tech-in-the-news

A collection of news articles about technology and its impact on society.

• Can M1 iPad Air Replace Your Laptop?

  Apple's new iPad Air includes the same M1 chip inside the MacBook Air, and finally brings us a laptop-class chip in a tablet form. It has quite a bit of power, and a price tag that is significantly lower than the M1 iPad Pro. Although the M1 MacBooks have just as much power, if not more, than the iPad Air, bringing a laptop- level chip to a tablet really does provide the best of both worlds. I believe that this chip being placed in a tablet is really freeing for users in that it is portable and light while also powerful and versatile. It can be used for web browsing and gaming on the go, and has enough power to run more complex programs, which is part of the magic of it.

• These Futuristic Glasses Let you Listen to Tunes and Tailor the Tint on Demand

  Ampere just came out with a new kind of sunglasses that allow you to change their tint on command called the Ampere Dusk. They use “electrochromic” tech that lets you instantly change the lens shading electronically. Not only do they let you change their tint, but they also have small speakers in the glasses that project audio to your ears. I think this kind of technology is super cool and fun, but not completely necessary. Having music beamed directly to your ears is great, but what if you want to listen to music without the shades? It just seems more convenient to use a pair of bluetooth headphones or earbuds. The automatic tint, however, is something that I think might stick around.

• TikTok’s Work Culture: Anxiety, Secrecy and Relentless Pressure

  Former U.S. Tiktok workers seem to have common complaints about their old workspace, usually speaking of sleep deprivation, work on weekends, and mandatory meetings with colleagues on the other side of the globe. Tiktok’s need to fuel its success is pushing its workers too far. I think a lot of times with big companies and social media platforms, the work environments created are toxic and unhealthy for employees. Productivity and success is good for companies, but that doesn’t come by overworking your workers and burning them out. It is important to give employees a good work-life balance to create a positive work environment.

• Apple iPhone Users Got Alerts About Strangers’ AirTags. The Trackers Were Never Found.

  Apple notifies people when they’re recorded as being followed by an unknown AirTag. Unfortunately many customers have complained that the company has been alerting them even when they aren’t likely being tracked at all. I believe that this is an issue that Apple needs to fix, because it can cause a large amount of concern in a person if they feel like they are being followed. Some people may even go to extreme measures affecting their livelihoods and relationships to feel safe. This issue can have a lot of repercussions in one’s life, so Apple needs to address this as soon as possible.

• Apple’s Not-So-Secret Plan to Take Another Gigantic Bite of the Microchip Market

  Apple has a history of building the brains for its products dependably and efficiently. The company has recently attempted to do the same for the chips that connect their products to the internet and this new development could have a big impact on the company’s future. In my opinion, Apple has made a very good call economically endeavoring into the world of chips as it would expand and grow their company. With its recent M1 chip, we can see they have been successful at marketing and development of chips. The only downfall to this that I see is that Apple now has the potential to monopolize the smartphone market even more.

• Oakland, California’s New CIO to Tackle Digital Divide

  Oakland, California appointed a new chief information officer: Tony Batalla. He claims he will work to reduce internet access gaps in the city and support digital literacy efforts. His efforts to do so include connecting underserved communities with training and hardware. I believe this is definitely a step in the right direction, especially since Oakland is in the bay area where many big tech companies are centered. Although these claims are promising, actually enforcing these changes in a manner that is effective and thorough is a difficult task.

• All the worst Bay Area tech company behavior of 2022 so far

  This article explores all the worst events that took place so far in the tech world in 2022. It touches on a range of things from Elon Musk’s twitter takeover to Nvidia “malicious” cyber attacks. There were several topics this article talked about, but what stood out to me the most was the section on the San Francisco VC firm that required job applicants to take an online IQ test. I feel like this is problematic in so many ways, because IQ tests are not always accurate, someone’s IQ score can change based on the context, and it prevents people who bring other qualities to the table besides a high IQ score.

• Google’s latest Roboto variant is a font customizable to its core

  Google recently announced they were introducing something called Roboto Flex. It is a version of Google’s classic Roboto font that you can tweak and customize to make your own. I think this is an amazing idea, so people can customize the font however they want without having to bring it into Photoshop and alter each letter to their liking to create a perfect font for them. I think this concept should be applied to more fonts, as I can see it becoming very useful for content developers and designers. I can’t wait to try this out myself.

• Search histories, location data, text messages: How personal data could be used to enforce anti-abortion laws

  A recent movement among Republican controlled states has many privacy and women's rights activists worried. States that restrict and criminalize abortion have begun a spree of legislation that takes aim at the personal data of those seeking abortions. There has been an increase in privacy concerns as states like Texas or Oklahoma could subpoena various apps as evidence of seeking or planning to get an abortion. Notable apps include those that track your period or your pregnancy could be classified as evidence and presented in front of a court. Because of the wording of the state legislation, abortion-seeking conduct is criminalized. Therefore even seeking resources or information on how to access an abortion would be illegal. This could extend further than data found within apps, as law-enforcement officials could seek to acquire geo-location data from companies like Google in order to approximate an individual's location at a certain time. This sets an extremely dangerous precedent both for privacy regulation and for the rights of women. Criminalizing the act of getting information and using something like the apps they use to do it is mind-boggling.

• Google Chrome restricts access to patched 0-day exploit

  If you browse the Stable-channels for the various pieces of software you use you've probably seen a page that alerts you of the various CVE's that have been patched in the latest release notes. These normally include an identifying number, the person who reported it, a brief explanation of what it was, and a link to the initial bug report. However, all the way back in March, Chrome patched CVE-2022-1096. Instead of the usual fanfair listed earlier, they didn't actually disclose the vulnerability for how dangerous it could actually be. This is only done in extremely rare circumstances, when a vulnerability could have a high impact on the browser's ecosystem. While this really isn't all that exciting, after all it's been patched, it is important to keep in mind that the Chrome web browser is actually the basis for a massive portion of software outside of the web browser. The Chromium Engine powers several browsers, the NodeJS environment, and plenty of other pieces of software. I guess this is a reminder to always keep your software up to date.

• Best Font for Online Reading: No Single Answer

  A recent study found that there is no single font that allows for the quickest reading for all users. The study was conducted on 352 participants, who each read a short passage of text in 5 of 16 standard fonts. Results of participants' reading speeds showed there were substantial individual differences, with age having a strong correlation with speed. Additionally, participants read 14% slower in their preferred font than their fastest font. The consideration of age in this study really underlines the importance of finding the optimal font for older users, as they will be more negatively impacted by the wrong choice of font. Technoliteracy and technofluency is already a handicap among the elderly, so the findings of this study may help make websites with substantial amounts of text more usable for older people.

• Web scraping is legal, US appeals court reaffirms

  The US appeals court recently reaffirmed its original decision that scraping public data is legal. The case started when LinkedIn claimed that web scraping was a violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act in order to prevent a rival company from using its users' public profile information. Although it is legal, ethical concerns around web scraping still linger, with billions of social media profiles being scraped by ClearviewAI, a facial recognition startup. This is also a landmark case because of the countless technologies and research that depend on web scraping for data. I believe that the appeals court's decision is reasonable, but also that these data privacy concerns are very legitimate. To resolve this conflict, I can only think of a future where people are much, much more cautious of the information they make available to the public web.

• Robot chef that has learned to chew, taste and alter seasoning is unveiled

  Researchers at the University of Cambridge have revealed a new 'robot chef', which has been given the ability to chew and taste the food that it makes. The reasoning behind this is to give the robot the ability to examine the food it creates, and learn how it can improve. At the moment, this technology is still very limited, but their hope is that the technology will eventually make its way to assisted living homes and busy households in the not too distant future. Not much research has been put into the ethics behind robot chefs, but concerns such as safety and privacy must also be taken into account when developing a robot like this. Whether or not the food output is good is only a single factor in many which govern the way that robots should be introduced to society.

• Two-Day Hackathon To Drive Change For Climate Action

  This week, Analog Devices International is hosting a hackathon focused on examining how their technology can be used to combat climate change. The event will bring together engineers from their different locations, where they will aim to develop innovative solutions to help lessen the climate crisis, as well as sustainable business mechanisms. Although technology has contributed greatly to the climate crisis, tech companies are also in a good position to help fight against climate change, and ADI is one of many that have pledged to do their part. However, there is still much work that needs to be done, and not much time can be wasted to make the changes necessary.

• Walmart rolls out a tech tool to help shoppers try on clothes without actually trying them on

  In early March, Walmart released a new feature in their app entitled "Choose My Model," that allows users to "try on" clothing using models that best resemble them. These models are real people licensed through the app which incorporates Zeekit, a startup that Walmart aquired in May. Almost immediately, there was backlash citing lack of diversity within the models. Currently there are only 50 models, but Walmart plans to add 70. Walmart believes that this will help shoppers buy clothes as well as reduce the amount of clothing returns.

• How AI Can Make Weather Forecasting Better and Cheaper

  Atmo AI, a tech startup based out of California, is marketing a new disaster prediction hardware & software package to countries around the world. Co-founder Johan Mathe believes that this product will fill a large hole in government technology for most countries...rivaling the marketing power of Apple. Their sleek design comes in two formats, a higher end, more powerful software, and a more economically friendly version. Atmo has already signed several deals with a couple countries in Africa, but critics worry they are just continuing the cycle of failed tech projects appealing to desparate countries, especially since many poor countries don't have the resources or weather records to train a prediction AI like Atmos'. However, Atmos argues that their product has already provided reliable results for contracted countries with small data sets.

• Tech leaders face threat of prison under new UK online bill

  Leaders in the UK have unveiled a new bill that allows authorities to prosecute tech company leaders for harmful or illegal content on their sites or app. This bill is aimed at targeting "child sex abuse, racist content, bullying, fraud and other harmful material" and faces company leaders with fines and possible jail time for failure to comply. Critics are worried that companies will be overzealous when taking down content which will potentially infringe upon free speech. Bill writers responded with a clause that details content that is potentially harmful, but not illegal and forbids companies from deleting this content.

• Australia to make Big Tech hand over misinformation data

  Australia has given their media regulator the power to force big tech companies to provide data about their softwares regarding misinformation and disinformation. In addition, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) will enforce an internet code that requires companies to prevent the spread of misinformation. Australia hopes that this will set a precedent for all social media, not just big tech since many misinformation groups ask users to leave large apps and move to apps that are less strict about content.

• Washington State Signs Bill to Study Blockchain Technology

  Washington state signed a bill to fund research regarding blockchain technology in key industrial areas. This bill is seen as a strong addition to the precedence of government funding in the private sector. This new area of R&D has promising impacts for the Washington economy and the govenor hopes that this bill will help all Washington Residents. Critics worry that this will be a misuse of taxpayer money among high homelessness and food insecurity around Washington. Others argue that this investment will attract companies to Washington which will fuel the local Washinton economy.

• Obama calls for tech regulation to combat disinformation on social media

  Former president Barack Obama has called for harsher tech regulation through revisions of Section 230 which legally protects companies from individual comments on their site. Obama argues that advertisments on social media are spreading too much misinformation and need to be curbed. However, the article mentions that Obama does not want Section 230 to be repealed, but only to be edited to increase strictness. He argues that companies should be required to disclose their proprietary algorithms to the government under the pretense of protection.

• Tech needs girls, and girls need tech

  During international girls in Information and Communications Technology, the UN is making a big push to high- light the gender disparity across the world in tech. The UN cites a study that demonstrated that girls access digital technology at an average age that is older than boys. Often their voyage into tech is curtailed by their parents. The UN hopes this international day of celebration will help more girls consider a career in STEM.

• MIT Engineers Develop a Flexible, Paper-Thin Loudspeaker

  Engineers from MIT have developed a loudspeaker that can turn any surface into an active audio source. The speaker is as thin as paper with minimal distortion while using much less power that is required for a traditional loudspeaker. And the engineering approach is also different from traditional speakers. Instead of having the entire material vibrate, they use small domes on a thin layer of piezoelectric material that each vibrate independently. These speakers can be extremely useful and efficient for noise-canceling in small spaces.

• Bitcoin becomes official currency in Central African Republic

  The article claims that the Central African Republic has adopted Bitcoin as their official currency. Lawmakers from CAR unanimously agreed to make Bitcoin a legal tender, while others have expressed concerns that cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin could make it easier for criminals to launder money and that they are environmentally harmful due to their high energy consumption. Some perceive the acceptance of Bitcoin as a ploy to destabilize the CFA, which is in the midst of a power struggle between Russia and France over the resource-rich country. It can be argued it is quite irresponsible to implement cryptocurrency in CAR since only 4% of the people have access to the internet.

• CPC: Criminal Procedure Identification Bill raises fears of surveillance in India

  The article claims that the Criminal Procedure bill was passed in Indian Parliament in April, 2022. The bill stated that it will be mandatory for persons who have been arrested or detained to submit sensitive information, such as iris and retina scans. This information can be kept by the police for up to 75 years. Critics are concerned how dangerous it is to give the government so much power and collection of sensitive data. Governments and law enforcement agencies are increasingly using facial recognition technology, which has become a divisive topic around the world. This is especially true in totalitarian regimes where residents can be tracked via data.

• Major Breakthrough in Engineered Crystals Could Help Computers Run on Less Power

  Researchers from University of California, Berkeley, discovered a method to reduce energy used in controlling advanced silicon transistors. Researchers demonstrated how negative capacitance may be obtained in an engineered crystal made up of a layered stack of hafnium oxide and zirconium oxide that is compatible with modern silicon transistors. The study shows how the negative capacitance effect can greatly reduce the amount of voltage necessary to drive transistors, and hence the amount of energy spent by a computer, by introducing the material into model transistors. As energy used for computing grew exponentially in the past decade, this is a remarkable finding for efficient energy breakthroughs.

• Joystick-operated robot could help surgeons treat stroke remotely

  Engineers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology developed a sophisticated telerobotic system that can assist surgeons on stroke and aneurysm patients remotely. The magnetic movement robotic system can be simply operated on a joystick controller. This system can be extremely helpful if it is placed in rural areas and developing countries. With limited resources and talents, by using this technology, neurosurgeons at major medical facilities can supervise stroke patients remotely. This will be a breakthrough on implementing medical attention in rural areas, which is much easier with the necessary infrastructure and staff team.

• Robot that seems to convey emotion while reading

  Researchers at University of Tsukuba constructed a robot that can read messages for users to reduce negative emotions within texts. The robot contains shiftable weight actuated by mechanical components that allow the robot to express simulated emotions. Through various examinations with real people, the mediator robot was able to relay frustrating messages, help users to calm down. Contemporarily, comments and communication online sometimes could be misinterpreted and misleading since the human elements like facial expressions are often missing. With such devices, possibly a smaller version in the future could be helpful towards mental health complications and social distress.

• Researchers develop smartphone-powered microchip for at-home medical diagnostic testing

  Researchers at University of Minnesota Twin Cities have developed a new microfluidic chip for disease diagnosis composed of a minimal number of components and can be simply powered by smartphone wirelessly. Researchers were able to create a microfluidic device that could function without the traditional bulky components that would be required to seal and manipulate the liquid. If this wireless technology could be low-cost and user-friendly, this would be commercially viable and could improve accessible at-home medical diagnostic testing. This could be implemented on a global scale to detect health risk at an early stage for citizens to secure their essential health benefits.

• Honey holds potential for making brain-like computer chips

  The article claims that honey could be a key element to the solution for developing brain-like computer components. The researchers were driven to demonstrate an organic way to create a neuromorphic computing system. The device the researchers designed is simple and small and shares similar characteristics with that of human neurons. The size of the honey memristor is as thin as a human hair, and the researchers are planning to develop them even on a nanoscale. With this new discovery, it might be helpful for scientists to dive deeper into the understanding of the human cognition system. In the foreseeable future, recreating a human-like brain could be possible, which could open up immense possibilities for cloning and artificial intelligence. But we cannot oversee the fact that ethical issues should be discussed before preceding related experiments.

• THESE EARBUDS CALM AUDIO CHAOS IF YOU'RE SENSITIVE TO SOUND

  Earbuds typically have always reduced the volume at which sound enters your ear. These Loop earbuds instead mimic the function of your ear to make noise sound natural and therefore cause less pain and stress to people. These are extremely helpful for people with disabilities that make them hypersensitive to sound. The author is someone with a disability herself, and loud sounds send her heart racing and cause her head to hurt. She started to experiment with the Loop Earplugs, and found that they made it so that she could focus for longer and that the jolt of loud sounds was not as stressful. The author writes that these earplugs have been extremely helpful in making it so that she does not have suffer from loud sounds such as dogs barking and public transportation. I feel that this is something that is really important for people with sensitivity to hearing because it allows for them to go through daily life like anyone else without having to worry about loud and sharp noises interrupting their day. One thing I think this can be applied to is video games. I am interested to see if someone can apply a function like this to video games. This can be either through a game having a toggle that neutralizes sharper and louder noises for the player or through a gaming headset that can monitor the sounds and has the ability to neutralize certain noises. These earplugs are a big advancement because the idea behind them can be applied in other ways such as in speakers or we could see them being incorporated more at jobs that commonly present loud noises for workers such as airports and construction sites.

• When Police Do Marketing for Surveillance Tech Companies

  This article goes over the developing relationship between California police and the drone company Skydio. The Chula Vista police department is a prominent partner with Skydio, which the report shows official emails between individual police officers and they company. These activities included marketing efforts supported by officers demonstrating the equipment, and even networking between known contacts of officers with the company to further help in its development. Skydio claims that it only means to boost the effectiveness of public servants, like police officers, by using drones to aid in for-good-cause scenarios (e.g trailing a suspect, search and rescue etc). From the surface, it doesn't seem like Skydio and its partnership with police is raising immediate alarms, but its the final result that seems concerning. The use of drones by authorities brings out the fear of mass surveillance and questions of public safety. And it is a double edge sword for the intention of police needing drones, as I believe the need of these drones should come from carefully planned deployment of these drones in real live scenarios. This would help the public and police see if drones really bring value to supporting just-policing, or if they are just fancy toys to mess around with. In any case, it appears that Skydio is looking to develop its relationship network, such as with other police departments, to better ease in their drone products. However, Skydio still has to abide by FAA laws, which I'm glad to see is being respected, but the bigger question arises when they get over this regulatory hurdle and what the ethical dilemmas are once these drones start to be common in our skies.

• US Braces for Cyberwarfare Amid Fears of Russian Assault

  This article provides an overview of the US government recommendations to the public and private sector on the threat of cybersecurity with the ongoing Russia-Ukraine War. A comissioner from the Cyberspace Solarium Commission states that Russia isn't currently conducting a major cyber attack against the US, but that vigilance must be taken to be prepared on the cyberwar front. The Federal Cybersecurity Agency known as CISA has increased guidance in collaboration with companies and local government to upgrade the baseline of good cybersecurity measures, from basic security protocol to mitigation responses. However, CISA's chief of staff remarked that the responsibility of implementing cybersecurity measures is by the public and private sector entities, as the government plays a support role with giving recommendations and guidelines. Nonetheless, experts remind the industry sector to be more resilient with their IT and cybersecurity operations. Cybersecurity is usually not a problem until it becomes a problem. I believe this report only reinforces the danger of forgetting of the "cyber" part when it comes to the security of individuals, companies, and the government. As the average citizen, we don't really suffer from direct cyberattacks, but that isn't to say that an actor like Russia has no quarrels committing cyber offences that hurt citizens in other ways. For instance, Russian hackers could successfully hack our power grid and/or target essential companies that supply resources. But I believe it's the companies that should show more responsibility in their security measures because the hackers do not care what the bad outcome is from their attacks. My worry is that next years report will show a bigger increase in cyber attacks, which shouldn't happen because the government has clearly outlined the neccessity for everyone to be aware of the cyber dangers. We have seen the power hackers possess in our digital age, so hackers backed by the Russian government should mean more actionable measures and proactive goals in the overall cyber security of the US.

• Snapchat's flying selfie drone

  This article from the BBC reports that Snapchat is releasing a mini, selfie-taking drone called "Pixy." Ideally, this would replace the selfie-stick – as the drone would be able to fly away from the user, take a picture, and then return to the user's hand. Snap is optimistic about releasing this drone because they believe that they will likely become as ubiquitous as smartphones within society. This prediction should be taken with a grain of salt for two reasons. Firstly, their prediction of their first product released, the Snap Spectacles (glasses), was that they would also become mainstream; however, they ended up losing around 40 million dollars on the product because no one was buying it. Secondly: there are many laws prohibiting the use of drones or restrict those who can fly them. This drone might circumvent these laws because it could be deemed a "toy" because it is only 101g – which is "under the 250g limit where laws start to kick in." My thoughts: Personally, I am skeptical of how Snap is going to monitor/use the data collected from a drone with a camera. Depending on the security of these drones, there could be privacy issues or surveillance happening. I am genuinely curious about how the AI boom will affect society, and what applications will become mainstream.

• How India's drone start-ups could change healthcare

  Drones have been being used in India’s medical industry to make healthcare accessible to remote regions. They are able to deliver medical supplies in half the time that it would have taken humans by road. With recent liberalization of governmental regulations of drones, the drone services industry is expected to grow dramatically over the next 3 years.

• Why Argentina is embracing cryptocurrency

  Many Argentinians have anxiety over money due to the 1990’s financial crisis where banks dramatically devalued everybody’s money. The Argentine peso is highly volatile and controlled by politics. For this reason, people prefer to invest their savings in cryptocurrency, especially BitCoin. It’s the best alternative to the changeable peso and convenient because of low electricity costs in Argentina.

• Tone-deaf Samsung ad is a reminder that smartwatch safety still has a ways to go

  Samsung recently aired an advertisement of a woman wearing a Galaxy Watch 4 and Galaxy Buds while she ran alone in the city at 2AM. This ad was criticized for being an insensitive attempt to solve women's safety issues. The Galaxy Watch 4’s emergency features can’t always be relied on because users need to manually enable them or must be connected to signal in order to work.

• A 1-mile stretch of road is being built in Detroit that can charge electric cars as they drive -- if owners install a special receiver

  Tech startup Electreon Wireless is working with Ford and DTE to build an electrified road that charges cars through inductive charging. Through a special receiver that costs about $3,000 to $4,000 to install, cars can be charged while driving or stopped. The hope is that wireless charging will aid in mass EV adoption by easing concerns related to driving range. Similarly, researchers at Cornell have been working on wireless charging using electric fields instead of the magnetic ones that Electreon uses, a change that might make the process cheaper and more efficient.

• Applied for Student Aid Online? Facebook Saw You

  Based on code found embedded in the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) website, nonprofit news organization The Markup discovered that the FAFSA website is sending user information to Facebook via their Meta Pixel tool. Personal data including first name, last name, address, and zip code was included in these transfers. After questioning the U.S Department of Education, they revealed that the data was being used for advanced marketing tackets. Since then, the feature has been turned off, yet the tracker still remains on the website. This tracking occurs even before the user is logged into the system and collects information even on those without Facebook accounts. Personally, I believe this is an absolutely terrible practice. The Department of Education maintains that the data was anonymized, yet how anonymous can personal data get? I find it incredibly exploitative to collect data without express, informed consent, especially when someone uses a form that is almost unavoidable for pursuing higher education. Oftentimes, the FAFSA is the only way for people to go to college. What I find even more disturbing is the mention that an internal Facebook document suggests that Facebook itself doesn't have control over where data goes or how it is used. They place responsibility on companies to use their tools "responsibly." The bottom-line here is that a government agency sending data to Facebook is outrageous. Facebook should have complete responsibility over the tools they provide. If they can't control their data, they shouldn't be allowed to collect it.

• Apple will delist App Store apps that haven’t been updated recently

  Apple has announced that they will delist apps from the App Store that have not been recently updated, giving developers a 30 day window to update their apps in order to remain on the store. Users that have already downloaded the apps in question will still have access to them, but they will no longer be visible on the store in either listings or search results. This rule is particularly consequential for iOS games that are finished but have not been updated in a while—due to either developers abandoning the project or just the fact that many games exist as completed projects that don't require updates. It is also significant for single-person or small developer teams that may not have the resources, time, or knowledge to update their old apps to current standards. As a result, the App Store may become prohibitive for these groups of developers, creating a regulatory divide between large companies and smaller developer teams—even if this policy may be good for quality control of performance and security.

• Google Can Now Remove Your Phone Number, Address From Search Results

  Google is now accepting and following through on requests for users to remove information indexed in their search engine regarding phone numbers, addresses, and other personal contact information. Previously, this policy was only for sensitive information such as ID, bank, and credit card information. This new expansion of the policy is intended as a measure to prevent phishing, identity theft, and stalking. While this is a great policy to crack down on malicious acts towards users, there is potential for it to abused; there is a possibility that it could be used as a way to take down pages that contain criticism towards a person; if requests are not appropriately examined, than this may have an effect on freedom of speech on the internet.

• Airbnb says staffers can work remotely forever, if they want

  Airbnb announced that all employees can work remotely permanently in a move to attract more top talent. Moving will have no impact on their compensation, so employees can still be paid at their normal rate while working remotely, even if the cost of living in their new city is lower. The CEO, Chesky, refers to the predicted future trend of ‘decentralization of living’, as revolutionizing the way people live and travel. Most other companies do not currently offer this option due to many of the associated complexities. Chesky believes other companies will be able to follow if an open-source solution is devised. This move by Airbnb sets a new precedent for remote work that many companies may end up following.

• People in Beijing can now book a taxi with no one at the wheel

  Baidu and Pony.ai are two autonomous vehicle driving companies that announced this week they will deploy their vehicles into the streets of China. They were granted the first permits which allow them to offer their services to the public. There are still restrictions in place during this period, such as a required operator in the front passenger seat as well as only operating within a 23 square mile range. This move further solidifies China’s position as the main testing ground for autonomous vehicles. This is a big move towards advancing the market of autonomous vehicles

• Russians liquidating crypto in the UAE to seek safe havens

  Russians identified the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as a safe place to store their money, due to their neutral stance in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Ultra-rich Russians and even Belarusians are coming to the UAE. Crypto firms have seen a large increase in requests to liquidate billions of dollars worth of crypto. Industry talk has indicated that a lot of the Russian money coming in is being invested into local UAE real estate. The incentive of liquidating crypto in the UAE is for protection against the recent pressures faced in the Russian economy. Some may be using crypto as a way around the sanctions in Russia. Major crypto exchanges are working with law enforcement to ensure that their sites are not being used to evade sanctions. However, the transparency of crypto transactions on the blockchain makes it difficult to identify any money laundering or related illegal activity. This ongoing event sheds light into some of the existing issues with crypto and its role in the global economy. Crypto is relatively new in the global economy, so unpredictable events as such highlight security concerns that must be addressed. There may also be significance in the border crypto market if billions worth of crypto continue to be sold off.

• NYC to turn Brooklyn port into a hub for offshore wind farm construction

  It was announced that two offshore wind farm projects will be located off of Long Island. The materials will be sourced from a newly upgraded South Brooklyn Marine Terminal that will be capable of handling large wind turbine construction parts. Equinor, a wind developer company, will spend about $200 to $250 million to update the port hub. The city has encouraged Equinor to source and train local employees, as the project will also create 130,000 local jobs over time. New York intends to make NYC a major hub in the offshore wind industry, which is part of their larger climate goals of using 100% clean energy by 2040. Furthermore, NYC has pledged to get 70% of their electricity from renewable sources by 2030.

• Why Russian people need tech companies to stay, not withdraw: It’s terrifying ‘how dark that place could become’

  Businesses are closing operations in Russia and sanctions are being imposed on the country, but tech businesses must be more thoughtful in their decisions to close off services to Russia. Tech such as social media and search engines are playing an important role in the spreading of information during the Russia-Ukraine war. There is a debate between some in Ukraine who believe tech businesses should oppose the Russian war by stopping their services in Russia. On the other hand, internet freedom experts argue that the move could have unintended consequences. Those experts believe calculated risks must be taken so that information or the ‘truth’ can remain available for Russians. Major tech companies, specifically social media platforms are facing a double edge sword in this dilemma. If they remove all their services to make a statement, they risk having Russia be filled with disinformation from the Russian government. On the other hand, they risk their services being used to fuel Kremlin propaganda. The article connects this dilemma of social media and internet access to the broader issues the world has been facing in the past few decades. Is the benefit of access to information greater than the risk of perpetuating false information and fueling violence? The former news director of a Russian search engine has pleaded for the major social media companies to change the content and take down the site all together if they wouldn’t. There is also a history of Russian censorship . In the past few weeks, Russia has restricted Facebook and Instagram, both Meta owned companies, once Meta refused to stop fact checking and labeling content as state-owned media. The Russian government may also be facing a dilemma in censorship during this time, as they use social media platforms to spread propaganda as well as to monitor potential unrest. In addition, the backlash from Russians makes the decision of censorship more complicated.

• Global hacking group Anonymous launches ‘cyber war’ against Russia

  Hacking group ‘Anonymous’ has declared that it is at war with President Vladimir Putin and the Russian government. They claim they are a ‘decentralized resistance movement’ with no official accounts. The group has been posting on Twitter to announce their successful endeavors in targeting Russia. They have claimed responsibility for disabling websites belonging to the Russian government, a Russian oil giant, and a state controlled news agency. They stated their intention was to keep the Russian government site offline as well as to provide information to the Russian people so that they are free from Putin’s state censorship. In addition, they are leaking information from a Belarusian weapons manufacturer as well as shutting down gas supply. The article goes on to connect how other groups, regardless of size, across the globe are using their power to sever ties with Russia.

• Bitcoin less green since China ban, research suggests

  Bitcoin mining was banned in Chinese provinces around June 2021, where an abundance of hydropower was the main source of energy for bitcoin mining in the country. This move has led to miners moving to other areas with cheap electricity such as the US and Kazakhstan. Specifically, moving to the US has increased the use of fossil fuels to power the specialized computers that verify crypto transactions. The article relates an estimate in which the use of renewable energy for mining dropped from 41.6% in 2020 to 25.1% in August of 2021 due to the ban that has moved mining out of China. A single bitcoin transaction has a carbon footprint of about 669 kilograms of carbon dioxide, which is comparable to the carbon emissions from a flight from Amsterdam to New York per-passenger. The article concludes with a call for international cooperation in the push towards decarbonization of the crypto industry.

• Adding AI to Museum exhibits increases learning, keeps kids engaged longer

  Researchers have found a more effective way to support learning and increase engagement at science-focused museum exhibits through the aid of artificial intelligence, to create interactive, hands-on exhibits. These exhibits include an intelligent, virtual assistant to interact with visitors. When the researchers compared their intelligent exhibit to a traditional one, they found that the intelligent exhibit increased learning and the time spent at the exhibit. This could mean that there are greater implications for AI in other areas of education and pedagogy. AI could for example be used to provide the most appropriate recommendations and personalized solutions for a learner's specific needs and learning styles, to achieve precise teaching.

• You Might Have Aphantasia -- a Puzzling Phenomenon That Weakens the 'Mind's Eye'

  Aphantasia is the condition that describes people who can’t clearly visualize imagery in their mind’s eye. A team from the University of New South Wales Sydney found a way to see if someone has aphantasia by measuring the dilation of their pupils. Only non-aphantasiacs' pupils dilate when mentally visualizing images similarly to how everyone’s pupils dilate when looking at objects that are physically in front of them regardless of if they have aphantasia or not. These findings that begin to explore the inner workings of our minds bring up the possibility of solving other psychological puzzles like whether language can sufficiently convey our thoughts.

• Amazon Astro Is One Small Step for Robotkind

  Amazon Astro is a consumer robot for household monitoring. In theory, it maps your house by traveling through various rooms so it can recognize when something or someone is out of place. It can be connected to Ring to enhance the monitoring features. It is not very functional as of now, but neither was the Amazon Echo compared to where it is today. Astro represents a significant milestone in home robotics, but it is still in its very early stages.

• Envision Glasses for the Blind Can Read Documents, Scan Faces, Aid Navigation

  Envision smart glasses use a small camera on the side of the glasses to scan objects, people, and text so it can relay that information via speaker for those who are blind or vision impaired. Another useful feature is the ability to call someone on the glasses to describe the environment for you. This technology is very relevant to the discussion we had on accessibility and opens up a world of possibilities for those with vision issues.

• Europe Outpacing US in Technology Regulations

  This article discusses some of the main reasons that the United States has not done a good job of regulating large tech companies. It mainly focuses on the fact that the people making these laws do not have a very thorough understanding of the technologies that they are attempting to reulate, as well as the fact that large companies are so economically and socially powerful that they can lobby against any proposed legislation that would hurt their performance. It mainly focuses on the fact that despite bipartisan support for anti-trust regulations that would hinder the power of the giant tech companies, the US has failed to pass many such regulations. This connects back to society as well in the sense that it relates at some of the general principles of the United States' legislative and governmental institutions in general; it can be very difficult to enact quick changes, which in general has lots of benefits, but in this case is causing an issue because it is difficult to react to the rapid pace at which technology is advancing. In general I find this dynamic between legislation and the technology industry to be particularly fascinating as a case study of legal institutions and power dynamics within the United States.

• Google launches Media CDN to compete on content delivery

  Google has launched Media CDN which is a platform for delivering content. CDN companies are companies that specialize in delivering content physically closer to customers which makes accessing content faster and more reliably. CDN’s have gained more popularity than ever as more people stayed at home because of the pandemic. This made the demand for content higher the ever. Google is getting in on this field. However they are not just launching a CDN that delivers content, their CDN offers delivery protocols that are tailored to individual users and network conditions and top tier offload rates. This allows for instances where even infrequently visited content are stored on the CDN which means there are rarely caches to the original content which means faster speeds. I think that this is a bold move from Google as there is a huge market for CDN services and this is the first time Google is entering that market. This is not a surprise however because this is just another example of the parent company Alphabet expanding its empire. I will be interested in whether or not Media CDN will be successful because other CDN companies could simply build on Google’s Media CDN. If companies do this, Media CDN customers may chose other companies over Media CDN because they will not have to rely on Media CDN for advertising delivery. I do not support Google doing this. They are too bug of a company.

• Twitter Bans Climate Change Denial Ads

  Twitter is banning all climate change denial ads from its platform for Earth Day to prevent misinformation. The company says it is using authoritative sources which are United Nations on Climate Change and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to make the ad decisions. This news comes as Twitter is trying to avoid billionaire Elon Musk buying all of the company. In my opinion, I understand why Twitter is trying to ban the misinformation because there is plenty of evidence that Global Warming is real and happening. I know that with the acquisition of Twitter by Musk, he will let misinformation occur because of “free speech” even though it can be detrimental to society for believing the misinformation.

• EA Sports says video game A.I. is poised for a big leap

  This article from Fortune reports that developers from EA are claiming that AI in video games will become much more realistic. This is in part due to the fact that new-gen consoles have much more processing power than they did in the past. The other part is thanks to being able to collect more rich, informative sets of data. For the video game "FIFA 22," EA used "motion capture suits" to analyze movements, positioning, and other biometric data that encaptures the data of all 22 players on the pitch at the same time. This is opposed to only being able to track one or two players at a time. All of this results in more realistic gameplay exhibited by the AI. My Thoughts: I think this is great to give players a more immersive experience; however, I have heard interesting theories about EA (and I'm sure many other companies) using these more realistic AI to intentionally engineer a gaming addiction within players. From my understanding, there exists a ratio of winning and losing that mitigates feelings of disinterest from the game being perceived as too easy or too hard. The AI would then play the role of ensuring that the player wins or loses at this designed ratio – keeping the player hooked.

• You’re muted — or are you? Videoconferencing apps may listen even when mic is off

  A research team at UW-Madison recently conducted a study indicating many videoconferencing apps still collect audio data when mute is selected, and explores the possible consequences. First, the team investigated what people believe the function of the mute button is, where most believed apps on mute should not be able to collect audio data. Then, they looked at 223 apps and found that all of them at least occassionally gather raw audio data while mute is activated using runtime binary analysis tools. Using machine learning, the team was then able to classify the type of activity happening in the background of the audio using the data collected on mute with a 82% accuracy. I think that latter portion of this study exemplifies why collecting data on mute is not as harmless and inconsequential as one may believe. Collecting data on mute is not only wrong in principle, but also a real threat to privacy.

• Highway Code: Watching TV in self-driving cars to be allowed

  The government in the UK announced recently that it will be legal for drivers to watch tv on the built in screens while in a self-driving car. This is very peculiar to me because there are first off no self-driving cars on the road in the UK. I find it strange that they are willing to jump straight into allowing the person in the driver's seat to be allowed to watch tv without having real world analysis of how the cars function on the UK roads. I find it even more strange that they rule that it is still illegal for the drivers to use phones. If you make watching tv on a big screen legal, it should also be legal to look at your smart phone. Realistically, neither should be made legal because the driver should be responsible for focusing on the road even if the car is in control in order to take over if needed. The article mentions that it is possible for the car to shut off the screen when the driver needss to take over, but it can't turn off a mobile device. This does provide solid information about why they make the tv legal, but it still worries me. My concern is that a driver won't be able to react in time to take over at the wheel. However, this is still a major advancement in the tech of self-driving cars because it shows that we are getting closer to fully autonomous drivers.

• Valve says sanctions are blocking payments to Steam game devs in Ukraine, Russia

  Due to the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine, game developers in these regions are unable to receive income from Steam sales because the bank that delivers funds is blocked by economic sanctions. These developers have asked Valve when they can find a way to get their money but Valve does not know when they will be able to deliver the funds. This is one of many economic hardships brought about by the war in Ukraine. These developers depend on that income for their livelihood, so they must be struggling to make ends meet. It is reassuring that a solution may present itself to give the developers their money, but it is far away and is guaranteed.

• Netflix is finally going after password sharing. Here's how it's likely to work

  Netflix is currently developing a system to stop password sharing on their service. Password sharing is the act of giving someone else access to your streaming service account, which allows groups of people to avoid paying for individual accounts and instead share one. This practice reduces the number of people that buy a subscription, which hurts profits. Netflix is seeing a tough time for business ight now and this crackdown is an attempt to increase profits. The method of cracking down on sharing involves tracking the ip of the main account and requiring additional fees for people sharing. The issue here is that this system can hurt people trying to use it normally. You could be locked out of your account if you decide to go vacation just because the ip doe not check out. Or one might find this crackdown to be anti-consumer, like if you have a family that shares an account and just because one member does not live is the same home, they are locked out of the account. A system like this will probably just hurt the company more than it will generate revenue.

• 2 months in, Elden Ring's PC performance issues are a real drag

  The video game Elden Ring has been a massive hit for gaming, with many players enjoying the game. However, the PC port of the game launched with performance issues, making that version of lower quality as a product than other versions of the game. It has been two months since the game was released and despite many patches addressing gameplay, the issues on PC performance have not been solved. The game can still be enjoyed and played on PC, it is disappointing that it is not as omtomozed as it should be. This is a common problem with games and software in general, where a product is released that is not fully functional and may or may not be patched at a later time. Elden Ring is just a game so having performance issues is not going to hurt anyone but it is bad that companies can sell an unfinished product without issue. If this was in the context of some sensitive software for the government or military, then people's lives could be affected by bugs that could have been solved if the programmers had just done their job.

• A top lithium expert agrees with Elon Musk that there’s not enough of the crucial metal to meet booming demand

  Lithium is an important component of electric cars and due to an increase in demand for electric cars, the demand for lithium has also increased. There are no issues with lithium supply at the moment, but companies are worried that lithium may have shortage issues in the future, similar to the current shortage of semiconductor materials. A lithium shortage might happen because mining lithium is a difficult process and the demand is only increasing. An expert made this claim agreeing with Elon Musk’s assessment of the situation. These issues with the supply chain for electric vehicles show that they are not a guaranteed way to curb climate change. Although the cars themselves do not produce harmful emissions, the process to make them still can. Getting raw materials like lithium can impact the environment poorly and these materials being used up quickly will hurt the world in the long term.

• Crypto booms opens door to a new class of landlords

  Blockchain technology is being used to create a new form of investment in real estate. Lofty AI is a startup (among many) that does this. This new form of real estate investment adds to a “growing movement built around shared ownership and cooperation, often called distributed autonomous organizations, or DAOs.” Alan Konevsky, tZero’s executive vice president claims that “blockchain technology and its gradual introduction provides an important path for facilitating liquidity,” said. It enables transparency for the benefit of investors. Lofty AI already hit a regulatory wall in California which has led Lofty AI to stop allowing California-based investors to buy new tokens. However, the legality of blockchained homeownership is very vague. Therefore, Lofty AI has established its own set of rules, “such as barring anyone from owning more than 15 percent of a property.” I’m not entirely sure how to feel about this yet. At first glance, it seems like a good idea. People can now invest in a faction of the economy that was once only available to wealthy people (People who had the means to invest in property/real estate.). It also seems like Lofty AI in particular is being intentional with their agenda by setting their own regulations.

• Streaming is driving a 'golden age' for Indian drama

  Streaming industries world-wide spent $220 billion on content last year, and India’s Netflix accounted for $405 million of the $220 billion to develop original and licensed Indian content during 2019 and 2020. Due to this sudden influx of money, India currently has around 30 streaming services, AKA Over-the-Top (OTT) platforms. This new form of media consumption changes the power dynamic of the media/film industry. If a movie were to be released through traditional means, the producers/production companies would receive a lot of money because the production house usually retains the rights to the film. Streaming services, on the other hand, pay a one-off fee to hold the rights themselves. Actors have a separate take on this phenomenon. Actor Saqib Saleem seems to favor the rising popularity of streaming services because it allows for a variety of roles. Streaming services have broadened India’s movie scene with more than just conventional films. He also believes that “it's making the entertainment industry more accessible to viewers irrespective of their culture and geography." I personally agree with Saqib Saleem. I think that streaming services allow for more diverse and creative films to be produced, and I generally favor it.

• The microchip implants that let you pay with your hand

  British-Polish firm, Walletmor, became the first company to offer biochips for sale. These chips are meant to enable the holder to transform their hand into a contactless debit/ credit card. Walletmor's chips consist of a tiny microchip and an antenna encased in a biopolymer (a material similar to plastic). It is claimed to have regulatory approval and works immediately after being implanted. Walletmor also claims to have sold over 500 of these chips so far. Many people have been skeptical about these implementations. According to a survey, invasiveness and security issues remained a major concern for people across the UK and the EU, however, a survey of 4,000 people revealed that 51% of people across the UK and the EU would consider it. I understand the skepticism surrounding bodily chip implants. Privacy breaches are already so invasive, however, if it were to be directly tied with the body, I would assume that it would feel even more violating. Despite that, I agree with the 51% of the 4,000 people who were surveyed. I would also consider getting the chip implanted for convenience.

• CNN streaming service to shut a month after launch

  CNN’s news streaming service, CNN+, is shutting down on April 30, 2022. Despite it being a relatively new news streaming service, CNN+ was the employer of hundreds of employees, and the recent turn of events mean that many people are at risk of losing their jobs. The shutting down of CNN+ was announced just two days after Netflix announced a quarterly decline in subscribers for the first time in two decades. The main takeaway of the shutting down of CNN+ is that streaming services are no longer under the monopoly of Netflix. Although it is very unfortunate that hundreds of people are at risk of losing their jobs, the increasingly crowded field of streaming services is challenging Netflix’s monopoly. I personally believe that this competition would have good social implications.

• ICE uses private data companies to circumvent Colorado “sanctuary” laws, new report says

  This article goes over ICE's circumvention of Colorado's immigration santcutary laws regarding their enforcement of civil immigration with help from the private sector. In 2019, Colorado passed a "sanctuary" law that prohibits the jailing of someone, even if they're eligble for release, for suspected immigration violation. This meant police could not keep someone jailed for ICE due to suspicion, along with data privacy protection of personal information to ICE authorities. However, ICE's contractual partnerships with data brokers from the private sector allows them to bypass the bureaucratic process of requesting a person's information from the state government. An example includes an undocumented couple where the husband was picked up by ICE close to their home, which he was sent to a detention facility, despite the sanctuary law in place to not share personal information of people. If there is one area of discussion regarding data privacy, it is when this data can be in the hands of authorities. I believe that this practice by ICE is unethical, simply because it is a conscious effort by them to enforce civil immigration through violation of a person's privacy. Even if ICE is not legally breaking the law with getting data from private companies, this practice may give a precedent or reinforce to other authoritative figures the acceptance of circumventing protections one's personal data. It is somewhat different when other companies buy data from data brokers for business means, but the power imbalance remains where people have no say how their data can be used or released.

• Dear Sophie: Can a startup sponsor a graduating co-founder?

  This article, Dear Sophie: Can a startup sponsor a graduating co-founder, is part of an advice column, "Dear Sophie", which answers immigration-related questions about working in tech. This advice column, as Sophie Alcorn says, "[spreads] knowledge that allows people all over the world to rise above borders and pursue their dreams". This particular article sheds light on sponsoring a co-founder of a US-based company. Their question is, "Can a startup sponsor a graduating co-founder". The long answer short is yes. The article and series more broadly highlights the ethics of immigration and technology, and the inequalities individuals face in aiming to join the field, particularly the loops they must jump through to have the same access as US citizens.

• Barack Obama Takes On a New Role: Fighting Disinformation

  Former president Barack Obama has begun a campaign to mitigate the mass spread of misinformation in the United States. Obama is the first president who's campaign embraced the information spreading potential of the early days of social media. Following his utilization of social media, he expresses regret that did little to mitigate the seeds of the widespread misinformation the plague us today. He plans to give a speech at Stanford University addressing the issue. The primary concern with the widespread misinformation for Obama and for other politicans is it's threat to American democracy. I think that it is intersting that in less than 15 years we have gone from primitive early social media hype to tactical usage and distribution of misinformation on a large scale.

• Apple’s zipped lips on chips

  Global leaders are becoming increasingly more concerned with the fact that Apple's computer chips are made almost exclusively in Taiwan. They are concerned that China could influence the production of the chips or invade Taiwan. Apple consistently produces goods where and how they please which is a growing concern for Western leaders due to how crucial computer chips are to the Western world. The Taiwan Semicounductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) makes most of the cutting edge computer chip sin the world, including Apples. TSMC is expanding beyond Taiwan to places like Arizona but expansion takes years because of factory construction. I think it is interesting how crucial computer chips have become in the modern world, to the point that some of the most powerful leaders in the world are concerned about the location they are produced.

• Amazon to Start Charging Sellers 5% 'Fuel and Inflation' Fee, Reports Say

  Amazon is going to charge a 5% "fuel and inflation surcharge" on third-party merchants who use its services starting April 28th. It is going to be a fee that applies to all products and analysts predict many sellers will add this fee to their products to their customers. I think that Amazon is being stingy with another fee because of how much revenue they make on a daily basis with the number of users they have. It affects the consumers because prices are already increasing with inflation in the US and products will be more costly on the Amazon website. This impacts society because of how Amazon has so many subscribers for its service and how popular the app is. With increased prices, it can affect how customers feel negatively about the service because of how much revenue Amazon makes and might lose users because of already increasing inflation.

• Chipotle is testing a robot that makes tortilla chips — and its name is ‘Chippy’

  Chipotle is testing a robot named "Chippy" that will be used in a restaurant in Southern California later this year to make chips. It uses artificial intelligence to cook and season Chipotle's core tortilla chip recipe. CEO Mike Bell also says that Chippy uses the same tech that is used in another cooking robot with it being the same arm and a similar frame. Despite a robot's potential to take another person's job, Chipotle claims they are looking for ways to make their jobs more consistent and efficient since frying chips can make it harder for workers that are busy. My opinion on this article is neutral towards robots doing simple jobs in the kitchen, but letting the humans actually do the hard stuff like grilling, preparing, etc because of how food should be prepared to taste good. Humans can adjust recipes by tasting the product and robots won't ever beat humans in that aspect of preparing/making food.

• Super Bowl ads boosted crypto app downloads by 279%, led by Coinbase

  Sensor Tower revealed that Tech companies' Super Bowl ads majorly boosted app downloads/installs in the US with Coinbase having the best results. Coinbase's installs jumped 309% week-over-week after the ad aired when their ad was a QR code bouncing around on the screen like the DVD logo. eToro and FTX had increased downloads with eToro app installs increasing by 132% week-over-week and FTX app installs receiving a 130% boost week-over-week in downloads. Even with this huge increase in downloads, some apps did not benefit as much like the Oculus app moving down in the US App store ranks from #102 to #175 on Monday. Despite some ads not working out as intended, the Super Bowl ads still boosted installs for other apps like YouTube TV, Disney+, HBO MAX, and DraftKings. My opinion on this article is how crypto apps are gaining lots of popularity because of the potential of making lots of money off crypt currency. The impact on society is huge because people think they can gain millions of dollars off this currency and possibly use it in the future to buy products.

• Netflix says it will eventually charge more if you share your account

  Netflix has announced that it is soon going to implement a feature in major global markets like the US. Netflix is doing this because it has been having a decline in subscribers and Netflix thinks that a big factor in this is people sharing Netflix accounts. Netflix tested this feature out in Chile, Costa Rica and Peru starting in March and it worked as planned. Netflix is implementing this feature by using the same information it uses to provide its service including IP addresses, device IDs, and other information about devices signed into the Netflix account across households. Using these methods, Netflix can identify when there’s persistent sharing taking place outside a household. When sharing is persistent in an account, that household will be charged more. I think this is a creative feature for Netflix so they lose less money from people using their services. Their purpose it to be able to still permitting sharing to take place while also helping to bring in revenue from everyone who’s viewing and getting value from its service. While it may do a good job at that, I think it might backfire if many people are not happy with additional charges to their account. I think it could potentially lead to additional losses of users.

• Meta will no longer allow the sharing of ‘publicly available’ private home addresses

  Meta is no longer allowing the sharing of 'publicly available' private home addresses. This was done in attempt to stop complains about doxxing which is when someone reveals private information about a person, like their address, online for the purpose of getting people to harass them. In order to combat this, Meta says it is ending its policy to not remove posts containing “publicly available addresses" by the end of the year. This comes after the board at Meta had been adamant to Meta to change multiple policies to combat doxxing. The board wanted Meta to prohibit the sharing of addresses listed in news articles but Meta says it will still allow sharing things that were shared in at least five news articles. This goes against the board's recommendations. Meta did not comment further. I think this is an important first step for Meta in better protecting people’s information on Facebook. Doxxing is a real and dangerous issue that happens to people. It is especially important because of our divided political climate where there is constant hate spread especially through Meta’s very own Facebook platform. I still believe Meta could make a lot more changes to protect privacy and stop the spread of misinformation. These changes are not nearly enough to meet people’s demands for privacy on Facebook.

• Senate votes to advance Alvaro Bedoya's FTC confirmation

  Alvaro Bedoya, one of President Biden's administrative nominees, is a step closer to being confirmed as his pick for Federal Trade Commissioner. This happened after Bedoya won a key procedural vote in the Senate on Wednesday March 30, 2022 Bedoya's nomination is considered critical as the Federal Trade Commission ramps up enforcement on algorithms, cybersecurity, privacy, and a plethora of antitrust issues surrounding Big Tech. If Bedoya is confirmed as the Federal Trade Commissioner, it would give Democrats a voting majority at the Federal Trade Commission. This would break a months-long partisan stalemate at the antitrust and consumer protection agency. Congress Republicans have opposed Bedoya's nomination. They claim he has posted divisive social media statements on immigration issues. However, Congress Democrats have called for Bedoya to be confirmed so that the FTC can continue to do its work instead of being at a stalemate. I personally think this is very important because there has been a very long lasting stalemate that has prevented laws and regulations to be passed for technology industry. More laws need to be implemented to that US tech companies can be better regulated. This is important as tech companies, especially the tech giants FAANG, have had many lawsuits against violations of user privacy and user data. Because of this I think it is important to have a party that can pass laws or else tech companies will continue to take advantage of their users the longer they are left unregulated.

• Black employees at Tesla raise new allegations of racism in the workplace

  There have been new allegations of racism in the workplace at Tesla's Fremont Factory. These new testimonies come a couple months after a massive lawsuit filed by the California Department of Fair Employment that accused Tesla of creating a hostile work environment for Black employees. Several Black ex-employees spoke out in the testimony detailings the way they were treated at the factory. The accusations include racial slurs being directed at Black employees, Black employees being given more difficult work than non-Black co-workers, and Black employees being placed in parts of the factory with no air conditioning. When attempts were made to report the discriminatory treatment through Tesla's proper company processes and procedures, some people who filed complaints were fired shortly after their reports. Tesla has not commented on these accusations. However, it seems clear that these accusations are not limited to Tesla's Fremont Factory because in October 2021, a San Francisco court found Tesla guilty of subjecting a Black employee to unfair racial treatment and had not done enough to stop it. This comes at a shock to me because I had not heard of any accusations of racism at Tesla before. That being said, it is also not a shock to me because it is a huge technology company and big tech companies have repeatedly had issues of racism in the workplace. I find it disappointing that Tesla had not commented on these allegations especially because of how clearly discriminatory they were being.

• Elon Musk offers to buy Twitter, says company 'needs to be transformed'

  Elon Musk has offered to buy all outstanding shares of Twitter to take full control of the company by buying $54.20 per share. Musk believes that Twitter does not hold up to the principle of free speech and wants to change the policies on Twitter by making it a private company. I agree that social media should not censure freedom of speech, but there are limitations on what you can say on an app when you have millions of followers. Spreading misinformation or saying hate speech does allow you to get your Twitter censored because of the harm it can do, but I think Musk thinks those things might be ok to say on social media.

• New tech could pull cars over, call first responders in emergencies

  Mazda is working on prototypes of a new technology in Japan that can monitor if a person needs medical help. First responders could use it to determine if a driver has fallen asleep or is experiencing a medical emergency and it says it might be available in the US in the next three to five years. This would be important because it has to potential to save someone’s life if they experience a medical problem while driving and they can’t pull over. It also is better technology for the future of car safety but it is somewhat questionable because of how you are monitored by surveillance for your health in the car.

• Apple Maps UK ground surveys begin, using backpack-mounted cameras and sensors

  Apple has launched ground surveys on the streets of London, Birmingham, and Manchester to gather pedestrian data for its Apple Maps service using special backpacks. Apple cars are not able to reach some parts of these cities because of how the cities are pedestrianizing areas to make it more appealing and reduce car usage. The backpacks will feature cameras and other sensors for mapping data collection that cars can't reach and be able to show people what these cities look like in 3D view. This surveying help with people's privacy as well because Apple won't have to track people for the information that they are getting from this survey.

• A new free app makes using iPads easier for people with hand tremors

  Global company Havas Creative, in collaboration with the German Parkinson's Association, has recently release their app Stabyl which takes advantage of native iPad features to provide support for people with hand tremors. Using the built-in accelerometer, Stabyl detects device shakes and responds by moving the on-screen web page in the opposite direction to keep the screen stable. Furthermore, the app adds smaller quality of life features including removing swipe gestures for navigation, increasing the size of buttons so they are easier to click, and additional settings for adapting to a person's needs. What I find most interesting here is that the app is taking advantage of features already in the iPad. I belive this shows the great potential for making technology more accessible that many companies are just not thinking of including. All in all, if the goal of technology is to improve people's lives, then we need to make sure that all people are included.

• The Census is Broken: Can AI fix it?

  Reaching historically underrepresented groups has always been a critical issue for the US Census Bureau, especially because those results have real and serious impacts on those communities. In 2020, there was an undercount of Black, Latino, and Native American people. Much work has been done to introduce AI techniques in an effort to improve population surveys and gather socioeconomic data. For instance, many research groups have introduced models to verify addresses via satellite imagery or predict population density and income information. However, these models are certainly not perfect and find themselves struggling to identify houses in a variety of environments, in addition to just not knowing what's going on in the building its looking at (are there multiple families living there? Is it being subleted?). Thus, while new work has come out to lower the costs and improve the accuracy of the US Census, these tools are still somewhat nascent and must be used with care. Personally, I believe that a lot of discussion must be done before using any AI-generated data for decision making. I belive one huge issue is using training data from a certain community and believing it will apply to all communities. I am especially worried that AI tools will succumb to the same biases that already undercount minoritized communities. All in all, while I believe there is potential to use AI towards creating equity in socioeconomic data collection, these tools will reflect the goals and care of the people in charge of creating them. The fact of the matter is that more often than not, those people are not taking a justice-centered approach.

• Apple and Google privacy policy updates may actually be increasing their power in online advertising

  The change that Apple and Google made was to prohibit third party tracking, meaning that companies can't access users data from other websites. This might seem like a positive change, in that companies cannot be as invasive in the sense of seeing what you're doing on completely other webpages. Even if there are potential benefits of this, the article describes that this might actually give Apple and Google more power in relation to other, smaller companies. This change means that companies can only gather data about users when they are visiting their own sites. This gives large companies a large advantage because they get many more visitors, and are able to accumulate more user data as a result. However, this has also hurt some large names like Facebook/Meta, who rely on accumulating third party data from smaller sites in order to target advertisements to their users. This has then resulted in fewer small companies buying Facebook ad slots, since their advertisements are no longer as effective without the third party data. As a result of this, more small companies are buying Google ad slots, since Google has access to an extensive amount of first-party data, and can thus still effectively target ads. This poses an interesting scenario, where Google and Apple have been able to hurt both large and small competitors with a single change, that also appears to be positive because it can be branded as a move to increase data privacy for their users. This is an interesting phenomenon, because it shows the nuance of the decisions that these companies make, and how even decisions that seem altruistic are actually rooted in or at least ensure the extension of their power. This relates to our society as a whole because it emphasizes the importance of looking at these kinds of decisions with a critical eye and truly scrutinize the decisions of these powerful companies. It also emphasizes that law makers and individuals pushing for user data privacy need to be well versed and educated in these matters so that they can parse out what the effect of changes such as this one by Apple and Google will truly have, and not just take them at face value.

• Google joins Samsung in working with iFixit on a self-repair program

  Google has now followed Samsung in partnering with iFixit, a company that sells spare components and repair tools so that customers can fix their own hardware themselves. Spare parts will be available for the current and previous Pixel models. Two other major companies that have also partnered recently with iFixit are Microsoft and Valve, perhaps following proposed legislation that would combat restrictive company policies against DIY repair. As a result of latent right-to-repair legislation and these company programs, a more sustainable and modular approach towards technology products may be encouraged. This could reduce the waste generated from the technology industry, but another huge step would be to design products to be potentially upgradable with better components produced in the future.

• Canada introduces legislation to compel Facebook, Google to pay for news

  The Canadian government has started developing laws that would force social media platforms to negotiate deals with news outlets to pay them for their content. This legislation comes as a response to the mass closures of news outlets due to how social media platforms have become the dominant advertising platform. If more legislative models such as this are proposed, then we could perhaps see a resurgence in the online news industry and a move away from the more recent shift to subscription models many news outlets have embraced in order to maintain profit. In addition, there may also be an increase in the quality of journalism as well, as these outlets may no longer feel financially pressured to make low-quality, inaccurate news stories—as has been the trend with many outlets that feel constricted.

• U.S. Says It Secretly Removed Malware Worldwide, Pre-empting Russian Cyberattacks

  During its invasion of Ukraine, Russia combined their physical military presence with their virtual one. In addition to air and ground attacks, Russian hackers attacked major Ukrainian infastructure using "wiper" malware that attacked Ukranian government officies, and the European satellite system Viasat. The attack on the satelitte system was the first of its kind which makes it a concern for American intelligence agencies. Specifically, American officials are worries that Russia may turn their attacks towards the United States, in the form of financial firm and electric grid attacks.American officials are attempting to mitigate future risk by secretly removing maleware that was implemented by the G.R.U from computer networks worldwide. I think that as we continue to progress further into a digital age, larger portions of global conflict are going to take place in the form of cyber attacks. An interesting thing about these attacks and counterattacks is that they go largely unnoticed by most civillians, unlike ground invasions. Hopefully as we progress into this digital age average consumers are going to be given the tools that they need to recognize and defend themselves from malware and cyberattacks.

• Inside Intel’s Strategy to Compete With Nvidia in the AI-Chip Market

  This article highlights Intel's strategy to carve its mark in the AI chip market. Over the past decade, Nvidia has overshadowed Intel when it comes to AI chip products, which is evident with many companies looking to quickly deploy AI tools to produce business outcomes. In fact, Nvidia accounts for 80% of the revenue for AI computation with big data centers. As such, competition for such market capitalization will continue to grow as the current market worth of AI chips at $8 billion dollars is expected to jump to a colossal worth of $200 billion dollars. For Intel, however, challenges remain with lagging behind in the production of AI chips, so recent plans involve spending billions in making new chip factories to stabilize on the manufacturing front. Moreover, Intel is looking to package its AI chips with practical software packages and products that customers can quickly deploy for their own uses, taking out the guess work of using AI chips for business use. I have no doubt that the AI chip market and the competition will certainly push Intel to regain some market share, but I believe that Intel must bear the brunt in not being the king for AI products in general. I say this because Nvidia has shown itself to still reign king over Intel, as recent products like the RTX graphics cards are versatile for personal use and AI work as well. As such, it's better for Intel to focus on what it's looking to really differentiate itself in the AI space, aside from just being another place to buy AI chips. That is why I believe their packacking of their AI chips into practical ready-to-go AI products can be that differentiator, as I'm sure many businesses are looking to wield AI for their own purposes, so taking out the guess work could make Intel more favorable. But, for now, Nvidia just has too much footing in the AI chip sector, as they are already leaps ahead with making new, more powerful AI chips all the time, so it is best if Intel directs its focus to providing a foundation for itself in the AI chip market.

• Europe agrees new law to curb Big Tech dominance

  The BBC reports that under the Digital Markets Act (DMA), big tech companies like Google and Apple will be forced to make some major changes. Such changes include opening up their services to other businesses in order to keep the markets fair. Specifically for Apple, they will need to begin to allow users to have third party payment option; and, additionally allow people to delete "company-imposed apps" such as Safari. European spokespeople say they want to create a new generation of tech regulation. Apple and Google have commented that they have concerns about privacy and security vulnerability from the proposed regulations.

• Lost in AI transcription: Adult words creep into YouTube children’s videos

  This article from The Indian Express writes about how inappropriate language has found its way into the closed captioning system of Youtube videos for kids. This is due to errors in automatic speech recognition systems developed by Google and Amazon. According to the article, a study done showed that out of 7,013 Youtube videos from 24 different channels for kids, 10% of them contained highly inappropriate words that were misrecognized. They were found on channels with millions of views and subscribers. My Thoughts: From my perspective, I believe this ties in well with the "stochastic parrot" problem we talked about earlier in the semester. The speech recognition AI, when left to its own devices, has produced outputs that for the most part are accurate; however, in the cases where there is error, there are significant ethical ramifications. The AI obviously lacks the understanding of the context/content of these videos and how an inappropriate word would never occur within videos for children.

• Physiological signals could be the key to 'emotionally intelligent' AI, scientists say

  Science Daily reports that researches from the Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology have made progress towards emotionally intelligent AI. This is done through multimodal sentiment analysis that breaks down an individual's psychological state based off of speech, voice color, facial expression, and posture. AI gaining a better understanding of emotions can allow for better enjoyment and experience for the user. For their AI, the researches used a multimodal data set called "Hazumi1911," which "combined speech recognition, voice color sensors, facial expression and posture detection with skin potential." This unique combination of data and the addition of the skin potential physiological data helped produce results of emotional intelligence "comparable ot that of a human." My Thoughts: To me, this raises ethical questions about the use and collection of physiological/biometric data. It seems like an invasion of privacy; and, it is data that humans can't analyze when trying to interpret someone else's emotions. We aren't actively using skin potential to determine if someone is happy, sad, or angry, so I don't think AI should need it either.

• Lumafield will give engineers X-ray vision to see inside products

  According to VentureBeat, Lumafield — a group of engineers who have created many impactful products in the past – have developed an X-ray scanner for other engineers to see the insides of products they are repairing or designing. The scanner creates 3D, "highly-detailed" models of an object's external and internal design. This is extremely beneficial, as it gives insights into data that was never before obtainable. Engineers can utilize this information to have more confidence in making novel, possibly revolutionary design choices that can be tested and analyzed for flaws at greater depths. This tool is relatively cheap too, at around $3,000 per month, and reportedly very easy to use/setup. My Thoughts: This product seems like something straight out of a sci-fi movie. It is amazing to me how such technology could be so cheap and easy to use. I am curious to see if there are other uses outside of engineering that could benefit from such technology; and, I am interested in seeing if this will have any affects on the designs of everyday things.

• Europe Is Building a Huge International Facial Recognition System

  Recently, Europe has plans to allow police officers to expand their current databases for identification reasons, by linking their (i.e. lawmakers') own photos which include many people's faces; this is all an attempt to "modernize" policing by creating a "biometric surveillance infrastructure". However, the main pushback surrounding this upgrade are that when police forces have adopted it, it has misidentified people and "derailed lives". Black people have been misidentified and misput in "gang databases", and recently police deleted 218,000 photos it had wrongly included. Most concerningly, this proposal may spark others to create similar facial recognition databases, and to utilize machine learning algorithms on these same databases. As a citizen, if the current record or history shows the lack of credibility in said recognition infrastructure, this is only transferring more power to the police forces in making their decisions. Not to mention, if algorithms are implemented, more power is transferred to the developers and/or their "black boxes" (i.e. identification algorithms) which may convict or identify someone. The implications of incorrect data in the database can have major impacts on people's lives and especially in the context of algorithms (where data is everything), this transfer of power and data is very scary and feels premature. So, not only is power being concentrated to fewer hands (i.e. only police forces and lawmakers), but there's no justification for this transfer of power either besides "innovation". I'm glad to hear the U.S. hasn't adopted this yet.

• Snapchat has a new lens to help you learn the American Sign Language alphabet

  Recentley Snachat realeased a new snap lense using video image recoginition and user interaction technology to Asssist their users to learn the American Sign language. Snap is partner up with 'Sign All' who builds technology that can translate sign language. When users use the ASL Alphabet Lens, they can learn how to fingerspell your name, practice the ASL Alphabet, and play games that put your new skills to the test. It's led by Deaf and hard-of-hearing people at Snap called "Deafengers." this feature may imparct many snapchat users who fall's into this accesebility catagory. This feature also encourages many healthy normal people to learn sign language, providing them an opportunity to communicate with the minority group. Moreoever, this new lens and inspire more people or groups to explore to world of accessibility population.

• This Program Can Give AI a Sense of Ethics - Sometimes

  Artificial intelligence has had incredible success in problem-solving, but it still fails to have actual comprehension, leaving it incapable of understand human values and deciphering right from wrong. A University of Washington and Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence program, Delphi, has aimed to solve this problem and be an AI that can understand human values. It has had lots of success, matching human-answered ethics questions 92 percent of the time, which beats the previous record of 80 percent by a long shot. However, this occasional mismatching has still left lots of room for misjudgements. In part, the training data may be biased, leading to some radical biases and aggressions seen in the program outputs. These poor judgements have led to reactions from other ethics researchers, arguing that these outputs affirm that AI should not be given authority to make ethical judgements.

• Engineers develop a 'magnetic tentacle robot' to pass into the narrow tubes of the lung

  In the lungs, there are many small bronchial tubes that can be hard to reach. Engineers have made a prototype of a robot that can reach these tubes and take tissue samples or deliver cancer therapy. Researchers at the University of Leeds have created a magnetic tentacle robot. It could be used to help with endoscopic and catheter operations, which involve inserting a small tube into the body. This week, researchers published their findings in the journal Soft Robotics. A robot that can navigate the bronchial tree has been developed by researchers at the University of Leeds. Magnetic tentacle robots are tiny, flexible, and controlled. Outside of the patient, autonomous robotic arms would guide the gadget into position.This could be an evolutionary change for the medical industry. If we put this technology in the simplest way, it means that this technology could potentianlly save more people's lives and reduce their pain. In the long term impact, this magnetic tentacle robot has a greater potentinal in treating other diseases such a blood vessels or urine track disease. in conclusion, the invetion of magnetic tentacle robot is a potential solution for many difficult medical operation and could impact many people and thier families.

• Pandemic mood: Much worse than a bad Monday

  This essay examines the impact of the Covid-19 crisis on global emotions via social media.MIT researchers look at millions of social media posts from around the world. After the pandemic takes hold in early 2020, there will be a significant drop in favorable public sentiment. Following that, there was a gradual, halting return to pre-pandemic state. The findings were published today in the journal Nature Human Behaviour. Australia, Spain, the United Kingdom, and Colombia experienced the greatest declines in sentiment. Bahrain, Botswana, Greece, Oman, and Tunisia were the countries least hit by the pandemic. Lockdown policies did not appear to have a significant impact on popular sentiment. Some countries required up to 29 days to recover half of the dip in public opinion that occurred during a lockdown. Researchers discovered that 18% of countries did not recover to their pre-lockdown, pre-surgical attitude levels. In my opinion, this article shows how social media influence the society during the pendamic, while many people is required to quareteen themselves if they get caught by covid, the lost of freedom enforeces a trumendous amount of mental stress on these people. Social media become one of the major technology for these people to entertain themselves during those times. however, there are downsides to it, the social media became one of the major communication tool around the world, meaning people could potentinally receive a large amount of negative information about the pandemic , causing them additional stress.

• Google is using AI to better detect searches from people in crisis

  Google wants to do more to help people get the information they need, and it claims that new AI approaches that better comprehend the complexity of language are assisting individuals crisist. Google's search engine is using machine learning. MUM will be able to detect search queries relating to severe personal situations that previous techniques were unable to detect. MUM may respond to inquiries such as "most prevalent methods of suicide completion" and "Sydney suicide hot locations." According to the company, it has "reduced unanticipated stunning results" by 30% year on year. Google does not reveal how many "startling results" its consumers encounter on a daily basis. In my opinion, Google using Ai to better detect searches ffrom people in crisis can help thouse people in several ways and present a good impact othe society. As we know, that when internet people ecounters crisis, their first reactionis either ask thier friends, parents, or search online In additon to the recent increase in depression, google using AI may help the user to realize thier issues and provide better solution faster.

• Goodle Bans Apps With Hidden Data-Harvesting Software

  Google recently pulled a number of apps from its library after discovering they all contained code that was harvesting data. The data harvesting code was made by a Panamanian company and was found in prayer apps to highway speed trap detecting apps. Some companies were paid to include this code into their apps, however, this was uncovered by a company owned by two men called AppCensus which focuses on the privacy and security of various apps. Companies like AppCensus are very helpful in this time of focus on privacy and security, and the fact that companies are being paid to incorporate such invasive code into their apps needs to be addressed. It is the duty of the creator to put the user first, but the commodity of data can create a moral dilemma in the development.

• Researchers Use Imitation to Teach a Robot How to Peel a Banana

  As the article explains a deep imitation learning method is used to teach a robot to peel a banana. Handling delicate objects such as a banana and performing intricate tasks is not as simple as it may seem. The Researchers at Systems and Informatics Laboratory used goal-conditioned dual actions deep imitation learning, which essentially used human demonstrations to teach the robot. So basically there was a point where the research team had to peel hundreds of bananas over and over again to create the learning data set. Robots having the ability to perform these intricate tasks can be used to help out during times of labor shortages.

• US Disrupts 'Cyclops Blink' Botnet by Hacking Infected Devices

  The United States Justice Department has secured the approval to remotely remove the malware from some of the infected devices in the Botnet in an attempt to take down the Cyclops Blink. The US has concluded that Russian Military Intelligence is responsible for creating the Botnet as a way to spy on company websites. Once a device is infected by the Cyclops Blink the hacker has the ability to remotely upload and download files to and from the device. It is important that is Botnet is taken care of, it is a very invasive virus that has the ability to take and download any material, and along with that it can change firewall rules to block future access.

• Twitter's latest change shows how link rot is ruining the internet

  Twitter has recently tested an edit funtion that now deletes embeded tweets, so when a tweet is deleted entirely from twitter every reference of the tweet is now also deleted. Some believe this will be the first of many changes now that Elon Musk purchased more than 9% of the company. Elon Musk is said to be a "free speech absolutist" so that may play a part into the potential changes coming to twitter. This function can be very useful for users who may have had something posted without their consent, or simply someone just changed their mind on a thought, this is a useful change to help protect the user.

• How Europe has expanded its bid to disrupt Big Tech

  Recently, the European Union (EU) has decided on a reform of digital competition rules, enforcing "dos and don'ts" for many powerful tech giants with fines and other penalities if they don't meet them accordingly. Many antitrusts cases surrounding Amazon, Google, and Apple have occurred in European countries, and have slowly decreased EU's trust in these companies. Not only will these new rules combat the abuse, but they believe it will foster "innovation, growth, and competitiveness". So far, some rules for the DMAs (Digital Market Acts) are going to occur around messaging, essentially asking the user if they're okay with sharing their messages across multiple platforms and/or countries. From the perspective of a user, this is a massive leap in taking power away from the tech giants who have extreme amounts of data, and abuse their power to gather information on people (like myself) to make more revenue; I've even heard rumors of Apple phones listening to your conversations. Especially with issues of data privacy (and data being breached) in companies such as Facebook, it makes far more sense to ask the user beforehand as a transfer of power from the tech giant to the user in terms of data. Not only does this provide transparency and equality, but the added innovation (i.e. generating algorithms that require less data) may come as a side bonus (as stated in the article).

• Twitter is working on an edit button for real

  In recent news, Twitter has decided, despite it being "low on its priority list", to create an edit button for tweets. Creating the edit button was difficult as there were strong opinions for and against it, and Twitter chose to stay neutral for a long time (until around last year where they started thinking about it). The article notes that Twitter "power users" have asked for years for an edit button, while others have been worried about the chances of further misinformation and harassment being propagated utilizing this feature. The edit button, in my eyes, is a double-edge sword. While the edit button is very useful for users to correct themselves and avoid the spread of misinformation, it also works in the opposite direction where a user could gain traction on a tweet and edit it later with propaganda. Therefore, the edit button grants new power to Twitter user in choosing what information they want to transmit to the world for both the good and bad. To finalize, there's one other big issue I see (with other sites like Reddit), where viewing the edit history of a comment is difficult (or not possible); I'd hope that twitter would allow anyone to see a tweet's edit history (to further help with misinformation).

• Lapsus$: Oxford teen accused of being multi-millionaire cyber-criminal

  A 16-year-old from Oxford has been accused of being one of the leaders of cyber-crime gang Lapsus$. The teenager, who is alleged to have amassed a $14m fortune from hacking, has been named by rival hackers and researchers. Under his online moniker "White" or "Breachbase" the teenager, who has autism, is said to be behind the prolific Lapsus$ hacker crew, which is believed to be based in South America. The Lapsus$ cyber-extortion group has gained notoriety in a short space of time thanks to its high-profile targets and active presence on the messaging app Telegram. The last message was posted on the channel on Wednesday, with the group saying: "A few of our members has a vacation until 30/3/2022. This is truly amazing, a prime example of how the progression of the abilities amassed by normal day people can lead to increased power struggles in a more online future society. The fact that there has multiple cases throughout history where teenagers have been able to disrupt the cyberspace with relative ease is a concern which should be better addressed in order to prevent a plausible cyber Armageddon.

• Pro-Russia Sentiment on Indian Twitter Draws Scrutiny

  This article by Kate Conger and Suhasini Raj describes how in the days after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, thousands of Twitter accounts shared messages of support for Vladimir. While some of the accounts said they were based in Nigeria and South Africa, the majority of those with a declared location on Twitter claimed to be from India and targeted their messages to other Indian users, researchers said. The prevalence of accounts claiming to be from Indian users indicates that India's social media landscape has become an important destination in the effort to influence public opinion of the war in Ukraine. Users who said they were from India made up nearly 11 percent of the hashtag trend in the two weeks after the invasion. The death of an Indian student in the fighting in Ukraine this month brought into focus India's challenge of evacuating nearly 20,000 of its citizens who were in the country when Russia's invasion began. But some of the accounts in India most likely belonged to real people. This article demonstrates how modern media today is used formulate and shepherd our political and critical thinking within society. It has been abused throughout history, yet most people do not care to notice. Those who do recognize this pattern of manufactured mass-thinking through society, such as Noam Chomsky, as set aside or largely ignored. This problem will be persistent, and this article is a prime example of how even though people notice a government’s attempts to influence normal peoples’ thoughts and logic, most people will still fail to notice the more minute details of propaganda available within everyday life.

• Axie Infinity's Ronin Network Hacked to the Tune of $600 Million

  Recently, a group of hackers made a total of $600 million in cryptocurrency after an attack they conducted on the Ronin network, which supports Axie Infinity. Axie Infinity is a popular video game that runs on the Ronin Network, which connects the video game and blockchains to transfer cryptocurrency in and out of the game. The Axie Infinity game works as a game where the players breed digital monsters that essentially work as an NFT. Players are able to earn cryptocurrency through playing the game, and then are able to transfer those earnings out of the game and into the blockchain. The hacking shows a big problem with Ronin network as there are billions of dollars being circulated through it. There is going to need to be a change to the network to ensure a better security of people's money and cryptocurrency in both the blockchain and within the game. I feel that this shows the danger of putting money into cryptocurrency. The security of the server's that the currency circulates through might not be completely secure and this hacking is an example of that. I think that it important to possibly consider the risks of losing your money if there is a hacking. It might be smarter to wait until these young crypto companies have a stronger security system.

• Robot made of magnetic slime could grab objects inside your body

  This article touches on the topic of a robotic slime that can be controlled to move through narrow passageways. The slime is able to grab objects the need to be retrieved. The big potential use of a robot like this is that it can be used inside the human body to retrieve objects that were not meant to swallowed or even in other parts of the body to perform surgeries. This robot is able to do two different tasks where most robots could only ever do one of the two. In my opinion, this is a bright sign for the future in medical technology because the robot can be used to save countless lives if the technology gets developed enough to actually get used in operations on people. I feel like there is still a lot of progress that needs to be made because one thing to worry about is that the slime has a surface that is not toxic to humans, but there is a component to the robot that is toxic and could cause more harm to humans if it were to find its way out of the slime outside. I do like the potential other uses the robot has such as an object that is able to navigate through tight circuitry to fix a busted wire.

• Museums Are Cashing In on NFTs

  Due to pandemic-related lockdowns and reprioritized government spending have put the world’s public museums under financial pressure. To raise fund, museums are turning to nonfungible tokens (NFTs) of art reproductions. In Unit London, an art dealership in London, there was an elaborately framed LED screen with a digital replica of Leonardo da Vinci’s “Portrait of a Musician” glowing on their gallery wall. That piece was part of the "Eternalizing Art History" exhibition at Unit London, an attempt by cash-poor museums to generate money by selling NFTs. Another notable example, the State Hermitage Museum, in St. Petersburg, Russia, which last September held an auction of NFT replicas of five of its best-known paintings that raised $444,000. However, museums are hesitant to sell NFTs because many of them rely on public opinion and the environmental concerns around NFTs are quite deterring. According to one estimate, the computing power required to mint one NFT generates the same amount of greenhouse gas as a 500-mile journey in a gasoline-powered car. I find this as an interesting, and unexpected, move from museums. I never would have concieved this as an option, but that may be due to the fact I have no interest in NFTs. Sharing the concern for the environemental impact of NFTs, I don't think that this is a good alternative for museums, as least with energy cost that is currently required to create an NFT. NFTs are volatile and I don't think museums should have to rely on them in order to sustain themselves. With that said, I am in support of digital exhibitions. Unlike physical ones, I think that it is easier to turn a set of pieces into an experience, accompanied by audio, visuals, and context around the pieces, such as the online exhibition on arpilleras by the Musuem of Latin American Art in Los Angeles.

• A New City, Built Upon Data, Takes Shape in South Korea

  In Busan, South Korea, 54 volunteers are part of a five year study in the Eco Delta Smart Village. At the end of the development, "the Eco Delta Smart City development will total 30,000 homes across 11.8 square kilometers, or 4.5 square miles, of coastal wetlands, in the Nakdong River delta, at a cost of about 6.6 trillion Korean won, or about $5.6 billion." Unlike in other places, the attempt here is to build a smart city from scratch. The current residents, the 54 volunteers, live there rent free, only having to pay for electricity and water, in exchange for there data, to be studied by "developers, appliance manufacturers, the government and health care experts." The goal is to be as sustainable as possible by watering green spaces with recylcled water and powering the village with hydroelectic and solar power. I find the idea interesting but have reservations about the scalability of this idea. Sustainability in urban areas is incredibly important and the methods they chose are good ones, however, the surrounding area is still being converted from wetlands to urban developments. With the fact that this is a model for creating more sustainable, technology-heavy cities in the future, I think about the cost associated with living in a smart home. How financially accessible will these be for people? Will is cause a geographic stratification of people with enough money to live in a smart city and those who must remain, or leave to, a traditional one? Also, it seems that this city is influenced by the day-to-day patterns of its residents but how does that work when you have a large city with a multitude of different routines? This concept is fascinating, but I maintain an amount of skepticism.

• Hugs to Boring: The Tech That Holds Us Up

  It's easy to forget the technologies that are no longer new but core to how our daily lives run. The week this article came out HP, a company that sells printers and computers, aquired Poly, a company that sells office audio equipment. These things aren't as flashy as the new technologies coming out of Silicon Valley but are integral for companies to run. People are very unlikely to be familiar with all the technologies intertwined in their life, such as the server that streams their movie from Netflix, the Epic software that holds their healthcare records, or the software that processes their paychecks. However, much of this important technology is outdated but the dullness of this technology limits interest in making it better despite the fact that it will outlast many of the new startups (e.g. food delivery services). I found topic of this article quite interesting because I hadn't thought about the legacy technologies that help to run our daily lives in quite some time. There is little to know glamour in the "regular" technologies but I feel that they are the areas where the most investments should be made. In recent years, California residents may have noticed the redesigned DMV website which now has many more services and resources. Now this website is not without its faults but having working and secure technology for people to submit and manage applications, locate resources and documents, schedule appointments, etc. is incredibly important. Automating the things that can be automated is likely to make the lives of the users and DMV employees much easier, so I feel that these kinds of technologies should be valued more.

• Google Tests Catching Heart, Eye Issues From Smartphone Sensors

  Google has plans to use smartphones to capture heart sounds and eye images in order to help users see their risks for potential health issues. For example, by listening to heartbeats and murmurs, the smartphone could potentially detect heart valve disorders. I have mixed feelings about this. Assuming there will be no to little monetary cost to users who make use of these services, this would help make healthcare accessible to a wide range of people including people located far from medical facilities and also people with lower incomes. However, since the service measures for elevated risk and does not provide a confirmed diagnosis, it could potentially cause unnecessary worry among its users when they are falsely told they may have a health condition.

• Blockchains Have a ‘Bridge’ Problem, and Hackers Know It

  This article highlights the issue of hacker attacks against Blockchain bridges. A recent attack happened against Ronin Network, a blockchain transaction platform, that saw $540 million worth of cryptocurrency stolen. Related attacks happened in early 2022 with attackers stealing millions from other blockchain bridges, such as from Quibit Bridge and Wormhole bridge. Experts highlight that part of the hacker's success stems from poor security practice and monitoring of these blockchain bridges, which is what happened with Ronin when they were not aware of their security compromise on March 23 before the actual attack. Though I am not a blockchain enthusiast, it's clear that blockchain technology will continue to grow if people and entities are willing to put millions of dollars in digital currency in the hands of these blockchain platforms. However, I believe these hacker attacks should be seen as something to expect, since these blockchain bridges do keep storage of cryptocurrency, much like a reserve currency, making them digital banks. As such, there should be standardized security protocols for these platforms to perform and follow, since preparation provides a good measure to better withstand these attacks. Nonetheless, being proactive in the security of blockchain technology will better serve the people and companies that choose to invest in digital currency as the relationship between finance and technology continues to evolve.

• The 3G shutdown will affect everyday devices you probably own

  The shutdown of the 3G network will affect more than just old smartphones. Since 4G and 5G networks are better than 3G many companies are switching over and this means alot of systems that use 3G will not work anymore. Although companies can reach out to their customers to let them know about the change, there can still be people who won't realize the change and will be left exposed to potential threats. This can become dangerous for people with security systems that will act as if they are fine but will in reality not be connected to the security companies' central service. Hopefully companies will learn and become better at communicating to their customers the possibility of this happening in the future when the next generation of networks comes out.

• Meta says it's shut down a pro-Russian disinformation network, warns of a social media hacking operation

  Meta has been taking down accounts that have ties to misleading information about Ukraine posted by Russian accounts. These accounts have been making posts and making claims that would lead people to think that discredit Ukraine as a false state. I think this is an improvement from Russia's involvement in the US presidential elections of 2016. It is also important that these types of accounts get taken down sooner than later, before they gain a larger audience and have a larger effect. I do think Facebook could do more in teaching its users about misinformation and how to spot it.

• Ralph Lauren CEO says metaverse is way to tap into younger generation of shoppers

  The CEO of Ralph Lauren said that selling virtual clothing items on the metaverse would be a good way to gain the attention of the younger generations. Other companies like Nike and Walmart have already started buying companies and filing patents to get into virtual retail. I think this will be a smart move on the companies side but only if they are able to also rebrand their clothing to fit the younger generations they are trying to connect with. People know of Ralph Lauren but their clothing is just aimed towards older people, if they want to succeed with younger generations they have to do some redesigning. Also when I think of virtual fashion, I think of things that can't physically be made in the real world, so I think Ralph Lauren would have to branch out. Overall, I don't know if bigger clothing companies will be as successful because there are so many young designers that will make more creative clothing and not have to worry about the cost of production that would be an obstacle in the real world.

• Yelp expands restaurant health ratings in partnership with food tech startup Hazel Analytics

  Yelp is partnering with Hazel analytics to provide users with health ratings for restaurants. This provides health information for over 700,000 restaurants on Yelp. I think this is a great addition to the yelp app and something I will definitely use in the future. I also think this speaks to the increased importance we as a society are now putting on public health because of the pandemic. Keeping things clean is something every restaurant, big and small, can do so having a large company that directly influences people's choice of restaurants display this type of information will definitely push all restaurants to do better.

• Astronaut Helmets Straight out of Sci-Fi Could Decipher Our Brains in Microgravity

  Israeli neuroscience startup Brain.space is going to capture if brains adapt to a new homeostasis while in space by measuring the brain activity of 4 astronauts sent to space. This data, which will be available to everyone, will help scientists determine what the effects of microgravity are on the human brain. One of the things that caught my eye about this was the data collected would be accessible to people all around the world so that they could conduct their own research on it. Also, the people at Brain.space made this brain activity collecting helmet with the hope of people on earth using it as well so that it would become easier to collect information about the brain for people who want to build products for the brain. They mention they imagine it being used for fitness apps and accessories, like the apple watch, but I question the necessity of brain information to provide normal people with workout routines or their workout data.

• The metaverse may bring new cyber risks. Here's what companies can do

  With the transition of people making business calls or sharing other important information in the metaverse, there is the growing concern of people pretending to be someone else or creating a deep fake. The article goes into different suggestions for how untrustworthy people could be singled out but that the main thing will be to train people to not fall victim to these attacks. Overall, some good points are made but like it was also mentioned in the article, there needs to be more work done in building a secure base for people to be in the metaverse or else they will lose trust in it. I think that people who work on metaverse projects should look back at the faults from the normal web and try to improve on them. One major concern is privacy and dealing with the new information that can be collected from people, like our eye movements and voice.

• Another Arrest and Jail Time Due to a Bad Facial Recognition Match

  A New Jersey man was accused of shoplifting and trying to hit an officer with a car and he is now the third known Black man to be wrongfully arrested because of faulty facial recognition software. In 2019, a national study of over 100 facial recognition algorithms found that they did not work as well on Black and Asian faces. Facial recognition works by reading the geometry of a subject’s face, using key factors such as the distance between the eyes and the distance between the chin and forehead. The facial signature is then compared to a database of known faces. However, if the technology is not perfected, it should not be used because it disproportionately harms the Black community. One way to increase the accuracy of facial recognition is by using the identification algorithm to match people to clear, static images such as a passport photo or a mugshot.

• Google Docs will start nudging some users to write less dumbly

  Google recently began trialing a feature that would suggest ways to improve the quality of writing of the user, similar to the way that applications such as Grammarly already do. Although this feature already exists in other applications, there has been major pushback against this feature becoming available to free users as many believe that making such a feature easily accessible will decrease the writing ability of the general population. Personally, I kind of agree with this stance; I think that such tools do have the possibility of decreasing the amount of work that we have to do as individuals. However, while the current implementation might not be the best, I could see a way where Google or some other company could provide explanation for the suggestion, which can help improve the writing ability of users, and similar functionality could be added to other apps that make tasks easier

• 'No-Code' Brings the Power of A.I. to the Masses

  Sean Cusack is a Software Engineer at Microsoft who used Microsoft's Lobe.AI to train a computer-vision system to recognize non-bee insects in his beehive. This process involved no coding and consisted of him dragging and dropping images of his bees to train the model. There is a growing movement of "No Code" that makes complex computer system accessible to the public. Craig Wisneski, co-founder of Akkio, created his starup to allow anyone to make prediction using data. Similarly, Juji, founded by Michelle Zhou, makes creating AI chatbots "as easy as creating a PowerPoint presentation." I like the idea of bringing these technologies to the public because as it grows to more people, the limits get pushed as new ideas and needs arise. With that said, I find an area of concern to be the fact that many of the popular algorithms, and the datasets used to train them, are biased in their representation of the public. By bringing these tools into the hands of the public, we might be giving more power to groups that benefit from current structures of power, further disadvantaging marginalized groups. If these technologies are going to be able to be used by everyone, they must do such as that. They must be made for the public - must be representative of the public. If these technologies aren't taking into account the vast amount of users that could use it, then it might be best to put a hold on giving out AI tools to the public who doesn't understand the deficits it may have.

• Can A.I. Help Casinos Cut Down on Problem Gambling?

  Alan Feldman, a 30+ year executive with MGM Resorts International, focuses on problem gambling. A few years ago, at ICE London, a mjor event in the gaming industry, showcased an AI model to identify problem gambling. However, Feldman is skeptical of using AI to identify problem gambling. Contrary to intuition, problem gamblers are not desirable to gambling operators since they can be fined or have their license revoked for not identifying problem gamblers. So Mindway Ai developed a model to predict problem gambling using 14 factors, given a score from 1-100, such as canceled bank withdrawals, shifts in the time of day a player plays, erratic changes in wagers, and money and time spent. Their motivation is that the model "predicts and catches players as their play devolves." However, there is a debate of how to communicate the model's results to a player so that the behavior can be changed. Feldman believes that at this stage, he is skeptical of AI's ability to do that. In my opinion, the idea of tracking people's gambling behavior to catch them before they devlop a problem sounds fascinating. I do believe that there is a major benefit in flaggin players who might have these problems and it is difficult to see the downside of doing so. I think that if a network between gambling operators, both physically and online, were created, people with these problems would be able to be tracked so that they don't just go to a different place once one has stopped letting them play. I am interested to see what kind of investments go into the actually getting people help because if the result of this is just not allowing people with problems to play they will find other options and little progress will be made.

• How Native Americans Are Trying to Debug A.I.’s Biases

  At the annual conference for the American Indian Science and Engineering Society there was a workshop, Teaching Heritage to Artificial Intelligence Through Storytelling, where Native American technology students were tasked with putting tags on culturally relevent images. The goal was to train an alogirthm to understand the cultural meaning behind an image. They then compared the tags students gave to images to the ones generated by "major image recognition apps[s]". The apps misidentified photos and their results were "outlandish" and "offensive." Data on cultures that have been marginalized is insufficient, so Davar Ardalan created Intelligent Voices of Wisdom (IVOW) to preserve cultures through AI to counter bias in current algorithms. Ardalan's goal is to use IVOW to develop tools to create cultural engines so that groups can generate and take ownership of their data. My biggest reservation with the data collection of marginalized groups is the potential for misuse. However, I think that by this communities creating their own data and taking ownership of it, that potential decreases. When working with and creating culturally relevent data, I think it's integral for the groups that are going to be the focus of the data to play a role in the process, from design and to implementation. I was excited to see a community like this come together and work toward producing such an important tool and am curious to see how this can be applied to different communities.

• The AI Illusion--State-of-the-Art Chatbots Aren't What They Seem

  In this article, the author, Smith, provides several examples of conversations he had with the GPT-3 chatbot that appear to indicate human labelers manually fixed GPT-3's initial faulty response. In each of his examples, Smith asks GPT-3 an absurd question to which GPT-3 responds with either an illogical or a formatted, evasive response. The next day, Smith asks the same question, but GPT-3 now gives a sensible answer. Although OpenAI does publicize on its website that it hires 40 human contractors to clean up answers from GPT-3 that are flagged as bad, many still take GPT-3's abilities at face value. I believe the over-inflation of GPT-3's level of understanding is just one manifestation of society's general optimism and mystisism toward AI. In the case of GPT-3, these feelings are also exasperated by GPT being seen a spearhead of modern AI, a position which may also put pressure on OpenAI to uphold grand expectations.

• Uber may be close to making a deal with SF taxis to allow Uber users to hail a taxi through the app

  This article discusses Uber's plans to make connections with San Francisco taxi services and allow customers to hail taxis through the Uber app. The article talks about how this is an interesting move, because in the past, especially in San Francisco, Uber and Taxi companies have been in strong opposition. If this agreement is to actually work out, it would emphasize the amount of power that tech companies like Uber have in getting their way. However, the article discusses that there is a significant amount of resistance to this; taxi drivers are concerned that too much power would be given to Uber in affecting their pricing, as well as their autonomy as taxi drivers. I agree that this could be concerning, because Uber has a record of not looking out for their driver's best interests. The article discussed the history of Uber refusing to recognize their drivers as employees, instead considering them as independent contractors, which means that the company is not required to provide as many benefits to drivers, and they have less protections in terms of general job security. I found this article interesting because I am fascinated by the interactions between these large, powerful tech companies and legislation, because oftentimes there is little precedent for the actions that these companies are taking, which makes it very hard to regulate. Additionally, with the pace that technology moves at, it is nearly impossible for our legislation to keep up. I think that for this specific example that Uber is looking to gain power over one of the main groups that oppose it (Taxi services), and I think that it is important for those in opposition to this to have a strong platform to fight against it, because I personally don't think it is in the best interest of the taxi companies, and Uber is just looking to grab more power and squash its competition. I think overall this article well encapsulates the current state of our society in relation to large, powerful tech companies, and emphasizes that we need to keep up in terms of regulations and laws that adequately control these companies.

• Bungie slams YouTube for DMCA 'security loophole' and lousy customer service

  A few weeks ago Bungie, the developer of Destiny 2, saw content on YouTube related to Destiny receiving DMCA takedowns from a bad actor abusing the copyright system on YouTube. Bungie is criticizing YouTube for giving an unauthorized individual access to copyright protections and is taking legal action against the bad actors. YouTube likes to take a “hands off” approach to DMCA claims in favor for more automation due to the number of videos posted in the platform everyday. However, this approach allowed a malicious third party to abuse the system, harming the reneve of legitimate content creators and even striking down videos on Bungie’s own channel. This is a good example of the current copyright issues that come with internet content. Companies have every right to protect their properties, however the systems in place are easily abused and can harm people and now even the legitimate rights holders of intellectual property.

• Valve says sanctions are blocking payments to Steam game devs in Ukraine, Russia

  Due to the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine, game developers in these regions are unable to receive income from Steam sales because the bank that delivers funds is blocked by economic sanctions. These developers have asked Valve when they can find a way to get their money but Valve does not know when they will be able to deliver the funds. This is one of many economic hardships brought about by the war in Ukraine. These developers depend on that income for their livelihood, so they must be struggling to make ends meet. It is reassuring that a solution may present itself to give the developers their money, but it is far away and is guaranteed.

• Quantum computers are many years away from cracking crypto: MIT Tech Review

  Current crypto currencies and blockchain technology is not possible to hack with current computing power; however, when quantum computers are developed this could be a problem. The processing power of a quantum computer would invalidate all modern cryptography, thus making the large quantity of money on the blockchain unsafe when that day comes. Many scientists are working on quantum-proof cryptography that would allow the blockchain to not be hacked wide open. Quantum computing would be a massive technological achievement that could improve our society, but it can also cause problems. A great leap in technology is always inevitable, so we must prepare for the day quantum computing is a reality or any other significant technological leap is achieved for the possible negative consequences it could have on society.

• How Robots Can Assist Students With Disabilities?

  Social robots are robots used to teach social and educational skills and children with disabilities respond to robots differently than puppets or pet therapy. This article the ways that social robots can be used to help these children. Two examples of these robots are Jibo and QTRobot, in-home social robots for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in the form of a glowing table lamp developed as part of a research study and a small full bodied robot commercially developed by LuxAI. There is some questions around if robots are effective at mimicking the body language and social cues which are essential for the development of social skills. Lastly, Maithile Kunda created a videogame, "Film Detective", to help children with autism, many whom hace superior visual thinking, by giving them visual ways to imagine theory of mind. These developments introduce developments in interesting support technologies for the home and classroom, but are they as effective in the development of social skills as interacting with people are? It would seem intuitive that the best way for these children to develop social skills is to socialize. I liked "Film Detective" the most out of all these technologies because it seems to be the one with the least barriers. A videogame usually costs less than $50 USD, which is much more financially feasable for families than the $2000 cost of a QTRobot, not including the $129 "software subscription" cost. Will technologies that are supposed to increase accesibility to children with disabilities be financially accessible to these families?

• Beating noise pollution with smart tech

  Noise pollution is an underestimated threat that effects millions worldwide, mainly in urban areas. Noise pollution can cause short and long term health problems such as sleep disturbance, cardiovascular problems, poor work and school performance, and hearing impariment. Tech companies like Silentium have taken note of this and attempted to derive a solution. They have a "Quiet Bubble" system that can significantly reduce unwanted noise using active noise cancellation. At its core, the system works by using a microphone to take in external noise and process it, then it uses a speaker to release the same sound waves but in oppposite phase. This creates interference and cancels out most of each sound. This technology has existed in noise cancelling headphones for years but Silentium is trying to integrate it in peoples personal lives, in cars or homes for example. I think that tech companies using their technology to help society with ever emerging new issues such as increased noise pollution is always a positive. This specific issue is interesing because while it affects millions worldwide, it is largely ignored by society. As a result, I am skeptical of the long term popularity of this technology because many will chose to save money and continue to cope with their city's noise.

• E.U. passes Digital Markets Act to regulate 'gatekeeper' tech companies like Apple, Google, etc.

  The European Union recently passed the Digital Markets Act, which is aimed to tether large tech companies that monopolize their respective areas. This act is intended to give smaller or competitor companies a chance to compete and have their products utilized to a greater extent, which is often not possible because currently large companies are able to squash competition through a variety of means. The article was fairly vague regarding all the enforcements promised by the act, but they mention a couple specifics. One was that companies will be limited to the extent that they can store user data for the purpose of creating targeted adds. Another is that companies like Apple would be required to allow app downloads from other parties, not just through their own App Store (this seems most directly related to the goal of giving competitor platforms/companies an opportunity to have their products utilized, since companies like Apple would have less say in filtering out apps from being used on their platforms/devices). One possibly valid concern that Apple brought up in response to this was that limiting the control that they have over what apps can be downloaded is that it could lead to security issues, because Apple has less ability to audit what apps are downloadable. I would also be concerned about how this act is actually going to be enforced, and whether whoever is enforcing it has enough knowledge of the technology to be able to intervene and detect whether companies are abiding by it. Additionally, regulations like these sort of seem like temporary fixes to existing issues, but companies can likely find other ways around it or develop in new ways that circumvent these kinds of regulations.

• Talk with your dead loved ones – through a chatbot

  A man named James Vlahos lost his father to cancer in 2017 but still chats with him all the time thanks to a chatbot he created called “Dadbot.” Vlahos spent months recording his dad’s life stories, then turned them into an interactive AI that speaks in his father’s voice. Vlahos is bringing his technology to HereAfter AI, one of many startups promising digital immortality through chatbots, AI, and even holograms. The prospect of communicating with virtual versions of dead family members of friends is certainly controversial. On the one had this can be a great initiative, helping people through their grieving process. On the other hand, it can be considered creepy and can be potentially dangerous if the AI reveals information about the person, that wasn't communicated while they were alive, which can create confusion or even resentment. This also poses ethical concerns and begs philosophical questions.

• The Fragile Open Source Ecosystem Isn’t Ready for ‘Protestware’

  Russia's invasion of Ukraine sent shockwaves across the globe. Now it seems these shockwaves are beginning to make their way into open source software. Over the past week those maintaining such open source code bases have begun to find a series of deliberate attempts at sabotage. These attempts at sabotage are targeted specifically at Russian machines as a means to support Ukrainian war efforts. Open source projects have been embedded with various forms of malware, from data wipers to ransomware attacks. This proves troubling to an already shaky space as many open source projects are severely underfunded or understaffed, often times both. This can mean the vandalized could can go unnoticed. This not only sets a dangerous precedent for software to take a political stance, but it also severely undermines public opinion and faith in the open source ecosystem.

• Asahi Linux is reverse-engineering support for Apple Silicon, including M1 Ultra

  As is the case with all things Apple, their newest M1 chips are in a walled garden. Although Apple's newest processor is just about to turn 2, it still boasts some of the most impressive benchmarks when compared to other high-end consumer processors. This performance is made all the more sour by the fact that these processors can't support x86 based software. This means Windows and Linux can't run on these machines, unless using some tricky workaround like parallels or another emulator. This however has changed thanks to the release of Asahi Linux. Asahi Linux is the newest distro that seeks to natively run a Linux distribution on the bare metal of an M1 Macbook. Just lask week they released one of their first alpha's with dozens of working features. Although much is still left to be done with a lot of features on the to-do list, what's here is absolutely promising.

• Counting for Amazon’s Alabama and Staten Island union votes begins next week

  A new week, a new union vote for Amazon employees. Last April Amazon was victorious when its employees at the Bessemer Alabama fulfillment voted to not unionize. This victory however seems to be short lived after the National Labor Relations board voted to allow a second vote after allegations surfaced that Amazon engaged in illegal action when attempting to convince employees not to unionize. While voting has already begun, in fact it began almost a month ago on February 4th. Tallying will began on March 28th, to reveal if Amazon will have another victory or union's will finally get a much needed win. All of this occurs as various retail stores and companies across the country began to unionize. Starbucks, REI, and Amazon are among the few of many large corporate chains who have been facing its employees' vote to unionize.

• Netflix buys independent game developer Boss Fight in latest gaming acquisition

  Netflix has been making several big time acquisitions in the gaming space. Their most recent acquisition involves indie game developer 'Boss Fight Entertainment'. This has been one of many recent talent acquisitions made on behalf of Netflix. All of this comes along with Netflix's recent moves into the gaming, as they began to offer games to users with their subscription. Boss Fight Entertainment is the third acquisition this year, as Netflix also picked up Finland's Next Games for 72 million and Night School studio for an undisclosed amount. Netflix is trying to offer games as a part of its extensive video catalog and is willing to spend the cash to make it happen. If it all pans out however, still remains to be seen.

• Texas Sues Meta Over Facebook’s Facial-Recognition Practices

  The Texas attorney general has now filed a suit against Meta Platforms alleging that Facebook violated privacy law within the state for the way it handled biometrics. The biometrics and facial recognition cited in the lawsuit was scrapped back in November of 2021, however, Texas AG Ken Paxton stated that for over a decade the existence of facial geometric data within Facebook's platform has resulted in the violation of Texas law. Within the lawsuit Mr. Paxton stated that "Facebook has been secretly harvesting Texans' personal information... for its own corporate profit" and that to do so without informed consent is illegal. Within the Texas law a single privacy infraction draws a $25,000 fine, over the course of the decade Facebook has broken that law millions of times, meaning Texas officials are asking for hundreds of billions of dollars in restitution. It should also be noted that this lawsuit has come about after Facebook settled with the state of Illinois for their class-action lawsuit regarding similar grievances with Facebook's facial recognition and data collection practices.

• Nintendo hacker Gary Bowser sentenced to 3 years in prison

  Gary Bowser, a Canadian national who had been extradited to the United States from the Dominican Republic, has been sentenced to 3 years in prison and ordered to pay a fine totalling $4.5 million to Nintendo of America. Bowser had previously pled guilty to the federal charges of Conspiracy to Circumvent Technological Measures and to Traffic in Circumvention Devices, and Trafficking in Circumvention Devices back in October 2021. Bowser was the main man behind a team of hackers known as 'Team Xecuter' who were known for their Nintendo Switch homebrew and jailbreaking software. During the trial Nintendo alleged that Bowser "caused more than $65 million in losses to videogame companies, but the damage goes beyond these businesses, harming videogame developers and the small, creative studios whose products and hard work is essentially stolen when games are pirated". While Nintendo getting angry at software modders isn't new, the Federal Government getting involved and handing out hefty finds and jailtime certainly is. Bowser's sentencing has many wondering if this represents a era of piracy prevention on the part of the US government.

• We met the founder of Europe's largest vertical farm

  Nordic Harvest, Europe's largest vertical farm, is located in the Danish city of Taastrup, and spans over 7,000 square feet with 14 levels of agriculture. Providing about 5% of Denmark's consumption, the farm produces over 1,000 tons of salad and herbs each year, powered entirely by wind energy and low-energy LEDs. Vertical farming is an incredible tool for resource optimization, providing crops that can be harvested much more frequently than regular, keep for longer without rotting, use zero pesticides, and maintain the same flavor and nutritional profile. Because of this effectivness, vertical farming has the potential to greatly supplement the food supply chain, reduce food waste, and reduce food transportation. Thus, even though the intial cost of vertical farming infrastructure is hefty, vertical farming is in a position to support the never-ending rise in human population alongside booming urbanization while still reducing energy consumption and waste.

• What problems will autonomous robots really solve?

  The technology offered by autonomous robots poses tremendous opportunities to both substitute absent skilled labor and augment existing skilled labor by addressing repeatable, tedious, or menial tasks at higher efficiencies, with greater resource utilization. Incorporating autonomous systems will not only limit the need for direct human labor, but also much of the cost involved with keeping manufacturing facilities hospitable to human presence such as costly heating and cooling systems. More adaptations can be made towards energy and materials efficiency that is currently possible. Autonomous systems can also significantly decrease rework and resource waste which benefits the environment in the grand scheme of things.

• After being pushed out of Google, Timnit Gebru forms her own AI research institute: DAIR

  Timnit Gebru, a leader and expert in AI ethics, has started the DAIR research institute to address ethics in AI topics after being fired from Google. This institution will be independently funded, producing academic papers free of the traditional pressures in academia and the overhead of corporate research. The institute has raised $3.7 million, enough to keep the institution afloat for the foreseeable future. This move notes the need for research on the ethics of AI separate from companies implementing AI who might influence the research and findings based on their own desires.

• Flawed data is putting people with disabilities at risk

  This article articulates that AI is trained to look for patterns and groups, disregarding outliers as noise, which is incredibly problematic for the disabled community, whose disabilities are diverse and, in turn, require a nuanced approach to understand and address. This article uses anecdotes to convey this point, addressing the case of Elaine Herzberg, a woman who was hit and killed from a self-driving car when she was pushing a bicycle and the self-driving vehicle failed to categorize her, leading others in the disabled community to worry about how such cars will address wheelchairs and scooters. AI is trained on data, and if this data isn't fully inclusive, it lends itself to problematic AI which threatens to exclude minority groups and overlook important societal issues.

• Okta Concedes Hundreds of Clients Could Be Affected By Breach

  Okta is a commonly used identity authentication provider, and in January there was a breach in their security. The breach in security was caused by a hacking group named Lapsus$, because of them there are an estimated 2.5% of users whose data may have now been viewed or acted upon. This hacking simply emphasizes the need to focus on cybersecurity, especially with applications like Okta which holds a lot of important information. This article also reminds users that nothing is perfectly secure yet, and to be prepared for the risk that comes with entering your data online.

• Russian invasion of Ukraine to further strain U.S. chip supply for auto, tech industries

  This article claims that Russia's invasion of Ukraine will further strain chip supply for the entire technology industry, as well as other industries that incorporate chips into their products. Chip manufacturers were expecting the strain to ease gradually through 2022, but the war in Ukraine will impact the availiability of palladium and neon; 33% of the world's supply of palladium is sourced from Russia, and the all of the US' neon gas supply is sourced from there as well. However, many large companies have stated that the current impact of this is limited due to their stockpiles of material and continued diversification of their sources.

• Sabotage: Code added to popular NPM package wiped files in Russia and Belarus

  Ars Technica's article discusses how an author for a popular open-source Node package added malicious code that overwrites a user's file system with heart emojis—if the user has a Russian or Belarusian IP address. The motive behind this was to attack Russian and Belarusian systems in support of Ukraine, and the package modified is a dependency for Vue.js, one of the most popular web development frameworks. This could potentially draw some negative flack to open-source models, as the security of their code is contingent on community trust and good peer review practices. However, this also raises security questions for projects and libraries that pull in large amounts of dependencies through npm.

• Why Vanderbilt baseball calls pitches on electronic wristbands and how they could improve the game

  The Vanderbilt baseball has implemented a new piece of technology this season in order to not only improve the pace of play of the game of baseball, but also to improve communication between players on their team. Basically, the players on the field all wear a wristband that has a screen that will display the pitch that the pitcher is supposed to throw. The pitcher knows what pitch he is supposed to throw instantly and so does the catcher and the rest of the fielder behind him. This means that the time it took for a catcher to relay signs from the coach to a pitcher is cut in half while also allowing for every other player on the team to know what will be thrown as well. The device works as the coach presses a button and it sends a short secure signal to each device. This device is a sign that the sports world is becoming more tech involved as for the first time we are seeing players with an electronic device on their bodies. The pitcher and catcher are able to communicate without the use of words or even hand signals. The players are able to be told what to do by their coach without the coach having to be vocal enough for the other team to hear him. These devices do not use bluetooth and have a range of about 500 feet, so even players on the opposite side of the field are able to still receive the sign from the coach.

• Nvidia Unveils Latest Chips, Technology to Speed up AI Computing

  Tech company, Nvidia Corp, has recently announced the arrival of new chips and other technology that would improve computing efficiency of more complicated artificial intelligence algorithms. The company claims that their latest GPU is capable of shortening computational time for training AI models from weeks to mere days. This GPU will be used for Nvidia's new supercomputer, which the company claims will be the fastest AI system. Nvidia also introduced The Grace CPU Superchip. Additionally, they’ve been developing their own self-driving technology.

• Doctors often turn to Google Translate to talk to patients. They want a better option

  When doctors see a patient who only speaks a less common language, Google Translate is oftentimes their best option to communicate important information like discharge instructions. However, Google Translate was not built to be used for medical translation. Medical translation is distinct from other types of translation because there are many domain-specific terms and any small mistranslation could have huge effect on the patient's health. Thus, there is a pressing need in the medical field for a real-time translation tool specifically trained on medical records, that would be used alongside human translators. This article identifies a couple of teams that are working on different approaches to this task, including independent researchers and a Microsoft subsidary.

• California creating agency to regulate tech companies to protect user privacy

  This article talks about how California is creating a government agency for regulating tech companies to try to ensure that user privacy is protected. This is a good idea, although it will be interesting to see if this will have any effect. The article discusses how there is not really much of an established precedent for how such an agency should behave and what it can really do. This makes sense, because technology has moved so rapidly that the laws have not been able to keep up, and there is no established way of enforcing or even knowing what rules to place on tech companies. This is where the main concern with such an agency might arise. I think for such an agency to be effective, it is important that the individuals involved in enforcing privacy protections have some sort of technical background to be able to have an understanding of what exactly they are trying to regulate. I think this brings up an important general point; given the slow moving nature of our legislative systems in the US, it is difficult for our laws to keep up with how quickly technology is advancing. I think this emphasizes the importance of having individuals who are well versed in technology involved in making new regulations, as opposed to people who don't have much experience in these fields.

• Ukraine Tech Startups Pivot From Software Code to Rescue Plans

  As a result of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Ukrainian tech startups used the resources they had availible to them to help defend Ukraine. Tech companies are fleixble and profitable companies, even in times of war and as a result, employees can be based in other safer countries and still complete their work. This flexibility allows them to provide relief for their employees and Ukrainians as a whole, notably in the form of assistance with logistical planning and financial aid.StarWind, a data storage company doubled the salary of employees in the army, while Lemon.io (another startup) is donating their profits to the army at the end of each month.

• Lune offers an API to calculate carbon emissions at checkout

  The company Lune claims that their newly created API is important to combat climate change. This is because companies usually only have their sustainability reports hidden somewhere in their website and very few people end up reading it. That is why Lune is offering an API that exposes CO2 emissions calculations of products at checkout so that customers are better informed of the enviomental impacts of purchasing things online. By having a CO2 emmision calculation at checkout, it will allow people to be more conscious of their enviormental impact of the good they are purchasing. Additionally, companies can let their customers donate money to finance a carbon neutralization project at checkout. It can be argued that the best way to reduce carbon emmsions is to not purchase the product in the first place. However, by providing the CO2 emmsion calulation, it is possible that people will be less inclined to purchase the good. Additionally, if they have to purchase the good, it is useful that customers can help contribute to carbon offset projects.

• Deepfake presidents used in Russia-Ukraine war

  Deepfake videos of Ukraine and Russia’s presidents have surfaced amidst the war. However, these videos were quickly debunked since they were not well made. Even if these specific instances of deepfakes weren’t convincing, it is still important to pay attention to this type of technology. Later, more time and money may go into deep fakes, making them appear closer and closer to the real people they were created to emulate. This possibility is highly dangerous, since deepfakes have the potential to incite conflict due to misinformation and harm society in that way.

• 3 Questions: Fotini Christia on racial equity and data science

  Recently, a MIT-wide effort was launched to address systemic racism with the help of social science and computation. By using lots of data, they hope to develop tools that can create "structural and normative change toward equity". As of recently, existing data has shown racial discrimination in many avenues of the job market, including education and healthcare. Data science tools "can not only identify, but also contribute to, proposing fixes on racially inequitable outcomes that result from implicit or explicit biases [from]... the use of AI and algorithmic methods in decision-making". After creating these tools, they will place them in neighborhoods where indirect systemic racism exists (e.g. neighborhoods with minorities) and test these tools for their racial equity. Computation comes into play with "causal analysis" of these racial disparities and how the several structures and institutions within society have all played a role in systemic racism (both now and overtime). As a whole, this movement (ICSR) is a part of the IDSS and Fotini Christia, who looks to research issues of conflict and cooperation in the Muslim world, but has since extended to investigating systemic racism with the help of social sciences, data science, and computation.

• 3 Questions: How the MIT mini cheetah learns to run

  Running for robots has been a huge (and very difficult) leap to accomplish; CSAIL scientists at MIT came up with a "learning pipeline" for a four-legged robot which can learn to run "entirely by trial and error in simulation." To break down why running for robots is so difficult, has to do with how humans adapt to the ground they traverse; if a robot were to only walk like it would on ice everywhere, it's not very inefficient. As well as, running everywhere not only increases the chances of falling, but pushes the hardware of the robot to its limits (such as with "near[ing] the maximum torque output of motors."). To finalize the issue, a normal approach of "programming how a robot should act in every possible situation is simply very hard [and tedious]." With the new approach by these scientists, the robot can accumulate "100 days’ worth of experience on diverse terrains in just three hours of actual time...[where] the robot's behavior improves from simulated experience." With all the environments the robot sees (while simulated), the controller will be able to identify, execute, and learn new skills to conquer these simulated environments (i.e. run and traverse without falling). While skeptics may argue the scalability of this approach, however the scientists argue that their apporach is far more scalable than the normal apporach for teaching robots. The "learning pipeline" is meant to build a diverse set of skills which the robot can utilize, rather than just having the coder hardcode every situation into the robot. With scalability in mind, the scientists continue to apply this approach on other systems, including "hands that can pick up and manipulate other objects".

• Scientists and farmers see ways to make AI useful to agriculture

  A three-day conference was held recently, from March 9-11, entitled "Envisioning 2050 in the Southeast: AI-driven Innovations in Agriculture," with a focus on seeing how artificial intelligence can help the agriculture field. At the core of the ideas shown at the conference was an emphasis on collaborating with those who already work in the field to find real ways to improve the quality of life. This is a very positive take on artificial intelligence and how it can bring about an improvement to both the lives of growers and, ideally, everyone else as access to fresh produce is increased. Far too often we discuss the negatives that come with AI; while they are certainly there, it is also nice to see how it is currently being used to solve important problems such as those found in the agricultural sector.

• Injectsense collects $1.7M grant for its eye implant smaller than a grain of rice

  Tech startup Injectsense has been developing an eye implant built to measure intraocular pressure, a significant risk factor for glaucoma. The device is injected into the eye painlessely and is capable of staying in your eye for over 80 years, charged by a pair of special glasses. Based on recent animal studies performed by the company that showed high levels of success and no major issues, the National Eye institute recently awarded Injectsense with a 1.7 million dollar grant. While eye pressure is something routinely measured by an eye doctor, the device stands out because it can transmit the eye pressure data continously, which allows for better insight into the daily fluctuations in eye pressure that most people experience. Although the device is not necessarily a "flashy" implementation of injectable technology, the possibility of continous sensing means people at risk for or living with glaucoma can gain a better picture of the progression of the condition and build better plans of care with their doctor.

• China lockdowns create latest supply chain shock to global tech

  After the new restrictions were announced, more than 70 Taiwanese companies operating in the city and dozens of local Chinese manufacturers said they had suspended production. "China is digging itself into a deep hole with its zero Covid policy," said Olaf Schatteman, a supply chain expert at Bain, the consultancy. "As the restrictions are hurting suppliers and logistics operations, companies are moving beyond containing the current crisis and towards diversifying production locations, undermining China as the supply chain hub of the world". Analysts said the impact on Apple remained limited because the main iPhone production site at Foxconn, its largest supplier, was in Zhengzhou, a central Chinese city not affected at this time. "We think this is a manageable issue especially if it's limited to one week, the challenges could be more supply chain problems for the tech ecosystem and further pressure on supply/logistics overall," Evercore ISI said in a research note. An internal report from a technology company in Shenzhen obtained by the Financial Times called the domestic epidemic control situation "very serious" and said it had a cascading effect on shipments. Phelix Lee, a technology analyst at Morningstar in Hong Kong, said the migration of many technology manufacturing plants from Shenzhen to several other hubs in China and elsewhere meant the widespread factory closures in the city were less catastrophic than they would have been a few years ago. Luxshare, a Chinese contract electronics manufacturer with a rapidly growing share of Apple orders, makes some cables and interconnectors in its Shenzhen plants. "They are being disrupted because they could not ship to Foxconn," Lee said. "It could be quite significant".

• San Francisco International Airport to implement new landing technology

  Recently, the federal aviation administration has approved the use of new landing technology, GBAS (Ground-based Augmentation System), that would enable San Francisco Airport to reduce aircraft noise over nearby communities. This new technology corrects errors in satellite-based GPS using receivers and broadcasting antennae. It improves accuracy to about 38m to 37m from the previous 40m. This new technology will improve safety and performance (especially during bad weather). San Francisco Airport hopes to develop innovative GBAS procedures for other airline use in the next few years.

• Breastcancer.org Announces Website Launch With New Design, Technology, and Features to Empower People With Breast Cancer

  Breastcancer.org is a nonprofit organization that aims to provide support as well as reliable and relevant information about breast cancer and health. Recently, they have redesigned their website to implement experiences that reflect the various experiences and needs of people with breast cancer and encompass all aspects of the user experience. This allows site visitors to benefit from peer support through viewing articles, videos, photo galleries, checklists. The new design provides aid for patients who are newly diagnosed, in treatment, finished treatment, as well as people who are living with metastatic disease, concerned about breast cancer risk, and caring for someone with breast cancer. This digital front-end development and quality assurance implement a more user-friendly and personalized guide by incorporating the experiences of others.

• An Alternate Holographic Universe May Lead Us Into a Black Hole

  Algorithms are being developed to solve a theory in physics called “holographic duality”. Holographic duality suggests that three-dimensional space inside black holes is strung to the two-dimensional universe. In other words, the fabric of spacetime as a 3D hologram projected by 2D webs. If this is accurate, scientists could study 2D space around the black hole to extrapolate 3D space inside it without having to “go in” it. Algorithms using quantum computing help map out the strings of string theory which make up this 2D blueprint to extrapolate 3D space.

• How Crypto and NFTs Are Funding Ukraine's Resistance Against Russia

  Alex Bornyakov, Ukraine’s deputy minister of digital transformation set up a cryptocurrency relief fund which has raised over 53 million dollars. Crypto is much easier to move around taking a few minutes for transactions to clear as opposed to a wire transfer, which can take days. Bornyakov also has a vision for how the country can distribute NTFs to help raise more money. His vision includes a sort of war museum which produces daily NFTs which can be sold to supporters.

• Google Cloud gets more expensive

  Google cloud will significantly increase prices for several services beginning October 1, 2022. Specifically, multi-region Nearline storage and Coldline Storage Class A will increase by 50%. Additionally, cloud services in a region on the same continent will now be priced instead of free, as it was previously. Furthermore, load balancing will increase from $0.008 to $0.012 depending on the region. Google justifies these changes by claiming that they are providing “more flexible pricing models and options.”

• Restaurants Sue Google for Allegedly Prioritizing Delivery Apps in Search

  A restaurant group in Florida sues Google for directing users to food delivery apps instead of restaurants’ own delivery services. They claim that Google never obtained permission from restaurants to sell their food via third party delivery services and is purposely making it appear as though it has. Google defends itself by stating that restaurants can opt out of, and even choose, their preferred delivery service. Additionally, Google does not profit from prioritizing certain delivery apps so there is no reason to believe that they would be doing it on purpose.

• iOS 15.4 now live as Universal Control comes to iPads and Macs 23

  Apple’s latest version of their iPhone operating system, iOS 15.4, includes minor updates like the addition of new emojis, anti-stalking feature for AirTags, and a more gender-neutral Siri voice. The two major updates are the ability to use Face ID while wearing a mask, although less accurate, and the Universal Control feature. Universal Control lets users wirelessly control an iPad with their Mac’s keyboard and mouse. iOS 15.4 is already out and available for download.

• The US dollar could go digital. Here's what you need to know

  According to an accompanying fact sheet released by the White House, there’s an executive order "placing urgency on research and development of a potential United States CBDC, should issuance be deemed in the national interest." CBDC stands for Central Bank Digital Currency, a way to issue digital dollars backed by the federal government. Advantages of CBDC include convenience, ability to repress fraud, and efficient dispersion of taxes/government funds. Disadvantages of CBDC include privacy concerns, cybersecurity risks, policy debates, and threats to independence of the Fed.

• Didi’s 44% stock plunge leaves SoftBank and Uber with diminishing returns

  Didi shares tumbled 44% on Friday, the biggest one-day drop since the Chinese ride-hailing company went public in the U.S. in June. The stock is now 87% below its IPO price, leaving its two top shareholders — SoftBank and Uber — facing the potential for steep losses. The shares were already in freefall amid a crackdown by the Chinese government on domestic companies listed in the U.S. Didi said in December that it would delist from the New York Stock Exchange and instead list in Hong Kong. On Friday, Bloomberg reported that Didi hadn’t complied with data-security requirements necessary to proceed with a share sale in Hong Kong. Uber said in its latest annual report that in 2021 it recognized an unrealized $3 billion loss on its Didi investment. Last year CNBC reported that SoftBank was selling part of its Uber position partly to cover its Didi losses. “Since we invested in Didi, we have seen a huge loss of value,” Masayoshi Son, SoftBank’s CEO, said in a February call to discuss results for the nine months ended Dec. 31. Didi wasn’t the only Chinese tech stock to drop on Friday, though its decline was the heftiest.

• China’s tech platforms become propaganda tools in Putin’s war

  The Ukraine invasion is casting an unflattering light on the role of China's private technology groups, including Tencent, Sina Weibo and ByteDance, in disseminating official misinformation, posing difficult compliance issues for the companies' foreign investors. The internet platforms of tech giants in China are promoting content backing Russian president Vladimir Putin's attack on Ukraine while suppressing posts that are sympathetic to Kyiv, potentially conflicting with international funds' corporate and social responsibility commitments and public statements against the war. This week, Russian disinformation reports of US-run biological laboratories in Ukraine with "large quantities of dangerous viruses" were repeated by China's foreign ministry spokesperson and state media. "The Chinese market is uninvestable from an ESG perspective," said Felix Boudreault, managing director of Sustainable Market Strategies, an environmental, social and corporate governance investment research group. Many of the companies most popular with investors were subject to strict state controls, said Boudreault, adding that tech and media companies were "extremely vulnerable to the strike of a pen from a Chinese bureaucrat". Moscow's talking points are frequently adopted from Russian state media and run on China's platforms as well as being parroted by Chinese officials, state media and a chorus of nationalist influencers. Investments in Chinese platforms are becoming "problematic" from a social responsibility perspective, said one Hong Kong-based executive at an international fund whose portfolio includes Chinese internet company shares. "It is a tough market, getting tougher," said the investor, who asked not to be named citing Hong Kong's national security laws, which target criticism of China. "Investors should be able to engage with companies on these issues. The focus on China's tech giants and their investors comes as western governments push international social media companies to remove Russian state-backed media from their platforms. He added that investors had also largely ignored the sector's alleged ties to surveillance in China's western Xinjiang region where one million Muslims have been imprisoned. "One of the issues which is most concerning is the sheer level of passive investment in these companies, particularly Tencent and Alibaba.

• Russian internet users are learning how to beat Putin's internet crackdown

  Russian Internet users VPNs to view world's opion on the ukraine war while putin controls the media within russia and limit their freedom of speech using violent force and new technologies. Russian internet users are increasingly relying on virtual private networks (VPNs) and encrypted messaging applications to circumvent government restrictions. According to experts, Putin may have unintentionally triggered a significant, long-lasting shift in computer literacy that will work against him for years. Since March 1, Russian internet traffic to Signal has increased by a "substantial amount." Since the Ukraine invasion, Tor, a service that directs internet traffic through government firewalls, has witnessed a 2,000 percent surge in downloads from Russia. Telegram and Lantern, two private chat apps, are also thriving in Russia in the aftermath of the invasion. Russian internet users face grave dangers as the Kremlin cracks down on social media. For years, some Russian internet users have used secure communication programs. Kremlin supporters can still attempt to lure them into Russia's broader information war. If only a small proportion of citizens use such tools, Putin may be able to monopolize the country's information arena. The proliferation of anti-censorship technologies may herald the start of a "J-curve" in Russia, according to security expert Meinrath.

• Texas sues Meta for collecting facial recogniion data

  Texas is suing Meta over allegations that the social media giant illegally harvested the facial recognition data of tens of millions of state residents for a decade. The lawsuit argues that a now-shuttered Facebook photo-tagging feature failed to get Texans’ informed consent before gathering their facial recognition data. The feature worked by analyzing faces in photos, including those of non-Facebook users and recommending that Facebook users tag the people that the tool identified. Facebook announced it would discontinue the tool in November 2021 and that it would also delete the data it had collected from at least 600 million users who had been a part of the program.

• Zuckerberg reveals AI projects to power Metaverse

  Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg has unveiled several artificial intelligence projects describing AI as “the key to unlocking the Metaverse.” In a live streamed demonstration, he created a basic brutal world with an island, trees, and a beach, using an AI feature Builder Bot. He also announced plans to build a universal speech translator. He made sure to promise the AI systems driving Meta’s virtual worlds would preserve privacy and be transparent and responsible. Facebook has been investing in AI for the past 10 years and in January, it announced that it had built a new AI supercomputer that it aims to be the fastest in the world when completed mid 2022.

• 'Full Self-Driving' Clips show owners of Teslas fighting for control, and experts see deep flaws

  Tesla has made the greatest strides of any auto manufacturer when it comes to making self-driving vehicles. However, their technology isn’t perfect, which shows how difficult it is to create an autonomous robot. Videos show Teslas driving down light-rail tracks, failing to stop for pedestrians at crosswalks, and slamming into bike lane bollard at 11 mph. Each of these examples reveals a fundamental weakness in Tesla’s “Full Self-Driving” technology. According to experts, these problems have no easy solution because patching one issue might introduce new complications and the nearly infinite array of possible real-life scenarios is simply too much for Tesla’s algorithm to master.

• TikTok limits services as Netflix pulls out of Russia

  The article focuses on how certain platforms, specifically Netflix and Tik Tok, have cut off their services in Russia amidst the invasion of Ukraine. Tik Tok has suspended live streaming and new content as the company tries to slow the spread of “fake news” regarding Russian armed forces. Tik tok explains this as a safety measure to ensure the protection of its staff and its users. According to the article, anyone reported writing “fake news” about the military can have upto 15 years in prison. There are approximately 36 million Russian Tik Tok-users, making it one of the company’s largest territories. Russian users can currently only view content; the restrictions on producing content is to protect people from being charged with “fake news”. Tik Tok has only recently released a statement regarding the invasion of Ukraine saying it was “devastating” and that it brought “pain to our community and our people”. Netflix has, since last week, halted all projects in Russia and stopped streaming services. Other companies have suspended operations: Burberry, H&M, Jaguar Land Rover, Apple. Visa, Mastercard and American Express have also suspended operations.

• Apple, Microsoft and Other Tech Companies Stop Sales in Russia

  Many tech companies, such as Apple, Microsoft, and Samsung, are either limiting or completely stopping sales of their products in Russia. This is largely due to the political tensions between Ukraine that have taken root there. Additionally, companies have also ceased advertisements on social media sites, and streaming services are holding off on releasing movies and tv shows. This will overall make it difficult to purchase phones, games, and more in Russia, perhaps leading to inflated prices of these products in the market.

• Google Suspends Advertising in Russia

  In response to calls by the Russian government on Google to take down ads that "spread disinformation about the situation in Ukraine", Google has taken the rare step of suspending all ad services in the country. Although they have not confirmed anything, it is speculated that this is because they have several hundred employees in the country. Additionally, this is one of a few different steps that Google has had to take in response to the ongoing conflict. This is only one example of the broader way that tech now plays a large role in conflict.

• '50% of transactions were fraudulent' when Steam accepted Bitcoin for payments, says Gabe Newell

  Recently, Steam has banned blockchain and NFT games, to the annoyance of gamers who are fans of crypto. The decision is precedented by Steam's short-lived experiment with accepting Bitcoin as payment, which started in Apr 2016 and ended Dec 2017. Steam's reasoning for dropping support for Bitcoin was the extreme fluctuation it caused in the price of a game by the day, and the high amount of fraud that came with the crypto scene. Gabe Newell, president of Steam's parent company Valve, comments, "There's a lot of really interesting technology in blockchains... but I think that people haven't figured out why you actually need a distributed ledger." Newell's comment reflects rising concerns around the "overhype" of blockchain technology, and critiques on appropriate use and limitations of crypto.

• What You Need to Know About Facial Recognition at Airports

  The U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency is aiming to incorporate biometric facial recognition with its new identification system. The technology they use (Simple Arrival) uses facial recognition which compares a current photo of the person being identified and their passport photo using a computer algorithm. There are a few concerns regarding this automated method of identification, the first one having to do with privacy. Some privacy advocates have voiced their skepticism regarding this process, demanding insurance that "flagged individuals are treated in a safe, fair and noninvasive manner given the imperfection of facial recognition software.” Another worry that surfaced was regarding bias in the programming that could lead to higher rates of errors for some groups, including people of color. The article claims that the C.B.P. has partnered up with the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the algorithm shows “virtually no demonstrable difference when it comes to demographics.”

• Chip sanctions aim for Russia’s military and its tech industry hopes

  This article discusses US sanctions against Russia's tech-economy to disrupt its military capabilities. The sanctions include the ban of exporting chip technology to Russia by US based companies, such as Intel and Nvidia. The sanction is specifically targeted for chip technology meant for military purposes and would not stop Russian citizens from buying normal technology goods, such as mobile phones. This move mirrors that of US sanctions against Huawei a couple years before due to security concerns, but use of the same sanctions today brings concern of Chinese companies moving in to supply Russia the chip technology instead. However, a senior Biden official remarks "China alone can't supply all of Russia's critical needs" and this seems reasonable given that China accounts for only 16 percent of global semiconductor prodcution, so such an outcome is unlikely. Nonetheless, the tech sanctions reflect a US response in limiting Russia's military aggression with the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict.

• Ukraine invasion: Russia restricts social media access

  This article is discussing the news restriction sanctions being put in place by the Russian government as the invasion of Ukraine is currently happening. The article explains how these policies have severely limited the flow of information in a state of national crisis. The websites which have been most restricted for many Russian citizens are Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Fact checking by Meta— who owns media platforms like Facebook and Instagram— and the allowance of views that stand in opposition to Russian media outlets to persevere. Meta has restricted certain Russian officials on some platforms resulting in the state demanding these sanctions be lifted. Meta refused arguing that their apps are allowing many users to spread information and mobilize. Meta is currently trying to make their apps accessible and partnered with an outside organization , Reuters, to fact-check and stop the spread of disinformation. There is limited information still concerning how Russian will continue to limit other Meta apps, like WhatsApp.

• Russia and Social Media Services Clash

  Russia is fighting with several social media platforms (such as Meta and Twitter), because they are trying to restrict Russia's ability to spread false information about their recent invasion of Ukraine. Social Media platforms have been facing pressure to crack down on Russia, and many individuals are calling for platforms to straight out prohibit Russians from using these services. Interestingly, Russia is also starting to restrict the ability for its citizens to use services like Facebook and Twitter, probably to make it more difficult for its citizens to see outside information about the conflict with Ukraine. The question of whether companies like Facebook and Twitter should ban Russian users brings up interesting ethical discussion, and the leaders of these companies are having to grapple with what to do in this situation. Meta's global affairs department determined that it would cause more detriment to ban Russians from using Facebook. This could be the case because much of the Russian media is spreading lots of propaganda. However, this is definitely an interesting issue because it shows how decisions by these tech companies have serious implications for real world issues.

• Strong Compute wants to speed up your ML model training

  Strong Compute is an Australia-based startup focused on optimizing the training of ML models by removing inefficiencies in the training process. They compliment the beauty of ML libraries such as PyTorch and TensorFlow, but argue these come at the cost of inefficiency. Many customer anecdotes second their claims that the training process can be sped up by 10x. This company promises a bright future for training ML models, a current problem many companies face when calculating the cost and training time for these core algorithms.

• Google is leading a vast, covert human experiment. You may be one of the guinea pigs

  Google is performing A/B testing on its user base without express user consent, leading to the questioning of Google's - and other tech giants' - ethics. In this specific example, Google displayed alternative news sources to approximately 1% of its Australia-based users to test "the impacts of new businesses and Google Search on each other". These differing results have led those selected users to alternative, often unreliable, news sources over trusted sites. Google has either failed to fully realize the ethical implications of their testing or operates with dubious ethics. The article questions Google's intent to manipulate its user base, referencing a more serious case when Facebook tested on its users by boosted either positive or negative news in their feed to see the effect on their peers, a study widely condemned, for comparison. We conclude noting the importance of disclosure when testing on users.

• Using artificial intelligence to find anomalies hiding in massive datasets

  Some MIT researchers have created a method that is able to point out anomalies in real time from data streams in an efficient way. This model does not need to be trained on annotated data on power grid anomalies, which makes it suitable for real life situations that don’t have cleaned up data of good quality. One possible use of the model includes monitoring traffic and water systems. Although other models do exist, the researchers conclude that their model performs better when it comes to pointing out anomalies. This is because their model was able to detect a higher percent of the true anomalies that existed in the datasets that were tested.

• Valve has no plans for a 'Steam Pass,' but would help Microsoft put Game Pass on Steam

  With the highly anticipated launch of the Steam Deck this taking place this week, Valve has responded to speculations that they might release a competitor to Xbox Game Pass. Although they shut down the rumors, they opened the door for Microsoft to put their subscription service on the Steam platform, an anomaly in the console space. Although Game Pass games are theoretically playable already by installing Windows, putting Game Pass on Steam would open up a large library to casual gamers. Despite claims that this would not make sense from Microsoft's viewpoint, the same was said about Xbox games coming to Steam, which recently took place.

• Toward a stronger defense of personal data

  Researchers at MIT have developed an "application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) chip", with the power to defend against "side-channel" attacks, or attacks that seek to gather secret information via an exploitation of a system and/or its hardware. An example of a side attack is the exploitation of the hardware on a smartwatch by inspecting the device's power consumption to get private health data about the individual. The ASIC chip answers this issue by using "threshold computing", which splits the data into "unique, random components" which are then operated on in a random order as well before getting the final result. Their chip was a success as with the default implementation "they were able to recover hidden information... in about 1000 power waveforms (representations of power usage over time)". Whereas, with the new hardware, "even after collecting 2 million waveforms, they still could not recover the data". However, now the main issue that has come up is the design: while it provides significant security against these attacks, "the chip requires 5.5 times more power and 1.6 times more silicon area than a baseline insecure implementation." The researchers, however, argue that "[We're willing to trading] off some amount of energy consumption to make a more secure computation", arguing that it can be utilized while more energy-sustainable models are created in the future.

• Using artificial intelligence to find anomalies hiding in massive datasets

  In complex grid data such as power grid or water grid data, determining the probabilities of anomalies (such as a spike in voltage) is very difficult, as power grid data consists of many incoming data points very second from different sensors across the grid. At IBM-Watson's MIT AI Lab, researchers have devised an efficient method for determining these malfunctions in data streams in real time, and turning these complex probabilities into more managable ones. They argue that their artifical intelligence method is much better at detecting them than other popular techniques. Deriving this method involved using concepts in Baynesian networks, individual probabilities, probability density, and even techniques in deep learning like "normalizing form" which allow an artifical intelligence to see a complicated network of multidimensional data points as an interconnected Baynesian network or interconnected grid. As the AI learns the causal structure of the data it receives, it can begin to construct causal structures between sensors and convert otherwise complex probabilities into more managable ones for researchers to investigate. In preparing and testing this method, they used previous data of grid networks such as power grid data, water grid data, and traffic data which contains anomalies that'd been previously identified and solved by humans. What they found was that their model "outperformed all the baselines by detecting a higher percentage of true anomalies in each dataset". To go further, their model involved no supervision, as the AI learns on its own this causal grid structure; the researchers hope that this solution can be mapped to other datasets and complex forms of data.

• Tesla’s reverse on battery cells signals shift for electric vehicles

  This article by June Yoon delves into Tesla’s recent decision for its cars to start using lithium iron phosphate batteries. This is caused by the recent surge in prices for raw materials in the world of batteries for electric cars. The article points out how this type of battery is widely used for less sophisticated devices such as golf carts and residential back-up power systems. But iron-based batteries are a much less efficient option for electric cars as they have a lower energy density than the nickel, cobalt, and manganese batteries, which are currently used in most electric cars. Being iron-based, these batteries will in turn offers less driving distance on a single charge. The main advantage in switching towards iron-based batteries is the price: they cost about 30 per cent per battery cell than their nickel-rich counterparts. Another advantage is that they are thermally more stable, meaning a lower risk of fires. Battery-caused car fires have costed companies such as General Motors upwards of $2 billion and Supplier LG Energy solution an estimated $1.2 billion. Tesla’s decision to switch to iron-based batteries has inspired other carmakers such as Volkswagen to plan to use them as well. However, a switch to iron-based batteries would mean a powershift for China, as the country produces more than 95% of iron-based battery cells and controls more than 80% of the world’s refining and mining aof electric car battery raw materials.

• NASA Offers Up to $200 Million to Help Push New Technologies to Market

  Through Tipping Point, NASA seeks to support space technologies that can foster the growth of commercial space capabilities and benefit future agency missions. “Public-private partnerships established through these opportunities will combine agency resources with industry contributions, a benefit that will unlock new ideas to advance how we live and work in space while providing greater value to the American people.” These opportunities focus on technology development for space infrastructure and capabilities for the Moon and near-Earth space. "Forging strong partnerships with the commercial space economy is critical for driving our nation’s space exploration further and faster," said Jim Reuter, associate administrator for the Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) at NASA’s Headquarters in Washington, which manages the new opportunities. More than half a billion dollars have been awarded to 50 projects since NASA announced the first Tipping Point opportunity in 2015. Space x technologies advanced through this funding are now part of current and future mission plans.

• China Is About to Regulate AI—and the World Is Watching

  Chinese government is on the move to regulate corperates' AI algorithm uses that set prices, control search results, recommend videos, and filter content. Some car hailing apps in china uses AI algorithm to provide different prices for different users. For instence, the platform may offer a lower price for the same ride based on users usage and price of the phone they use. In one of Prsident Xi jinping's speech in Octorber, he said there are "unhealthy and disorderly signals and trendds" regarding china's digital economy development. Based on the new 'INternet information Service Algorithmic Recommendatio Management Provisions' will enforce corperates and individual use Ai in unlawful and unhealfy ways online. Certain provisions of the new regulations may prove challenging or impossible to enforce. Controlling the behavior of an algorithm that is constantly changing due to new input, for example, might be technically tough.

• Why SNK shifted to Unreal Engine for its latest fighting games

  SNK decided to use the unreal engine for their latest game, The King of Fighters XV, which helped the development and quality of the final product. The unreal engine provided benefits to development such as easier time porting and enhanced shader capabilities. SNK used unreal engine for their previous title Samurai Shodown, which was a success and they are developing a future game with unreal engine. The King of Fighters XIV did not use unreal engine, but SNK was experimenting with unreal engine during that game's development, so the transition was easy.

• Tesla wants its cars to be Steam compatible

  In a tweet, Elon Musk reveals that Tesla is working towards making their cars Steam compatible. New Tesla models currently have an AMD GPU that is able to run demanding games on the dashboard. The dashboard makes use of a Linux operating system, which Steam currently is optimizing for things like the Steam Deck. The only confirmation of this happening is Elon Musk’s tweet. Also Tesla is currently being investigated by National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for some games being playable while driving, which has been disabled since last December.

• Google lowered its salaries in North Carolina. Now workers are protesting.

  Google has lowered its employees salaries and stock benefits below national level for some of its North Carolina offices. Representatives from Google claim this change was to readjust to offer competitive pay relative to the local market. However, affected workers view the adjustment as problematic. This is partly because many employees moved to the area before the salary cut for the lower cost of living, and Google had "record-breaking performance in the stock market, in spite of Covid-19," and so should be rewarding its workers rather than cutting salaries. A larger reason for upset is also the cut happening simultaneously with Google's plans to make the company more diverse by hiring black engineers in areas like Durnham, North Carolina. Thus, critics raise the question of if Google is exploiting the very hires that will make their company more diverse.

• Ransomware-Related Data Leaks Jump 82% in 2021

  This article goes over the alarming 2021 cyber security report about the prevalence and danger of ransomware attacks. The report states that there were 2,686 attacks in 2021 compared to 1,474 attacks in 2020, which is an 82% increase. Perpetrators are evolving their approaches with ransomware, such as accessing legitamite login credentials to takeover system functions, as a way to bypass antivirus products. The report also notes that almost 49% of the attacks are financially motivated, and a prime example was the "lock and leak" attacks observed where the data is not only encrypted for ransom but also stolen to sell online. Such attacks are growing in popularity because of the many vulnerabilites in a company's cloud and server infrastructure that can be exploited by these attackers. It's with a warning that "adversaries continue to adapt to security environments" and this will only continue in 2022.

• Losing Tech War To China? After Hypersonic Missiles, Ex-Google CEO Says US Far Behind In Another Critical Technology

  The article argues that China is rapidly overtaking the United States in the competition to develop and produce what the former Google CEO, Eric Schmidt, refers to as “strategically important technology”. One of these crucial advancements is in hypersonic technology. In July of last year China conducted a hypersonic weapon test that launched a missile around the world at a speed 5x faster than the speed of sound. China has also recently expanded greatly in its investment of 5G services. China has invested approximately 50x as much in 5G technology as the United States, with a total of $50 billion investment in the country. Schmidt goes on to criticize the United State’s failure to not only effectively allocate resources to hypersonic and 5G technology, but also to high tech manufacturing, green energy and AI. The primary concern is the security threat that technological stagnation poses to the United States. In recent news, Chinese researchers claim to have successfully reached a wireless transmission speed of 206.25 gigabits per second, suggesting 6G technology may be 100x faster than 5G. This combined with hypersonic missiles highlights the growing disparity in tech design as the United States struggles to rollout 5G across the country. The only solution provided is an increased amount of funding into research to continue securing the United States position as a global leader in technological advancement.

• Google moves to make Android apps more private

  Google plans to increase privacy on android apps alongside the Chrome browser. By 2023 the use of third party cookies is supposedly planned to be removed from Chrome. Overall, the sharing of user data will be more limited so that advertisers will not be able to gain much access to it. However, in the past, the article highlights that Google’s attempts to make up for third party cookies have been unsuccessful, such as in the case of Floc (Federated Learning of Cohorts). Additionally, details on specific implementation methods have not yet been provided.

• Texas Sues Meta's Facebook Over Facial-Recognition Practices

  According to U.S. News, the state of Texas plans to sue Meta over the use of Texans' biometric data without their consent. The lawsuit claims that Meta has allegedly used biometric data of the 20.5 million Texans who use Meta "billions of times." A Meta spokesperson has since denied these allegations saying that these claims are "without merit" and that they will fight to defend themselves. In November 2021, Meta said that they were stopping their facial recognition system, and that the data collected was being deleted; however, this data is supposedly being distributed to others without their consent, and was failed in being deleted.

• What is Edge AI and How Does It Work?

  This NVIDIA article explains new developments made in the area of Edge AI. It goes on to say that Edge AI is where AI applications in devices are sent out into the physical world. The word “edge" is used because the AI computations are done at the edge of the network, rather than centrally in something like a cloud computing facility. These AI applications are learning to perform tasks in the midst of the "infinite circumstances" that humans are faced with in everyday life. These AI have many uses, and it is claimed that they provide a "robust infrastructure" for general AI.

• Kanye West’s $200 Stem Player will be the only way to get his next album, Donda 2

  Kanye West announced this week that his upcoming album, Donda 2, would only be available on his "stem Player" platform, and would not be coming to normal streaming platforms. He claims that this is in response to the fact that artists only get 12% of the money that the industry makes, with streaming platforms taking large percentages. Launched with his previous album, the Stem Player is an interesting device that allows for the onboard music to be manipulated, although it was nowhere near as functional as a proper mixing device, nor is it as convenient to use as streaming platforms. Notably, this is not the first time Kanye has attempted to avoid mainstream streaming platforms, since he tried something similar several years ago. However, it seems less likely he will backtrack this time, unlike the last, given the current state of the music industry and criticism of platforms such as Spotify.

• GitHub launches code scanning scheme to hunt down vulnerabilities

  This TechRadar article discusses a new experimental feature that GitHub has released, which will automatically scan code to see if it has vulnerabilities that could enable SQL injection, cross-site scripting, or other exploits. The scanner is powered by machine learning and currently only processes JavaScript and TypeScript code. If a vulnerability is found, the user will be notified in the security tab of their repository. The article then goes on to contextualize how this feature is another way in which GitHub seeks to implement automation in its service, following the development of GitHub Copilot.

• We tested Apple's new option to unlock an iPhone while wearing a mask

  This article discusses Apple's new software update, which includes a new feature that enables users to unlock their phone with face id even while wearing a mask. There has been a loss of one Apple's most convenient features over the last couple years as face id does not work when people wear a mask. Apple also has stated that this update should allow for better results when wearing sunglasses and/or a hat and trying to unlock your phone. This upcoming update is big news, as it means we won't have the annoying issue of typing in our passcode or pulling off our mask in public to unlock our phones. The convenience of face id is a big feature that was revolutionary when it was first released, and these new updates should improve it more. It will be interesting to see how effective the new changes are. An initial test with the beta revealed that while it was able to unlock the device with a mask on, there were still some inconsistencies. There were times that they were prompted to input their passcode to unlock the phone, but Apple will likely address this issue before releasing fully in the next update.

• Google also enforcing rules to honor user privacy to detriment of advertisers

  Google has also announced that they will enforce policies that limit advertisers' ability to track users' activity. Currently, Google/Android users each have a unique ID that advertisers can use to track their activity. However, Google plans to revise this in the future. However, there is an important difference between Google's approach and that of Apple (who also recently announced changing to protect users' privacy from advertisers); Apple released their changes immediately, allowing users to block advertisers from tracking their activity, while Google has announced that their changes will not fully take effect for about two more years (they will continue supporting the user ID's for at least two years). This gives advertisers/social media companies who rely on them time to adjust and come up with new approaches. I think it is interesting that Apple and Google approached this differently, and I wonder whether Google's softer approach was influenced by the fact that Apple's privacy changes were met with strong backlash/criticism because of how abrupt their changes were.

• Maybe Green Energy Needs 'Information Batteries' Too

  To save on the large amount of energy used for computing, researchers suggest pre commuting information necessary and storing it away in "information batteries", during times when clean power is available and saving it for when it is not. Companies like Google and Facebook that use up alot of energy for pre computable things like search results or friend suggestions and by doing that work asynchronously and storing it, they reduce their consumption. Similar strategies are used by others who do their heavy processing at night when there is less usage by others. However, pre computing for information batteries would not be able to predict the future of what will be needed but only parts of it.

• Bionic eyes: Obsolete tech leaves patients in the dark

  People who used retinal implants (Argus II) from Second Sight are being left figuratively and literally in the dark. Second sight almost went out of business and so they discontinued Argus II. This meant that people who currently have it have no one to go to for support or repairs of the retinal implant. The Argus is an implanted electrode array that stimulates the eye according to the video being recorded by the glasses of users. This showcases our vulnerability to tech and the continuance of it.

• Crypto money laundering rises 30%, report finds

  In thie article, the author claims that more criminals chooses to use crypto currency to laundering money due to low transaction fees with while decentralisation offers criminals greater anonymity and security protection from the authorities. Chainalysis says that after tracking cryto currency wallets controleed by criminals they found that they have laundered over $8.6 billions of cryptocurrency in 2021, "up by 30%" since 2020. According to the research, cryptocurrency laundering accounts for 17% of all monies sent from unlawful wallets, up from 2% in 2016. Money from offline crime, such as drug trafficking funds converted to cryptocurrencies to be laundered, is not covered, and the report warns that this could be a growing area. The paper claims that this is low in comparison to more traditional ways of money laundering, "suggesting that Bitcoin-based laundering could become increasingly attractive to traditional criminals."

• Silicon Valley is no longer the edgy tech frontier as workers flee Google and Amazon for crypto and Web3 startups, recruiters say

  Katie Canales’ Business Insider article details how recently there has been a trend of high-profile executives and developers leaving established firms to find jobs in crypto and other decentralized tech ventures. A leading example of this is how the former CMO of Meta’s digital wallet project, Novi, has left the company to pursue a position at the blockchain-focused payments company Circle. This effect is similar to that of the wave of job switching in the early 2010s that saw the arrival of companies such as Uber and Lyft. Whether or not this is just a trend in Silicon Valley or a lasting impact, only the future will know what is in store for the workers who leave for crypto and Web3 startups.

• Watching Me, Watching You: How Eye Tracking Is Coming to VR and Beyond

  Experts at Tobii, an eye tracking tech company, believe that eye tracking is the next big leap in VR and AR technology. By integrating eye tracking into AR and VR, software engineers can redistribute graphics processing power, allow avatars to make eye contact, and integrate new eye controls. However, there is a big security concern regarding the data that will be collected from users' eye movements. Fortunately, software companies like Tobii, are brainstorming user agreements that will explain what data is being collected to better inform users before they allow thier data to be tracked.

• Cryptocurrency is akin to 'Ponzi scheme' and banning it is 'perhaps the most advisable choice', says India's Central Bank

  This TechCrunch article is about a high up official of India's central bank calling cryptocurrencies akin to ponzi schemes just after the Indian government began legalizing cryptocurrencies through its aim to tax them. He advocates for banning cryptocurrencies, saying, "They threaten the financial sovereignty of a country and make it susceptible to strategic manipulation by private corporates creating these currencies or governments that control them". This article highlights the acceptance and rejection of cryptocurrencies worldwide, specifically in India.

• Reface, a viral face-swap app from Ukraine, adds anti-war push notifications

  Reface, a Ukrainian face-swap app, is sending push notifications to its user base of approximately 200 million asking them to stand with the Ukraine against Russian invasion with the hashtag #StandWithUkraine and by watermarking videos made on their app with a Ukrainian flag. Moreover, an image of sheltering civilians in Kyiv has replaced the home page and displays messages for Russia to be excluded from a banking system in addition to info on how to help Ukrainians during this time. In light of Russia's invasion, this app is trying to highlight these wrongdoings and bring attention and help to the situation in Ukraine.

• Alex Frangi created an AI to predict heart attack risk fromo a retina scan

  A professor at the University of Leeds in England and his research assistants have been conducting research on pre-heart-attack symptoms, and how to notify the patient that they are at risk. Data was collected from tens of thousands of individuals who had gotten recent retina scans, as well as over 5,000 cases of people who had both a retina and cardiac magnetic resnoance scan. The data was split into 10 parts for training, and by the end the AI was able to correctly predict a heart attack 70-80% of the time. This is a major upgrade from a doctors diagnosis for a few reasons. First, it is much quicker. Current methods for determining heart attack risk required blood samples as well as use of an electrocardiogram, while yhe AI only needs a retina scan, which is much faster and more patient friendly. This is also a much cheaper option since the technology required for a retina scan is much simpler than that of CMR scans. Retina scans will also be much more available to the general public through the use of phones. Eventually each phone will be capable of performing a retina scan, which when mixed with this AI will give everyone the ability to test their own risk of a heart attack without requiring a doctors involvement. Finally in testing, the AI performed 10% better than any previous methods did, suggesting that this AI is capable of determining risk of a heart attack quicker, cheaper, more conveniently, and more accurately than current methods.

• Microsoft purchasing Activision

  This is an article about Microsoft recently purchasing the game developing company Activision Blizzard. They are responsible for many popular games such as Overwatch, Call of Duty World of Warcraft, the Diablo franchise, and many others. In recent years the company has seen its profits dropping as their games fall out of relevancy, with no new releases gaining widespread popularity. On January 18th, Microsoft that they would purchase Blizzard for an estimated $70 billion which is now the largest video game purchase of all time. After this sale, Microsoft will become the third biggest game developing company in the world, behind Tencent and Sony. Currently the videogame market is extremely profitable, with an estimated 3 billion people actively engaged in at least one game. While this new ownership would likely reignight Blizzards popularity, it is concerning how Microsoft is slowly purchasing all smaller game dev comapines. Continuing this could make it much more difficult for future game dev companies to enter the market, and further strengthen the oligopoly that top companies share today.

• Synthetic Data Usage in AI

  This segment from IEEE talks about a company called Omniverse which is pushing for the usage of synthetic data in training AI. Omniverse is meant to be a simulated version of reality with the minimum amount of important physics aspects implemented in order to simulate a real world setting in VR. This would allow the user to create environments to perform tests, such as on the top of a frozen mountain or middle of a desert without actually having to go to that location to gather data. While creating "fake data" may seem like it would not be as impactful as data recorded in the real world, it would allow AI training in areas where data cannot be gathered morally or easily. For example, Omniverse simulated a series of dangerous environments to gather data for self-driving cars. Data was gathered on icy roads, sudden sharp turns, when animals/people run into the road, broken brakes, etc. Most of this data would be very dangerous and immoral to gather legitimately, but training for these situations allows the self-driving cars to react approopriately to emergencies. As the VR simulation of reality becomes more accurate data can be gathered easier and more efficiently, which could pave the way for widespread synthetic data usage in future AI.

• To protect consumers, Congress should secure the app store supply chain

  Earlier this month, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee approved the Open App Market Act, a bill mandating that smartphone makers allow users to install unvetted applications on their devices. This bill is a big change from the "walled garden" distribution model of today that only allows app installation from official app stores. The "walled garden" model ensures higher levels of safety through basic safety screening, but cuts down on the amount of available free apps for users. Allowing users to install unvetted apps poses bigger security risks especially for individuals and smaller businesses that do not have the necessary security features to monitor software. With that said, Congress has the ability to enforce regulations that mitigate those risks, including requiring all app stores to have base levels of security, moving away from unrestricted "side-loading", and educating users on good device hygiene.

• White Castle to hire 100 robots to flip burgers

  Having first experimented with 'Flippy 1' robotic cooks back in September 2020, White Castle has plans to roll out the upgraded 'Flippy 2' at over 100 locations. The robots, made and manufactured by Miso Robotics, have the capability to take over the entire fry station, allowing employees to focus on customer-facing duties. The combination of fast food and AI is not novel to White Castle, as other popular chains like McDonald's, Sonic, and Checkers have been working to streamline their drive-thru operations with AI tools. Nonetheless, White Castle's program is being phased in by region, with hopes to be in over a third of the 350 locations they have across the Midwest, Southwest, and New York area.

• AI could be the perfect tool for exploring the universe

  Astronomers have begun using AI to detect gravitational lenses in images. Gravitational lenses occur when a massive object like a galaxy or a black hole comes between an observer on Earth and a light source, which bends space and light allowing astronomers to see parts of the universe they normally would be unable to see. Finding these lenses among massive amounts of data is very time consuming to do by hand, but by using machine learning, they’ve gotten a detection rate of roughly one per minute as opposed to five or six lenses found for a week of work by hand. This data sorting has the potential to extract more information from data we already have, and collect significantly more information quicker, and more accurately.

• Record-high seizure of $4bn in stolen Bitcoin

  The US Department of Justice confiscated a record high amount of Bitcoin last week. Two people were caught attempting to launder the stolen money from a hack in 2016 that resulted in around 120,000 Bitcoin being stolen from the crypto exchange Bitfinex. Around 94,000 Bitcoin have been recovered and the pair could serve up to 25 years in prison if found guilty.

• How Misleading Videos About Russia's Invasion of Ukraine Spread on Twitter

  A video posted on Twitter as news of Russia's invasion of Ukraine circulated the internet shows buildings being lit up by a bright flash followed by a loud boom. “Mariupol”, a city in south eastern Ukraine and the misleading caption of the video, implies a relation to the invasion, but the actual video shows lightning striking buildings in January. Twitter says it’s trying to combat this type of misleading content by monitoring and removing videos of this nature, but this goes to show how not everything we see on the internet can be trusted.

• Ukraine Tech Minister Begs Tim Cook to Cut Off App Store Access in Russia

  The Ukrainian technology minister has requested that Apple CEO Tim Cook block Russian citizens from accessing the App Store and stop supplying them Apple services and products. If this goes through, Russian citizens could be blocked from ways they use to coordinate resistance. Mykhalio Fedorov posted his official letter to Cook on Twitter Feb 25.

• Google Drive’s new filters that make search easier are rolling out to everyone

  Chips is a feature that makes searching in Google Drive easier and it is being made available to all Workspace users. Chips were introduced to Gmail in 2020 and is now being applied to Google Drive. Chips allows you to filter search results by location, file type, date modified, people, tasks, and shared label. To use it, type a keywork into the search bar as usual and you will see the chips right above the search results.

• Syncing Alexa, Google Nest and Apple smart home tech is about to get easier with Matter

  This article discusses the prevalence of smart home tech as we progress into a digital age. The issue with smart home devices and appliances becoming more popular is beginning to become their lack of compatability with one another. This issue is soon going to be resolved with the release of matter, a language/protocol that allows different brands of smart home technology to communicate. Notable companies that are going to implement matter include Amazon, Apple, Google, Samsung, Dyson, GE, and Sonos. One issue with the release of matter is mass adoption is going to take some time due to the fact that not all current smart home devices are going to be matter compatible. Some companies have said that they may release "bridge" devices that will make old devices compatible with matter. Amazon has said that some Echo devices will simply need a firmware update but this is not necessarily the case across companies. Overall, this is an interesting step forward in tech as it shows that sometimes it is in big tech's best interest to work together.

• The US is unmasking Russian hackers faster than ever

  As tensions between Russia and Ukraine continue to escalate, the world watches and waits for information about the conflict. On Feburary 15th and 16th, banks and government websites in Ukraine crashed after a DDos cyber attack. Less than 48 hours later, the United States government was able to point their fingers at Russian spies. This quick response is partially due to the pressing nature of the situation, as the world braces for what could be the largest land conflict in Eurpoe since WWII. Increasingly advanced technology and information also plays a role in the increased response time to the identification of cyber attackers. The article also cites politics as a reason that the identification has lagged in the past. Beyond this current event, the article also discusses some background of cyber security in the era of the internet.

• Tech Companies’ Super Bowl Ads Leaned Into Dystopia

  This article discusses the dystopian nature of some tech Super Bowl commercials, specifically Meta's ad for a Quest 2 game. Meta's Quest 2 ad depicted an animatronic dog that gets thrown out after the arcade he was a part of shut down. The dog is taken from a trash compactor and brought to a facility where it is given Meta's VR headset, the Quest 2. The dog then virtually returns to the arcade that he came from and digitally reunited with his old friends. This story, while uplifting, has some darker undertones because not everybody has access to VR to escape tough living conditions. The ad reminds us that as reality becomes bleak, the virtual world may soon be the only place for people to escape and feel joy. The article is not all grim as it goes on to present a few weaker dystopian examples, and counter examples of other tech companies airing more uplifting ads.

• Artificial intelligence and big data can help preserve wildlife

  AI and animal ecology experts have proposed a cross-disciplinary approach to better research wildlife species in the context of preservation. AI experts can work specifically on creating new models. On the other hand, ecologists can provide AI experts with knowledge on what attributes these said models should contain and how they relate to each other. Although a large amount of data has been collected on wildlife in the past, the models are not ideal for ecological understanding. This is because these models are not customizable, have bad quality control, and have ethical issues.

• Data breaches break record in 2021

  The Identity Theft Resource Center has reported that 2021 saw the highest amount of data breaches to date. The record indicates a 68% increase from 2020’s total and a 23% increase from the previous all-time high. This is a crucial topic to address, as there is no indication that data breaches will slow down in the coming years. There is a general trend in which cybercriminals are shifting towards more focused attacks instead of massive data breaches. Following 2021’s trend, it is expected that ransomware will surpass phishing as the most likely data breach in 2022. It is encouraged that all individuals practice safe cyber practices to reduce their own risk of becoming the victim of these attacks. Interestingly, the military had no data breaches in 2021, despite an increase across all other sectors.

• Forget Zoom school. For some students, class is in session in VR

  Virtual Reality classes are more engaging and effective at teaching than Zoom or other video based remote learning platforms. The article first starts by describing how a professor at Stanford University used VR to teach his class and how it helped his students remain more engaged with the content. VR learning is also being implemented in Longview School for gym classes and to help students learn about war and trade through the use of games like Civilization V. Even though headsets like the Oculus Quest 2 are becoming more affordable they are still too expensive to buy a set for a whole class in many schools. Still, students who took VR classes say they remember more from the class than video based remote classes.

• Disney+ Just Ran its First Test of Live Streaming in the US

  Just recently Disney+ made its attempt at live streaming to the U.S, to perform this innovation on a smaller scale they chose to live stream the Oscar nominations for this year. Despite Disney already possessing live streaming services like Hulu or ESPN, this has yet to be applied to Disney+. For this event, Disney+ chose to also stream on their other streaming platforms they own such as ABC News Live, and Hulu, this helped increase the spread of viewers and lessen the burden on Disney+ for this text.

• Texas Sues Meta Over Facebook's Facial-Recognition Practices

  Facebook's facial recognition technology was found to violate state's privacy protections for personal biometric data and now is discontinued. Facebook was said to be harvesting Texan's personal information witch is strictly against the laws seeing as there was not informed consent. However Meta has come forward to say the claims are without merit and they will work to fight for themselves, they argued that before the facial recognition was shut down that users were informed when those services were used.

• Apple broke Facebook's ad Machine. Who's going to fix it?

  Apple has updated the ads work onios apps, by doing this it is harder for facebook to track user data for personalized ads. This change is said to cost ten billion in revenue. Facebook is estimated to still generate $129 billion from ads however the ad buisness will only grow 12% as opposed to its prevous years growth of 36%. The issues with ads comes about with apples update to let users choose if they want app-folowers tracking them.

• Mozilla and Meta working to provide info to advertisers in non-invasive ways

  This blog article from Mozilla talks about how they have been working with Meta to create new ways for advertisers to get information about users in ways that still preserve the user's privacy. They are calling it 'Privacy Preserving Attribution' and it is supposedly a method through which advertisers can still access metrics about how effective their campaigns are working without getting information about specific users. This new strategy is still being worked on but has been submitted for approval to the various groups that govern privacy in relation to advertising. I thought this was particularly interesting in light of the article that I found last week, which talked about how recent privacy policies from Apple (allowing users to have more power over how much advertisers can learn about their behaviour) have had an impact on various companies' (including Meta's) profits. This seems like a possible reaction to that or at least related, in that companies are trying to come up with compromises that still allow advertisers to get information about users, but in ways that still promote privacy for the users.

• Fusion race kicked into high gear by smart tech

  An American company is striving to make fusion economically viable with the help of Google's machine learning "expertise". What once used to take two months, with the help of machine learning, takes a fraction of an afternoon. The article states that Google's contribution has could accelerate from the company's long-term schedule, which could potentially lead to a commercial fusion test by 2030. Along with this, TAE is launching technology with the intention of advancing cancer treatment.

• Computer Scientists Prove Why Bigger Neural Networks Do Better

  A paper presented last December as a leading conference provides a new mathematical explanation for why overparameterization unexpectedly improves the performance of neural networks. Overparameterization is when the number of parameters is greater than the number of training samples. Traditionally, it was thought that one would only ever need n parameters to fit n data points (think of the number of parameters as the number of inflections in the regression). However, modern neural networks are routinely scaled up far beyond that predicted requirement. The paper shows that overparameterization is necessary for a network to be able to generalize because smoothly fitting high-dimensional data points needs n × d parameters, where d is the dimension of the input. Thus, this paper brings an interesting perspective to Bender and Gebru et. al.'s work questioning the "inevitability of larger LMs." If it is true that models being larger is necissary for their performance as this paper suggests, the social and environmental consequences of these larger models must be weighed appropriately.

• Intel says its new crypto chip is designed to be energy-efficient

  Intel has designed a new chip that is much more energy efficient for cryptocurrency mining as it was designed specifically to aid and accelerate the types of functions that blockchain technology runs on while requiring less energy. This comes at a time when the concern over the amount of energy that is required to mine cryptocurrency is being realized. People and givernemnts now know the huge enviomental impact that cryptocurreny mining has so companies are trying to come up with solutions for this. This is where intel claims that they have mage huge advances by desining a chip that does one thing really well, mine crypotcurrency. According to their reporting, their chip chieved "1000x better performance per watt than mainstream GPUs" for mining. Intel will release more information on February 23rd at the International Solid State Circuits Conference.

• Intel tries cashing in on cryptocurrency mining despite environmental problems

  Intel Corporation, plans on designing a new chip that its function is solely on bitcoin mining and other cryptocurrency operations. The company expressed that later 2022 will begin selling these kinds of chips other cryptocurrencies. Even-though the decision on manufacturing these chips will be a high financial risk for the company. With cryptocurrency NFTs booming, it alters how people own and manage their digital assets. There lie fraud and theft problems, and Intel hopes to address these drawback, and extraordinarily large energy consumption behind these operation. Mining is a computationally taxing process that records transactions onto a widely shared database called the blockchain. The first miner to solve a complex computing problem is rewarded with newly minted cryptocurrency. That means there's a strong incentive to have the most powerful, the most efficient machine Evidently, Intel hopes its chip will help with the energy consumption problem which will be a huge marketing element for the consumers and environment. Because an efficiency boost may help miners cut costs and reduce power consumption that worsens global climate crisis problems and deprives others of affordable power. However, an radical improvement in the environmental impact of mining will not be expected.

• SingularityDAO’s AI-powered ‘DynaSets’ outperform the crypto market

  SingularityDAO recently created an AI that determined Dynasets, or selections of specific amounts of cryptocurrency (like Bitcoin or Ethereum), which performed well regardless of the instability of the crypto market. Creating this AI involved combining AI algorithms with professional hedge fund traders to maximize profits and minimize losses. Despite the market being incredibly volatile with "Bitcoin crashing around 50 percent between November 2021 and the end of January 2022", the BitCoin DynaSet (or DynaSet with BitCoin as one of the cryptocurrencies) had "10.3% better performance over just 'hodling" (holding and buying) Bitcoin". As well as, after their collaboration with Cardano to fix issues with Ethereum trading, the Ethereum DynaSet had a "12.59% better performance over just hodling Ethereum". While the project is still in beta, it's clear that with more tweaks, that the AI may be utilized for crypto asset protection in the future.

• UK’s CMA accepts Google’s post-cookie pledges, will ‘closely monitor’ Privacy Sandbox plan

  This article from Techcrunch discusses how Google's new post-cookies approach to advertising has been approved by the UK's competition regulator. Google plans to deprecate tracking cookies for Chrome and develop a new approach to online targeted advertising; however, this move could potentially be anti-competitive as it grants Google even more dominance over online advertising, allowing them to favor their own advertisements. This approval legally binds Google into a commitment to promote competition, and the regulatory agency will be monitoring them as they propose new ad-tracking technologies.

• CIA is secretly collecting bulk data pertaining to Americans, senators say

  This CNBC article goes over the reveal of the CIA having a data repository, which contains information collected on Americans. Investigation of this data collection was started by a letter sent by Senators Ron Wyden and Martin Heinrich to top CIA officials in April 2021. Documents revealed on limited information on a CIA program that collections financial information against CIA target list groups, which also snared some American citizen records. However, a CIA spokesperson has responded saying the CIA "recognizes and takes seriously" the protection and privacy of American's lives and their data in their pursuit of national security. While national security is a government duty, an ACLU lawyer reminds us that the "CIA conducts...these sweeping surveillance actitivites", which can go unnoticed by Congress and legislation. Such intelligence activities may require safeguards if they go unchecked.

• Neuralink Killing Primate Test Subjects

  Neuralink, Elon Musk's company trying to develop implantable brain–machine interfaces, has begun testing its devices on animals, specifically monkeys. So far only 8 of the 23 monkeys have survived their expiraments, dying of brain hemmorages and needing to be euthanized after experiencing self-mutilation, skin lesions, and other debilatating health effects. Many animal rights activist groups have been critical of this news and the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) has filed a regulatory complaint against University of California, Davis, where the expiraments were being held. This forces one to consider the future of technological implants on animals, and even people, since Neuralink has begun hiring human test subjects, despite being unable to begin expiraments until the FDA gives them approval.

• Intel launches blockchain chip to tap crypto boom

  Intel announced on February 11 that it would be launching a new chip targeted at blockchain applications, including cryptocurrency mining and the minting of NFTs. This is similar to a recent move made by Nvidia, who released a GPU specifically targeted at Ethereum mining. They have also formed a new group within its Accelerated Computing Systems and Graphics unit to further their involvement in the crypto space. Many have used environmental implications as an argument for why companies should not support crypto mining and similar activities; however, Intel has claimed that this new chip is more energy-efficient, and a result will consume significantly less power than alternative chips.

• Apple Plane AirTag updates to curb unwanted tracking

  In this article posted to CNN, it is announced that Apple is planning to make changes to their AirTag devices to improve the safety of people. With AirTags, there has been reports of people being tracked and stalked with the assistance of the Apple AirTags. Apple has been working with safety groups and some law enforcement agencies to improve the safety of people. One such way that they already improved safety protocols is an alert sent to people when it seems as if they are being tracked by an AirTag. This, however, isn't enough to prevent tracking, so Apple is implementing new changes to the AirTag systems this year including a louder tone sequence so that the device is easier to locate. Another change being added is a warning to users when setting up a new AirTag device that tracking others without their consent is a crime. Another workaround that Apple has to think about is the issue of Android users. Android users are now able to install an app that shows them any potential AirTags tracking them.

• Scientists develop insect-sized flying robots with flapping wings

  A university in Bristol has developed a new drive system for flapping wing autonomous robots, using a new method of electromechanical zipping that does away with the need for conventional motors and gears. This new advance could pave the way for smaller, lighter, and more effective micro flying robots for environmental monitoring, search and rescue, and deployment in hazardous environments. This takes inspiration from bees and other flying insects and successfully demonstrates a direct-drive artificial muscle system, called the Liquid-amplified Zipping Actuator (LAZA), that achieves wing motion using no rotating parts or gears. The LAZA system greatl simplifies the flapping mechanism enabling miniaturization of flapping robots down to teh size of insects.

• Apple moves to stop AirTag tracking misuse

  Apple plans to introduce updates to their AirTag product to make it harder to misuse them to track people. The devices have been used to track people and when when they launched, Apple, introduced a siftare feature that would notify people with iPhones if a suspicious AirTag that doesn't belong to themm, was tracking them. Now Apple is working even harder on preventing misuse. When users open up their AirTags for the first time, they will get a message that using AirTags to track people is illegal. Apple also claims that now people will be alerted earlier if a suspicious AirTag is tracking them. Additionally, users with an iPhone 11 or newer will be able to use "percision finding" to locate the AirTag. They can also activate the AirTag to ring to help them find it.

• Meta Adds New Feature for Avatars

  Meta recently announced that they are creating a new feature for Avatars called Personal Boundary. It was created after reports of creepy behavior and triggering experiences resembling SA. It allows avatars to create a set distance of space around them in which other avatars cannot cross. This creates more personal space for people using meta and limits unwanted interactions. Meta claims it stops others "invading your avatar's personal space"..."If someone tries to enter your Personal Boundary, the system will halt their forward movement as they reach the boundary."

• Zoox robotaxis are already mingling with the public on semi-private test courses

  Amazon subsidiary, Zoox has begun testing out dozens of custom-built robotaxis on various campus-like environments across California. The cube-shaped robotaxis, unveiled in December 2020, can drive bidirectionally, with four-wheel steering, and are capable of transporting four people at up to 75 mph. While the company has no planned date for public release, a spokesperson for the company believes its "really not that far away." Concurrently, Zoox has also equipped several Toyota Highlanders with their autonomous driving system, testing them out in San Francisco, Las Vegas, Seattle, and Foster City with human safety drivers behind the wheel monitoring the vehicles.

• Silicon Valley is no longer the edgy tech frontier as workers flee Google and Amazon for crypto and Web3 startups, recruiters say

  Katie Canales’ Business Insider article details how recently there has been a trend of high-profile executives and developers leaving established firms to find jobs in crypto and other decentralized tech ventures. A leading example of this is how the former CMO of Meta’s digital wallet project, Novi, has left the company to pursue a position at the blockchain-focused payments company Circle. This effect is similar to that of the wave of job switching in the early 2010s that saw the arrival of companies such as Uber and Lyft. Whether or not this is just a trend in Silicon Valley or a lasting impact, only the future will know what is in store for the workers who leave for crypto and Web3 startups.

• Facebook market cap falls below $600 billion — which could actually help it dodge new antitrust scrutiny

  Lauren Feiner's article touches on the recent events regarding the renamed company Meta and a newly released package of competition bills designed specifically to target big tech companies. These bills call for large tech companies such as Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft to stay below a market cap of $600 billion. Though these bills have not yet been passed into law, they could significantly impact Meta on top of the antitrust lawsuit under an already existing law from the Federal Trade Commission regarding the company’s alleged goal of maintain monopoly power through its acquisition of Instagram and WhatsApp. This call of a market cap by the senate is an attempt to control and stifle rapidly growing big tech companies.

• Alexa tells 10-year-old girl to touch live plug with penny

  According to a BBC article, Amazon's Alexa told a 10-year-old girl to plug a charger into an outlet halfway, and then touch a penny to the exposed prongs. This incident occured while the girl and her family were asking Alexa for some challenges to do. The first few challenges were fun and lighthearted, but then Alexa said she found a challenge on the web and suggested the dangerous stunt. This apparently comes from a TikTok challenge, where kids would record themselves in school touching a penny to exposed prongs – often resulting in dangerous sparks of electricity that officials have deemed as fire hazards. The girl did not perform the challenge, and the mother screamed in disapproval when hearing Alexa recommend that challenge. Amazon has since said that they have fixed the bug.

• After face-recognition backlash, ID.me says government agencies will get more verification options

  The IRS stopped their plan of letting users get verified by facial-recognition through ID.me because of the frustration of being verified through ID.me software. The facial-recognition software of video selfies with a photo ID would fail more often than succeed and users would now be able to verify their identity by talking to a real person instead. There was pushback for the long waits it took for the facial-recognition technology to work and how privacy advocates were against the use of facial-recognition because of how biometric data is kept in ID.me's database. Some federal agencies are questioning if their websites will continue to use ID.me for security reasons in the future because of privacy concerns.

• AI Can Write Code Like Humans—Bugs and All

  In this artical the central argument is that some software developers are using AI to help them writing code. They're discovering that AI produced codes are just as imperfect as man-made code. Reasearchers at NYU recently found that "for certain tasks where security is crucial, the code contains security flaws around 40 percent of the time." Alex Naka, a data scientist find evnethough AI may help to produce certain level of code, but it still needs human to scan through the code and fix the problem. On the other hand Hammaond Pearce, apostdocoral researcher at NYU says that "Vulnerabilities are often caused by a lack of context that a developer needs to know.” meaning that its not the AI's fault in terms of producing mistakes, it is the lack of skills of those software developers.

• Walmart is quietly preparing to enter the metaverse

  Walmart appears to be planning its own collection of NFTs and cryptocurrency. Recently, they have been filing trademarks which lead people to speculate that they will enter the market of virtual products. A separate filing specified that Walmart will be presenting customers with the NFTs and virtual currency. This news puts Walmart among a slew of other big companies that have declared their entrance into the Metaverse. Companies such as Nike, Gap, Under Armour, Adidas, and Urban Outfitters have already filed trademark applications or made NFT debuts within the last couple of months.

• Your iPhone may soon be able accept contactless payments directly

  Apple is looking into making the iPhone a point of sale system by adding Square like payments into the iPhone. Apple paid the Canadian company Mobeewave, a company known for working on technology to accept payment via smartphones, roughly 100 million dollars. It is likely that the iPhones pre-existing near field communication (NFC) tech that is already used for apple pay will be used to make these payments possible. There already are companies like Square, recently renamed to Block, that offer a card reader attachment for the iPhone but Apple will be negating the need to have any device other than the iPhone itself. The article discusses whether or not Apple would allow other companies such as Square to use the new tech and as of now it is unknown. The feature could be released as soon as a couple of months from now as part of iOS 15.3.

• Chip giants are ramping up spending by the billions as semiconductor demand booms

  This CNBC article is goes over many chip maker company's plans to increase capital spending in chip production. Big name companies such as TSMC and Intel have announced plans to spend $100 billion on production of its silicon wafers over 3 years, which mimics that of Intel's last year announcment in spending $20 billion on new factory plants in Arizona over 2 years. Analysts cite because of increased in demand in technological goods and complexity in new technology, chipmakers will increase capital expenditure to catch up to these new challenges. Despite these announcements, analysts cite that because of society's gluttony in technology goods these plans may only fullfill the "chip glut" seen once these plants and production plans are finished. However, with some capital response by chip makers we can hope to see the chip shortage ease, even if the road to get there is "choppy".

• DeepMind says its new AI coding engine is as good as an average human programmer

  The company DeepMind created an AI system named AlphaCode that can autonomously solve coding problems at the same level as humans. It was tested on Codeforces, a platform that provides coding problems and ranks its users, and was ranked top 28% of users in the past 6 months. However, these AI coding systems will not replace human programmers anytime soon due to their inherit bugs and security issues. For now, they'll simply be used a tool by human programmers.

• Apple fined again over Dutch dating app payments order

  This TechCrunch article is about Apple's "antitrust standoff in the Netherlands". Apple has an outstanding 15M euros from this impasse over Apple's disallowing local dating apps to use third party payment providers, instead requiring such apps to use Apple's own payment infrastructure which Apple gets commissions from. Apple has been fighting the order, but just last month agreed to let apps use other payment providers. However, the Dutch government is still fined Apple over frustration with their general failure to comply.

• Coinbase and Crypto Taxes

  Coinbase haș added onto their service so that users can have an easier time filing their taxes on their cryptocurrency. Taxpayers in the U.S. can see a personalized summary of their taxable activity: sales, conversions, payments, and income. They are even offering tax services for those who perform transactions without the service via CoinTracker. Furthermore, customers can now get their tax return deposited directly into their Coinbase account, as long as the customer has filed with TurboTax. This article makes readers think about how cryptocurrency continues to permeate society - normalizing the practice of owning and trading cryptocurrency and increasing the accessibility of each. It is also interesting to think about how a digital, decentralized medium of exchange exists in conjunction to something as essential to our centralized government as taxes.

• New super-conductors could take data beyond zeroes and ones

  There is potential for encoding data in new ways due to recent research in the field of spintronics. This research, conducted by a team at Duke University and Weizmann Institute resulted in the development of a conductor system that does not require cold temperatures in order to control the spinning of electrons and sending them over long distances. This development can potentially allow large magnitude spin currents to be created at room temperature, which may change how our current devices, such as smartphones, look.

• Meta threatens to pull Facebook and Instagram from Europe if it can't target ads

  In July 2020, the crucial decision from the European Union Court of Justice, Schrems II, ruled the Privacy Shield as null. The Privacy Sheild is a US law that allowed free transfer of personal data from EU to US companies. There are still other legal ways to send data EU-US, but the Schrems II ruling will have large ramifications on all American companies with users in the EU in the coming years. Meta is retaliating by threatening to pull its products from Europe if it is not allowed to share data with its US operations, saying stopping trans-atlantic data transfers will have devastating effects on its targeted ads. With Meta owning apps that have billions of users, this case will be an important precedent in the ongoing clash between big tech and governments.

• Canada’s privacy watchdog probing health officials’ use of cellphone location data

  The Public Health Agency of Canada, or PHAC, has recently come under fire after it was revealed the government agency had been buying cellphone data from telecom companies in order to track its citizens. The Global News article elaborates that the Canadian cellphone provider, Telus, provided the PHAC location and movement data to give government officials in order to gain a greater understanding of the efficacy of their COVID-19 policy. The PHAC has also stated its planning on utilizing the information it purchased outside of solely COVID-19 research. While the data itself was scrubbed in order to prevent the identification of individuals, many are still asking the question as if current data and privacy laws are strong enough and if there needs to be a policy precedent set for government bodies buying or utilizing data from private entities.

• The IRS Should Stop Using Facial Recognition

  ID.me's propietary facial recognition technology is not immune to bias despite their efforts to market it as such. The company specifically defines their services as outside the realm of "facial recognition" through a narrow definition in a 2022 white paper. They explicitly define two types of facial recognition: one-to-one, and one-to-many facial recognition and the company asserts that there are "significant benefits" to using 'one-to-one' facial recognition. However, the company fails to mention the racial biases of one-to-one technology that cause both false positives and false negatives. Despite these overwhelming issues, "27 states, multiple federal agencies, and over 500 name brand retailers" continue to use ID.me's techology further supporting the company's false claims.

• What Is 5G? An Electrical Engineer Explains the Technology

  The 5th generation of cellular networks technology is 5G and offers 10 times more bandwidth than 4G. The speeds of 5G can deliver from 50 megabits up to 1 GB per second which can download large files and stream movies very fast and easily. There are different band frequencies 5G can use, being that lower-frequency waves can extend further out, but have slower speeds and higher-frequency waves have the fastest speeds, but do not travel as far and cost more money which is why it is used in high concentration areas like stadiums and airports. Even though 5G speeds can be extremely fast, the more people in the area that are using 5G can carry more traffic for the bandwidth and cause slower connection speeds. Even though there are minor problems with 5G, it is still improving and has to potential to be the best cellular network technology yet.

• Blizzard is planning a new Warcraft mobile game

  is the news Blizzard is working on a new Warcraft mobile title slated for a 2022 release. According to the press release, “Blizzard is planning substantial new content for the Warcraft franchise in 2022, including [...] getting all-new mobile Warcraft content into players’ hands for the first time". The news was delivered as a press release and not a traditional call ostensibly because of its pending acquisition by Microsoft. However, I do question if the warcraft mobile is going to be elease at 2022 due to the fact that other mobile games, such as Diablo immortal and Overwatch 2 was annoced to be developed much more earlier than Warcraft Mobile. Regardless, between this sudden news of a Warcraft mobile game and the announcement of a wholly new Blizzard-developed survival game, the company is putting its best foot forward to its (pending) Microsoft overlords.

• Nvidia ready to abandon Arm acquisition, report says

  Ars Technica's article discusses how Nvidia's planned acquisition of the CPU-design company Arm is likely to be abandoned, since Nvidia has had trouble convincing regulators the move would not pose a risk to competition and national security. The article also states that Arm's parent company seems to be moving towards taking Arm public, seemingly implying there is not much confidence in the approval of the acquisition. Since ARM chip designs have become increasingly popular due to their power efficiency, competitors to Nvidia are concerned that their access to these designs would be limited. In addition, nation-states such as China are concerned with a key technology falling under a US company.

• A 1-mile stretch of road is being built in Detroit that can charge electric cars as they drive -- if owners install a special receiver

  Tech startup Electreon Wireless is working with Ford and DTE to build an electrified road that charges cars through inductive charging. Through a special receiver that costs about $3,000 to $4,000 to install, cars can be charged while driving or stopped. The hope is that wireless charging will aid in mass EV adoption by easing concerns related to driving range. Similarly, researchers at Cornell have been working on wireless charging using electric fields instead of the magnetic ones that Electreon uses, a change that might make the process cheaper and more efficient.

• Sony is buying Bungie, the developer of Destiny and original creator of Halo

  This article is about the recent aquisition of games developer Bungie by Sony Interactive Entertainment for 3.6 billon dollars. This seems problematic for the playerbase of Bungies current game "Destiny 2" because Sony owning Bungie may make Destiny 2 a PlayStation exclusive game. However, Bungie says that they have an agreement to remain independant and that the game will remain multi-platform and crossplay and will not feature PlayStation exlusive content, something that has existed in Destiny 2 before. This is similar to Microsoft's aqusition of Activision Blizzard, a sign of console companies buying developers around them to support their respective platforms.

• Sunroom is an alternative creator platform empowering women to cash in

  This TechCrunch article is about Sunroom, a new social media app aiming to address the heavy content moderation many women and non-binary content creators face on popular social media apps, such as Instagram by building a more open-minded platform where creators, only women and non-binary creators as of now, can profit off their work. As the article notes, Sunroom “isn’t trying to make another OnlyFans”. Instead, they hope to make a social media platform with limited censorship, where women and non-binary people can break down stigmas to profit off their creative work. The app has only 100 content creators as of its launch, and hopes to scale slowly to keep hands-on moderation and censorship low.

• 6 Reasons Meta Is in Trouble

  NY Times's article discusses possibilities to explain and foreshadow Meta's current and future troubles regarding the Metaverse, Facebook, and Instagram after their stock "plunged by more than 230 billion dollars". The current issues Meta faces includes hitting their user growth ceiling, changes in the data privacy from companies like Apple, and how new apps such as TikTok and Reels have affected their ways of making money off of their users. To begin with, Apple introduced an App Tracking Transparency update to its operating system, "giving users the choice to ... let apps like Facebook monitor their online activities", disallowing them useful marketing data to make money off of ads, their most successful platform. Furthermore, apps such as Tiktok "present [Facebook with] a conundrum" due to the fact that to compete with Tiktok they have to focus on Reels, however while they have been very successful for bringing viewership to Instagram, they make the least amount of money per ad as users "tend to skip right past them". These newfound opponents of ad-space, users, and data privacy, along with Facebook's questionable funding of the Metaverse, have placed a dark cloud over Meta, scaring potential investors away leading to their stock plummet.

• Apple Privacy Update Impact on Profits of other Companies

  This article talks about the effect that Apple's new privacy policies have had on the profits of various social media companies. The new policies regard user's abilities to choose the extent to which advertisers can track them, and services such as Meta, Snap, Twitter, and others have expressed displeasure with these policies and have since experienced lower stock prices as a result. This is an interesting article because it emphasizes the conflict between ethics and profits in the technology industry. It also shows that Apple has an incredible amount of power over many other big technological services.

• Sony Buys Bungie for $3.6 Billion

  Sony recently announced that it would be acquiring Bungie, the original developers of Halo and current developers of Destiny 2, for 3.6 billion dollars, with 1.2 billion being paid to the studio's employees. It is theorized that this 1.2 billion is intended to keep developers from leaving at this time. Some also have speculated that this is in response to Microsoft's recent announcement that they intend to acquire Activision Blizzard. However, that would not necessarily make sense, as the purchase of such a large game studio as Bungie would take more than a couple of weeks, and there is certainly more incentive for Sony to purchase a multi-platform game studio. Nevertheless, it could also be in response to other huge acquisitions by Microsoft, including that of Zenimax Media Inc., the parent company of Bethesda.