DIRS.INFO The most relevant business & tech news

☆ Perplexity AI in final stages of raising $500 million round at $9 billion valuation
▼ + stars: | 2024-11-05 | by ( Hayden Field | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Perplexity AI, the artificial-intelligence search engine startup, is in the final stages of raising $500 million in funding at a $9 billion valuation, a source familiar with the situation told CNBC. Perplexity most recent valuation was $3 billion in June. Perplexity started the year with a roughly $500 million valuation. Despite the AI boom, Perplexity has been embroiled in controversy due to accusations of plagiarizing content from media outlets. WATCH: Perplexity unveils AI election hub: Here's what you need to know

Persons: Perplexity, OpenAI, Microsoft's Bing, Der Spiegel, Dmitry Shevelenko, Shevelenko Organizations: CNBC, Google, Institutional Venture Partners, New York Times, Media, The Texas Tribune, WordPress Locations: ChatGPT

☆ Perplexity AI will share revenue with publishers after plagiarism accusations
▼ + stars: | 2024-07-30 | by ( Hayden Field | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

Perplexity AI on Tuesday debuted a revenue-sharing model for publishers after more than a month of plagiarism accusations. Media outlets and content platforms including Fortune, Time, Entrepreneur, The Texas Tribune, Der Spiegel and WordPress.com are the first to join the company's "Publishers Program." Under the new partner program, any time a user asks a question and Perplexity generates advertising revenue from citing one of the publisher's articles in its answer, Perplexity will share a flat percentage of that revenue. "Some of it grew out of conversations we were having with publishers about integrating Perplexity APIs and technology into their products," Shevelenko said. But not all news organizations are gearing up for a fight, and some are instead joining forces with AI startups like OpenAI, Perplexity and others.

Persons: Der Spiegel, WordPress.com, Forbes, Weeks, Perplexity, Dmitry Shevelenko, Shevelenko, ScalePost.ai, OpenAI, Jonathan Franzen, John Grisham, George R.R, Martin, Jodi Picoult Organizations: Media, The Texas Tribune, Wired, Google, CNBC, Center, Investigative, Microsoft, New York Times, Chicago Tribune, New York Daily News, Time, News Corp, Wall Street, Barron's, New York Post Locations: Perplexity

☆ Biden just made the hardest decision any politician can make
▼ + stars: | 2024-07-21 | by ( Stephen Collinson | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +10 min

CNN —President Joe Biden ran for reelection to save democracy. “It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your President,” Biden said in a letter he posted to X on Sunday afternoon. His struggles validated concerns of majorities of voters that he would be too old for a second term that would have ended when he is 86. But in the end, Biden could not find a way to make voters unsee the poignant picture of an 81-year-old commander in chief who appeared to have seriously declined and was stumbling in the debate. Years earlier, in March 1952, Harry S. Truman, another Democratic president, had decided not to seek his own second term.

Persons: Joe Biden, Biden, Donald Trump, ” Biden, Kamala Harris, Nancy Pelosi, Still Biden, Lyndon Johnson, –, Trump, Biden’s, —, he’s, plagiarizing, Obama, Hillary Clinton, he’d, Beau, Hunter, Johnson, Robert F, Kennedy, President Hubert Humphrey, Republican Richard Nixon, Harry S, Truman, Adlai Stevenson, Republican Dwight Eisenhower, Harris Organizations: CNN, Democratic, Biden, Trump, American, White, Overseas, NATO, —, Democratic Party, Republican Party, Republican Locations: Delaware, Chicago, Atlanta, American, Ukraine, Afghanistan, British, Milwaukee

☆ Fast-fashion behemoth Shein is preparing for an IPO. Here's an inside look at the challenges it could face.
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-30 | by ( Tasmin Lockwood | Riddhi Kanetkar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +11 min

Its peak $100 billion valuation once made it the world's third largest privately-held company, behind TikTok owner Bytedance and Elon Musk's SpaceX. Estimates have pegged Shein's IPO valuation at around $90 billion, Bloomberg reported last year. AdvertisementTo gauge what happens to some Shein items once they're returned, BI reporters in the UK put two AirTag trackers on Shein garments and sent them back. Shein is more directly involved in production and focuses on clothes, but Temu's popularity "could affect the valuation," Swartz said. In a November statement following the news of Shein's IPO, chairman Mike Gallagher urged investors and banks underwriting the move to "carefully examine Shein's regulatory and compliance programs."

Persons: —, Bytedance, Sky Xu, Yangtian Xu, Chris, Shein, confidentially, David Swartz, Swartz, Lululemon, JADE GAO, Stephanie Benedetto, Queen, Benedetto, they're, Shein's, Morningstar's Swartz, Temu, Mike Gallagher Organizations: Service, Elon, SpaceX, Business, Reuters, Authentic Brands, Wall Street, CNBC, Bloomberg, Morningstar, Zurich Insurance Group, Guardian, BI, Coventry Airport, SEC, Street, Financial Times, London Stock Exchange, Chinese Communist Party, Nike, Adidas Locations: China, —, Singapore, Sequoia China, London , Hong Kong, York, London, Canary Wharf, Coventry, Walsall, Northern Ireland, England, Kent, Washington, Xinjiang, Dublin, Shein

BOSTON (AP) — Harvard University has shed fresh light on the ongoing investigation into plagiarism accusations against former president Claudine Gay, including that an independent body recommended a broader review after substantiating some of the complaints. In a letter Friday to a congressional committee, Harvard said it learned of the plagiarism allegations against its first Black female president on Oct. 24 from a New York Post reporter. The school reached out to several authors whom Gay is accused of plagiarizing and none objected to her language, it said. Harvard then appointed the independent body, which focused on two of Gay's articles published in 2012 and 2017. The House committee announced days later that it would investigate the policies and disciplinary procedures at Harvard, MIT and Penn.

Persons: Claudine Gay, Harvard, Gay, Liz Magill, Sally Kornbluth, Elise Stefanik, ” Organizations: BOSTON, — Harvard University, New, New York Post, Harvard, Post, Harvard Corporation, Gay, University of Pennsylvania, New York, Republican, Committee, Education, Workforce, Democratic, White, MIT, Penn Locations: New York, Gaza

☆ The Next Battle in Higher Ed May Strike at Its Soul: Scholarship
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-14 | by ( Anemona Hartocollis | More About Anemona Hartocollis | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Marc Tessier-Lavigne, president of Stanford, resigned in August after an investigation found serious flaws in studies he had supervised going back decades. Claudine Gay, president of Harvard, resigned as the new year dawned, under mounting accusations of plagiarism going back to her graduate student days. Then Neri Oxman, a former star professor at M.I.T., was accused of plagiarizing from Wikipedia, among other sources, in her dissertation. The attacks on the integrity of higher education have come fast and furious over the last few years. The affirmative action lawsuit against Harvard exposed how Asian American students must perform at a higher standard to win entry.

Persons: Marc Tessier, Lavigne, Claudine Gay, Neri Oxman, Bill Ackman, Gay’s, ’, Sally Kornbluth Organizations: Stanford, Harvard, federal Varsity Blues Locations: résumé, Israel

☆ Bill Ackman says it is a 'near certainty' that academics will improperly cite others' work after his wife admitted to plagiarism
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-07 | by ( Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Read previewBillionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman softened his tone on academic dishonesty after a report by Business Insider found his wife, Neri Oxman, plagiarized portions of her doctoral dissertation. A representative for Ackman declined to respond to questions from BI regarding his statements about plagiarism. Similar allegations against Gay and OxmanGay was accused in mid-December of plagiarizing portions of multiple academic articles, including her political science dissertation. Oxman has since admitted to the plagiarism , apologized, and pledged to review her sourcing and request corrections to her work as needed. However, a representative for the university told BI, "Our leaders remain focused on ensuring the vital work of the people of MIT continues, work that is essential to the nation's security, prosperity and quality of life."

Persons: —, Bill Ackman, Neri Oxman, Ackman —, Claudine Gay, Ackman, Gay, Oxman Gay, Christopher Rufo, Christopher Brunet, Oxman, Jonathan Bailey, Harvard didn't, Elise Stefanik, Elizabeth Magill, Sally Kornbluth, Kornbluth, Magill, Gay's, Ackman ominously Organizations: Service, Business Insider, Business, Harvard, Washington Free Beacon, New York Post, MIT, New York, University of Pennsylvania, Ackman, Kornbluth, BI Locations: Israel

Neri Oxman , a former MIT professor and celebrity within the world of academia, stole sentences and whole paragraphs from Wikipedia, other scholars, and technical documents in her academic writing, Business Insider has found. AdvertisementNeri Oxman directly copied from Wikipedia in her Ph.D. dissertationOn page 81 of her dissertation, "Material-based Design Computation," Oxman published two sentences without attribution that had previously appeared on Wikipedia. Business InsiderThe Wikipedia article for "Weaving" featured virtually identical sentences in April 2010 , when Oxman's dissertation was submitted. Business InsiderOxman's cribbing from the "Weaving" article was one of 15 examples that BI found Oxman plagiarizing from a Wikipedia article in her dissertation. The bulk of the plagiarism BI found was in her dissertation, which runs more than 300 pages.

Persons: Neri Oxman, Oxman, Bill Ackman, Ackman, Claudine Gay, Gay, Claudine Gay's, It's, Rick Norwood, silkworms, Wolfram MathWorld, M.Y . Zhou, Bruno Zevi, Sally Kornbluth Organizations: MIT, Pershing, Capital Management, Washington Free Beacon, Business, Creative, East Tennessee State University, MIT Media, Rhino, BI, Da Capo Press, MIT Corporation, Eastern Tennessee State University Locations: Gaza

☆ Neri Oxman admits to plagiarizing in her doctoral dissertation after BI report
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-04 | by ( Katherine Long | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

download the appSign up to get the inside scoop on today’s biggest stories in markets, tech, and business — delivered daily. BI identified four instances in Oxman's dissertation in which she lifted paragraphs from other scholars' work without including them in quotation marks. In those instances, Oxman wrote in a post on X , using quotation marks would have been "the proper approach for crediting the work. Oxman wrote on X that after she has reviewed the original sources, she plans to "request that MIT make any necessary corrections." Oxman now leads an eponymous company, Oxman , focused on "innovation in product, architectural, and urban design," she wrote on X.

Persons: —, Neri Oxman, Bill Ackman, Oxman, Claudine Gay, Ackman, Gay, Christopher Rufo, OXMAN Organizations: Service, Business, Harvard, MIT Locations: Gaza, Harvard's, Cambridge

☆ Elise Stefanik took credit for Claudine Gay's resignation, but it was in large part due to a Gen Z reporter who says liberals should care about this story too
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-03 | by ( Kelsey Vlamis | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Harvard University President Claudine Gay resigned Tuesday after months of controversy. Many plagiarism accusations that piled up against Gay were revealed by Gen Z reporter Aaron Sibarium. Sibarium, a writer at the conservative news site The Washington Free Beacon , broke many of the plagiarism accusations against Gay. It wasn't until the plagiarism accusations continued to pile up that she resigned. But his author page shows how he spent the past month: breaking stories about plagiarism accusations against Gay.

Persons: Claudine Gay, Gay, Gen, Aaron Sibarium, Sibarium, —, Elise Stefanik, Stefanik, Aaron Sibarium —, Harvard's, missteps, he's, Harvard, plagiarizing, David Canon, Canon, that's Organizations: Harvard, Service, University of Pennsylvania, MIT, Washington Free Beacon, Gay, Business, The New York Times, Harvard Corporation, Yale University, Politico, University of Wisconsin Locations: Washington, Israel, Madison

☆ Harvard president's resignation draws strong reactions from her critics and supporters
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-02 | by ( Jordan Hart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Claudine Gay is out as the president of Harvard. Gay announced Tuesday in a letter that she was stepping down, and reactions have poured in on social media from both her supporters and critics. AdvertisementElon Musk voiced his agreement with a social media user's post that said Gay had been "caught plagiarizing." I admire Claudine Gay for putting Harvard's interests first at what I know must be an agonizingly difficult moment. AdvertisementNot everyone celebrated Gay's resignation.

Persons: Claudine Gay, Gay, —, Larry Summers, Gay's, Elon Musk, Emil Michael, Uber's, Alan Garber, — Lawrence H, Summers, Bill Ackman, Ackman, hasn't, Sally Kornbluth, Elizabeth Magill, it’s, 3yUDw6tciF — Emil Michael, @emilmichael, Christopher Rufo, Rufo, Elon, Jason Calacanis, Timnit Gebru, Couldn't, Gebru, Nikole Hannah Jones, Janai Nelson, Liz Magill's, Gary Marcus, Uber, Marcus Organizations: Harvard, Service, Treasury, Twitter, Billionaire, Gay, Former University of Pennsylvania, Harvard Corporation, Conservative, Google, NAACP Legal Defense, Educational Fund

☆ Slovak election: A NATO country could soon have a pro-Russian leader
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-28 | by ( Ivana Kottasová | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +8 min

Fico previously served as Slovakia’s prime minister for more than a decade, first between 2006 and 2010 and then again from 2012 to 2018. Heger continued as a caretaker prime minister but he, too, ended up quitting in May and was replaced by a technocrat, Ludovit Odor. Eduard Heger, pictured in Tallinn, Estonia, in November 2022, resigned as caretaker prime minister in May. In the Czech Republic, which used to form one country with Slovakia, 71% of people blame Russia for the war. “The government took a very quick and firm decision — and I’d say in doing so found itself on the right side of the history — to support Ukraine,” he said.

Persons: Robert Fico’s, Kyiv’s, “, ”, Vladimir Putin, Putin, Fico, Grigorij, Jan Kuciak, Martina Kušnírová, Kuciak, Igor Matovič, Matovič, Eduard Heger, Heger, Ints Kalnins, ” Mesežnikov, “ SMER, GlobSec, —, Dominika Hajdu, Mesežnikov Organizations: CNN, Kremlin, NATO, Institute of Public Affairs, Voters, Independent, Republika, for Democracy, Resilience, Austro, Ukraine, “, it’s, European Union Locations: Slovakia, Russia, Ukraine, Slovak, Moscow, SMER, Tallinn, Estonia, ” Slovakia, Bratislava, Baltic, Czech Republic, States, Hungary, Trianon, “ Slovakia

The European Union is at the forefront of drafting new AI rules that could set the global benchmark to address privacy and safety concerns that have arisen with the rapid advances in the generative AI technology behind OpenAI's ChatGPT. "If it's about protecting personal data, they apply data protection laws, if it's a threat to safety of people, there are regulations that have not been specifically defined for AI, but they are still applicable." Data protection authorities in France and Spain also launched in April probes into OpenAI's compliance with privacy laws. 'THINKING CREATIVELY'French data regulator CNIL has started "thinking creatively" about how existing laws might apply to AI, according to Bertrand Pailhes, its technology lead. "We are looking at the full range of effects, although our focus remains on data protection and privacy," he told Reuters.

New York CNN —Musician Ed Sheeran took the stand Tuesday in a high-profile copyright trial about whether his smash single “Thinking Out Loud” copied a classic Marvin Gaye song. Sheeran was called to testify Tuesday by Townsend attorney Keisha Rice. Earlier in Tuesday’s court proceedings, Crump attempted to portray Sheeran as someone who recognized the “magic” of Gaye’s soul song and then used it to catapult his career. She said she hired her own musicologists for her “personal clarity.”There have been a number of prominent music copyright lawsuits in recent years. After his successful 2022 legal battle, Sheeran posted a video to his Instagram voicing his concern over the recent wave of music copyright cases.

New York CNN —A copyright infringement case against British pop artist Ed Sheeran is set to kick off this week, with the potential to further complicate the legal landscape for songwriters. The jury was selected Monday in the case against Sheeran, who is accused of copying the 1973 soul hit “Let’s Get It On” by the heirs of Ed Townsend, who co-wrote the song with Marvin Gaye. The trial concerns Sheeran’s song “Thinking Out Loud,” which won the 2016 Grammy award for song of the year. Sheeran, meanwhile, has faced previous legal battles over his music and won. After his successful 2022 legal battle, Sheeran posted a video to his Instagram voicing his concern over the recent wave of music copyright cases.

☆ Harvard expert shares her No. 1 'undesirable' trait CEOs see in employees: It's 'a huge red flag for me'
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-03 | by ( Ashton Jackson | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Of the many traits people bring to the workplace, one stands out as an absolute "trust breaker," according to a Harvard career expert. It's "taking credit for other people's ideas," says Heidi K. Gardner, a professional leadership advisor and distinguished fellow at Harvard Law School. And that inability to appreciate other people's contributions is a huge red flag for me." Teamwork is crucial for any company's success, and by extension, your own success, Gardner says. "If somebody takes credit for someone else's work or ideas, they are not trustworthy in that sense."

☆ Big media is gearing up for battle with Google and Microsoft over AI chatbots using their articles for training: 'We are actively considering our options'
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-03 | by ( Lucia Moses | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +9 min

Publishers want Google and Microsoft to pay them for the use of media content to train their AI. Media companies are also studying how to change their business models to protect themselves from the bots' threat. Within media companies, the topic is being discussed at the highest levels, from the C-suite to the boardroom. Executives are also strategizing with peers and competitors about the possibility of forging a united position against the tech companies, according to multiple publishing sources. The same year, an Australia law forced tech companies to pay news outlets for linking to their articles.

☆ Here's the bear case for artificial intelligence
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-16 | by ( Sarah Min | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

Now that ChatGPT unleashed a firestorm of interest in artificial intelligence investing, it may be time to urge some calm for investors. AI YTD mountain AI software provider C3.ai has seen its stock more than doubled as investors look to hop on the artificial intelligence trend. Here's the bear case for artificial intelligence. That's about seven times more than the cost to run a typical Google search, which Nowak estimated to be $0.003, or not even half of one cent. Separately, the lack of proper citation from generative AI could mean future lawsuits for AI companies.

☆ Mexican president says authorities must examine alleged plagiarism by top judge
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-23 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

MEXICO CITY, Dec 23 (Reuters) - Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Friday said authorities should resolve a case of alleged plagiarism by a Supreme Court justice he nominated who is in the running to take the helm of the country's top tribunal. Justice Yasmin Esquivel was this week accused by Mexican news outlet Latinus of plagiarizing her 1987 university undergraduate thesis, prompting calls for her to step down. Esquivel called the media report "totally false," and on Twitter posted letters of support from academics who supervised her thesis and further studies. When asked about the case during a regular news conference, Lopez Obrador said it was up to authorities to resolve the matter, and noted he could not be wholly objective on it. Reporting by Daina Beth Solomon in Mexico City Additional reporting by Lizbeth Diaz in Mexico City Editing by Dave Graham and Matthew LewisOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Fact Check-Altered Fox News post attributes quote from the novel Animal Farm to Elon Musk
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-19 | by ( Reuters Fact Check | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

A Fox News social media post has been digitally altered to falsely attribute a quote from the George Orwell’s Animal Farm to billionaire and Twitter CEO Elon Musk. While the Orwell quote appears superimposed on other text, some appeared to believe it was attributed to Musk, with one user commenting, “So he’s resorted to plagiarizing George Orwell now? !”The quote on Fox News’s original, unaltered Facebook post contains an authentic tweet by Elon Musk that instead reads, “Criticizing me all day long is totally fine, but doxing my real-time location and endangering my family is not” (here), (here). A Fox News spokesperson told Reuters via email that the image is fake with an altered quote. An Elon Musk quote on a Fox News social media post was changed to include an inauthentic quote.

☆ Indigenous fashion designers, artisans challenge plagiarism on Mexico City runway
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-23 | by ( Aida Pelaez-Fernandez | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

MEXICO CITY, Nov 23 (Reuters) - Wrapped in colorful haute couture, artisans and indigenous designers took a Mexico City fashion event by storm, all while trying to carve out a sustainable future in an industry threatened by plagiarism, instability and lack of funds. World-renowned brands such as Ralph Lauren and Chinese fast-fashion company Shein have in recent months faced accusations of plagiarizing indigenous Mexican designs, threatening the country's ancient textile tradition. [1/10] Artisan Juana Bravo Lazaro from the Urupan indigenous community, attends the Original Mexican Textile Art meeting, in Mexico City, Mexico November 20, 2022. Plagiarism of ancient indigenous designs has drawn ire from Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. "They plagiarize designs from artisans and indigenous people from Hidalgo, Chiapas, Guerrero," he told a news conference last week.

☆ Ralph Lauren accused of plagiarizing indigenous Mexican designs
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-20 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

MEXICO CITY, 20 Oct (Reuters) - The wife of Mexico's president on Thursday accused luxury American clothes brand Ralph Lauren (RL.N) of plagiarizing indigenous designs, which she described as an appropriation of the work of the country's pre-Hispanic cultures. "Hey Ralph (Lauren): we already realized that you really like Mexican designs," writer and researcher Beatriz Gutierrez said in an Instagram post. "However, by copying these designs you are committing plagiarism, which is illegal and immoral." The post shows a photo of a coat with colorful indigenous motifs hanging in a store. "Hopefully you repair the damage to the original communities that do this work with love and not for profit," Gutierrez added, attributing the designs to the indigenous communities of Contla and Saltillo.

Search resuls for: "plagiarizing"

22 mentions found