October 2024

AI manifestos flood the tech zone

Writing a manifesto predicting a glorious AI-driven future has become a mandatory ritual for artificial intelligence (AI) leaders. The compulsion to share utopian AI roadmaps might mean that these CEOs and investors see breakthroughs right around the corner in their lab—and they want to make sure the world knows just how close we are to nirvana.

Q Link Wireless Pleads Guilty to Defrauding Lifeline Program

Issa Asad, 51, of Southwest Ranches (FL), and Q Link Wireless LLC, of Dania Beach (FL), pleaded guilty to conspiring to defraud and commit offenses against the United States in connection with a years-long scheme to steal over $100 million from the Federal Communications Commission's Lifeline program. Asad, Q Link’s CEO, also pleaded guilty to laundering money from a separate scheme to defraud a different federal program meant to aid individuals and businesses hurt by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Build America Buy America: Companies Self-Certify Domestic Production for the BEAD Program

The U.S. Department of Commerce released the first version of this Self Certification list, which allows manufacturers who have invested in domestic manufacturing to voluntarily ‘certify’—at the risk of federal penalty—that certain equipment they make meets the domestic manufacturing requirement listed in the Build America, Buy America (BABA) waiver for the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program. This list is a direct response from manufacturer feedback that NTIA heard during the c