Today’s cache | Challenges of working at Apple | Photo credit: REUTERS
(This article is part of Today’s Cache, The Hindu’s newsletter on emerging themes at the intersection of technology, innovation and politics. To receive it in your inbox, subscribe here.)
Apple’s work challenges
The US National Labor Relations Board accused Apple of trying to prevent employees from discussing their salaries, in addition to forcing an employee who compiled information on these statistics to resign. According to the complaint, Apple blocked its employees from using a Slack channel to talk about pay equity as well as a policy providing financial incentives for sales targets.
Apple disagrees with the allegations and said it would share more information at a hearing. In particular, engineer Cher Scarlett – who was reportedly forced to resign for leading a speech on salaries and collecting employee salary information via a survey – and her legal team are seeking to hold Apple accountable for what they claim to be labor rights violations.
Russian trolls target US elections
US intelligence agencies have debunked a video showing a man pretending to be an immigrant claiming he was carrying out voter fraud to help Vice President Kamala Harris win the election. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said the video was fake and attributed it to the fact that it might be the work of Russian trolls.
Many digital advocates and even big tech companies like Microsoft have warned of foreign interference in the 2024 US elections, with the aim of widening existing divisions between citizens, persuading voters to choose favorable candidates to their own regime or trigger civil unrest on the ground. Many of these foreign agents or networks exploit popular social media platforms and pose as U.S. sources.
Microsoft AI users in India
Puneet Chandok, president of Microsoft India and South Asia, said that instead of seeing technology spending decline in the country, people were increasingly interested in the company’s AI tools such as Copilot. Chandok noted that India was among the fastest growing regions for Microsoft, and observed that general sentiment toward AI had shifted in a more optimistic direction.
Chandok also reiterated the company’s commitment to comply with Indian regulations in the development and commercialization of AI products. Microsoft aims to work with India to create an “AI-first” nation, or a nation with a skilled workforce using AI across all sectors.
Published – November 4, 2024 at 11:42 AM IST
