iPhone 17-Small Price Hike; VPN Use Way Up in UK; YouTube Bows Age Estimation Tech; Google Will Sign EU’s AI Code of Practice

Posted: July 30, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Apple is apparently planning a $50 across the board price hike for all iPhone 17 models. macrumors.com reports that this is to offset rising component costs and the China tariffs. The news came in an investor note from Jefferies analyst Edison Lee. Actually, with Trump’s China tariffs, Apple is eating a lot of the cost increase, but has decided to pass at least some of it on to consumers. Cupertino will try to position the increase as worth it due to new features and design changes, and won’t blame the hike on the tariffs…not wanting to anger the thin-skinned Donald Trump. 

The Online Safety Act just went into effect last Friday in the United Kingdom. That’s the law that requires porn platforms and other adult content sites to implement user age verifications. Not shockingly, the use of VPNs…virtual private networks, has spiked already. According to wired.com, experts had expected such a surge. Besides VPNs, apparently users are also trying a video game called Death Stranding that has a photo mode to take a selfie of a character and submit it to the age-gated forum content. What the Online Safety Act requires is that websites hosting porn, self-harm, suicide, and eating disorder content implement “highly effective” age checks for visitors from the UK. These checks can include uploading an ID document and selfie for validation and analysis. On the up side for the UK regulators, over 6,600 pro websites have introduced age checks so far. I am still processing the fact that there are that many porn websites. I don’t think I’ve ever visited even close to that many websites of any kind in my life! 

There is a good deal of resistance and skepticism about age verification online…as in our story yesterday about an app designed to protect women from bad dates that got hacked and their driver’s licenses were compromised. Now, techcrunch.com says YouTube is taking a different approach, rolling out age-estimation tech to identify US teens so they can apply additional protections for the kids. The company says it will use a variety of signals to determine the users’ possible age, regardless of what the user entered as their birthday when they signed up for an account. When the platform marks someone as a teen, it introduces new protections and experiences, which include disabling personalized advertising, safeguards that limit repetitive viewing of certain types of content, and enabling digital well-being tools such as screen time and bedtime reminders, among others. These are the same safeguards as are in effect already for those who have identified as teens…now YouTube will use their system to check. If someone is flagged as a teen and isn’t, they have the option to verify their age with a credit card, government ID, or selfie. DON’T give them your driver’s license! 

Google has announced that it will sign the European Union’s AI Code of Practice. Engadget.com notes that the Act was passed in 2024, but many parts of it have yet to go into effect…they will take months or even years. The Code is a non-binding, voluntary pact. Meta has said it won’t sign on, calling the Code ‘over-reach.’ The EU’s AI Act is the first of its kind from a major regulator and is comprehensive in its approach. Meanwhile, the United States is in the earliest stages of determining its approach to AI regulation Obligations under the EU AI act start kicking in on August 1st of this year, with all AI models to be fully compliant by August of 2027.

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

Apple-May Finally Use Own Modem Chip; Google Gemini AI Gets Speed Boost; Data Breach Exposes US Spyware Maker; CrowdStrike Offed $10 Uber Eats Voucher-Some Didn’t Work

Posted: July 25, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

Apple has been toiling away on its own in-house 5G modem for iPhones for the last 6 years at least. Now, it looks like they finally may be getting near using it in the handsets. Macrumors.com reports that iPhone 17 may get the modem chip in 2025. Apple has been using Qualcomm modems for cellular for quite a while, and they have a deal with Qualcomm that runs through 2026. Apple had scooped up most of Intel’s smartphone modem business back in 2019 for the purpose of making their own 5G modem chips. 

Google has upgraded Gemini AI to 1.5 Flash. According to theverge.com, you should see “across-the-board improvements in quality and latency, with especially noticeable improvements in reasoning and image understanding.” The upgrade is available in the free version starting today on both Gemini web and mobile. Google is also going to start rolling out Gemini ‘gradually’ in google Messages in Europe and the UK, and Gemini for teens will be available in over 40 languages ‘in the coming week.’

You have to laugh when a hack exposes a spyware maker! An under the radar Minnesota company called Spytech, which snooped on thousands of devices around the world remotely, was the victim of the hack. Techcrunch.com says the breach of Spytech’s servers contained detailed device activity logs from the phones, tablets, and computers that Spytech monitors, with some of the files dated as recently as early June. The company makes products called Realtime-Spy and SpyAgent, and some others. They have apparently been used to compromise over 10,000 devices since 2013…including Androids, Chromebooks, Macs, and PCs all over the world. The company has advertised the products as keeping tabs on your kids’ devices or ‘on your spouse’s suspicious behavior.’ Sometimes the programs have been called stalker ware. They almost always have to be loaded in by someone with physical access to the device and knowledge of the password. Once installed, they are difficult to detect and remove. The company wouldn’t say that they would notify customers, the people whose devices were monitored, or the US government…as required by law.

In an almost silly move, CrowdStrike offered a $10 voucher for UberEats…some small consolation after more than 8 million had their PCs screwed up by their buggy software update. As Ron Popiel of the Pocket Fisherman and Hollywood Grill used to say…’But wait, there’s more!’ Mashable.com reports that some the vouchers didn’t actually work. Some journalists at TechCrunch.com discovered the secondary fail that came with CrowdStrike’s ‘heartfelt thanks.’ CrowdStrike blames Uber. They say apparently Uber flagged the gifts as fraud because of high usage rates.

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

Facebook Messenger Autoroll Ads; Disney Sweetens Fox Offer; Uber EV Incentive; EU Internet Copyright Vote

Posted: June 20, 2018 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

 Well, people are going to love this. Facebook is starting to put autoplay video ads in Messenger.. Recode.net says they appear in the inbox right next to messages from friends and family.  The company has complained of late that they were running out of room in the main Facebook app for ads, so are moving on to Messenger and also Marketplace, their quasi-Craigslist. Facebook does say they will be monitoring how the ads are received, and peoples’ behavior, to see if they turn people off. Note to Facebook…you’re not Stan Freeberg or a major creative ad shop, so they probably will! 

 The battle over content and eyeballs has heated up. Disney is making a $70.3 billion counterbid for Fox’s entertainment businesses following Comcast’s $65 billion offer for the company. The fight for Twenty-First Century Fox reflects a new imperative among entertainment and telecommunications firms. They are building up ever more programming to better compete with technology companies such as Amazon and Netflix for viewers’ attention – and dollars. The deal would include Fox film and TV studios, some cable networks and international assets, but not Fox News Channel or the Fox television network.  AT&T just bought Time Warner for $81 billion, after a federal judge rejected the government’s antitrust concerns.  Disney had made a $52.5 billion all-stock offer in December. It’s now offering $38 per Twenty-First Century Fox share, up from $28 per share. Who knows if Disney or Comcast will win, but we can definitively say that Rupert Murdoch will be the real winner!

 Uber has launched a pilot program to encourage drivers to start using electric vehicles. the program runs in 8 cities in the US and Canada, including San Francisco. According to mashable.com, the EV Champions Initiative includes a number of features…including one in the driver app that helps combat range anxiety, a key issue with electric cars. Uber has already alerted drivers of rides that will run over 45 minutes before they accept…for EVs, that will be dropped to 30 minutes. Other incentives include a buck or $1.50 back per electric ride, and free access to fast charging networks. Earlier this year, arch competitor Lyft set its EV and environmental goals, including a billion carbon neutral rides by 2025. 

 While Wall Street and the world worry about trade war, now there’s another issue creeping up that may drastically change the internet as we know it. AN EU Parliament committee has voted to make content providers to filter for copyright infringement. While the Article 13 rule still has to be agreed on by representatives from the EU’s 28 governments before becoming law, this vote reduces the chances of serious changes. Over 70 experts…including Tim Berners-Lee who invented the World Wide Web and Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales have said this will turn the internet into’a tool for the automated surveillance and control’ of it’s users. Theverge.com notes that such talk sounds like hype, but the rule would essentially be something of a YouTube Content ID for the entire internet. Internet platforms would have to filter uploads for copyright infringement.