YouTube Is Testing Generative AI To Answer Questions And Weed Through Comments

Google is testing a new feature on YouTube and, stop us if you've heard this one before, it's based on generative AI. Advanced machine learning algorithms and large language models are popping up in numerous products from Google, Microsoft, and almost every other tech company under the sun. This time, Google is leveraging a sometimes-accurate bot to glean useful information from the tangled web of comments and summarize elements of the video itself. All you have to do is ask. The comment summary features will be the first element of Google's YouTube AI initiative. Instead of digging through the...

Musk's X Is Testing A $1 'Not A Bot' Fee To Post On The Site Formerly Known As Twitter

by Ryan Whitwam - Wed, Oct 18, 2023

The site formerly known as Twitter is headed for a fee-based future. Weeks after owner Elon Musk suggested that X would move to a paid model, the social network has started testing a $1 yearly fee in select markets. The program is being branded in typical Musk fashion as "Not A Bot," but all it really verifies is that someone is willing to pay $1 for an account, bot or not. If you have an existing account, you are currently safe from the new fee. However, anyone signing up for X from the web in New Zealand and the Philippines will have to pay up front to use Twitter. And it's not just the cash—the...

How Google Chrome Is Beefing Up Protection Against Malware-Infested Extensions

by Ryan Whitwam - Mon, Aug 21, 2023

The internet can be a dangerous place, and that's before you start integrating bits of third-party code into your browser. Some of those extensions end up being shady or even outright malicious, and that can lead to their removal from centralized repositories like the Chrome Web Store. Google doesn't want people wondering why their favorite extensions suddenly vanished, so it's going to thoughtfully start listing the reason with the upcoming release of Chrome 117. Extensions can provide necessary functionality, but they have a great deal of freedom to monitor and alter your web traffic, potentially...

FCC Proposes A Massive Fourfold Increase To Fixed Broadband Speeds

by Ryan Whitwam - Thu, Jul 27, 2023

For the last eight years, internet service providers (ISPs) in the US have enjoyed a very liberal definition of "broadband." The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is poised to rain on their parade. The commission may update the definition of what constitutes broadband, raising the minimum speed requirement by a factor of four. It might not mean faster speeds are coming right away, but it could push ISPs in the right direction. The last time the FCC updated the broadband definition was in 2015, when it decreed that broadband should support at least 25 Mbps down and 3 Mbps up. Networks that...

Say Goodbye To Twitter And Its Iconic Bird Logo, And Hello To X Powered By AI

by Tim Sweezy - Mon, Jul 24, 2023

Elon Musk has shown off the new branding logo for the upcoming move from Twitter to Musk's self-proclaimed "everything app," X. While Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino praised employees and said the company was "moving at the speed of light" in an internal memo, some security experts worry that the rapid change could also pose security risks to users. Musk sent Twitter abuzz yesterday after announcing that X.com now redirects users to twitter.com and that the interim X logo would go live later in the day. Yaccarino gave a little more insight through a tweet into what the "everything app" would consist...

Musk Accuses Meta Of IP Theft, Serves Cease And Desist As Threads Balloons To 30M Users

by Ryan Whitwam - Fri, Jul 07, 2023

Chronically online billionaire Elon Musk was forced to follow through on his proposed acquisition of Twitter late last year, and the site has changed dramatically in the intervening months. That has a lot of Twitter users searching for alternative social networks, and Meta just released one. The company's Threads app is available on Android and iOS, and it rocketed to more than 30 million users in a day. This has so upset Musk and co that Twitter's legal team has threatened to sue Meta for cloning Twitter. Threads connects to Meta's Instagram platform, giving new users a quick way to import their...

Amazon Starts Posting Warnings On Frequently Returned Items And It's About Time

by Ryan Whitwam - Wed, Mar 29, 2023

Interpreting Amazon listings is as much art as science, but the e-commerce giant is adding an unmistakable signal you should take into account. Amazon is placing a warning label to products that have a high return rate, giving you a hint there may be something wrong or misleading about it. This could mean less hassle and disappointment for customers, while Amazon gets to save on logistics. According to a report from The Information, the warning labels are currently rare and don't show up consistently, but they've appeared on several products with high review ratings. This listing for a Pro-Ject...

Twitter Abandons SMS 2FA For Non-Blue Users Today, How To Secure Your Account For Free

by Ryan Whitwam - Mon, Mar 20, 2023

Twitter has made a lot of changes under Elon Musk, many of which have been unpopular with its users. The latest one continues the trend. Starting today, non-paying users can no longer use SMS two-factor authentication. There are other ways to secure your free account, but forcing users to turn off vital security features is not a good look. There was a backlash when Twitter announced this change last month, but it's going ahead with the change anyway. Previously, SMS was the default setting for two-factor authentication (2FA) on Twitter. For each login, Twitter would send a text message to the...

TikTok Is On The Verge Of A US Ban After Biden Admin Issues Ultimatum To Chinese Owners

by Tim Sweezy - Thu, Mar 16, 2023

The Biden administration is threatening to ban TikTok in the United States if Chinese owners do not sell stakes. The announcement came just ahead of the UK's ban of the highly popular app from government phones, citing security concerns. The threat of TikTok being banned in the U.S. is not a new thing. The Trump administration tried to force a sale of the company in order for it to become U.S. majority-owned in 2020. That attempt was under the guise of national security as well, but it ultimately failed after TikTok and ByteDance fought to block a proposed federal ban. Now, the Biden administration...

Google I/O 2023: When Google's Developer Event Takes Place And What To Expect

by Ryan Whitwam - Wed, Mar 08, 2023

Google has announced details for the 2023 I/O conference in its usual roundabout way: with a puzzle. Google updated its I/O website with the new puzzle on Tuesday, and mere hours later, it was solved. Google then revealed the May 10th starting date. While many events are loosening their pandemic-era restrictions, Google is not. You more than likely won't be able to see the event in person, but Google will have its customary live streams. Google I/O will kick off on May 10th with a keynote by CEO Sundar Pichai. There will also be numerous sessions with Google engineers covering products like Android,...

DoJ Accuses Google Of Harming Online Publishers In Fiery Antitrust Lawsuit

by Ryan Whitwam - Wed, Jan 25, 2023

The US Department of Justice and eight state attorneys general have filed an antitrust case against Google. If you're thinking this has happened before, you'd be right. However, this time the DOJ is going after Google's crown jewel: the ad tech business. According to the complaint, filed in federal court in Virginia, Google has systematically stifled competition and abused its market position, but the company, naturally, denies this. Google claims it has adhered to the letter of the law and says the DOJ is trying to "pick winners and losers in a competitive industry." According to the DOJ, Google...

Why US Lawmakers Are Trying To Ban China's Massively Popular TikTok App

by Ryan Whitwam - Wed, Dec 14, 2022

TikTok from Chinese megafirm ByteDance has turned short-form video into a social media phenomenon, making Twitter look pretty dumb for canning Vine a few years back. The skyrocketing popularity of TikTok has some security experts and political leaders concerned. As a Chinese company, the Chinese government has access to all of its data. There have been increasing calls to ban the app, and now a bipartisan group of US Congresspeople has announced a bill that will do just that. The bill has a real doozy of a title: "Averting the National Threat of Internet Surveillance, Oppressive Censorship and...

Amazon And Its Robot Army Declare War On Barcodes

by Ryan Whitwam - Fri, Dec 09, 2022

Amazon's logistics operation is coldly efficient, a vital quality when the company ships so many parcels on a daily basis. The venerable barcode might seem like an efficient way to track inventory, but Amazon isn't happy with the inefficiency of picking up and scanning products over and over. That's why it's building an AI-powered system known as multimodal identification (MMID). This new approach to machine vision helps computers identify objects like we do—just by looking at them. Amazon calls the system "multimodal" because it leverages multiple pieces of data about an object, for example...

Google Just Upgraded Chrome's Address Bar With 3 New Abilities That You'll Love

by Ryan Whitwam - Wed, Dec 07, 2022

All web browsers look essentially the same these days, but that wasn't always the case. Browsers used to have separate search and address bars until Google set a new standard when it merged them in Chrome. The Chrome address bar, sometimes called the "omnibox," has continued to get smarter over the years, and the latest change adds three new ways to search your web activity. Click in the address bar, and you'll have access to three new search shortcuts: @tabs, @bookmarks and @history. They work a bit like Chrome's custom search engine tool—just type the shortcut and hit space to enter...

Kanye West Suspended From Twitter Again After Shocking Antisemitic Tirade And Posting Texts With Musk

by Ryan Whitwam - Fri, Dec 02, 2022

One of Elon Musk's first decrees after acquiring Twitter was to restore many controversial accounts that were suspended under the old regime. That included Kanye West, or Ye as he now prefers, who was suspended just before Musk's acquisition for posting antisemitic content. However, it didn't take long for West to become more trouble than he was worth—the rapper's account has again been suspended following a blatantly racist outburst that was too much even for Musk's "free speech" social network. West has been escalating his antisemitic attacks in recent weeks, but he's kept it mostly off...

Musk Vows To Build A Smartphone To Rival iPhone And Android If App Stores Ban Twitter

by Ryan Whitwam - Mon, Nov 28, 2022

Twitter is still chugging along despite its shrinking workforce, and new owner Elon Musk continues to pop up and make promises almost whenever he's summoned. It can be hard to keep track of all the things Musk claims he's going to do, particularly since he started posting his every thought on Twitter. Now, the billionaire Twitter owner says he'll make his own phone if Apple and Google dare to remove Twitter from their app stores. The problem: both Apple and Google have rules against apps that allow hate speech or harassment and a core part of Musk's approach to managing Twitter is to do less managing....

Bitcoin Falls To Lowest Value In 2 Years Following FTX Crypto Exchange Fiasco

by Ryan Whitwam - Tue, Nov 22, 2022

Just one year ago, Bitcoin's value was in the stratosphere at a whopping $65,000 per coin. A series of market-shifting exchange collapses have now dragged prices down to barely over $15,000, erasing years of gains and threatening further liquidity issues that could cripple still more cryptocurrency firms. The community points the finger at Sam Bankman-Fried and his failing FTX exchange, but this is just the latest in a long line of bitcoin bungles. Cryptocurrency values started tanking earlier this year when one of the most popular "stablecoins" known as Terra collapsed in value. This caused firms...

Elon Musk Deploys And Then Kills New 'Official' Checkmark on Twitter

by Ryan Whitwam - Wed, Nov 09, 2022

Billionaire Elon Musk has only owned Twitter for a few weeks, but there are already big changes afoot. Musk has been open about his dislike for Twitter's verification setup, which he referred to as a "lords & peasants system." His vision for the blue checkmark is starting to appear on the service, but not in a finished form, it would seem. In the pre-Musk era, the blue checkmark was a coveted identifier for those accounts that were sufficiently notable that Twitter employees verified the user's identity. Some people, including Musk, complained about the company's decision not to verify controversial...

Elon Musk Dumps Nearly 8 Million Tesla Shares For Possible Twitter Resolution

by Ryan Whitwam - Wed, Aug 10, 2022

By most measures, Elon Musk is the richest person in the world, and he's got more liquid assets at his disposal today. Recent regulatory filings show that Musk has sold off millions of Tesla shares worth billions of dollars. He needs those funds due to a questionable decision made earlier this year when he agreed to purchase Twitter for $44 billion, an agreement he's currently trying to void. But better safe than sorry. Musk's Twitter saga began in early 2022 with the news he had secretly acquired a 9.2 percent stake in the social media site where he has more than 100 million followers. After rejecting...

UK Government Plans Huge Manipulative Ad Campaign Against Private Chat Encryption

by Lane Babuder - Sun, Jan 16, 2022

End-to-end Encryption for most people this is something invisible they never even think about, but for just about everyone who uses messaging apps such as Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Signal and many others, this is an absolute necessity for privacy. In a recent report by Rolling Stone it was revealed that the UK Government Home Office is set to launch a massive £534,000 advertising campaign against the practice of utilizing end-to-end encryption utilizing public funds. Hiring the advertising agency M&C Saatchi, a spin-off of Saatchi and Saatchi who made "Labour Isn't...

Dell UltraSharp 4K Webcam Review: Up Your WFH Video Quality

by Chris Goetting - Wed, Aug 25, 2021

The humble webcam has seen a surge to prominence fueled by the rise of web conferencing and remote work, spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic. Only a few short years ago, a webcam could be buried away below the display of a laptop and few users would complain or even notice. With those days behind us, consumers and professionals alike have been scrambling to improve their on-screen presence to the point of creating a shortage of the now critical device. That same demand has drawn more players into the discrete webcam space, including Dell. Dell's recently released 4K-capable UltraSharp Webcam aims...

Which Major AI Companies Care Most About Your Privacy: Amazon, Google, Apple, Facebook?

by Brittany Goetting - Mon, Sep 30, 2019

Many companies are working hard to improve their artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities. AI could impact everything from medicine to silly Instagram overlays and everything in between. Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google are all toiling to gain an edge in the AI field by leveraging their massive treasure troves of data, but what are their existing privacy policies and user data security track records? Which of these companies cares the most about protecting your privacy? Should you even trust Amazon, Apple, Facebook, or Google with your data? We examined the kind of data that is collected by...