR in the North Boston, Massachusetts area. “It’s made my life so much easier.”
Vodafone partners Google in 10-year AI partnership
UK telecoms giant Vodafone has struck a billion-pound deal with Google as it is looking to deepen its AI and cloud offerings to customers.
The 10-year tie-up sees Vodafone use Google Cloud’s gen AI across its TV set-top boxes and Google Cloud’s Vertex platform to build machine learning models and AI applications powered by the search giant’s Gemini models.
The two firms will also work together to build new cloud-native cybersecurity services leveraging Google Cloud’s Security Operations system.
The deal represents a strengthening of Vodafone’s partnership with Google, which already provides analytics and marketing services with its Android operating system powering the firm’s set-top boxes.
It follows a $1.5bn deal signed with Microsoft earlier this year, which saw Vodafone give up its own European data centres in favour of using Azure cloud services.