 |
|
|
|||||
The French government is saying au revoir to Microsoft Teams and Zoom as it embraces a home-grown alternative. By next year, civil servants across all departments will have switched to French videoconference platform Visio, as EuroNews reports.As with Teams and Zoom, Visio has an AI-powered transcription tool. Visio runs on a French company's cloud infrastructure as well. The platform has around 40,000 users and it's been in testing for the last year. The government expects the switch to help reduce costs by as much as 1 million ($1.2 million) each year for every 100,000 users.The decision to ditch Microsoft Teams and Zoom is part of a broader effort to rely less on foreign software services particularly US ones. Under the Suite Numérique project, France also plans to jettison the likes of Gmail and Slack for government use. "The aim is to end the use of non-European solutions and guarantee the security and confidentiality of public electronic communications by relying on a powerful and sovereign tool," David Amiel, minister for the civil service and state reform, said. "This strategy highlights France's commitment to digital sovereignty amid rising geopolitical tensions and fears of foreign surveillance or service disruptions."This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/the-french-government-is-ditching-zoom-and-microsoft-teams-for-a-home-grown-alternative-184747010.html?src=rss
Category:
Marketing and Advertising
TikTok has reached a settlement in a closely-watched lawsuit over social media addiction, narrowly avoiding a trial that's scheduled to begin jury selection Tuesday. Terms of the deal, which was reported by The New York Times, weren't disclosed. TikTok's settlement comes about one week after Snap reached a settlement in the same case. The trial is expected to move forward in Los Angeles with Meta and YouTube as the only defendants. Mark Lanier, a lawyer for the plaintiff, said in a statement to NYT that they were "pleased" with the settlement and that it was "a good resolution." TikTok didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. The trial stems from a 2023 lawsuit brought by a California woman known in court documents as "K.G.M." She sued Meta, Snap, TikTok and YouTube and alleged that their platforms were addictive and had harmed her as a child. The judge in the case previously ordered the companies' executives, including Mark Zuckerberg and Adam Mosseri, to testify. YouTube's top exec, Neal Mohan, is also likely to testify, according to The New York Times. The lawsuit is the first among several high-profile cases against social media companies to go to trial this year. Meta is expected to head to court in New Mexico in early February in a case brought by the state's attorney general, who has alleged that Facebook and Instagram have facilitated harm to children. TikTok and Snap are collectively facing more than a dozen other trials in California courts this year.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/tiktok-settles-to-avoid-major-social-media-addiction-lawsuit-183943927.html?src=rss
Category:
Marketing and Advertising
Amazon is rethinking its grocery business, and as part of that, it will shut down all of its remaining Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh physical stores. The company will convert some locations into Whole Foods Market stores. "While we've seen encouraging signals in our Amazon-branded physical grocery stores, we haven't yet created a truly distinctive customer experience with the right economic model needed for large-scale expansion," the company wrote in a blog post. Amazon added that it would help workers at Go and Fresh stores to find positions elsewhere within the company.For now, Amazon is focusing its grocery efforts on Fresh deliveries, Amazon Now (a 30-minutes-or-less delivery option it recently introduced to compete with DoorDash and Instacart) and Whole Foods. It plans to open more than 100 new Whole Foods Market stores over the next few years. Amazon also says it will introduce new types of physical locations in the coming years. One concept it's considering is a "supercenter" that would offer a broad selection of goods from Amazon, including household items, groceries and "general merchandise." I dunno, that just sounds like a supermarket to me.Meanwhile, the checkout-less Just Walk Out tech that the company implemented in Go and Fresh stores is still in use at third-party locations, including hospital cafeterias and sports arenas. Amazon has also deployed it in break rooms in dozens of its warehouses to help "employees maximize break time by grabbing meals without checkout delays." Its definitely not to keep closer tabs on workers, Im sure.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general/amazon-go-and-fresh-stores-are-closing-as-amazon-focuses-on-grocery-delivery-and-whole-foods-180448412.html?src=rss
Category:
Marketing and Advertising
All news |
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||