#privacy

#privacy

OpenAI is putting ads into ChatGPT in "the coming weeks," as well as bringing its ChatGPT Go subscription tier to the US starting today. The free ChatGPT and ChatGPT Go plans will have advertisements, which is the biggest news, given ChatGPT Go has already launched in 171 countries since August. For $8 per month, it offers more access to messaging, image creation, file uploads, and memory.

I call on Santa Clara County DA Jeff Rosen or California Attorney General Rob Bonta to investigate and prosecute all municipal, state and federal parties who are in violation of SB 34 and SB 54. We have these laws for a reason, and no one should be above the law. These state laws were enacted to protect our privacy, and if our public officials cannot adhere to the laws, we must insist on immediately disabling all of these cameras being misused in violation of these laws. It is particularly unnerving that this information is being shared with federal agencies.

Having had a fairly analogue childhood in the late '90s/early 2000s, the scope of my baby and childhood photos extends to the odd physical photo album and a couple embarrassing framed pics around my family home. The rapid digital revolution, particularly the arrival of social media, drastically changed media storage and the landscape of photo/video sharing.

The chatbot owner said that in the next few weeks, it will begin "testing ads" for the free and low-cost subscription "Go" versions of ChatGPT in the United States for logged-in, adult users. Users can expect ads "at the bottom of answers in ChatGPT when there's a relevant sponsored product or service based on your current conversation." OpenAI said ads will be "clearly labeled" and won't be included under "sensitive or regulated topics," including "health, mental health or politics."

On those rare occasions when I use AI, I always opt for a local version. Most often, that comes in the form of Ollama installed on a desktop or laptop. I've been leery of using cloud-based AI for some time now for several reasons: It consumes vast amounts of energy. There's no way to be certain it honors privacy claims. I don't want any of my queries or data to be used for training LLMs.

As though exercising my corporeal form wasn't trial enough, now robots? Who in their right mind would want a walking, talking surveillance machine inside their home? The privacy invasion required for such robots to function goes far beyond your smart speaker listening into your conversations, your automatic pet feeder capturing footage, or your Roomba mapping the inside of your home and sharing it with Amazon.

Natural Cycles, the company behind a controversial FDA-cleared birth control app, is replacing its thermometer with a wristband that measures skin temperature, heart rate, and movement during sleep. The newly-launched wristband costs $129.99 and syncs with the Natural Cycles app, which uses an algorithm to determine a person's "daily fertility status." Users can already track their fertility by pairing an Apple Watch or Oura Ring with Natural Cycles, but the wristband could be an option for users who don't have either of these devices handy.

Pairing Bluetooth devices can be a pain, but Google Fast Pair makes it almost seamless. Unfortunately, it may also leave your headphones vulnerable to remote hacking. A team of security researchers from Belgium's KU Leuven University has revealed a vulnerability dubbed WhisperPair that allows an attacker to hijack Fast Pair-enabled devices to spy on the owner. Fast Pair is widely used, and your device may be vulnerable even if you've never used a Google product.

The social media platform said on Wednesday it had implemented technical measures to stop the @Grok account on X from allowing the editing of images of real people so that they appear to be in revealing clothing such as bikinis. Before this, users had been able to ask the @Grok account on X to manipulate images, with the result being published on the platform. X said this restriction would apply to all users, including paid subscribers to X.

The Transportation Security Administration is expanding another program to keep the agency's promise of TSA PreCheck airport security lines that are 10 minutes or less. But some California airports didn't make the cut. The agency plans to expand its Touchless ID program by this spring, allowing travelers to keep their boarding passes and Real IDs in their bags. Instead, the officer will direct the traveler to take a photo and, using biometric data, waive them through.

Hytale is the newest sandbox game on the market, and it's finally in early access after spending years in development. Made by a team of former Minecraft modders, Hytale blends elements of the classic Minecraft formula with an RPG twist and Hytale mods, if you're so inclined to use them once you know how to play Hytale. Even in early access, there's a ton of content to explore, but you don't have to explore it as a solo player.

Google announced on Wednesday that it's launching a new beta feature in the Gemini app that allows the AI assistant to tailor its responses by connecting across your Google ecosystem, starting with Gmail, Photos, Search, and YouTube history. Although Gemini could already retrieve information from these apps, it can now reason across your data to provide proactive results, such as connecting a thread in your emails to a video you watched.

Most of us have some internet of things (IoT) devices at home, whether it's a phone, a tablet, or a collection of security cameras and sensors. When you learn that 120,000 home security cameras were hacked in South Korea for sexploitation footage, it makes you think twice about adding such devices to your home, which is your most sacred space for privacy.

Siminoff's vision: turn Ring from a video doorbell company into an AI-powered "intelligent assistant" for the entire home and beyond. A handful of new features that advance that goal shipped just ahead of this year's Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, including fire alerts, alerts about "unusual events," conversational AI, facial recognition features, and more. Some of these additions have not been without controversy, as consumers have to grapple with how much privacy they're giving up in favor of convenience and security.

Depending on where you are, recording a conversation without the consent of all parties is illegal. In some states, it's a felony. So, you and your sibling research the local laws and should take them into account as they figure out the best way to keep your parents safe. Talk to your sibling about your concerns and questions. Where does this footage go? Is it stored locally or does it go to a cloud server maintained by a company?

It may finally be time to take AI on the iPhone siri-ously. Apple and Google on Monday announced a multi-year partnership that will see Apple Foundation Models standing on the shoulders of Google Gemini models, one that will return a small portion of the roughly $20 billion Google pays annually to be Apple's default search provider. Terms of the tie-up have not been disclosed, but Bloomberg previously reported that Apple was planning to pay about $1 billion per year to utilize Google's AI technology.

Almost 20 years ago, Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced the iPhone as "an iPod, a phone, an internet communicator." The world swooned at the time because that one device was all those things, and more. Today it is our wallet, our identity, our social media, our likes, dislikes, fitness levels, bank accounts, as well as our personal, sexual, and political identity.

"There's interest across the board," Michael Kemper, MTA chief security officer, told THE CITY. "It's not only coming from the MTA, but from the business world, the AI business world, in working with us."

Microsoft keeps touting its Copilot AI as the greatest invention since the wheel. Toward that end, the company has been force-feeding more and more AI into Windows in the belief that everyone is yearning for an "agentic OS." Well, based on much of the user feedback, that's not quite the case. In fact, the more Microsoft keeps promoting AI as some white knight riding in to rescue Windows users, the more that people have been pushing back. The main argument?

Both search sites have frill-free designs with little else aside from a search box. Google frequently updates its logo to honor holidays and other special occasions. Both let you opt for a dark or light mode, but DuckDuckGo offers a lot more in the way of customizing colors, fonts, and the layout of results. Neither lets you set a background image like Bing.

AI Inbox is like having a personalized briefing, highlighting to-dos and catching you up on what matters,

On Thursday, the company announced a new "AI Inbox" tab, currently in a beta testing phase, that reads every message in a user's Gmail and suggests a list of to-dos and key topics, based on what it summarizes. In Google's example of what this AI Inbox could look like in Gmail, the new tab takes context from a user's messages and suggests they reschedule their dentist appointment, reply to a request from their child's sports coach, and pay an upcoming fee before the deadline.

On smart TVs, ACR can capture hundreds of images of what's on your screen each minute, whether that content originates from the TV's built-in apps or a connected device like a dedicated streaming box or game console. The screenshots are sent to your TV's manufacturer, who can use the data gathered to target ads on your TV, or sell the data to other ad providers to target ads on other platforms.

The company on Wednesday said it is introducing a new Messages feature that will let users see what their friends are streaming in real time and send requests to start Jams, the app's collaborative listening feature. Users would first have to navigate to their Settings and turn on the "listening activity" feature in the "Privacy & Social" section. Once that's done, your listening activity will appear at the top of Messages chats.