Europe’s top court says firm does not have to take sensitive information off global search
Google does not have to apply Europe’s landmark “right to be forgotten” law globally, the continent’s highest court has ruled.
The right to be forgotten was enshrined by the European court of justice in 2014, when it said Google must delete “inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant” data from its results when a member of the public requests it.
Continue reading...Transport for London again rejects ride-hailing firm’s application for a full licence
Uber’s application to renew its private hire operating licence in London has been rebuffed again by regulators.
Transport for London has instead given the ride-hailing firm only a two-month extension to its licence, which is due to expire on Wednesday night.
Continue reading...Removals are part of inquiry into how developers use data, which the company started after the Cambridge Analytica scandal
Facebook has suspended tens of thousands of apps from the platform for privacy reasons, it announced in a blogpost on Friday.
The removals come as part of an ongoing investigation into how developers use data, which the company started after the Cambridge Analytica scandal in March 2018. The news also reveals that the platform is home to more problematic apps than previously thought.
Continue reading...Former president also said TV should be avoided: ‘Those are two things I’d advise, if you’re a good president, not to do’
Barack Obama appeared to take a swipe at Donald Trump on Wednesday, saying he would “advise, if you’re president” to avoid social media and cable news.
The former US president was speaking as a guest at an event for Splunk, an international data and software firm, when he was asked how he parsed information while in office. He touted the importance of building a solid team to stay informed.
Continue reading...Engineer who quit over military drone project warns AI might also accidentally start a war
A new generation of autonomous weapons or “killer robots” could accidentally start a war or cause mass atrocities, a former top Google software engineer has warned.
Laura Nolan, who resigned from Google last year in protest at being sent to work on a project to dramatically enhance US military drone technology, has called for all AI killing machines not operated by humans to be banned.
Continue reading...Women’s health apps are again raising concerns of privacy as a new study finds some are sharing information without consent
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Continue reading...Mariela Castro and state media journalists were also blocked in move Cuban Union of Journalists called ‘massive censorship’
Twitter has blocked the accounts of the Cuban Communist party leader Raúl Castro, his daughter Mariela Castro and Cuba’s top state-run media outlets, a move the Cuban Union of Journalists denounced as “massive censorship”.
Related: Cuba is driving dissidents off island with threats of violence and jail, report finds
Continue reading...Uber and Lyft drivers aren’t the only ones getting protections – but journalists and musicians have raised concern
Groundbreaking legislation passed by California lawmakers on Wednesday has been lauded for its potential to transform the way tech companies such as Uber and Lyft treat their drivers – but those aren’t the only workers who stand to benefit.
The bill, known as AB5, will go into effect in January 2020. It sets a three-part standard for determining whether workers are properly classified as independent contractors, requiring that (a) they are free from the company’s control, (b) they are doing work that isn’t central to the company’s business and (c) they have an independent business in that industry.
This means a hugely diverse range of professions – from cable installers to exotic dancers to writers – will be affected by the bill.
Independent panel criticises Sidewalk Labs over ‘frustratingly abstract’ proposals for new tech-oriented neighbourhood
A controversial smart city development in Canada has hit another roadblock after an oversight panel called key aspects of the proposal “irrelevant”, “unnecessary” and “frustratingly abstract” in a new report.
The project on Toronto’s waterfront, dubbed Quayside, is a partnership between the city and Google’s sister company Sidewalk Labs. It promises “raincoats” for buildings, autonomous vehicles and cutting-edge wood-frame towers, but has faced numerous criticisms in recent months.
Continue reading...Law would make it more difficult for firms such as Uber to deny workers are employees
Lawmakers in California have passed a landmark bill that would make it much more difficult for companies such as Uber and Lyft to classify workers as independent contractors rather than employees.
The bill, which paves the way for workers in the so-called gig economy to get holiday and sick pay, has garnered attention across the US and beyond, largely owing to the size of California’s workforce. Several Democratic presidential candidates have supported the measure, including the US senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Kamala Harris of California.
Continue reading...iPhone 11 Pro is being touted as ‘the most advanced and detailed iPhone yet’ with a three-lens ‘pro’ camera system
Apple made its most ambitious pitch yet for the iPhone as a device for professional photographers and videographers at a launch event in Cupertino on Tuesday, underscoring new camera and editing capabilities.
The newly announced iPhone 11 comes in six colors and boasts two cameras and longer battery life. At $699, it is also $50 cheaper than the starting price of the iPhone XR.
Continue reading...Privacy campaigners question urgency of move and motives of PM and Dominic Cummings
Data privacy campaign groups and Labour have expressed alarm after it emerged Downing Street has ordered departments to centralise the collection and analysis of user information from the government’s main public information website ahead of Brexit.
While officials insist the move to share user data from the Gov.uk website is simply intended to improve the service and that no personal details are collected, campaigners raised concern about the urgency of the task, and the personal involvement of Boris Johnson and his chief adviser, Dominic Cummings.
Continue reading...Emissions rose 20-30% in Paris when temperatures topped 30C, raising urgent questions as the climate gets hotter
Emissions from diesel cars – even newer and supposedly cleaner models – increase on hot days, a new study has found, raising questions over how cities suffering from air pollution can deal with urban heat islands and the climate crisis.
Research in Paris by The Real Urban Emissions (True) initiative found that diesel car emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx) rose by 20% to 30% when temperatures topped 30C – a common event this summer.
Continue reading...According to Microsoft’s president, the singer already had trademark issues with the company’s US version of the Chinese chatbot XiaoIce, before it was plugged into Twitter – and became a Nazi.
Taylor Swift has claimed ownership over many things. In 2015, she applied for trademarks for lyrics including “this sick beat” and “Nice to meet you. Where you been?” A few months later, she went further, trademarking the year of her birth, “1989”. We now know it didn’t end there. A new book reveals that, a year later, Swift claimed ownership of the name Tay – and threatened to sue Microsoft for infringing it.
In the spring of 2016, Microsoft announced plans to bring a chatbot it had developed for the Chinese market to the US. The chatbot, XiaoIce, was designed to have conversations on social media with teenagers and young adults. Users developed a genuine affinity for it, and would spend a quarter of an hour a day unloading their hopes and fears to a friendly, yet non-judgmental ear.
Continue reading...Exclusive: voice assistant’s responses were rewritten so it never says word ‘feminism’
An internal project to rewrite how Apple’s Siri voice assistant handles “sensitive topics” such as feminism and the #MeToo movement advised developers to respond in one of three ways: “don’t engage”, “deflect” and finally “inform”.
The project saw Siri’s responses explicitly rewritten to ensure that the service would say it was in favour of “equality”, but never say the word feminism – even when asked direct questions about the topic.
Continue reading...We learn to lie as children, between the ages of two and five. By adulthood, we are prolific. We lie to our employers, our partners and, most of all, one study has found, to our mothers. The average person hears up to 200 lies a day, according to research by Jerry Jellison, a psychologist at the University of Southern California. The majority of the lies we tell are “white”, the inconsequential niceties – “I love your dress!” – that grease the wheels of human interaction. But most people tell one or two “big” lies a day, says Richard Wiseman, a psychologist at the University of Hertfordshire. We lie to promote ourselves, protect ourselves and to hurt or avoid hurting others.
The mystery is how we keep getting away with it. Our bodies expose us in every way. Hearts race, sweat drips and micro-expressions leak from small muscles in the face. We stutter, stall and make Freudian slips. “No mortal can keep a secret,” wrote the psychoanalyst in 1905. “If his lips are silent, he chatters with his fingertips. Betrayal oozes out of him at every pore.”
Continue reading...The information was stored in an online server that was not password protected, according to a report from TechCrunch
Hundreds of millions of Facebook users’ phone numbers were exposed in an open online database, the company confirmed Wednesday, in the latest example of Facebook’s past privacy lapses coming back to haunt its users.
More than 419m Facebook IDs and phone numbers were stored in an online server that was not password protected, the technology website TechCrunch reported. The dataset included about 133m records for users in the US, 18m records for users in the UK and 50m records for users in Vietnam.
Continue reading...Users of Zao can now add themselves into the scenes of their favourite movies. But is our desire to insert ourselves into everything putting our privacy at risk?
‘You oughta be in pictures,” goes the 1934 Rudy Vallée song. And, as of last week, pretty much anyone can be. The entry requirements for being a star fell dramatically thanks to the launch, in China, of a face-swapping app that can decant users into film and TV clips.
Zao, which has quickly become China’s most downloaded free app, fuses the face in the original clip with your features. All that is required is a single selfie and the man or woman in the street is transformed into a star of the mobile screen, if not quite the silver one. In other words, anyone who yearns to be part of Titanic or Game of Thrones, The Big Bang Theory or the latest J-Pop sensation can now bypass the audition and go straight to the limelight without all that pesky hard work, talent and dedication. A whole new generation of synthetic movie idols could be unleashed upon the world: a Humphrey Bogus, a Phony Curtis, a Fake Dunaway.
Continue reading...FTC has fined Google $136m and company will pay an additional $34m to New York state to resolve similar allegations
Google’s video site YouTube has been fined $170m to settle allegations it collected children’s personal data without their parents’ consent.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) fined Google $136m and the company will pay an additional $34m to New York state to resolve similar allegations.
Continue reading...Critics say face-swap app could spread misinformation on a massive scale
A Chinese app that lets users convincingly swap their faces with film or TV characters has rapidly become one of the country’s most downloaded apps, triggering a privacy row.
Related: The rise of the deepfake and the threat to democracy
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