DC AG Sues Zuck-Cambridge Analytica; iPhone Front Cam Upgrade Will Cost Apple 3X More; UK Fines Clearview AI; Hyundai Building EV & Batt Plants in Georgia

The District of Columbia’s Attorney General has sued Mark Zuckerberg. Engadget.com says the AG claims in the action that Zuck had a direct hand in making the decisions that led to the huge data breach involving Cambridge Analytica. AG Ken Racine claims that Zuckerberg “contributed to Facebook’s lax oversight of user data and implementation of misleading privacy agreements.” That, according to the suit, allowed consulting firm Cambridge Analytica to acquire personal data on more than 70 million Americans, including more than 340,000 DC residents. The company allegedly used the data to help sway voters in the 2016 presidential election through political ad targeting. He had already sued Facebook (now Meta) over the issue in 2018…that case is still proceeding. 

We had previously reported that the iPhone 14 models will feature a more expensive, ‘high end’ front facing (selfie) cam. Now, we have an idea how much more expensive. According to macrumors.com, the autofocus cam will from LG Innotek of South Korea, in addition to those acquired from Sharp. Apparently the new selfie cam will run Apple 3 times the cost of the ones in prior iPhone models. Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo says the better selfie cams will be in all iPhone 14 models. It will mean a better depth of field effect of Portrait mode for selfies (why didn’t they do that before?) The Autofocus will enhance FaceTime and Zoom calls. For the camera nerds, it will feature a wider f /1.9 aperture. The present cams have fixed focus and a smaller f /2.2 aperture. 

The United Kingdom’s data protection watchdog has taken a $10 million bite out of Clearview AI for privacy breaches. Techcrunchl.com reports that the watchdog has also issued an enforcement notice, demanding that the controversial facial recognition firm stop obtaining and using personal data of UK residents that is publicly available on the internet. Clearview has a database of over 20 billion facial images they obtained by scraping data from the internet…a lot of it from social media platforms. They have AI based software that they sell to governments and law enforcement that uses the data to fight crime…but in a number of instances, it has been mis-used against political rivals and the media in some countries. Taking the data is a breach of privacy laws in a number of countries. 

Hyundai is building plants in Savannah, Georgia…both for EV production and batteries. The car factory will be their first EV only plant in the US. According to theverge.com, the Korean car maker will drop $5.5 billion of the facilities, but will also get another billion in investment from its suppliers. The car plant is expected to be cranking out EVs by 2025, and they expect to build 300,000 units per year there. The factory will employ 8100.