Apple has reversed its decision to limit the functionality of Home Screen web apps in Europe following an outcry from the developer community and the prospect of further investigation. “We have received requests to continue to offer support for Home Screen web apps in iOS, therefore we will continue to offer the existing Home Screen Read more about Apple reverses hissy fit decision to remove Home Screen web apps in EU[…]
As spotted by Linux benchmarking outfit Phoronix, AMD is having problems releasing certain versions of open-source drivers it’s developed for its GPUs – because, according to the Ryzen processor designer, the HDMI Forum won’t allow the code to be released as open source. Specifically, we’re talking about AMD’s FOSS drivers for HDMI 2.1 here. For Read more about HDMI Forum blocks AMD open sourcing drivers due to 2.1[…]
For quite some time now we’ve been pointing out the many harms of age verification technologies, and how they’re a disaster for privacy. In particular, we’ve noted that if you have someone collecting biometric information on people, that data itself becomes a massive risk since it will be targeted. And, remember, a year and a Read more about Scammers Are Now Scanning Faces To Defeat Age verification Biometric Security Measures[…]
Meta will soon begin “collecting anonymized data” from users of its Quest headsets, a move that could see the company aggregating information about hand, body, and eye tracking; camera information; “information about your physical environment”; and information about “the virtual reality events you attend.” In an email sent to Quest users Monday, Meta notes that Read more about Meta will start collecting much more “anonymized” data about Quest headset usage[…]
[…] The scandal started when a student using the alias SquidKid47 posted an image on Reddit showing a campus vending machine error message, “Invenda.Vending.FacialRecognitionApp.exe,” displayed after the machine failed to launch a facial recognition application that nobody expected to be part of the process of using a vending machine. Enlarge / Reddit post shows error Read more about Canadian college M&M Vending machines secretly scanning faces – revealed by error message[…]
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ruled that laws requiring crippled encryption and extensive data retention violate the European Convention on Human Rights – a decision that may derail European data surveillance legislation known as Chat Control. The Court issued a decision on Tuesday stating that “the contested legislation providing for the retention Read more about European human rights court says backdooring encrypted comms is against human rights[…]
23andMe is in a death spiral. Almost everyone who wants a DNA test already bought one, a nightmare data breach ruined the company’s reputation, and 23andMe’s stock is so close to worthless it might get kicked off the Nasdaq. CEO Anne Wojcicki is on a crisis tour, promising investors the company isn’t going out of Read more about 23andMe Thinks ‘Mining’ Your DNA Data Is Its Last Hope[…]
A US judge has dismissed some of the claims made by writers in a copyright infringement lawsuit against OpenAI, though gave the wordsmiths another chance to amend their complaint. The case – Paul Tremblay et al vs OpenAI – kicked off in 2023 when novelists Paul Tremblay, Christopher Golden, and Richard Kadrey, and writer-comedian-actress Sarah Read more about US judge dismisses authors’ ridiculous copyright claim against OpenAI[…]
RUSSIA HAS been at the forefront of internet disinformation techniques at least since 2014, when it pioneered the use of bot farms to spread fake news about its invasion of Crimea. According to French authorities, the Kremlin is at it again. On February 12th Viginum, the French foreign-disinformation watchdog, announced it had detected preparations for Read more about France uncovers a vast Russian disinformation campaign in Europe[…]
[…] the European Council and Parliament have agreed with the proposal to criminalize, among other things, different types of cyber-violence. The proposed rules will criminalize the non-consensual sharing of intimate images, including deepfakes made by AI tools, which could help deter revenge porn. Cyber-stalking, online harassment, misogynous hate speech and “cyber-flashing,” or the sending of Read more about The EU wants to criminalize AI-generated deepfakes and the non-consensual sending of intimate images[…]
Questions are being asked in parliament about the decision by Dutch domain registration foundation SIDN to transfer the dot nl domain and its “complete ICT services” to Amazon’s cloud services. SIDN says the move will make managing the technology easier but some tech entrepreneurs have doubts, and now MPs have asked the government, which supports Read more about Criticism as Dutch domain registry plans move to Amazon cloud[…]
Last year, I coined the term ‘enshittification,’ to describe the way that platforms decay. That obscene little word did big numbers, it really hit the zeitgeist. I mean, the American Dialect Society made it their Word of the Year for 2023 (which, I suppose, means that now I’m definitely getting a poop emoji on my Read more about Cory Doctorow’s McLuhan lecture on enshittification (30 Jan 2024)[…]
Hundreds of thousands of EU citizens were wrongly fined for driving in London’s Ulez clean air zone, according to European governments, in what has been described as “possibly one of the largest data breaches in EU history”. The Guardian can reveal Transport for London (TfL) has been accused by five EU countries of illegally obtaining Read more about Hundreds of thousands of EU citizens ‘wrongly fined for driving in London Ulez’ in one of EUs largest privacy breaches[…]
When it comes to copyright suits or conflicts that never should have existed, one of the most common misunderstandings that births them is not understanding the idea/expression dichotomy in copyright law. Even to most laypeople, once you explain it, it’s quite simple. You can copyright a specific expression of something, such as literature, recorded music, Read more about Palworld Is a Great Example Of The Idea/Expression Dichotomy | Techdirt[…]
iPhone apps including Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok, and X/Twitter are skirting Apple’s privacy rules to collect user data through notifications, according to tests by security researchers at Mysk Inc., an app development company. Users sometimes close apps to stop them from collecting data in the background, but this technique gets around that protection. The data is Read more about iPhone Apps Secretly Harvest Data When They Send You Notifications, Researchers Find[…]
France’s data privacy watchdog organization, the CNIL, has fined a logistics subsidiary of Amazon €32 million, or $35 million in US dollars, over the company’s use of an “overly intrusive” employee surveillance system. The CNIL says that the system employed by Amazon France Logistique “measured work interruptions with such accuracy, potentially requiring employees to justify Read more about France fines Amazon $35 million over intrusive employee surveillance[…]
[…] the public too often doesn’t understand how it happens that products stop working the way they did after updates are performed remotely, or why movies purchased through an online store suddenly disappear with no refund, or why other media types purchased online likewise go poof. There is a severe misalignment, in other words, between Read more about Ubisoft Says It Out Loud: We Want People To Get Used To Not Owning What They’ve Bought[…]
Amazon is revamping its Alexa voice assistant as it prepares to launch a new paid subscription plan this year, according to internal documents and people familiar with the matter. But the change is causing internal conflict and may lead to further delay. Tentatively named “Alexa Plus,” the paid version of Alexa is intended to offer Read more about Amazon wants you to pay to give them your data with Its Next-Gen “Remarkable Alexa” – which is remarkable in how poorly it works[…]
HP CEO Enrique Lores admitted this week that the company’s long-term objective is “to make printing a subscription” when he was questioned about the company’s approach to third-party replacement ink suppliers. The PC and print biz is currently facing a class-action lawsuit (from 2.42 in the video below) regarding allegations that the company deliberately prevented Read more about HP CEO: You’re ‘bad investment’ if you don’t buy HP supplies[…]
BNR received more than 80 gigabytes of location data from data traders: the coordinates of millions of telephones, often registered dozens of times a day. The gigantic mountain of data also includes movements of people with functions in which safety plays an important role. A senior army officer could be followed as he drove from Read more about Dutch phones can be easily tracked online: ‘Extreme security risk’[…]
According to a survey of 2,000 Americans conducted by Kaspersky in November and published this week, 72 percent of drivers are uncomfortable with automakers sharing their data with advertisers, insurance companies, subscription services, and other third-party outfits. Specifically, 37.3 percent of those polled are “very uncomfortable” with this data sharing, and 34.5 percent are “somewhat Read more about Drivers would prefer to buy a low-tech car than one that shares their data[…]
A year ago, I noted that many of Walled Culture’s illustrations were being produced using generative AI. During that time, AI has developed rapidly. For example, in the field of images, OpenAI has introduced DALL-E 3 in ChatGPT: When prompted with an idea, ChatGPT will automatically generate tailored, detailed prompts for DALL·E 3 that bring your idea to life. Read more about Generative AI Will Be A Huge Boon For The Public Domain, Unless Copyright Blocks It[…]
This week the NY Times somehow broke the story of… well, the NY Times suing OpenAI and Microsoft. I wonder who tipped them off. Anyhoo, the lawsuit in many ways is similar to some of the over a dozen lawsuits filed by copyright holders against AI companies. We’ve written about how silly many of these Read more about The NY Times Lawsuit Against OpenAI Would Open Up The NY Times To All Sorts Of Lawsuits Should It Win, shows that if you feed it a URL it can regurgitate what’s on the first parts of that URL[…]
In 2020, Google was hit with a lawsuit that accused it of tracking Chrome users’ activities even when they were using Incognito mode. Now, after a failed attempt to get it dismissed, the company has agreed to settle the complaint that originally sought $5 billion in damages. According to Reuters and The Washington Post, neither Read more about Google agrees to settle $5 billion lawsuit accusing it of tracking Incognito users[…]
The New York Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement on Wednesday, opening a new front in the increasingly intense legal battle over the unauthorized use of published work to train artificial intelligence technologies. The Times is the first major American media organization to sue the companies, the creators of ChatGPT and other popular Read more about New York Times Sues OpenAI and Microsoft Over Reading Publicly Available Information[…]