Weekly news roundup: Meta settles lawsuit, Big Tech acquisitions and Boston Scientific cyberattack

This week in tech saw high-profile acquisitions from Google and Nvidia, changes to ChatGPT, a landmark settlement from Meta in the social media addiction case and a cyberattack at Boston Scientific.

Here's what you need to know from the weeks of August 17 and August 24, plus the latest updates in IPOs and executive leadership.

Google buys now-defunct Spirit Airlines data at auction

Google paid $10 million for a cache of data from Spirit Airlines, purchased at a bankruptcy auction.

This trove of data includes 30 million lines of code, 100 million emails, 500 million Microsoft Teams chats, more than 600,000 ServiceNow tickets and other operational data. It also includes more than 3.4 million employee payroll records; however, Google claims that all personally identifiable information will be scrubbed by a third party before receipt.

Google said that it plans to use the purchased data to train its AI models.

ChatGPT can now read and respond to iMessages

OpenAI has just launched a feature that lets ChatGPT read, write and send Apple iMessages. The chatbot will also be able to get information from conversations and summarize them.

Users will need to opt in to this new offering. To turn the feature on, users must be running at least iOS 18.2.

Once ChatGPT is set up, to turn it off, toggle the Use ChatGPT switch to the off position; the toggle will disappear and once again say Setup. You may also disable ChatGPT by turning off Apple Intelligence completely.

Nvidia is reportedly acquiring AI startup Hugging Face for $12.9 billion. Hugging Face is a leading open-source AI platform and community for developers and this acquisition strengthens Nvidia’s AI offering and influence. The deal could give Nvidia a stronger presence in the software and developer side of AI, rather than focusing primarily on the chips and infrastructure that power it.

Meta settles social media addiction case

Meta agreed to pay up to $18 billion to settle a major U.S. case brought by nearly all states over allegations that Facebook and Instagram were designed to encourage addictive use among children and teenagers.

Alongside the financial settlement, Meta have been instructed to make changes to their apps, including screen time limits, stronger age assurance measures and limits on night-time usage.

The company will have to make significant changes to how teenagers use its platforms. The agreement could also put pressure on other social media companies to introduce similar protections and, more broadly, signals growing expectations that platforms take greater responsibility for the wellbeing of their users.

Medical device maker Boston Scientific is dealing with a cyberattack that disrupted its global operations.

The company brought in outside cybersecurity experts to investigate and contain the attack, but has not yet said who was behind the incident, whether any customer data was stolen or when operations can be expected to return to normal.

Boston Scientific shares fell as much as 5.9% on Wednesday, August 26.

The U.S. IPO market remains a key indicator of broader tech sentiment. Here's a look at the latest listings and activity from the past week, based on data from the Nasdaq IPO calendar:

Rosa Heaton is a content manager and writer for the IT Strategy team at TechTarget.

Sarah Amsler is a senior managing editor for the IT Strategy team at TechTarget.