Technology News

PALO ALTO, Calif. (AP) — Tesla says it delivered 241,300 electric vehicles in the third quarter even as it wrestled with a global shortage of computer chips that has hit the entire auto industry.

The Palo Alto, California, company’s sales from July through September beat Wall Street estimates of 227,000 sales worldwide, according to data provider FactSet.

Third-quarter sales rose 72% over the 140,000 deliveries Tesla made for the same period a year ago.

So far this year, Tesla has sold around 627,300 vehicles. That puts it on pace to soundly beat last year’s total of 499,550.

Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives wrote in a note to investors that the pace of electric vehicle deliveries in the U.S. and China has been strong for the past month or so. That means an “eye-popping growth trajectory heading into 4Q and 2022 for (CEO Elon) Musk & Co.”

Still, Ives estimated that the chip shortage will knock 40,000 vehicles from Tesla’s annual delivery number. He estimates the deliveries to be at least 865,000 vehicles, with a bull case of around 900,000.

“In a nutshell, with chip shortage headwinds, China demand still recovering from earlier this year, and EV competition coming from all angles, Tesla’s ability to navigate these challenges this quarter have been very impressive,” he wrote.

In the third quarter, the smaller Model 3 sedan and Y SUV led the way with 232,025 sales, followed by the larger Models S and X at 9,275. Tesla said it produced 237,823 vehicles for the quarter.

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LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari says he has directed the lifting of the ban on Twitter’s operations in Nigeria but only if certain conditions are met including Twitter’s “positive” use and registration in the West African nation.

Buhari told the country of more than 200 million people in an Independence Day broadcast Friday that a government team has had “extensive engagements” with Twitter and following that, “the issues are being addressed and I have directed that the suspension be lifted but only if the conditions are met to allow our citizens continue the use of the platform for business and positive engagements.”

Nigeria suspended Twitter’s operation on June 4, citing “the persistent use of the platform for activities that are capable of undermining Nigeria’s corporate existence.” The action triggered criticisms and concerns that Buhari’s action could be a replay of the clampdown on free speech which played out in the 1980s during his regime as Nigeria’s military ruler.

The ban was announced shortly after the social media network deleted a post by Buhari in which he threatened to treat separatists “in the language they will understand,” though Nigerian officials have denied that the deleted post was what prompted their action.

The action to suspend Twitter’s operation in Nigeria shows Buhari’s government “prefers authoritarianism to democracy,” according to Idayat Hassan of the West Africa-focused Centre for Democracy and Development.

Many Nigerians, mostly young people, have been finding a way around the ban by turning to virtual private network (VPN) apps, but many corporate entities and businesses — some of which the Nigerian economy relies on — have complied with the directive.

As the telecommunications access blockade continues so it has had an economic cost for Africa’s most populous country, with more than 64 million young people. According to NetBlocks, which estimates the cost of internet shutdowns worldwide, Nigeria could be losing N103.1 million ($251,000) in every hour of the blockade, which has now lasted more than 100 days.

In addition to registering and paying tax in Nigeria, Buhari said some of the other conditions upon which telecommunications companies will once again grant access to Twitter in Nigeria are “national security” and local content on the social network.

He did not explain how that will play out but added that the country remains committed to “ensuring that digital companies use their platform to enhance the lives of our citizens, respect Nigeria’s sovereignty, cultural values and promote online safety.”

A West African court, which had restrained the Nigerian government from prosecuting people still using Twitter, has adjourned until January 2022 for a decision on the matter.

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MOBILE, Ala. (AP) — An Alabama woman whose 9-month-old daughter died has filed suit against the hospital where she was born claiming it did not disclose that its computer systems had been crippled by a cyberattack, which resulted in diminished care that resulted in the baby’s death.

Springhill Medical Center was deep in the midst of a ransomware attack when Nicko Silar was born July 17, 2019, and the resulting failure of electronic devices meant a doctor could not properly monitor the child’s condition during delivery, according to the lawsuit by Teiranni Kidd, the child’s mother.

Left with severe brain injuries and other problems, the baby died last year after months of intensive care at another hospital.

The lawsuit, initially filed in Mobile County in 2019 while Nicko was still alive, was first reported by The Wall Street Journal on Thursday.

The malpractice lawsuit, which seeks an unspecified amount of money from the hospital and Dr. Katelyn Braswell Parnell, who delivered Nicko, contends Springhill did not reveal the severity of the cyberattack publicly or to Kidd. The woman “would have gone to a different and safer hospital for labor and delivery” had she known what was going on, it claims.

Springhill has denied wrongdoing and asked a judge to dismiss the most serious part of the lawsuit, which contends officials conspired to publicly create a “false, misleading, and deceptive narrative” about the cyberattack in a scheme that made the child’s delivery unsafe.

The hospital claimed any blame lies with Parnell, who “was fully aware of the inaccessibility of the relevant systems, including those in the labor and delivery unit, and yet determined that (Kidd) could safely deliver her at Springhill.” Under Alabama law, the hospital did not have any legal duty to provide Kidd with details of the cyberattack, the hospital argued.

Parnell and her medical group, Bay Area Physicians for Women, denied she did anything that hurt Nicko or caused the child’s injuries and death.

Springhill released a public statement about the cyberattack the day before the child was born saying staff “has continued to safely care for our patients and will continue to provide the high quality of service that our patients deserve and expect,” WKRG-TV reported at the time.

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FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — Shareholders in Daimler AG, maker of Mercedes-Benz luxury cars, on Friday approved the spinoff of the company’s truck division, a move intended to let the world’s largest maker of trucks react faster to change and focus on the new low-emission technologies transforming the automotive industry.

The voting at an online shareholder meeting also means that Stuttgart-based Daimler will rename itself as Mercedes-Benz Group AG as of Feb. 1, 2022.

Daimler CEO Ola Kallenius said that “by unlocking the full potential of both companies, we are establishing two undisputed innovation leaders who will set the pace in the transformation of their industries.”

One reason for the spinoff is that the luxury cars and trucks are pursuing different technological approaches to developing zero local emission vehicles, with Mercedes-Benz focusing on battery-powered cars while the truck business is developing hydrogen powered vehicles for long-haul transport. The move is intended to let the separate companies make faster, more independent decisions in a rapidly shifting environment and serve distinct customer bases.

The company says luxury cars and big trucks are fundamentally different businesses. The Mercedes-Benz car division sells a luxury product to well-heeled consumers, while the truck division sells big-ticket goods to businesses focused on the return on their investment. Splitting the two businesses will, Daimler hopes, reduce what it calls a conglomerate discount — meaning the two companies would be worth more separately than they are together.

Daimler Truck is testing the GenH2 long-haul truck which uses liquid hydrogen to generate electric power from a fuel cell; the vehicle could be ready for use by 2027 if the hydrogen fuel infrastructure is ready. Hydrogen trucks will be needed because increasing numbers of electric vehicles put more pressure on the electricity grid as tougher emission standards in Europe aimed at fighting climate change mandate larger numbers of electric cars. “Europe needs a hydrogen economy,” said Daimler Truck CEO Martin Daum.

Daimler Truck includes Freightliner trucks made in Cleveland, North Carolina, Mt. Holly, North Carolina and Santiago Tianguistenco, Mexico, as well as its North American headquarters and styling and test centers in Portland, Oregon.

The spinoff was approved by 99.9% of represented capital, and the renaming by 99.9%, with 56.4% of share capital represented at the meeting.

Shareholders in Daimler are to get one share in Daimler Truck Holding AG for every two shares they hold, giving them 65% of the new company. Daimler will keep a minority interest of 35%. The company expects that the listing will take place later this year on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.

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Nineteen-year-old Gigi Painter hopes Facebook’s planned “Instagram Kids” never becomes a reality.

Growing up in a small Ohio town, Painter said she and most of her friends created Instagram accounts by lying about their ages years before they turned 13.

She recalls constant pressure to post good photos that would garner lots of “likes” or positive comments. And then there was the ever-present threat of bullying on the platform. Some people at her school would create anonymous Instagram accounts where they’d upload photos of other students with mean or sexualized captions.

She isn’t alone. An unlikely alliance of congressional Democrats and Republicans, along with a host of child development experts and online advocacy groups, is now pressuring Facebook to scuttle Instagram Kids, a proposed service for tweens. Their reasoning could be summarized this way: A company that cannot keep human trafficking, hate speech and the live-streaming of suicides off its platform should not be trusted with making an app for children.

“This is serious,” said Painter, who can rattle off all the social media accounts she has on her phone. “People are basing their whole view of themselves off of the feedback they get from a picture.”

Instagram, a small but beloved photo sharing app when Facebook bought it for $1 billion in 2012, is having its Facebook moment. It’s not an enviable one. Damning newspaper reports based on the company’s own research found that Facebook knew about the harms Instagram can cause to teenagers — especially teen girls — when it comes to mental health and body image issues.

In a swift PR offensive, Facebook tried to play down the reports — including its own research. It didn’t work.

On Thursday, senators — one from each side of the aisle — called the first of several hearings on the subject. Antigone Davis, Facebook’s head of global safety, defended Instagram’s efforts to protect young people using its platform, insisting that Facebook cares “deeply about the safety and security of the people on our platform.”

The Senate Commerce Subcommittee is is examining how Facebook handled information from its own researchers on Instagram’s potential threat to younger users while the company publicly played down the issue.

The episode threatens to rival the scale of Facebook’s 2018 Cambridge Analytica debacle. Revelations at the time showed that the data mining firm had gathered details on as many as 87 million Facebook users without their permission, eventually leading to congressional hearings in which Facebook CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg testified for the first time.

But the Cambridge Analytica scandal was complicated and hard to follow. During those hearings, some lawmakers didn’t seem to have even a basic understanding on how social media works.

Thursday’s hearing showed that they’ve done some homework. The fallout could put an end to the tech company’s plan for a children’s product — and might even spur lawmakers to regulate the company, if only they can agree on how.

“It’s abundantly clear that Facebook views the events of the last two weeks purely as a PR problem,” said Josh Golin, executive director of the children’s online watchdog group Fairplay. The group, formerly known as the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, doesn’t take money from Facebook or other corporations, unlike the nonprofits Facebook tends to bring in for expert advice on its products.

There is a good side to children’s use of the internet, said Dr. Nusheen Ameenuddin, chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Council on Communications and Media. It can be a great place for kids to talk with friends during a pandemic lockdown, explore a museum virtually or even make money as budding influencers.

But some of her pediatric patients have endured harassment or spend too much time scrolling through an endless stream of photos on apps like Instagram.

That’s why she and other pediatricians want Facebook to do a better job of making sure young kids don’t find their way onto sites like Instagram. And they want legislators to pass regulations on how tech companies can advertise to kids.

“I understand they’re a businesses,” Ameenuddin said. “(But) we don’t have to exploit the most vulnerable members of society.”

Legislators have failed to regulate the tech companies in a meaningful way, despite dozens of hearings in recent years in which politicians publicly assailed Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter for making big money off of Americans’ data and privacy.

But Facebook had a harder time defending itself on Thursday to a U.S. senators who came prepared with research and tough questions, noted Brooke Erin Duffy, a communications professor at Cornell University. The hearing was starkly different from the Senate’s 2018 grilling of Zuckerberg in which senators asked him basic questions — like how Facebook makes money.

“The focus on protecting children may be much more of a catalyst for regulation than other concerns and criticisms,” Duffy said. “The senators deployed this knowledge of big tech in a way that I don’t think we’ve seen before.”

Roger McNamee, an early Facebook investor who is now one of the company’s biggest critics, said it’s important to remember how Instagram got its start. It was a photo sharing app, born in 2010 when smartphone cameras were pretty lousy by today’s standards, its creators added photo filters so people could make them look better.

“The culture was from the start making things look better than in real life,” McNamee said. “This created an entire culture of envy that was the original design of the product and they leaned into it every step of the way. Think about the whole influencer movement that began on Instagram. All that was designed for that envy model.”

“We need to recognize, just as we did with food and pharma and chemicals that this industry cannot operate safely without regulation,” McNamee said. “We are running out of time.”

Now a college student, Painter says she cares less now about getting “likes” on Instagram. But she worries about younger relatives who seem anxious to post perfect pictures on the platform. Looking back on how Instagram was used when she went to school, she hopes it’s different for them.

“Oh gosh, I don’t want them to have to experience a lot of that stuff,” Painter said.

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