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Maria Diaz/ZDNET Apple has disabled its most advanced data security feature, Advanced Data Protection (ADP), for UK users following a government request for access to encrypted data. Apple, a staunch opponent of encryption backdoors, chose to disable Advanced Data Protection (ADP) for UK users last Friday. ADP, which provides end-to-end encryption to ensure only account holders can access their iCloud data, is no longer available in the country.  Also: The best VPN services (and how…

“Although $52 billion is a lot of money, every US-based hyper scaler is committing more than this to AI already,” said Hyoun Park, CEO and chief analyst at Amalgam Insights. “AWS is committing roughly $100 billion to new capital expenditures next year, most of which is servers for AI-related use cases. Microsoft plans to spend $80 billion which Satya Nadella has very publicly committed to. And Google has committed roughly $75 billion this year for…

ZDNET Writers are persnickety creatures. George R.R. Martin wrote all of the Game of Thrones books using DOS and the WordStar word processor — both artifacts from the 1980s. But when it comes to fussiness about their tools, writers of words don’t hold a candle to writers of code. Also: Brace yourself: The era of ‘citizen developers’ creating apps is here, thanks to AI We coders are extremely particular about the coding environments and setups we…

Because of the strain that data centers (as well as other electrification sources, such as electric vehicles) are putting on the grid, “the data center industry needs to develop new power supply strategies to support growth plans,” Dietrich said. Here are the underling factors that play into the three strategies outlined by Uptime. Scale creates new opportunities: It’s not just that more data centers are being built, but the data centers under construction are fundamentally…

This, the company said, “allows us to invest and allocate resources to growth areas for our future. Our plans to spend over $80 billion on infrastructure this fiscal year remains on track as we continue to grow at a record pace to meet customer demand.” When asked for his reaction to the findings, John Annand, infrastructure and operations research practice lead at Info-Tech Research Group, pointed to a blog released last month by Microsoft president…

Jason Hiner/ZDNET Amazon has discounted several Mac Mini M4 builds as part of a new series of unexpected deals. You can purchase the compact desktop for as low as $549 although this price drop only applies to the 16GB RAM/256GB SSD model. If you want more storage space, the Mac Mini M4 with the 512GB SSD has seen a 10% discount, going from $799 to $719. There’s also a third M4 build with 512GB SSD and…

NurPhoto/Getty Images The consequences of Meta’s recent content moderation change are starting to reveal themselves. Last month, Meta announced it would roll back its fact-checking program on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads starting this spring in favor of a Community Notes approach, where individual users volunteer to comment on posts with additional context or differing information. As with X’s Community Notes program, the requirements for what volunteers need to include in a note are slim compared…

CNET/ZDNET Live TV streaming services were designed to disrupt the cable monopoly. And for a while, it looked like the plan was working. Cable companies, no longer blessed with monopoly power, are losing millions of customers every year. But the cord-cutting alternatives that were supposed to save us have been raising prices steadily, and today the price of a live TV streaming service is nearly as high as one of those old cable bills. Also: Bye…

Maria Diaz/ZDNET Amazon has been focused on bringing generative AI to Alexa for the past few years, hitting multiple delays in launching new features that the company first announced in September 2023. The delayed Alexa 2.0 seems poised for a 2025 release, as evidenced by the surprise Devices and Services event Amazon is hosting this week. Amid rumors of Alexa 2.0 shortcomings, Amazon skipped its 2024 Devices and Services event, where the company typically announces new Alexa…