Comment on New projects in North Texas (09/25/2023)

Enlarge / City workers unload a truck containing pallets of bottled water to distribute during a water filter distribution event on October 26, 2021 in Hamtramck, Michigan. The state Department of Health and Human Services has begun distributing water filters and bottled water to residents due to elevated levels of lead found in the drinking water due to old and un-maintained water pipes in the city.

Enlarge / Apple wants to build more of its A- and M-series chips in the United States. (credit: Apple) Late last year, Apple CEO Tim Cook announced that the company would definitely be buying chips made at Taiwan Semiconductor's new Arizona-based fab once it had opened. Apple working with TSMC isn't new; most, if not all, of the processors currently sold in Apple's products are made on one of TSMC's many manufacturing nodes.

Enlarge (credit: Bloomberg via Getty Images) Hello fellow procrastinators. This is your last-minute warning that you have until the end of the day to log in to any inactive Google accounts before they start getting deleted on December 1. Google is going to wipe any accounts that have been "inactive" for two years, allowing the company to free up storage space, delete unused personal data, and continue the ongoing journey of intense cost cutting it has been on for the past year. The plan to do this was announced in May, and Google says inactive accounts should get "multiple notifications over the months leading up to deletion, to both the account email address and the recovery email (if one has been provided)," so hopefully this isn't a surprise to anyone.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Chesnot) Meta sued the Federal Trade Commission yesterday in a lawsuit that challenges the FTC's authority to impose new privacy obligations on the social media firm. The complaint stems from the FTC's May 2023 allegation that Meta-owned Facebook violated a 2020 privacy settlement and the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act.

Enlarge (credit: NurPhoto / Contributor | NurPhoto) Backlash over Meta's ad-free subscription model in the European Union has begun just one month into its launch. On Thursday, Europe's largest consumer group, the European Consumer Organization (BEUC), filed a complaint with the network of consumer protection authorities. In a press release, BEUC alleges that Meta's subscription fees for ad-free access to Facebook and Instagram are so unreasonably high that they breach laws designed to protect user privacy as a fundamental right. "Meta has been rolling out changes to its service in the EU in November 2023, which require Facebook and Instagram users to either consent to the processing of their data for advertising purposes by the company or pay in order not to be shown advertisements," BEUC's press release said.

Enlarge / An artist's interpretation of what ChatGPT might look like if embodied in the form of a robot toy blowing out a birthday candle. (credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images) One year ago today, on November 30, 2022, OpenAI released ChatGPT. It's uncommon for a single product to create as much impact on the tech industry as ChatGPT has in just one year. Imagine a computer that can talk to you.