A group of U.S. state attorneys general launched a multistate investigation into TikTok's impact on young people's mental and physical health. The announcement comes after President Biden emphasized the issue at his State of the Union Address on Tuesday, urging Congress to pass laws that rein in targeted advertising to children and strengthen privacy rules to keep them safe online. More: - The AGs will look into whether TikTok has violated state consumer protection laws, putting the public at risk.
- They said the investigation will examine if TikTok's design, operations, and/or marketing negatively impact the health of young people.
- This includes the video platform's methods for boosting user engagement, including efforts to increase how long users spend on the platform; and how much it knows about its harmful effects.
- Leading the probe are AGs from California, Florida, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Jersey, Tennessee, and Vermont.
- The same group launched a similar investigation into Meta last year to examine the impacts of Facebook and Instagram on children's safety.
- Dozens of state AGs have placed pressure on Meta to abandon its plans for a kids' version of Instagram, which the company has paused for now.
- Instagram announced new tools to keep young people safe, including "take a break" reminders and stricter recommendation guidelines, in December.
CNBC 
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Ukraine's government has scrapped plans for a “crypto airdrop” and will instead sell NFTs to support its armed forces, according to tweets from a deputy prime minister. The government has raised an estimated $40M worth of cryptocurrency from about 74,000 donors since the Russian invasion started last week. More: - The promotional airdrop would have transferred digital tokens directly into users' wallets, though Ukraine never specified who would receive the gifts.
- Those plans are now canceled and the country is planning to sell NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, to raise funds directly for the army and citizens, according to deputy PM Mykhailo Fedorov, who is also minister of digital transformation.
- The government is preparing "Ukrainian-style images and 3D models" for the NFTs.
- Fedorov stressed that the nation has no plans to issue any fungible tokens, such as Bitcoin.
- Nonfungible assets differ in that they are unique and non-divisible.
- A Dune Analytics dashboard is currently tracking crypto donations to Ukraine.
COINDESK
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 A message from MALWAREBYTES Secure success for 2022 with AI-powered cyberprotection. Remote workforces continue to raise security concerns for businesses. Remote workforces make easy targets for cybercriminals. - 1 out of 5 businesses experienced a remote-worker related security breach
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 Electric vehicle startup Rivian has reversed its planned price increase for already-ordered trucks and SUVs following customer complaints. The company initially planned to bump up the selling prices of vehicles by about 20% to cope with rising component and material costs. More: - Rivian R1T electric pickup would have gone up to $79,500, from $67,500. Its R1S SUV would have cost $84,500, up from $70,000.
- Preorders made as of March 1 will now return to the original price and customers who canceled their orders can reinstate them, CEO RJ Scaringe said.
- The company "wrongly" chose to apply the price increases to existing orders instead of honoring the purchase terms, Scaringe acknowledged in a letter to clients.
- "We need to plan production costs not only for today, but also for the future," he said.
- Since 2018, average prices for new vehicles in the U.S. have risen more than 30%, the CEO noted.
THE VERGE
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 The U.S. surgeon general is asking major tech companies to turn in data about the spread of COVID-19 misinformation on their social networks, messenger apps, search engines, and more. Dr. Vivek Murthy requested the sources of the misinformation, how many users were exposed, and data on demographics showing what groups may have been disproportionately affected. More: - The platforms have until May 2 to comply, though denying the information requests won't carry a penalty, the New York Times reported.
- Murthy has also asked the public and healthcare providers to submit information showing how COVID-19 misinformation has negatively impacted their communities and patients.
- This could include original research, datasets, and personal stories, Murthy said.
- In July, the surgeon general issued an advisory calling on tech platforms to better monitor disinformation and redesign their algorithms, which he said pull people "deeper and deeper" into the well of disinformation.
THE NEW YORK TIMES
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 A message from LABELBOX Building labeling operations into your core MLOps strategy As more ML teams shift their focus from iterating on models to improving the quality of their training data, labeling operations is becoming a central aspect of their broader MLOps strategy. Creating, managing, and maintaining an efficient labeling pipeline that produces high-quality training data is no easy task. Teams without the right people, processes, and tools in place will likely struggle to generate the training data they need at a cost-effective rate. In this guide, you’ll learn about: - Key labeling operations roles that will benefit every ML team
- Tips to finding the best labeling vendors for your use cases
- Every labeling metric your team should track to ensure quality and efficiency
- How to scale up your labeling operations as your projects change over time
Download the Guide
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 Amazon will close all 68 of its Amazon Books, Amazon 4-Star, and Amazon Pop Up physical shops in the U.S. and U.K. to focus on its grocery and fashion stores and the technology behind them. More: - Amazon launched its first book store in Seattle in 2015 and now has 24 bookstores in the U.S.
- Its 30+ Amazon 4-Star stores sell general merchandise rated four-stars or higher.
- Since 2019, the company has been closing mall-focused Pop Up stores, which feature rotating theme products.
Zoom-out: - Its Whole Foods and Amazon Fresh grocery stores, and Amazon Go convenience stores, will all remain open.
- The company plans to open its first high-tech clothing store, called Amazon Style, in southern California later this year.
- The store will use Amazon's palm-scanning payment system, algorithms to recommend clothing, and touchscreen displays for requesting and rating items.
- Meanwhile, a newly opened Whole Foods store in Washington, D.C. is the first to be equipped with Amazon's cashierless "Just Walk Out" technology.
THE SEATTLE TIMES
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Google employees in the Bay Area and several other locations have been asked to return to physical offices on April 4 under a hybrid work plan. The company said most employees will work from the office about three days a week, though they can request permission to work remotely. More: - In announcing the return-to-office plans, Google global benefits VP John Casey cited the gradual ease of COVID-19 cases in the Bay Area, as well as improved safety measures and treatments.
- Bay Area employees who are fully vaccinated won't be required to wear masks.
- Workers who are unvaccinated and don't have an exemption can either get a vaccine or apply to work from home permanently.
- Google delayed its return-to-office plans, originally scheduled for Jan. 10, amid the Omicron surge. It has since allowed vaccinated employees to come into its Mountain View and San Francisco offices if they choose to.
Other tech companies' plans: - Microsoft reopened its Washington state and California Bay Area offices on Feb. 28 and is giving employees a 30-day transition period to adopt their own hybrid working models.
- Meta is requiring most U.S. employees to return to offices on March 28.
- Twitter's San Francisco and New York City offices are now open but its employees are allowed to work from home as long as they want.
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
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 |  | Beth is an Inside Analyst and a former public policy/investigative reporter. She has covered AI, VR, technology, and e-commerce for Inside. When she's not busy writing, she's hiking in Arizona's desert, playing pickleball, or trying out new Mexican food recipes. |   | | Editor | Eduardo Garcia is a writer and editor based in New York. He is writing an illustrated book about climate change that will be published by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of Penguin Random House. Bylines in The New York Times, The Guardian, Slate, Scientific American, and others. In one of his previous lives, Eduardo worked as a Reuters correspondent in Latin America for nearly a decade. | |
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Labelbox is a training data platform designed to increase model performance faster and with less data. | |
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