Goodbye, Skype. I’ll never forget you

I doubt many people are mourning the demise of Skype. The sky-blue platform that revolutionized the video call, the medium for long-distance relationships in the early 2010s, had not been relevant for almost a decade when Microsoft announced its impending death. My own relationship with Skype’s clunky tangle of video, voice and chat peaked in 2011 – the same year Microsoft purchased it for a headline-making $8.5bn, only to let it wither in the shadow of professionalized, less-pixelated options. By 2014, it was basically obsolete, as video calls shifted to more integrated apps like FaceTime, and my college schedule did not allow for glitchy, hours-long catchups

‘I didn’t eat or sleep’: a Meta moderator on his breakdown after seeing beheadings and child abuse

When Solomon* strode into the gleaming Octagon tower in Accra, Ghana, for his first day as a Meta content moderator, he was bracing himself for difficult but fulfilling work, purging social media of harmful content.But after just two weeks of training, the scale and depravity of what he was exposed to was far darker than he ever imagined.“The first day I didn’t come across any graphic content, but gradually I started coming across very graphic content like beheadings, child abuse, bestiality. When I first came across that ticket I was very shocked. I didn’t even look at my computer because it was very disturbing for me

Meta faces Ghana lawsuits over impact of extreme content on moderators

Meta is facing a second set of lawsuits in Africa over the psychological distress experienced by content moderators employed to take down disturbing social media content including depictions of murders, extreme violence and child sexual abuse.Lawyers are gearing up for court action against a company contracted by Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, after meeting moderators at a facility in Ghana that is understood to employ about 150 people.Moderators working for Majorel in Accra claim they have suffered from depression, anxiety, insomnia and substance abuse as a direct consequence of the work they do checking extreme content.The allegedly gruelling conditions endured by workers in Ghana are revealed in a joint investigation by the Guardian and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism.It comes after more than 140 Facebook content moderators in Kenya were diagnosed with severe post-traumatic stress disorder caused by exposure to graphic social media content

Microsoft says everyone will be a boss in the future – of AI employees

Microsoft has good news for anyone with corner office ambitions. In the future we’re all going to be bosses – of AI employees.The tech company is predicting the rise of a new kind of business, called a “frontier firm”, where ultimately a human worker directs autonomous artificial intelligence agents to carry out tasks.Everyone, according to Microsoft, will become an agent boss.“As agents increasingly join the workforce, we’ll see the rise of the agent boss: someone who builds, delegates to and manages agents to amplify their impact and take control of their career in the age of AI,” wrote Jared Spataro, a Microsoft executive, in a blogpost this week

Apple ‘aims to source all US iPhones from India’, reducing reliance on China

Apple is reportedly planning to switch assembly of all iPhones for the US market to India as the company seeks to reduce its reliance on a Chinese manufacturing base amid Donald Trump’s trade war.The $3tn (£2.3tn) technology company aims to make the shift as soon as next year, the Financial Times reported.Apple has been swept up in Trump’s aggressive tariff policies, with the iPhone maker at one point among the biggest stock market casualties because of the prospect of its Chinese-made products being hit with a hefty import tax when they reach the US.However, the blow was softened by a White House decision to exclude smartphones from the heaviest Chinese tariffs, although Apple is still exposed to a 20% levy on all Chinese goods as part of the US president’s response to China’s role in producing Fentanyl

Elon Musk’s xAI accused of pollution over Memphis supercomputer

Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence (AI) company is stirring controversy in Memphis, Tennessee. That’s where he’s building a massive supercomputer to power his company xAI. Community residents and environmental activists say that since the supercomputer was fired up last summer it has become one of the biggest air polluters in the county. But some local officials have championed the billionaire, saying he is investing in Memphis.The first public hearing with the health department is scheduled for Friday, where county officials will hear from all sides of the debate