T-Mobile Fined $60 Million Over Data Breaches; Iranian Hacker Group Targeted Both GOP & Dem Presidential Campaigns; iPhone Driver’s License Support for CA Coming Soon; Threads Bows New Features

The Committee on Foreign Investment in the US has fined T-Mobile $60 million for failing to report and stop data breaches, the biggest civil penalty they have ever levied. Engadget.com reports that T-Mobile is owned by Deutsche Telekom, a German based company. The fines date back to 2020 when T-Mobile bought Sprint. The CFIUS put some conditions on the purchase, including some related to protecting consumer data. The Committee found that T-Mobile didn’t comply with these conditions by failing to secure data and then by failing to report unauthorized access to this data. 

Google’s Threat Analysis Group just published a new report on a group called APT 42, a group that Google says has aggressively tried to compromise both the Democratic and Republican presidential campaigns…in addition to Israeli Military, government, and diplomatic organizations. According to Wired.com, APT 42 is believed to be under the control of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. They target about a dozen people associated with both the Trump and Biden campaigns during May and June. This appears to be the same group who targeted both campaigns in 2020. Google says it has blocked ‘numerous’ ongoing attempts to log into the accounts of the campaign officials. They have been pretty successful with their phishing operations…so as always…be careful with your email and for that matter, texts. Don’t react and click on a link or call a number you don’t know without doing a check first. 

California is finally…finally rolling out support for digital driver’s licenses and IDs in the Apple Wallet App on iPhone and the Apple Watch. Often in the vanguard of tech, macrumors.com notes that California is the 6th state to add the feature. More than 500,000 people have used the California DMV Wallet App, which was something of a test before the Golden State rolled out license for the Apple Wallet. IDs and licenses stored in the Wallet app on ‌iPhone‌ or iPad can be used for TSA screenings at select airports and for age verification at select stores. Right now, California’s mobile wallet support is still in a pilot stage, and only 1.5 million participants are able to sign up. California requires people to continue to carry a physical license or ID card because the digital license is not accepted by law enforcement, state government agencies, and most businesses.

Threads has announced several new features. Techcrunch.com reports that you will be able to store multiple drafts, rearrange columns on the desktop, and gain insights into user audiences. The TweetDeck type multicolumn view came out in May, but now you can rearrange them in a different order. The one thing you can’t do that most would like is move the ‘For You’ column from its default position as the first column on the left side. An insights screen shows age, gender, and location of people who view and engage with you. 

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now. 

Geofence Warrants are Unconstitutional-5 Circuit Court of Appeals; iPhone 16’s New Button; DOJ May Call for Breakup of Google; SAG-AFTRA Deal on AI Voice Cloning

The Fifth Circuit Court Of Appeals has ruled that geofence warrants are unconstitutional. TechCrunch.com reports that the decision will limit the use of these controversial search warrants in the states that fall under the conservative court’s jurisdiction, which include Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. The judges found that  geofence warrants are “categorically prohibited by the Fourth Amendment,” which protects against unwarranted searches and seizures. Geofence warrants, also known as “reverse” search warrants, allow police to draw a shape on a map, such as over a crime scene, and demand that Google (or any other company that collects user locations) search its entire banks of location data for any phone or device that was in that area at a specific point in time. Critics have complained that such warrants are unconstitutional because they are overbroad, and include information on entirely innocent people. Note that the Fourth Circuit…which includes Virginia, West Virginia, and North Carolina, has held the opposite. This almost certainly means the issue will find its way to the Supreme Court. Considering the conservative bent of the 5th Circuit, I would predict that the Supremes will also find geofence warrants unconstitutional. 

We have been hearing for almost a year about the new button iPhone 16 models are getting. Now, it looks like we know a good deal more about it. Of course, a month from now, we will know all about it…along with the requisite hype…or as it was dubbed in the Jobs era…Apple’s ‘reality distortion field!’ According to macrumors.com, Apple has been calling the button the Capture Button internally…and it looks like it will primarily be related to the cameras. Here are the functions, if the rumors are accurate: first, a light press on it will autofocus while shooting an image or video. Secondly, you can press harder to take a photo…much like on many DSLR and SLR cameras. Another function-you can swipe left or right to zoom in or out. Additionally, there may be a gesture to allow switching from photo to video mode. The button will live on the right side of the iPhone. Note that it may..and I would say is likely…be a feature exclusive to the Pro models. Although this all seems like a bit much when the functions already live on the screen, it will make shooting pictures and video easier and better when you use the phone in landscape orientation…and that’s how it is used for a lot of serious video and a must for those that will be viewed on Apple’s Vision Pro headset.

Since Google has been found to have a monopoly on online search, the next step from the Department of Justice is to offer proposals to the court on how to remedy this situation. 9to5google.com says new reports indicate that the remedies may include a breakup of Google…specifically, a spin-off of Android and/or Chrome. Another spin off possibility being considered is Google Ads…especially AdWords text advertising. Alternatively, the government might ask for an  “interoperability requirements that would make it work seamlessly on other search engines.” As  Google paid Apple a bit over $20 billion to be the default search on Apple’s iOS for iPhones just a couple years ago…and probably a bit more than that now, it’s no wonder Apple has been working quietly on their own search engine. Count on any remedy the court decides on being appealed by Google…which has billions at stake in this matter. 

SAG-AFTRA has cut a deal with AI voice startup Narrativ that will allow union performers to give consent or not to cloning their voices and to get paid…basically all members have asked for. Variety.com reports that under the deal, members will get the opportunity to add themselves to a database that connects voice talent to advertisers. The individual members will have the ability to negotiate fees for the use of their voice on a project by project basis, so long as the fee isn’t lower than SAG-AFTRA’s minimum per its most recent commercials contract with advertisers. In addition to being able to give a thumbs up or down to ads, union performers will be able to negotiate fees…but always will get the minimum scale, and in addition will get pension and health contributions made based on the ads they are paid for. 

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now. 

Made by Google Recap

Today was the big day for Google’s hardware…the Made By Google extravaganza. So what all did they show? Well, for starters, the Pixel 9 line now has 3 phones in the common form factor, plus a folder. There is a base Pixel 9 with a 6.3 inch screen, a Pixel 9 Pro XL rocking a 6.8 inch screen, and a new Pixel 9 Pro with a smaller 6.3 inch screen like the base model. All have an oval-shaped cam bump, and run Google’s next gen G4 Tensor chip. Theverge.com reports that Google is touting better battery life and a new satellite SOS feature like Apple and Samsung have. The base 9 gets a $100 price bump, now starting at $799. The Pro XL is $1099. Both phones will ship August 22nd. The Smaller Pixel 9 Pro will be available in September. The 9 Pro Fold is thinner and taller than last year’s folder…the displays are 6.3 inches on the outside, and 8 inches on the inside. The Fold also uses the G4 Tensor chip. The Pixel 9 Pro fold is $1799 and it ships September 4th. 

The new Pixels run Google’s Gemini AI assistant, which will find info for you within apps or you can just ask it questions. There are two new apps from Google…Pixel Screenshots, which uses on-device AI to let you search for info in saved screen shots, and Pixel Studio, a text-to-image generator. You also get som AI image editing tools. 

Besides the handsets, Google bowed the Pixel Watch 3, with a larger 45 mm screen option. You can still get the 41 mm size. The watch 3 has a new ultra wideband chip and brighter display. The smaller Watch 3 starts at $349 with Bluetooth, and the 45 mm model starts at $399. Both Watches are available September 10th. 

Google is also rolling out Gemini Live to Gemini Advanced subscribers. We reported on this from the Google A/I meeting in May. The new voice chat option lets you ask Google’s AI assistant questions out loud, and it will respond using your choice of 10 different voices. Just like ChatGPT’s voice assistant, Gemini Live will let you talk conversationally, and you can even interrupt it mid-sentence.

Google’s Pixel Buds Pro 2 earbuds are smaller and lighter, but they now have 11 mm drivers and a new Tensor AI chip that Google claims improves active noise cancellation. The Pixel Buds Pro 2’s start at $229, up from $200 for the predecessor. They have 8 hours of playback with ANC active, and you get up to 30 hours with the charging case. The Buds 2 ship September 26th. 

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now. 

Chrome Blocks Popular Ad-Blocker; Waymo to Start Robotaxis on San Francisco Freeways; Slim iPhone 17-Stepping Stone; Oxford Scientists Generate Solar Power Without Solar Panels

Chrome is nuking one of the most powerful ad blockers—uBlock Origin— as them move from Manifest V2 to V3. Mashable.com reports that the Google browser is changing the way it manages API requests, allegedly ‘aiming to…improve the privacy, security, and performance of extensions.’ Google, in the hunt for more money like basically every business, has been really moving to crack down on ad blockers…see YouTube, where they have managed to force users to watch preroll and intermediate ads. Now I hate the things as much as anyone, but you have to keep in mind that the seemingly ‘Free’ internet searches, YouTube videos, and all the rest have to be paid for somehow…and it’s by either grabbing and reselling your data or ads…or now it’s both. Have a nice day!

Waymo has gotten approval from California authorities to start testing driverless cars on San Francisco freeways this week. According to techcruch.com, employees of the Alphabet division will be the first guinea pigs for the service. The first testing will be outside rush hours, with what they are calling ‘less than a handful’ of vehicles. Alphabet just pumped an additional $5 billion into Waymo, and now the robotaxi service will include Daly City, Broadmoor, and Colma. Waymo is also ramping up efforts to do pickups and drop-offs at San Francisco International Airport. 

Here’s more on next year’s Slim iPhone 17 from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. Gurman is corroborating the rumors about the slim phone, which some are calling the iPhone Air. This model is expected to fit in between the iPhone 17 and the 17 Pro models. Apple apparently thinks they can sell people who want something a bit more premium than the base iPhones, but don’t need the cameras, performance, and screen size of a Pro model. Even though that seems to be a kind of niche market, Gurman thinks it will be a bigger seller for Apple than the 12/13 Mini or the 14 through 16 Plus models. It looks like Apple won’t have an ‘Ultra’ model until 2027.

Yes, it’s one of those things that is out in the future a bit, but some scientists at Oxford have a new solar power-generating material that can be applied to things like backpacks, cars, and mobile phones. It’s a pretty exciting development…generating power without silicon-based solar panels. Electrek.co reports that the material is called perovskite. It bests a lot of solar panels at 27% efficiency, is 150 times thiner than silicon, and is doing well enough that they have started large scale production of perovskite photovoltaics at its factory near Berlin, Germany. 

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now. 

Instagram Allowing Photo ‘Dumps’; Mac Mini to Get More Minuscule; Meta & Google Secretly Targeted Minors; Musk Tweeted Far-Right Fake News, Then Deleted 

One knock on Instagram…and I have run into this myself…is the inability do to a ‘photo dump’ after you return from a vacation trip or an event. Well, now IG is rectifying that, as they roll out the ability to add up to 20 photos or videos to their feed carousels. Techcrunch.com notes that in 2017, we got to upload 10 photos or videos in a swappable carousel post. It’s a nice increase, but worth mentioning that you can upload up to 35 in a single post on TikTok. Still…if you have had to split uploads of 45 or 50 pics you took on your trip to the Magic Kingdom or Europe, this is a real plus. 

Apple has a new Mac Mini in the works, and it will not only run on M4 and M4 Pro chips, it will be much smaller…about the size of an Apple TV, but a little taller. Mark Gurman from Bloomberg reports that it will still be in an aluminum case. Some insider word is that it is “essentially an iPad Pro in a small box.” If things remain in the production models, it should sport 3 USB-C ports, plus an HDMI port and of course a jack for the power cable. It should be released later this year…the higher end model probably by October. 

Meta and Google got together and ran a secret campaign to target 13-17 year olds with Instagram ads on YouTube. Theverge.com says Google directed ads to a subset of users labeled as “unknown” in its advertising systems, in an attempt to disguise the group skewed toward teenagers. According to a Google Ads help page, the “unknown” demographic category refers to people whose age, gender, parental status, or household income are supposedly unidentified, and can allow advertisers to reach “a significantly wider audience” when selected.  Google used app downloads and online activity to determine “with a high degree of confidence” that the “unknown” group was populated by younger users. Meta and Google intended to expand the campaign to international markets and promote additional services like Facebook. Google has launched their own investigation of this, but hopefully the EU and Department of Justice are doing so…otherwise, it’s just monkeys guarding the banana boat.

When a guy sues advertisers for not wanting to advertise on his platform that has grown more controversial, you would think he would be on his best behavior personally on the platform…never mind policing other folks’ content. But we are talking about Elon Musk here. Mashable.com reports that Musk posted a photoshopped fake news headline from a far right user on his X platform. ‘Detainment camps…’ was posted with a fake image that was mocked up to look like a headline from The Daily Telegraph website. It claimed that the new Prime Minister of the UK “Keir Starmer considering building ’emergency detainment camps’ on the Falkland Islands.” X user Ashlea Simon was the user he got the fake news from…Simon  is one of the leaders of the far-right UK party known as Britain First. The fake headline was referencing the far-right’s anti-immigration riots that have been unfolding throughout the UK and appeared to claim that the UK Prime Minister and Labor Party leader was building “detainment camps” to hold the arrested rioters.

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Techinfied’ for now. 

Musk vs the Ad Industry; Google TV Streamer; Anti-Deepfake Legislation Milestone; Disney+ Will Start Cracking Down on Password Sharing

Elon Musk has sued the World Federation of Advertisers, in addition to several large corporations. Arstechnica.com reports that musk claims that they “conspired, along with dozens of non-defendant co-conspirators, to collectively withhold billions of dollars in advertising revenue” from the social network formerly known as Twitter. “We tried peace for 2 years, now it is war,” Musk wrote today, a little over eight months after telling boycotting advertisers to “go eff yourself.”

News flash to Mr Musk…advertisers have avoided controversial programming for decades…on radio and TV and on the web. There used to be a list of controversial shows that advertisers refused to pay for ads if they were even within an hour of a controversial show on the list…let alone right IN the show. Even though he filed in the Northern District of Texas, I think he will lose this…at least on appeal. Advertisers have the right to not run ads on a platform that their target audience finds repugnant. 

Google has already rolled out the 4th edition of the Nest thermostat ahead of their upcoming hardware event. Now, they have bowed another hardware product in advance…the Google TV Streamer. According to theverge.com, it’s a $99.99 set top box that bests Chromecast with Google TV, delivering substantially better performance. It has Thread and Matter integration, so will work with other home systems besides Google’s…for example the Apple Home one. It also has a remote finder if you are one of those who is always misplacing your remote. Oh, and in addition to all that, it comes with Gemini AI. There is no dongle included, so you will have to buy or come up with your own HDMI cable. The Google TV Streamer ships September 24th. 

The government, and Congress specifically, moves at a snails pace much of the time. Here’s a little good news that seems to be making its way towards becoming law. Mashable.com says a bill called the Disrupt Explicit Forged Images and Non-Consensual Edits (Defiance) Act, has passed a Senate vote with unanimous consent, pushing the first of potentially many AI-focused regulations one step closer to federal law. It is expected to get a vote in the House soon, and hopefully will clear that body as well. Apparently, deepfake porn of actresses hasn’t bothered the politicians all that much, but let them see or hear a deepfake of a politician saying things they never really said, and they are all over things. Even though their motivation may not be in the right place, if it gets these laws put into effect, then I’m for it.

After threatening to for some time, it looks like Disney+ is finally about to crack down on password sharing. 9to5mac.com reports that Disney CEO Bob Iger has said the crackdown will start quote ‘in earnest’ starting in September. There was a small trial rollout in a few countries over this summer. Disney+ is expected to prompt users to get their own account if they’re found to be using someone else’s. Disney has also teased its plans to add paid sharing features for an “additional fee,” but there still aren’t any other details on that offering yet. 

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now. 

Google Loses Big Antitrust Trial; Nvidia Scraped YouTube & Netflix Videos Sans Permission; New Nest Launches; EU-Minds Aren’t ‘Currency for Social Media’-TikTok Drops Lite Rewards

Google has lost a biggie…the antitrust trial over its massive search business. Arstechnica.com reports that US District Judge Amit Mehta issued his ruling, and he sided with the Department of Justice. “Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly,” Mehta wrote in his opinion. “It has violated Section 2 of the Sherman Act.” This won’t just affect Google….Apple has been paying billions …$26 billion in 2021 alone…to Google for it to be the default search engine on Apple devices. Deals like with Apple shut out Bing and DuckDuckGo, since with the Apple deal, Google search was the default on both Android and Apple. In a consolation victory to Google, the judge did rule that Google didn’t have monopoly power in search advertising. 

Nvidia’s AI team allegedly scraped YouTube and Netflix videos without permission as it trained its AI. According to engadget.com, the company asked workers to download YouTube and Netflix videos and other datasets to develop their commercial AI systems like its Omnivores 3D world generator, self-driving car systems and a ‘digital human’. Nvidia claims they are within the law, but YouTube doesn’t agree, calling the action a ‘clear violation’ of its terms. To evade detection from YouTube, Nvidia downloaded content using virtual machines with rotating IP addresses to avoid bans. 

Nest has unveiled its totally redesigned Learning Thermostat…this one is the 4th generation. Even the design is a bit different. Probably more importantly, theverge.com notes that it works with the smart home standard Matter. That means you aren’t tied to Google or their app, but can use Apple Home if you happen to be an Apple user. Besides the coat of paint and some new features, the new, more pricy Nest comes with more hardware…it has the Nest Temperature sensor 2nd Gen included…so if, like me, you have 2 levels, you can let the thermostat keep both at the temperature you prefer, without having to kind of fool it to get it to a happy medium. The new Nest is available for preorder now at $279.99 from the Google Store. It ships August 20th. 

TikTok is dropping its controversial Lite Rewards program in the EU to comply with the Digital Services Act. Thenextweb.com reports that TikTok Lite is the data-light versions of the app to be used on slow internet connections and on gadgets with small memory availability. The Rewards program allows users to earn points by liking content, watching videos, following creators, and inviting friends to TikTok. The points can be exchanged for rewards like Amazon vouchers. Basically, they are rewarding longer screen time with financial incentives. The European Union has now closed this case under the DSA, but there is another ongoing case against TikTok in Europe. 

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now. 

OpenAI Hasn’t Watermarked ChatGPT-Could Hurt Bottom Line; iPhone 16 Will Launch in September; Made by Google 2024 Date; Trillion Dollar Wipeout In Biggest Tech Firms As Market Corrects

With lots of hand-wringing about how AI can be producing things that aren’t true, or how it can copy voices and images of people, it’s irritating to hear that OpenAI has had a watermarking system for Chat-GPT created text and a tool to detect it for about a year now. According to theverge.com, the company hasn’t released it because it feared it would hurt their bottom line! The company found in testing that the system was 99.9% effective for making AI text detectable when there is enough it. Meanwhile, in a survey commissioned by OpenAI, “people worldwide supported the idea of an AI detection tool by a margin of four to one.” On the downside as far as the company was concerned, nearly 30% of those surveyed said they would use the software less if watermarking was implemented. 

Despite quite a bit of information pointing to Apple delaying Apple Intelligence until October, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reports that the new iPhone 16 models will still launch in mid September. Although Apple has put off rollouts before due to software not being quite baked, this time around they will stick with the usual timing for hardware release. A good guesstimate of the date is September 10th. Keep in mind that even with the Apple Intelligence features coming in September, Apple has already said it won’t have the Apple Intelligence powered Siri until next spring. 

Made by Google is nearly upon us…it’s happening August 13th. Engadget.com says we an expect to see the new Pixel 9 phones, including a folder that’s been dubbed the Pixel 9 Pro Fold. In addition to phones, Google should show off more tidbits about Android 15, and certainly they will tout their Gemini AI. The Google show will be at 1PM Eastern. 

With all the markets dropping today by a bundle due to recession worries, the so-called ‘mega-cap’ tech stocks took it on the chin. Cnbc.com reports that the top tech companies collectively lost about a trillion dollars in market cap! Nvidia dropped over $300 million at the opening bell, but then recovered about half that. Apple got a $224 million dollar haircut, and Amazon fell by $109 million. Throw in Meta, Microsoft, Alphabet, and Tesla, and the 7 top tech companies got whacked by some $995 million in early trading. Thankfully, they all recovered some as the trading day dragged on. Besides earnings misses and job creation being lower than expected, the big techs were hammered by over-hyping AI. A Goldman Sachs note from June had warned that huge dollars were going into AI with little to show for it.

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.