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Google tells facial recognition startup Clearview AI to stop scraping photos

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In an interview with CBS This Morning, the company’s CEO, Hoan Ton-That, said Clearview plans to challenge the cease-and-desist letters in court. Ton-That compared Clearview’s practice of scraping the internet for images to what Google does with its search engine. “Google can pull in information from all different websites,” he said. “So if it’s public, you know, and it’s out there, it could be inside Google search engine, it can be inside ours as well.” He then went on to argue the company has a First Amendment right to public information.

Google, however, sees things differently. “YouTube’s Terms of Service explicitly forbid collecting data that can be used to identify a person,” the company said in a statement. “Clearview has publicly admitted to doing exactly that, and in response we sent them a cease and desist letter.”

The search giant also took issue with Ton-That’s comparison. “Most websites want to be included in Google Search, and we give webmasters control over what information from their site is included in our search results, including the option to opt-out entirely,” Google said. “Clearview secretly collected image data of individuals without their consent, and in violation of rules explicitly forbidding them from doing so.”

If it goes ahead with its legal plan, Clearview wouldn’t be the first company to try and use the First Amendment to defend its data scraping practices. In 2017, a data analytics company called hiQ Labs tried to use a similar argument when it sued LinkedIn so that it could continue scraping the social network for publically available data. And while it ultimately lost the case, at least one notable constitutional law expert took up the company’s argument.

At the moment, there aren’t any federal laws that regulate facial recognition — though some cities such as San Francisco have partially banned the technology. It’s likely Google’s legal involvement with Clearview will force the government to address the issue before long.



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Uber can resume testing its self-driving cars in California

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After the fatal crash, Uber stopped testing its self-driving cars in all four of its testing grounds — Tempe, Arizona; Toronto; San Francisco and Pittsburgh. However, the company resumed testing in Pittsburgh just months later, and has plans to begin tests in Washington, D.C. by the end of the year. About a year after the pedestrian was killed, the company raised a $1 billion investment in its self-driving division from three Japanese organizations — Softbank, Denso and Toyota — despite allegedly ramping down its efforts in the autonomous vehicle industry.

It’s extremely probable that more deaths will occur during the testing and use of self-driving cars. How the industry handles these fatalities could have a big impact on how the technology progresses — and how quickly the public warms up to the idea of autonomous vehicles.

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GM will bring Super Cruise to 22 vehicles by 2022

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GM had already outlined plans to deploy Super Cruise on all Cadillac models and other brands sometime in 2021, but hadn’t given numbers like this.

While it’s a significant expansion, GM is still being relatively conservative. Super Cruise only allows semi-autonomous driving on specified highways in North America where Tesla’s Autopilot works on many roads with the prospect of full self-driving at some point in the future. Greater autonomy will have to wait for vehicles like the Cruise Origin shuttle. GM might not be in a rush, though. Tesla has sometimes been accused of moving too quickly with Autopilot, and the technology has been blamed for some crashes. GM may be happy to move slowly if it avoids safety problems and does more to protect its reputation.

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Teenage Engineering wants you to ‘hack’ its IKEA line with 3D printing

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The hacks include add-ons like a cup holder to attached to the side of your speaker, handles and wheels for speaker and light combos and a wall mount. Like the FREKVENS line, the accessories are blocky and modular, with pops of bright red, yellow, blue and teal — though you can choose your own colors and materials when you’re printing at home.

Teenage Engineering says the limited collection is meant for parties, both at home and on the go. It’s centered around LED spotlights that react to sound and portable speakers, which can be combined in your own unique setup. The products are fully compatible with Teenage Engineering’s synths, and now, they’re even more quirky and customizable.

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Windows 10’s built-in search is down following possible Microsoft outage

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Aaron's desktop

Microsoft says it looked into and resolved an issue that was causing access and latency issues “with multiple Microsoft 365 services.” However, it appears some people are still experiencing issues. In either case, we’ve reached out to the company for additional context, and we’ll update this article when we hear back.

People over on the Windows 10 subreddit have found a workaround for the problem, but it involves editing your system’s registry — which is to say it’s probably best to wait while everything gets resolved. It’s been a rough week at Microsoft. This problem comes just two days after the company forgot to renew the SSL certificate for Microsoft Teams.



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Spotify is the new heavyweight champ of podcasts

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Alongside its Q4 2019 and full-year earnings report this morning, the company announced that it is acquiring The Ringer, a popular sports and culture media company. The Ringer is still relatively new, having only started in 2016. However, its creator, former ESPN writer and commentator Bill Simmons, is well-known to sports fans. Simmons started the site Grantland while at ESPN, an outlet dedicated to a wide range of sports journalism, including award-winning long-form stories. Amid controversy in May 2015, ESPN announced that it wasn’t renewing Simmons’ contract and eventually shut down Grantland that October. While at ESPN, Simmons also hosted The B.S. Report podcast and had a two-year stint on the network’s NBA Countdown basketball pre-game television show.

When he founded The Ringer, Simmons hired a number of former Grantland writers and contributors with the focus of expanding beyond sports to include pop culture coverage. Indeed, the media company’s writing and podcasts include in-depth work on movies, music, television, gaming and more. And while shows like Binge Mode, The Dave Chang Show and The Rewatchables that cover popular TV series and films are attractive to Spotify, it’s The Ringer’s and Simmons’ sports commentary that have the real ability to expand the streaming service’s podcast appeal. Plus, its shows are very popular.

Spotify The Ringer

Sure, The Ringer is a publisher, but don’t get caught up in the “Spotify is in the publishing business” storyline. I’m sure the company is happy that it now has award-winning writers and a site that cranks out quality written content under its wing, but this purchase is primarily about podcasts. The Ringer currently has over 30 shows, including The Bill Simmons Podcast, that tally over 100 million downloads a month. According to The Wall Street Journal, The Ringer brought in over $15 million in podcast revenue in 2018. Like it did with Gimlet and Parcast, Spotify is spending big to expand its podcast library with genres it thinks will continue to drive people to its paid service. And even if listeners are only coming for the episodic audio content, at least they’re contributing to ad revenue.

This also isn’t the first time Spotify and The Ringer have been in cahoots. The two teamed up on The Hottest Take in 2019, a short-form podcast where Simmons and his colleagues “debate, defend and parse a controversial opinion on a pressing topic of the day” four times a week. Of course, those topics cover sports, movies, TV and music in addition to food and the internet. Each installment is under 10 minutes, with some clocking in at around half of that.

It’s too early to tell how Spotify will distribute The Ringer podcasts, but based on my recent interview with Spotify’s Vice President, Global Studios and Video Courtney Holt, you don’t need to worry about existing shows being locked into a paid service.

“I believe podcasting needs to be free and available to all consumers,” Holt said. “Our intention is the content is available for free to our users — whether you’re free or premium, the experience is the same.”

Spotify The Ringer

Spotify kept established Gimlet shows widely distributed after that acquisition. Even the new podcast Mogul eventually made it to other platforms after a period of exclusivity on Spotify. That delay obviously makes less sense with timely commentary and analysis like most of The Ringer’s podcasts. Either way, there should still be ample content to enjoy even if Spotify isn’t your podcast player of choice.

Now that Spotify owns Gimlet, Parcast and The Ringer, the number of prolific podcast producers it hasn’t snapped up is becoming increasingly limited. You still have NPR and other public radio organizations, along with Vox Media and more niche outfits like Night Vale Presents. It’s clear Spotify sees a benefit to owning production companies, but podcasts aren’t a new medium. So it begs the question: why hasn’t Apple done something similar?

Apple has its own music service where it could leverage podcasts to drive traffic, and maybe paid subscriptions. But the company seems content to let the shows exist in their own space — and inside their own app. Given that Apple is responsible for popularizing the medium, and even inspired its name, the company had a long time to invest in podcasts if it wanted to. It could have spent the time and money to make sure it was the only game in town when it came to the episodic content, especially if it got involved and invested early. Instead, Apple seemed to just let podcasts merely exist, even during the recent boom where advertisers have proven increasingly interested in sponsoring episodes or entire shows.

Podcasts haven’t been a sure bet for advertisers, mostly due to the limited information available about shows and the ads themselves. Spotify is also trying to change that. Last month, the service announced an ad platform that automatically inserts pre-recorded spots into shows so that a listener is more likely to hear them. What’s more, those ads are targeted to users based on listening habits. The company is promising that stats like actual ad impressions, frequency, reach and anonymized audience info that includes age, gender, device type and listening behavior will all be available. And some of it for the first time.

Spotify The Ringer

In its earning report today, and before adding The Ringer to the fold, Spotify revealed it now has over 700,000 podcasts. According to Podcast Insights, Apple hosts over 850,000 shows on iTu… er, its Podcasts app, and over 30 million episodes. That’s a surprisingly small gap, and I expect it to shrink over the next quarter. Spotify also said podcasts have grown around 200 percent year-over-year on its platform, driven primarily by its continued push to add new content and acquire publishers that help it expand its listener base. For listeners, it has introduced features like Your Daily Podcasts and Your Daily Drive that put its powerful playlist making algorithms to work for episodic content based on a user’s habits.

“We have seen early indications that our investments in podcasts are having a positive impact on conversion of free to paid users,” Spotify said in its earnings report today. When you’re a company that’s teetering on the edge profitability due to expensive licensing deals and high operating costs, it’s worth the investment to lock down podcast studios to help you drive paid subscriptions.

And Spotify probably isn’t done. Minutes before it announced the deal for The Ringer, the company reiterated that it will continue to spend big on both podcasts and related technology — like online production suites Anchor and Soundtrap — if it continues to see the benefits of doing so.

“Any decision to accelerate our investment in podcast and technology spend should be viewed as an indication of our belief that our strategy is having tangible results,” the company explained. “We have gained even more confidence in the data, particularly around the benefits from podcasts, and as a result, 2020 will be an investment year.”

If you’re not convinced Spotify is now the king of podcasts, don’t worry: the company will likely snatch up more shows in a few weeks.

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‘Nioh 2’ killed me 14 times in 90 minutes

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Nioh 2 is actually a prequel to the original game from 2017. In the OG, you played as Irish sailor, William, who had to hunt down an evil sorcerer during Sengoku-period Japan. In Nioh 2, William won’t be born for at least a century. The story takes place in the year 1500. You play as both a Yokai spirit and another main character, Toukichiro, who together must become Japan’s second “great unifier.” Like its predecessor, Nioh 2 is loosely based on real historical figures: General Toyotomi Hideyoshi in this case.

The protagonist isn’t the only new feature in the sequel. Team Ninja added new weapons, enemies, allies, special moves and customization options. Since half of your character is a spirit, you’ll now be able to unleash special attacks using their otherworldly powers, transforming the player into a Yokai and granting them abilities not available when in human form.

You can also assign specific abilities to the control pad to use in combat. These powers come in three flavors — Brute, Feral, and Phantom — each with their own strengths, attributes, buffs and weaknesses. I only got a quick look at this menu during Sony’s hands-on demo on Monday, it was right after death number six, but you’ll have your choice of seemingly dozens of special powers to play around with once the game launches. New powers can also be collected from the Soul Cores dropped by defeated enemies. These powers are limited by the amount of anima you have, which is displayed under your Ki gauge.

When it comes to weaponry, Nioh 2 brings back the classics. Players will have their choice of the original swords, axes, spears, and kusarigama from the first game, as well as the tonfa, odachi and hatchets from the DLCs. Plus, Nioh 2 is introducing the “switch glaive,” which is a collapsible scythe-spear thingamajig. It has good range and decent attack power, though I should note that I was playing a mid-game level while outfitted in maxed out legendary armor and weapons — so my experience may be a bit skewed from a normal playthrough. And I still died every six and a half minutes.

Nioh 2

You’re going to need all the help your equipment can grant given what you’re up against. Team Ninja went wild with the yokai character designs. Undead foot soldiers and mutating sergeants run interference for larger, more aggressive, and more deadly demons. The VW-sized mallet that rendered me into samurai paste was wielded by a hulking demon consisting of little more than a cycloptic head perched atop a single hopping leg. And that was probably the easiest demon I managed to beat (eventually), at least compared to the lightning fast, spear-wielding mid-level boss and 15-foot tall hatchet-throwing boar-tusked general at the end.

While this is a single-player game, you won’t be fighting entirely alone. Thankfully, Team Ninja is introducing AI-controlled allies in Nioh 2. Spawned from flaming blue graves (assuming you have a sufficient number of relic cups with which to revive them), these temporary compatriots will fight alongside you until they’ve been killed or recalled to the netherworld. They’re not particularly smart or capable but they know how to attack and can prove invaluable in tough fights — even if only serving as bait for the enemy’s blade.

Despite the new weapons, enemies, and allies, Nioh 2 remains faithful to the original. In that it is ridiculously punch-yourself-in-the-face impossible to beat. It’s not challenging, or demanding, or taxing. It’s masochism with a six-axis controller. This game is hard. It’s hard in ways that’ll make you question your judgement in ever purchasing it, or even a PS4 to begin with. What were you even thinking?

You’ll block a moment too late and be run through by a spearman, you’ll fall through a crack in a bridge and drown, you’ll get one-shotted by bosses (again and again and again), or you won’t notice the suicide ninja hiding behind a barrel until he leaps out and atomizes you both. Then everything resets and you get to do the whole section again. And again. And again until you’ve memorized every enemy position, worked out their timing and attack patterns and know the terrain like the back of your hand. Then you execute your strategy, successfully hacking and slashing your way to the next savepoint. It’s those fleeting, exhilarating moments that make this game worthwhile: When the plan finally comes together and you’re the last one standing.

There are a billion different things (and just as many threats) that you have to pay attention to if you want to survive in this game. Most of that management needs to be done in parallel, given that even a single mistake is all it takes to send you back to the last save shrine. Conversely, having so many aspects of your character’s development to keep track of empowers players to intensively customize them from physical appearance to fighting style to weapon and magic preference. And since the game is so incredibly difficult, you really have no choice but to continually tinker with your character, study your opponents, and adjust your tactics to maximize your chances of making it through the next battle alive.

Nioh 2 is slated for release on March 13th, 2020. Be sure to stock up on replacement controllers before then.

Images: Sony Interactive Entertainment

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Autonomous flying taxi Cora set for passenger trials in New Zealand

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If the names Cora or Kitty Hawk sound familiar to you, it’s because they’ve been kicking about in this sector for a while, albeit in varying forms. Kitty Hawk was formed in 2016; a secretive flying-car company that enjoyed the lucrative backing of Google co-founder Larry Page. Under the management of Sebastian Thrun — the Stanford AI expert responsible for Google’s self-driving car unit — the company created the two-seated autonomous aircraft, Cora.

In 2018, Kitty Hawk announced it was teaming up with Air New Zealand to launch the world’s first autonomous air taxi service, but without a major manufacturing partner it turned instead to Boeing, and in 2019 Wisk was born. Its goal is to develop a flying taxi service that can be summoned by an app, and flown by a combination of autopilot systems and a remote human pilot.

This isn’t a new aspiration, of course. Uber has grand plans for its Elevate program, while Germany’s Volocopter made big promises about its own offering. But such projects often fall foul of funding problems, technical difficulties and legislative challenges. If Wisk’s passenger trials go ahead and are successful, the dream of flying taxis may actually start to come to fruition in a tangible way.

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Spotify is buying The Ringer to boost its sports coverage

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Dawn Ostroff, Spotify Chief Content Officer, said that she looks forward “to putting the full power of Spotify behind The Ringer as they drive our global sports strategy.” It looks as if Simmons’ team at The Ringer will be encouraged to keep doing its own thing, in the hope of reaching an even larger audience. And the two companies already have close ties — including the Spotify co-production The Hottest Take.

The deal still has to close the usual regulatory and financial hurdles but is expected to close at some point in the next three months.

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See how VFX artists included Carrie Fisher in ‘The Rise of Skywalker’

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Whatever your opinion on Rise of Skywalker, we can probably all agree that its effects were pretty impressive — not least because of the seamless inclusion of Carrie Fisher’s scenes. The iconic Leia actress had only recorded a small amount of footage before she passed away. Now, the studio behind the film’s VFX, Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), has released a short video showcasing exactly they did it, as well as the work that went into other major scenes, such as the final space battle and Rey’s jump over the TIE Silencer. Take a look below, although if you’ve somehow avoided seeing the movie yet, be aware that the video contains minor spoilers.

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