Kotaku looked at 25,000 location records shared with it by 10 players of Niantic games. It found that Niantic kept about three location records per minute of Wizards Unite gameplay. That was nearly twice as many records as it kept for Pokémon Go. In one case, Niantic had at least one location record taken nearly every hour of the day. In other words, it likely swept up location data even when the user was not playing.
When Kotaku brought this up to Niantic, the company blamed the non-stop data collection on a bug in the Android version. It says the bug has been fixed. All other data collection is detailed in its privacy policy, and users can request to have their data deleted.
In its report, Kotaku warns that Niantic has enough location data to “discern individual patterns of user behavior as well as intimate details about a player’s life.” That may be true, but it’s nothing new or specific to Niantic. Google has enough location data to help investigators solve crimes — though it now lets you auto-delete your history. And bugs that leak your location data are not unheard of, just ask Twitter.
If you’re at all interested in preserving your history on the site, you’ll want to download your data either directly from posts or through Yahoo’s Privacy Dashboard.
Yahoo hasn’t formally explained the shutdown, but you could see this coming. Yahoo launched Groups in 2001 as a sort of forum and mailing list hybrid, and it quickly became a home for specialist communities. There was one major problem, however: social networking happened. There’s not as much incentive to use Yahoo’s community when your Facebook group, Twitter friends or Discord chat will fit the bill, and often more effectively.
Still, this could be a sad moment for some. Much like the GeoCities shutdown, Yahoo is erasing a piece of internet history. Even if you haven’t used Yahoo Groups in years, you might still have a presence there — say, a fan club for a favorite band from your youth. Yahoo is effectively erasing that historical record, even if it’s likely to live on through archive services.
Google Clips was a short-lived camera that users were meant to position around their homes. It had artificially intelligent auto-capture and promised to record clips when it saw something interesting, like something cute your kid or pet might do before you had a chance to grab your camera.
Clips cost $250 and didn’t have the best ratings — users said it was unpredictable and unreliable. So it’s not surprising that Google is doing away with the device. In a statement to Engadget, a Google spokesperson said Clip users will continue to get support until December 2021, but the company will not release any updates to Clips devices after that.
This also comes just one day after Google announced it would discontinue sales of its Daydream View. The VR headset is not compatible with Google’s new phones, and it has already been removed from the Store. Chances are few users will miss these devices, and even if they do, Google has plenty of new hardware to distract them.
Netflix just released its results for Q3 in 2019 (PDF), showing that it added slightly fewer subscribers (6.77 million) than the 7 million it anticipated, while still notching an all-time record for the quarter. The company cited lower retention rates in the US since its most recent price hike, and justifies with a statement that “With more revenue, we’ll continue to invest to improve our service to further strengthen our value proposition.” The one thing the company’s investor letter seeks to convince people is that the problem isn’t competition, with the likes of Amazon Prime and Hulu already here ahead of Disney+ and Apple TV+ launching later this year.
Specifically it pulled up a growth chart for Netflix in Canada (as measured by penetration in broadband connected homes) to compare with the US to claim that Hulu’s impact on it doesn’t really exist. With more competition incoming, soothing investor’s nerves will be key. When Disney is dropping three hour trailers for the video it has, the Netflix library will be compared, top to bottom, with these new entrants.
In that book, New York Times reporter Mike Isaac tracks Uber from its creation through its IPO in May. The adaptation will “depict the roller-coaster ride of the upstart transportation company, embodying the highs and lows of Silicon Valley,” with co-founder and former CEO Travis Kalanick as a central figure.
“The story of Uber is rich in plot twists, one-of-a-kind personalities and important implications for corporate America,” Jana Winograde, co-president of entertainment at Showtime, said in a statement. “It is a case study of ingenuity and insanity, and there are no writers better suited than Brian and David to explore this business and the people who drive it, literally and metaphorically.”
It’s not clear when the limited series will debut. It joins several other screen adaptations of tech companies’ stories. The Social Network, of course, tackled the early days of Facebook, while shows based on the histories of Snapchat and Theranos are on the way to Quibi and Hulu respectively.
“We’ve all seen what happens when markets become more concentrated after a merger like this one. In the airline industry, it brought us baggage fees and smaller seats. In the pharmaceutical industry, it led to a handful of drug companies raising the prices of lifesaving medications. There’s no reason to think this time will be different.”
She elaborated on her reasons for opposing the deal in an op-ed for The Atlantic this morning. In a separate statement, Commissioner Starks express similar sentiment.
In July, the Department of Justice approved T-Mobile’s $26.5 billion bid to merge with Sprint, and FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has endorsed the deal. But many have pointed out that it could hurt competition, raises prices for cell service, limit innovation and jeopardize retail jobs and wages. Eighteen attorneys general have filed a multistate lawsuit to block the merger — even with the condition that T-Mobile must sell some of its business to Dish Network.
We are still waiting for confirmation from the FCC, but it appears the deal is moving forward. While normally a deal with FCC and DOJ approval would be allowed to close, there is a chance that the lawsuit filed by the attorneys general could still block the merger.
“Our goal is to clear the way for the entire industry, and [for] our planet to benefit,” Ross said. She also revealed that the Google Stadia controller will include recycled plastics. The cloud-based gaming service is eco-friendly, she argued, because it doesn’t force players to upgrade their console or PC over time. “Another sustainability goal [for Google] is simply reducing the amount of hardware you need to buy in the first place,” she explained.
The eco-friendly chatter ended, though, long before the Pixel 4 was introduced on stage. The back half of the event was dedicated to the phone’s new 90Hz Smooth Display, radar-based Soli sensor — which enables super-fast Face Unlock and mid-air Motion Sense gestures — and upgraded camera setup, which includes a 16-megapixel telephoto.
It’s an impressive Android flagship. But an impressive sustainability effort? That seems unlikely. I’ve pored over the company’s official marketing materials and can’t see any mention of carefully sourced materials or sustainable manufacturing processes. A Google spokesperson told Engadget: “In our upcoming product environmental reports, we’ll be sharing that Pixel will be registered EPEAT [Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool] gold to meet a greener electronics industry standard.” Many smartphones share this rating, including the iPhone 11, Samsung’s Galaxy S10, and Google’s own Pixel 3.
It feels like the company could be doing more.
“We believe Google has both the ability and the responsibility to create systemic change,” Osterloh said at the start of yesterday’s event. “As a company, we’ve been focused on sustainability for a long time.”
He’s absolutely right. Remember Project Ara? Google’s Advanced Technology and Projects (ATAP) division tried to build a handset that anyone could upgrade with colorful LEGO-like parts. That meant you could repair and replace individual components without buying an entirely new phone. There were trade-offs, of course — an Ara smartphone could never be as thin as the latest Samsung Galaxy — but the environmental advantages were clear.
In September 2016, though, the project was suspended indefinitely. Google didn’t give a reason, but it was most likely financial. Project Ara was a long shot and the company wanted to prioritize the Pixel, a device that could compete directly with the iPhone and countless Android flagships.
What is Google doing now? It’s part of the capitalist machine that encourages consumers to upgrade their phone every year, rather than repair what they already own. Clearly, the company wants to sell more devices, not less, every quarter. “With the launch of Pixel 3a in May, overall Pixel unit sales in Q2 grew more than 2x year-over-year,” Google chief executive Sundar Pichai told investors on an earnings call last July.
If Google cares about the planet, it should start a new sustainable phone moonshot. Alphabet’s secretive “X” division has already developed a bunch of solutions to seemingly impossible environmental problems. These include Dandelion, a now-independent startup that makes it cheaper to heat your home with geothermal energy. Malta, meanwhile, is a grid-scale system that stores renewable energy inside tanks of molten salt. X has also produced Makani, a so-called “energy kite” that allows people on the ground to harness wind power, Waymo, a self-driving business that could eventually reduce traffic and carbon emissions, and Foghorn, an unsuccessful attempt to create carbon-neutral fuel from seawater.
If anyone can crack the eco-friendly phone problem, it’s the X factory.
I don’t expect Google to abandon the Pixel line. The stock Android phones are simply too important to the company. Consistent research, though, and outside-the-box thinking could produce an environmental breakthrough that doesn’t compromise the price or quality of the next Pixel.
Okay, so Project Ara didn’t work out. That doesn’t mean there aren’t other solutions, though, or that Google should simply give up on the idea of a truly sustainable smartphone. Just look at Fairphone — the plucky upstart in Amsterdam is still making handsets that are modular, repairable, and built from a mix of “fair” and recycled materials.
Part 3 of the 2017 Digital Economy Act laid out a plan for a system where people could not access adult content unless they proved they were over 18. Rather than administer the system itself, the government farmed out responsibility to a third-party, the British Board of Film Classification. The BBFC is, itself, a regulatory body funded by the movie industry, as a way to avoid direct censorship.
In order to prove their age, users would have to sign up to some sort of age-verification service, run by a third party. That would have required the purchase of a “porn pass,” sold over the counter in retail stores so staff could establish your age as they do for alcohol sales. The pass would have then allowed you to access sites that market adult content on a commercial basis, as laid down in the act.
The law was intended to prevent minors from accessing adult content, but its aims were defeated long before publication. Social media sites, like Twitter and Reddit, were exempted from the bill, despite the fact that it’s very easy to find adult content on there. Compared to, say, an adult content website where the material is behind a paywall, and it was hard to understand the reasoning behind the law.
And the existence of one or two large registers of users who had paid money to view adult content was a civil liberties nightmare. The proposals were decried, from the get-go, by experts and pundits as technically unworkable and highly damaging to individual freedoms. Even sending a press release was bungled by the BBFC, which exposed the email addresses of over 300 journalists in talking about the news.
The UK has not given up on its plans to censor the internet, however, and is looking at a broader “regulatory regime.” In her statement, Morgan addresses the exemption of social media sites, saying that regulators will have “discretion on the most effective means for companies to meet their duty of care.” What that turns out to be is not yet clear, but it’s likely to have similar chilling effects on civil liberties.
In a press release, the BBFC said that it “had all systems in place to undertake the role of AV regulator,” but “understands the government’s decision.” It added that it will bring its “expertise and work closely with government to ensure that the child protection goals of the DEA are achieved.”
The Steven Soderbergh movie stars Meryl Streep as a widow investigating an insurance fraud and chasing leads to the Panama City law firm Mossack Fonseca. As you may remember, that firm had 2.6 terabytes of its data leaked, sparking the Panama Papers scandal. That was one of the largest data leaks in history, and it exposed a web of offshore tax evasion by the super-rich and global leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The firm’s partners Jurgen Mossack and Ramon Fonseca, played by Gary Oldman and Antonio Banderas, say The Laundromat portrays them as “ruthless uncaring lawyers who are involved in money laundering, tax evasion, bribery and/or other criminal conduct,” The Guardianreports. They fear that the film could interfere with the trial they’re set to face in Panama, as well as the FBI’s investigation in the US. They’re asking the court to stop The Laundromat‘s release.
It seems a little late for that. The court documents were just filed on Tuesday. The film has already been shown at the Venice and Toronto film festivals, and it’s scheduled to launch around the world on Friday.
Despite being implicated in the shady offshore tax evasion, this isn’t the first time Mossack and Fonseca have said they’re victims. In 2016, they claimed the firm was hacked and that the only proven crime was the hack itself. We’ll see if the courts agree.
Live Caption is available on Pixel 4 at first, and it’ll arrive on Pixel 3 and 3a phones later this year. Google says it’s working with Android manufacturers to bring Live Caption to other devices in the coming months. It’ll be available in English at first, with support for more languages arriving later. Google notes that the transcriptions might have inaccuracies (especially if the sound quality isn’t great), but it’ll keep improving the tech to reduce the number of errors.
You can activate Live Caption by tapping a prompt that pops up after you press the volume button. The feature works entirely on your device, so you won’t need a data or WiFi connection to use Live Caption. Since all the processing takes place on your phone, the captions will remain private. You can drag the text around on your screen and expand it to see more text at once with a double tap.
If it works well, it could be hugely beneficial for deaf and hard-of-hearing people. It might be useful for folks who are in a noisy place without their headphones too. Google announced another helpful accessibility feature last week, with improved spoken walking directions for Google Maps.
