Plus: Most Americans think China uses TikTok to sway public opinion, survey shows.
| For May 01, 2024 |  |
| Here’s a look at today's tech briefing: - UnitedHealth CEO criticized over major hack.
- Most Americans think China uses TikTok to sway public opinion, survey shows.
- Amazon reports record Q1 profit.
- LinkedIn debuts free puzzle games.
- Anthropic launches chatbot app for iPhones.
Beth
p/beth-duckett | |
| 1 | | UnitedHealth Group paid a $22M ransom to hackers following a cyberattack on its subsidiary Change Healthcare, CEO Andrew Witty confirmed. During a Senate hearing today, legislators criticized UnitedHealth's response to the attack, which immobilized the U.S. healthcare system earlier this year. More: - During today's testimony, Witty said hackers used stolen login credentials to remotely enter a Citrix portal, allowing remote desktop access.
- The portal lacked multifactor authentication. The company is still investigating why the server lacked this additional protection, he said.
- After gaining access, hackers moved through systems and stole data before deploying ransomware.
- Witty said he made the decision to pay the $22M ransom to BlackCat.
Zoom out: - The BlackCat ransomware group breached Change's computer network in February, causing a shutdown of systems that impacted hospitals and pharmacies for over a week.
- Senators grilled Witty during today's hearing, highlighting security lapses and the risk of exposing sensitive medical data.
- The breach "is a dire warning about the consequences of too-big-to-fail megacorporations gobbling up larger and larger shares of the health-care system," Committee Chairman Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said.
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| 2 | | Nearly 60% of Americans believe China uses TikTok to influence U.S. public opinion, a Reuters/Ipsos poll revealed. The survey also found that 50% of Americans favor banning TikTok, with higher support among those aged 40 and older. 
What happened: Reuters and Ipsos surveyed over 1,000 U.S. adults nationwide in late April. What the numbers show: Around 58% of people said they think China uses TikTok to sway U.S. public opinion, with Republicans more likely than Democrats to hold the view. The poll also found that half of Americans support a TikTok ban, while 32% are against it; the remainder were undecided. Why it matters: Last week, President Biden signed a bill that would force TikTok's Chinese owner ByteDance to divest from its U.S. operations or face a national ban. Both Democrats and Republicans are worried about China's influence on ByteDance, which can by law be forced to surrender U.S. user data to Beijing. Sen. Mark Warner called TikTok a national security risk, warning that it could be used as a Chinese propaganda tool. The other side: TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew says the company will challenge the law in federal court, citing First Amendment violations. The company told U.S. lawmakers that it does "not promote or remove content at the request of the Chinese government." Still: The poll excluded people under 18, who form a big chunk of TikTok's U.S. user base. | | | |
| 3 | | Amazon reported a record Q1 profit on Tuesday, driven by strong performance in cloud computing and advertising. Quarterly revenue rose to $143.3B, a 13% increase YoY, with net income more than tripling to $10.4B. More: - Amazon's ad services, boosted by new ads on Prime Video, grew 24% from last year.
- AWS, its cloud platform, saw revenue rise 17% to $25B.
- Companies upgrading infrastructure and AWS's AI features are boosting the platform's growth, CEO Andy Jassy said.
- He added that AWS reached a $100B annual revenue run rate.
- For the same period, Microsoft's cloud-computing revenue grew by 31% and Alphabet's by 28%.
Zoom out: - Jassy also said almost 60% of Prime orders in March were delivered within a day.
- Amazon now forecasts Q2 net revenue of $140B to $149B, up 7% to 11% from last year.
- The company expects its capital spending to rise this year, primarily to bolster AWS infrastructure and its generative AI efforts.
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| 4 | | LinkedIn debuted three puzzle games on the web for mobile and PC users. The free games are designed to connect users and are available on the LinkedIn Games site. More: - The games include Pinpoint, a word association game; Queens, a logic game blending Sudoku and Minesweeper; and Crossclimb, a trivia game arranging four-letter words in order.
- Players can share their scores and compare them with their LinkedIn connections, as well as view company and school leaderboards.
- Each game can be played only once a day. The service tracks "streaks" to encourage daily player engagement.
Zoom out: - A LinkedIn director said the company's mission is to "connect the world's professionals to make them more productive and successful."
- Companies have been launching games to replicate the success of The New York Times, which acquired Wordle in 2022.
- The Times saw over 8 billion plays of its games last year, with over half from Wordle.
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| 5 | | U.S. AI startup Anthropic launched an iPhone app for its chatbot Claude. The free offering competes with the iOS version of OpenAI's ChatGPT. More: - Anthropic's first smartphone app allows users to chat with Claude and upload photos and files for analysis.
- Conversations will sync with the web-based version of the bot at Claude.ai.
- The company confirmed it's working on an Android version.
- Anthropic released its Claude 3 family of models in March.
Business plan: - Anthropic today also introduced a new subscription plan for companies to give employees access to the chatbot.
- The "Team" plan includes Anthropic's latest Claude models, higher usage limits, admin tools, and a longer context window for processing long documents.
- The offering costs $30 per user per month, with a minimum of five users.
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| 6 | | Amazon Web Services (AWS) has made its AI assistant "Q" generally available to businesses and developers. The chatbot answers employee questions based on a company's data and workflows. More: - Q can also streamline workflows by automating coding, debugging, planning, and data querying.
- The assistant integrates with over 40 data sources like Microsoft 365 and Salesforce.
- Companies can use it to build chatbots from their own data.
Zoom out: - Amazon Q Developer and Amazon Q Business are now generally available.
- The Developer version targets coding, while Q Business lets enterprises tailor the AI assistant to their needs.
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 | AI and technology writer | | Beth is a contributing editor and writer of Inside's AI and Tech newsletters. She has written for publications including USA Today, the Arizona Business Gazette, and The Arizona Republic, where she received recognition with a Pulitzer Prize nomination and a First Amendment Award for collaborative reporting on state pension cost increases. You can reach her at Beth.Duckett@yahoo.com. | | This newsletter was edited by Beth Duckett | |
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