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The Rise of ‘Luxury Surveillance’
Imagine, for a moment, the near future Amazon dreams of.
It would be a bit glib — and more than a little clichéd — to call this some kind of technological dystopia. Actually, dystopia wouldn’t be right, exactly: Dystopian fiction is generally speculative, whereas all of these items and services are real.
At the end of September, Amazon announced a suite of tech products in its move toward “ambient intelligence,” which Amazon’s hardware chief, Dave Limp, described as technology and devices that slip into the background but are “always there,” collecting information and taking action against it.
This intense devotion to tracking and quantifying all aspects of our waking and non-waking hours is nothing new — see the Apple Watch, the Fitbit, social media writ large and the smartphone in your pocket — but Amazon has been unusually explicit about its plans.
The Everything Store is becoming an Everything Tracker, collecting and leveraging large amounts of personal data related to entertainment, fitness, health and, it claims, security. It’s surveillance that millions of customers are opting into.
New Kids’ Privacy App Teaches Digital Privacy While Blocking Trackers
There’s a law in the United States that says companies aren’t supposed to track young children, but they do it anyway. More than two-thirds of the most popular kids’ iPhone apps collect and share personal information, according to a recent study from Pixalate. By some estimates, digital ad firms have collected an average of 72 million data points about every kid by the time they turn 13, the age legal data collection is supposed to start.
A new app from the security firm Disconnect aims to do something about it. Do Not Track Kids, which launched in the Apple App Store last week, blocks trackers across your entire device while teaching kids about privacy along the way.
“The point of all this data collection is to influence your behavior, whether it’s getting you to buy a product, promoting compulsive behavior or even pushing an ideology,” Casey Oppenheim, CEO of Disconnect, told Gizmodo. “When you put that in the context of kids, there’s something about it that’s really sinister.”
Apps, websites and even emails are littered with hidden trackers that vacuum up details about you in the background. Apple makes a big deal about how its privacy settings protect you from all of that, but the company may get more credit than it deserves. Your iPhone’s settings can make a difference, but tech companies are still spying on you and your family on a near-constant basis.
Fauci Says School Closures Led to ‘Deleterious Collateral Consequences,’ but He Had ‘Nothing to Do’ With It
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the face of the government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic over the last two-and-a-half years, deflected responsibility for school closures in an interview on Sunday while admitting to some negative effects for children.
The head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who is stepping down in December after five decades in the role, was asked by ABC News correspondent Jonathan Karl whether it was a “mistake” for schools to be closed down as long as they were.
“I don’t want to use the word ‘mistake,’ Jon, because if I do, it gets taken out of the context that you’re asking me the question on,” Fauci said. “We should realize, and have realized, that there will be deleterious collateral consequences when you do something like that.” Fauci went on to say the virus has killed nearly 1,500 children, but that he always emphasized health officials must do “everything we can to keep the schools open.”
“No one plays that clip. They always say ‘Fauci was responsible for closing schools.’ I had nothing to do [with it]. I mean, let’s get down to the facts,” Fauci told ABC News.
COVID Mask, Vaccine Rules Loosened for Illinois Healthcare Facility Workers
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker on Monday announced some loosening of COVID-19 requirements for most healthcare facilities. The new guidelines remove the weekly testing requirements for unvaccinated healthcare and long-term care facility workers. It also drops the state vaccine mandate for such workers.
But a federal rule under which workers must be vaccinated at Medicare/Medicaid-certified facilities remains in effect and is not changed by the revision of the state guidelines.
The amended order also drops the requirement for masks in healthcare facilities — though masks are still recommended in healthcare facilities located in high-transmission areas.
Governor to End California Coronavirus Emergency in February
California’s coronavirus emergency will officially end in February, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Monday, nearly three years after the state’s first confirmed death from the disease prompted a raft of restrictions that upended public life.
The decision will have little practical impact on most people’s lives, as most of the nearly 600 pandemic-related orders Newsom has issued since the start of the pandemic have already been lifted. And it won’t affect public health orders — including a pending statewide vaccine mandate for schoolchildren that could take effect next summer.
But it does signal a symbolic end for some of the most restrictive elements of the pandemic, as it will dissolve Newsom’s authority to alter or change laws to make it easier for the government to quickly respond to the public health crisis.
Seneca College Announces It Will Drop COVID Vaccine Mandate in 2023
Seneca College says it will drop its mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policy in January. President David Agnew called the decision regretful but necessary in a statement posted to the college’s website Monday.
Seneca, which has campuses across the Greater Toronto Area, was one of the last post-secondary institutions in Canada with a campus-wide COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
People on campus will no longer be required to show proof of vaccination on Jan. 1, but the college says it is keeping its mask mandate until further notice.
Meanwhile, Western University — which remains one of the last places in the country with a vaccine mandate — announced Monday it was extending its masking requirement until the end of the fall term.
Nouriel Roubini: Why AI Poses a Threat to Millions of Workers
Business sectors ranging from agriculture and manufacturing to automotive and financial services are increasingly turning to artificial intelligence as a means to automate large swaths of their organizations — and, along the way, save enormous sums through improved efficiencies.
But, says ‘Megathreats’ Author and NYU Stern School of Business professor Nouriel Roubini, the rise of AI will also have a massively negative impact on workers throughout the economy.
AI has helped revolutionize everything from the smartphones in our pockets to our grocery stores, which use the technology to better predict which items customers want to see on shelves. However, Roubini, whose prediction of the 2008 financial crisis earned him the moniker “Dr. Doom,” says AI poses a threat to millions of workers.
“The downside is that while AI, machine learning, robotics, automation increases the economic pie, potentially, it also leads to losses of jobs and labor income,” Roubini said during an interview at Yahoo Finance’s All Markets Summit.
Social Media Loses Ground on Abortion Misinformation
Big Tech platforms are blocking abortion-pill distribution information and permitting false narratives about abortion to spread, more than 100 days after the Supreme Court’s ruling overturning a constitutional right to abortion.
Why it matters: Social media firms were caught flat-footed by that sudden change in the legal and informational landscape at a time when there’s an overwhelming, sudden need for solid information and access to healthcare services online.
The big picture: Abortion rights advocates say that misinformation around reproductive health online has gotten worse since the Dobbs decision in June striking down Roe v. Wade.
Per new research from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), a nonprofit focused on extremism and disinformation, TikTok, YouTube and Meta have allowed dis- and misinformation about abortion to spread and be monetized in the months since the court’s decision.
DuckDuckGo’s New Web Browser Will Protect Your Privacy While You Watch YouTube
DuckDuckGo launched a web browser for macOS in beta today, offering privacy-minded web surfers a new way to browse. The browser uses a variety of techniques to protect your information from snooping websites and even includes some innovative tools, including Duck Player, which is supposed to let you watch YouTube with fewer ads and less data collection. You can download DuckDuckGo for Mac here.
If you’re like most people on earth, you’re cruising around the web using Google Chrome, which sends so much data back to company servers that some privacy advocates call the browser spyware. There are a number of more private options, including FireFox, Brave and even Apple’s Safari. DuckDuckGo already has a browser for mobile devices, but this marks the company’s first foray into desktop browsing.
