Growing interest in artificial intelligence systems will drive a $59.8 billion market globally by 2025, up from $1.4 billion last year, said a Tuesday Tractica report, a revision to a Q3 report updated to reflect a “greater-than-anticipated pace of change in the market." Applications cross the consumer, automotive, advertising, finance, healthcare and aerospace sectors, as companies look for ways to leverage advanced data analytics, vision, and language capabilities for improved business processes and new business models, said the research firm. Analyst Aditya Kaul called AI “the next big technological shift,” comparing it to the industrial revolution, the computer age and the "smartphone revolution."

Steven Chase, who the FBI said was the creator and lead administrator of the child porn website Playpen hosted on the Tor network, was sentenced to 30 years in prison, DOJ announced. The 58-year-old Chase -- found guilty in September of engaging in a child exploitation enterprise and advertising, transporting and possessing child pornography -- also was given a lifetime term of supervised release and ordered to forfeit his residence in Naples, Florida, the Monday release said. After Chase was arrested in February 2015, the FBI seized the website and deployed a "network investigative technique," which some experts said is a euphemism for malware, to hack into website visitors' computers and over about two weeks get information such as their IP addresses. Some privacy organizations said the FBI's action were illegal because the government used a search warrant that illegally permitted extraterritorial searches and seizures (see 1702100005 and 1610250049). "As a result of the ongoing investigation, at least 350 U.S.-based individuals have been arrested, 25 producers of child pornography have been prosecuted, 51 alleged hands-on abusers have been prosecuted and 55 American children who were subjected to sexual abuse have been successfully identified or rescued," said DOJ. Chase's two co-defendants each were sentenced to 20 years in prison earlier this year, added Justice.

News Corp.'s Storyful, a social news and marketing company, and analytics firm Moat are launching an initiative to fight fake news and curb the spread of extremist content, the firms said in a Tuesday news release. To help agencies, brands and platforms make better decisions where they can place advertising, the Open Brand Safety framework, in partnership with the City University of New York (CUNY) journalism school, will create a database of web domains and video URLs identified as intentionally spreading misinformation and extremism, the release said. "This initiative represents a prime opportunity to offer partners safe spaces for their stories. We have to help stop the faux, flawed and fraudulent content creators before they proliferate further," said Storyful CEO Rahul Chopra. Moat provides analytics on ad campaigns for advertisers and publishers and is being acquired by Oracle, the company said two weeks ago. The framework includes partner ad firms GroupM and Weber Shandwick, with plans to bring on more such companies. Jeff Jarvis, who directs CUNY's Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism, said: "My long-term hope is Storyful and Moat will support a flight to quality, helping advertisers and platforms not only avoid fraudulent content but support credible and trustworthy media." Jarvis is also advising Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales' new Wikitribune to also fight fake news (see 1704260042).

Cisco plans to pay $610 million cash to acquire Viptela, a software-defined wide area network company, in a deal expected to close in second-half 2017, Cisco said in a Monday news release. The deal requires customary closing conditions and regulatory review, Cisco said.

The Maine director for Donald Trump's presidential campaign launched a group targeting Silicon Valley executives and the "radical tech-left," saying in a Monday news release they used their "wealth and political influence" to take control of the internet, "erode the public's internet freedoms and wage war on alternative media." Founded by Christie-Lee McNally, Free Our Internet, a self-described "citizens" group, said it will support free expression and online speech, protect diverse ideas, and oppose government actions that limit internet openness and transparency. The nonprofit doesn't have any funding now, emailed spokesman Chad Wilkinson, who's also spokesman for Breitbart News Network, but it has been in discussions with other interested nonprofits and foundations, expects to have support shortly and will list financial supporters on its website. In its release and website, the group said Facebook, Google, and philanthropist and Democratic activist George Soros orchestrated a "secretive" campaign to pass FCC rules on net neutrality in 2015. Soros's firm didn't comment.

Denso and Toshiba are collaborating on IoT-based manufacturing, advanced driver assistance and autonomous driving initiatives, the companies announced Friday. The efforts will combine Denso’s manufacturing capability and Toshiba’s image recognition, IoT, artificial intelligence and software development technologies, they said. The companies jointly developed automotive lithium-ion battery packs and software for electronic control units.

Amazon highlighted Alexa launches and updates in its Q1 earnings release after markets closed Thursday, including the $179 Echo Look, a video version of the Echo speaker that’s billed as a shopping assistant to help users “look your best” by combining machine learning with advice from “fashion specialists.” The device also gives news, weather and traffic alerts. Amazon released an over-the-air software update for Amazon Tap, a portable version of the Echo, enabling the speaker to be controlled by voice rather than a tap on the microphone button, said the company. The Alexa Skills store has more than 12,000 skills, including ordering from GrubHub, listening to content from NPR, asking WebMD health-related questions and 300 smart home skills, it said. Net sales jumped 23 percent to $35.7 billion over Q1 2016, and net income rose to $724 million from $513 million. Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter repeated an “outperform” rating on Amazon in a research note to investors, lowering FY 2017 revenue estimates to $168.1 billion, from $168.6 billion. Wedbush raised operating income estimates to reflect lower Amazon Web Services revenue, which was offset by better gross margin as Fulfilled by Amazon growth “continues unabated,” Pachter said. Barclays said in a research note Amazon Web Services Q1 growth was “ahead of expectations considering the concern around the 3-month impact of price cuts.” Shares closed up 6.6 percent Friday to $924.99.

Government requests to Facebook globally for user account information rose to 64,279 for the second half of 2016, up 9 percent from the first six months of last year, said Chris Sonderby, deputy general counsel, in a Thursday blog post. "About half of the data requests we received from law enforcement in the US contained a non-disclosure order that prohibited us from notifying the user." Content restrictions for violating local law declined to 6,944 globally, a 28 percent drop compared with the first half of 2016, he said. Its two prior reports (see 1612210046 and 1604280039), he said, showed more restrictions due to a single image from a 2015 terrorist attack in Paris. Sonderby said Facebook applies a "rigorous approach" to government requests and it never provides "back doors" or direct access to user data. He said the New York State Court of Appeals, the state's highest court, rejected the company's challenge to nearly 400 search warrants seeking to access user accounts for a fraud investigation (see 1701170015). "While the court in New York recognized that our case raised 'novel and important substantive issues,' it found that the lower court’s order denying our challenge was 'nonappealable,' and declined to review it further," said Sonderby without naming the courts. He also said the "slow and cumbersome" process to handle cross-border requests for data needs to be changed.

Identity theft and data breaches are becoming more prevalent, raising costs for individuals and businesses, and there's some evidence firms are increasing data security defenses, said FTC Economics Bureau Director Ginger Zhe Jin during a keynote at a George Mason University Scalia Law School event Friday. She said there's "still an underestimation of the actual harm of data breach to the whole society" because when firms aren't blamed for certain ID theft incidents as a result of their data practices, they're not incorporating that into their expenses. Jin talked about the fundamental economic concerns in privacy and data security, pros and cons to consumers and potential policy tools. When a consumer shares his or her personal data with a seller, the flow doesn't stop there because the seller can share that data with its partners like data brokers who may offer a product or service back to that consumer, she said. She called sharing data beyond the "focal transaction" as "persistent effects." This includes data that can potentially be leaked or stolen by criminals. Through these transactions with sellers, some consumers may be better off in terms of prices and offerings while others will be worse off, she said: Persistent effects are what concerns her and deserve more consideration from economists. Third-party sharing can produce new product offerings and services and benefit consumers, she said: When a data breach or ID theft occurs, consumers are at a disadvantage because they may not know who should be blamed, and they may not know how their data is shared and with whom. They also may misunderstand that a company's privacy policy doesn't necessarily mean their data is kept safe, meaning there's a "huge information gap" for consumers, said Jin. She said policymakers have potential tools, including educating stakeholders, enforcing truth telling in privacy policies, directly monitoring firms' real data practices, mandating sellers to disclose their privacy sharing practices, and setting minimum standards for firms that store, use and share data. A cost-benefits analysis is a "no brainer," said Jin. "The question is how to do that. That's the hard part."

Sex toy maker Svakom Design USA emailed that it stopped selling the internet-connected Siime Eye vibrator, which Access Now alleged in a complaint filed with the FTC (see 1704260007) can be easily compromised by a third party. But the product appeared to be available for sale Thursday on the company's site. A Svakom spokesperson said in the email sent Wednesday night that the company still has to review the complaint, which seeks a commission investigation, but it has responded to vulnerability testing and security firm Pen Test Partners that presented research that the complaint is based on. "We have taken some measure based on their report and already posted instruction among the users of Siime Eye on official Social Media and Website," wrote the spokesperson. Among the measures, the spokesperson said, Svakom will provide an updated smartphone app that provides more secure access to the vibrator's embedded camera. The company also said hardware changes will be made so the device can be used only with a smartphone and not with a personal computer.