European Union regulators slapped Apple with a whopping €1.8 billion ($2 billion) antitrust fine on Monday for “abusing a dominant position” in the music streaming industry through its App Store practices.The European Commission determined that Apple has illegally restricted music app developers from advertising cheaper ways to subscribe to their streaming services outside the App Store – where the Cupertino, Calif.-based firm is known to charge fees of up to 30% on downloads.The massive penalty is the firs ...

Attorneys who successfully argued that Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s $56 billion pay package was excessive are demanding a Delaware judge award them nearly $6 billion. If granted, the legal eagles’ jaw-dropping payday — which they are asking to be paid in the electric car-maker’s stock — would shatter previous records for attorneys fees.“We recognize that the requested fee is unprecedented in terms of absolute size,” the three law firms said in a filing in Delaware’s Court of Chancery requesting the fee. 3 Attorn ...

Nvidia Chief Executive Jensen Huang on Friday said that artificial general intelligence could – by some definitions – arrive in as little as five years.Huang, who heads the world’s leading maker of artificial intelligence chips used to create systems like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, was responding to a question at an economic forum held at Stanford University about how long it would take to achieve one of Silicon Valley’s long-held goals of creating computers that can think like humans.Huang said that the answer larg ...

BlackRock CEO Larry Fink’s efforts to embrace “woke” environmental, social and governance policies, commonly known as ESG, could “materially adversely” slam the investment titan’s core business, the investment giant admitted in a regulatory filing.“Risk factors” for BlackRock’s stock price include the fact that “BlackRock’s business, scale and investments subject it to significant media coverage and increasing attention from a broad range of stakeholders,” the firm disclosed in its annual 10-K filing with t ...

CVS and Walgreens said they will start dispensing the abortion pill mifepristone at pharmacies in a select number of states later this month.Officials at the two largest pharmacy chains in the US said in interviews Friday that they had received certification to dispense mifepristone under guidelines that the Food and Drug Administration issued last year, The New York Times earlier reported.The chains initially plan to make the medication available at a select number of Walgreens pharmacies in New York, Penn ...

Meta Platforms decided against a partnership with Alphabet to use Google’s Android XR platform for its virtual and mixed-reality Quest headsets, The Information reported on Friday.Google had suggested that Meta partnered with its new software platform that is being developed for virtual reality, augmented reality and mixed-reality headsets, the report said, citing a source involved in the talks.But such a partnership could thwart Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s plan to “own the next computational platform for AR ...

Toyota Motor is recalling 381,199 Toyota Tacoma trucks with model years 2022 and 2023 in the US over a brake performance issue that increases the risk of a crash.The problem stems “welding debris left on the ends of the rear axle assembly during manufacturing,” which may lead to an axle shaft separation, Toyota said in a notice on Tuesday.The auto manufacturer said that affected customers will be notified via mail by late April 2024. Toyota declined to comment on how it learned of the defective brakes.This ...

Meta said Friday that it will discontinue Facebook’s news feature for US and Australian users in April – setting up a possible showdown with lawmakers in both countries who have ripped the tech giant’s treatment of the media industry.Mark Zuckerberg’s social media giant said getting rid of Facebook’s “News Tab” was “part of an ongoing effort to better align our investments to our products and services people value the most.” The company said the number of people using the News Tab in both counties dropped b ...

Canada’s antitrust watchdog widened its investigation into whether Google’s online advertising business is engaging in predatory pricing.As part of the Competition Bureau’s probe — which expands on an investigation that initially began in 2020 — the law enforcement agency obtained an order from the Federal Court of Canada requiring Google to producing relevant records and written information, according to The Wall Street Journal.The Competition Bureau was issued its first court order related to their invest ...

New York Attorney General Letitia James said Thursday her office is investigating the cause of last week’s AT&T wireless outage for up to 12 hours as well as the telecom firm’s response.The Federal Communications Commission is also investigating the Feb. 22 outage.AT&T said on Saturday it would provide $5 billing credits for consumers who were impacted but has not disclosed how many customers temporarily lost service. New York Attorney General Letitia James said her office will investigate the cause of the ...