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Multiple experts identified the presence of malware on the Pinduoduo app that exploited vulnerabilities in Android operating systems. Evidence of sophisticated malware in the Pinduoduo app comes amid intense scrutiny of Chinese-developed apps like TikTok over concerns about data security. Pinduoduo has previously rejected “the speculation and accusation that Pinduoduo app is malicious.”CNN has contacted PDD multiple times over email and phone for comment, but has not received a response. Google Play is not available in China, and Android users in the country download their apps from local stores. Engineers also found their access to big data, data sheets and the log system revoked, the source said.

☆ Last Dodge Challenger makes 1,010 hp, has optional parachute
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-20 | by ( Peter Valdes-Dapena | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

The unveiling of the 1,025 horsepower Dodge Challenger SRT Demon 170 has been long anticipated, and long delayed. Dodge had originally expected to just modify the Dodge Challenger Demon engine, which is capable of producing up to 840 horsepower. The 2023 Dodge Challenger SRT Demon 170 can reach 60 miles per hour in under two seconds. StellantisIntroduced in 2008, the modern Dodge Challenger shares much of its engineering with the four-door Dodge Charger and Chrysler 300 sedans. Options for the 2023 Dodge Challenger SRT Demon 170 include a Direct Connection Parachute Mounting System.

☆ Developers are turning to GitHub Copilot, a ChatGPT-like tool that helps them write code. One startup VP says it helped him save 10% of the time he'd spend coding.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-06 | by ( Thomas Maxwell | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

GitHub Copilot, launched in 2021, uses generative AI to help programmers write code. Codex is the basis for GitHub Copilot, a tool that functions as a sort of autocomplete for software engineers. At a recent event in San Francisco, he compared using Copilot to a lottery experience. In other words, if developers don't already understand what they're looking for, they'll quickly get stuck using Copilot. "Sure, you could create a basic iOS app with Copilot," Ghazanfar said.

☆ Salesforce's Marc Benioff has revised a plan to stack rank a bottom 5% and ordered employees back to the office, according to leaked messages
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-21 | by ( Ellen Thomas | Ashley Stewart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff has made revisions to the company's annual strategic plan, including return-to-office mandates and policies that would have implemented stack ranking, according to an internal Slack message viewed by Insider. "He's still pushing performance culture," a Salesforce employee who read the revised draft told Insider. It currently requires three days a week in the office for non-remote employees and four days a week for employees in "non-remote" and "customer-facing" roles. Revenue for fiscal 2022 grew 25%, to $26.5 billion, according to the company's annual report. Or, as an employee previously posted in a Slack channel, "Can execs commit to never referring to Salesforce employees as 'family' again?

☆ Elon Musk asked engineers to boost his tweets after Joe Biden's Super Bowl post got more engagement than his, report says
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-15 | by ( Hannah Getahun | Erin Snodgrass | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Musk asked engineers to find ways to promote his tweets after the Super Bowl, Platformer reported. Musk made the request after President Joe Biden received more engagement for an Eagles tweet. Engineers worked under the threat of being fired to create a system that would boost his tweets. Biden's tweet gained nearly 29 million impressions, while Musk's tweet got over 9 million impressions, Platformer's Zoë Schiffer and Casey Newton reported. Platformer reported Tuesday that the boost factor for Musk's tweets is now lower than 1,000.

☆ Death toll rises to more than 21,000, rescues dwindle in earthquake aftermath
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-10 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +6 min

Ahmet Izgi | Anadolu Agency | Getty ImagesEmergency crews made a series of dramatic rescues in Turkey on Friday, pulling several people, some almost unscathed, from the rubble, four days after a catastrophic earthquake killed more than 21,000. The 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit the border region between Turkey and Syria, an area home to more than 13.5 million people, early Monday morning. Mustafa Turan rushed to his hometown of Adiyaman from Istanbul hours after the quake struck to check on his relatives. Aerial footage from over the earthquake zone in Turkey revealed entire neighborhoods of high-rises reduced to twisted metal, pulverized concrete and exposed wires. A woman sits next to the body of her nephew in Kahramanmaras, on February 9, 2023, three days after a 7,8-magnitude earthquake struck southeast Turkey.

☆ STMicro leans on AI, cloud as chip designs become more complex
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-07 | by ( Stephen Nellis | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Feb 7 (Reuters) - European chipmaker STMicroelectronics (STM.BN) and chip design software maker Synopsys (SNPS.O) on Tuesday said STMicro had for the first time used artificial intelligence software running on Microsoft Corp's (MSFT.O) cloud to design a working chip. The achievement would help solve the growing problem of getting increasingly complex designs ready for customers in an acceptable time, STMicro said. The company is one of a several that are using AI to help design chips, which involves translating a complicated circuit architecture into a blueprint for fabricating billions of transistors on a small piece of silicon. Shankar Krishnamoorthy, general manager of the design automation group at Synopsys, said that company's AI engine got better results faster when it had more computing power behind it. Cloud providers like Microsoft offer the option to rent a huge burst of computing power in a short time.

☆ Why we love to anthropomorphize space-faring robots
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-22 | by ( Paola Rosa-Aquino | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

We know Mars rovers are robots, but they feel like friends, or pets. "It's the way the rovers are designed," Abigail Freeman, the deputy project scientist of the Curiosity rover, told Insider. The first selfie NASA's Opportunity Mars rover snapped. Their ability to snap selfies on the Martian surface make them seem self-awareNASA's Curiosity Mars rover created this selfie in front of Mont Mercou. On February 12, 2019, mission controllers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, sent the last commands to ask NASA’s Opportunity rover on Mars to call home.

☆ Twitter is down to fewer than 550 full-time engineers
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-20 | by ( Lora Kolodny | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Twitter's full-time headcount has dwindled to approximately 1,300 employees, including fewer than 550 full-time engineers by title, according to internal records viewed by CNBC. Around 75 of the company's 1,300 employees are on leave including about 40 engineers. The company's trust and safety team, which makes policy recommendations, design and product changes with the aim of keeping all of Twitter's users safe, is down to fewer than 20 full-time employees. Before Musk led a $44 billion leveraged buyout of Twitter last year, Twitter's headcount stood at about 7,500 employees. Since taking over Twitter, Musk has faced a shareholder backlash at Tesla for being distracted, for stirring up political controversy with his strategy at Twitter, and for selling billions of dollars worth of his Tesla shares to finance his Twitter takeover.

Regan, who has spent the past year visiting communities struggling with water infrastructure crises — including in Alabama, Mississippi and West Virginia — acknowledged that the need is much greater. Engineers also had the forethought to build separate waste and drinking water infrastructure in Baltimore. Weather events routinely overwhelm the system, causing sinkholes that can lead to water main breaks and sewer backups in homes. Blue Water Baltimore filed a federal lawsuit against Baltimore in late 2021 over the issue. Two separate sinkholes, caused by the collapse of a stormwater tunnel and a leaking water main, led chlorination levels in the water system to drop.

☆ The 8 'rarest' types of employees—they 'simply outperform everyone else,' says career expert
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-10 | by ( Catherine Kaputa | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

As a career and branding expert who has consulted CEOs and big companies like Google and Microsoft, I help people discover what differentiates them from their competitors. Based on my 40 years of experience, here are the rarest types of employees who simply outperform everyone else:1. You can be impulsive and change your mind a lot, which only serves to heighten your creativity. They often diverge from the norm in their thinking, and they're not hampered by what other people think. The Target MarketerYou not only understand your target audience, you connect with them deeply.

☆ Microsoft's investment into ChatGPT's creator may be the smartest $1 billion ever spent
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-06 | by ( Hasan Chowdhury | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Microsoft's $1 billion investment into OpenAI may be one of the shrewdest bets in tech history. OpenAI released AI bot ChatGPT and is in discussions to raise capital at a $30 billion valuation. "We believe Microsoft's investment in OpenAI will translate to significant underappreciated upside," Luria wrote. Investors may be souring on speculative tech but AI looks resilientThere is speculation that Microsoft may look to buy OpenAI. That suggests investors will still look to pile into the hottest AI companies, cementing the value of Microsoft's deal.

☆ NASA fixed a glitch on Voyager 1 after consulting 45-year-old manuals. The spacecraft was beaming information through a dead computer.
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-13 | by ( Paola Rosa-Aquino | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

In May, NASA reported its Voyager 1 spacecraft was sending strange data back to Earth. An engineer works on an instrument for one of NASA's Voyager spacecraft, on November 18, 1976. NASA/JPL-CaltechDuring the first 12 years of the Voyager mission, thousands of engineers worked on the project, Dodd said. In late August, Voyager engineers located the source of the garbled data: the spacecraft's attitude-control system was routing information through a dead computer. NASA/JPLFrom discovering unknown moons and rings to the first direct evidence of the heliopause, the Voyager mission has helped scientists understand the cosmos.

This week's spill of 14,000 barrels in Kansas is sure to raise alarms over future pipeline development, as U.S. regulators had already increased scrutiny of pipeline construction due to previous Keystone spills in 2017 and 2019. The pipeline suffered few incidents in its early years, but since 2017, the number of spills increased after TC Energy received a special permit from the U.S. "I think a lot of scrutiny is going to be placed on the special permit," said Jane Kleeb, founder of Bold Alliance, an advocacy group that fought Keystone XL. John Stoody, vice-president of government relations at the Liquid Energy Pipeline Association said special permits come with numerous different operating conditions. "If anything there are complaints from industry about how lengthy the special permit process is.

☆ Elon Musk tells remaining Twitter employees no more layoffs 'planned' and HQ will not move to Texas
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-21 | by ( Kali Hays | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Elon Musk held another meeting with Twitter employees. Musk gave remaining Twitter employees tidbits of good news during an all-hands meeting on Monday at Twitter's San Francisco headquarters, according to two people present. One employee who made it through Musk's layoffs and a spate of firings of perceived critics said Musk's comments were met with "some relief." Musk also said during the meeting he "does not intend" to move Twitter's headquarters to Texas from San Francisco. Twitter employees were also told that part of their future compensation plans under Musk will include stock grants and be offered and paid out as they are with employees at SpaceX.

☆ Elon Musk is asking Twitter employees who survived last week's mass layoff to ask their old coworkers if they'd like to return
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-08 | by ( Kali Hays | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Twitter workers are being told to see if recently laid off colleagues would like to return to work. Still, current workers must persuade higher-ups that people who are interested should come back. Media engineering is a core organization at Twitter, and Musk had previously tweeted about wanting longer videos to be uploaded to Twitter. Even if laid off employees agree to return, Musk still isn't making it easy, according to additional messages seen by Insider. Thousands of Twitter employees found out they had been let go by Musk on Thursday night when they lost access to their work tools.

☆ Elon Musk is looking to rehire Twitter workers who can help with video and the Twitter Blue subscription service after laying off thousands last week
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-08 | by ( Kali Hays | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Twitter workers are being told to see if recently laid off colleagues would like to return to work. Twitter is trying to rehire media engineering workers and those who would make Twitter Blue work. Still, current workers must "convince" higher ups why people who are interested should come back. Even if laid off employees agree to return, Musk still isn't making it easy, according to additional messages seen by Insider. Thousands of Twitter employees found out they had been let go by Musk on Thursday night when they lost access to their work tools.

☆ 'I don't want to work with these clowns.' Inside the culture war that Elon Musk has unleashed at Twitter.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-04 | by ( Mattathias Schwartz | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

With a project, you could see who initiated the work, who was the assignee, who was in the chain of command. They wanted to make Twitter a place to exchange ideas and observations that were funny, factual and engaging. Whenever I'm on Twitter, I always find something that makes me laugh, or learn something. It feels like that's what's happening. What's even more frightening is that I don't see any viable alternatives to Twitter right now.

Elon Musk is shaking up Twitter. From the blunt email to Twitter employees about layoffs to angry advertisers, a lot is happening. Insider has exclusive insights from employees, advertisers and others about working with Musk. And this kind of chaos is only the beginning, warns one former SpaceX VP who says Elon Musk can be 'vicious' in the workplace. Rebecca Blackwell/AP PhotoAdvertisers are nervously pausing their spendMusk has been wooing advertisers, his major Twitter customers, but they are wary.

☆ Newsrooms consider whether to pay for Twitter verification for journalists. For CNN, it's 'highly unlikely,' but for Puck, it's a resounding yes.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-01 | by ( Steven Perlberg | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Twitter is reportedly planning to require users to pay $20 a month to keep their verification. CNN is unlikely to pay for everyone, while Puck said doing so for its dozen writers was a no brainer. One media company, however, would certainly cover the cost of Twitter verification: Puck. "It's a negligible amount of money for most media companies, even the largest that employ thousands of journalists," Kelly said. Long considered Twitter power users, journalists make up a large contingent of verified users on the platform, along with celebrities, organizations, and brands.

☆ How United Airlines expects electric planes to change the way passengers make travel decisions
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-28 | by ( Tim Mullaney | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +10 min

As electric cars and SUVs move toward 5% of the new-car market in the U.S. and 9% globally, few airlines have made any major push toward electric planes. Sustainability plans being pursued by American Airlines , Delta Air Lines and Southwest Airlines barely mention electric planes. "Go back to the 1990s, there were hundreds of small aircraft serving a lot of communities that have now lost service." "There are literally dozens of companies that wouldn't have worked that are now viable startups that you'll hear about United Airlines and United Ventures investing in in the coming months." Most likely, electric planes will serve small markets, hydrogen-powered planes will serve medium-sized passenger loads, and SAF-powered jet engines will serve major cities.

☆ The US Army Corps of Engineers is dredging the Mississippi River and racing to keep the sea from contaminating drinking water
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-22 | by ( Morgan Mcfall-Johnsen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

The Mississippi River is at record low levels, stranding barges and allowing sea water to move in with no end in sight. The US Army Corps of Engineers is emergency dredging to keep the channel open to supply barges. Barges, stranded by low water, sit at the Port of Rosedale along the Mississippi River on October 20, 2022 in Rosedale, Mississippi. USACE is racing to build a 1,500-foot-wide, 35-foot-tall underwater levee to prevent saltwater from creeping further up the river, where it could contaminate drinking water. An underwater sill is constructed near the mouth of the Mississippi River to block seawater pushing up river, on October 18, 2022.

☆ NASA tries fueling moon rocket in test, but leak reoccurs
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-21 | by ( Associated Press | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +2 min

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA’s new moon rocket sprouted another fuel leak Wednesday as engineers tested the plumbing ahead of a launch attempt as early as next week. Engineers halted the flow and warmed the lines in hopes of plugging the leak, and proceeded with the test. Wednesday’s leak came close to the limit, but the launch team managed to get the leak down to acceptable levels as the test continued. Besides replacing seals, NASA altered the fueling process, easing more slowly into the loading of the super-cold liquid hydrogen and oxygen. NASA’s Space Launch System rocket is more powerful than the Saturn V rocket that sent Apollo astronauts to the moon during the late 1960s and early 1970s.

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