Technology

Is TikTok’s time running out?

Published

2 years ago

September 15, 2022

Ever since TikTok turned the most-downloaded client app on this planet, it’s been an open query when the ByteDance-owned service would face a degree of scrutiny commensurate with its standing. As of in the present day, it appears clear that second is now.

At a listening to in entrance of the US Senate’s Committee on Homeland Safety and Governmental Affairs, TikTok COO Vanessa Pappas confronted stern questioning from lawmakers. That they had pointed questions concerning the firm’s connection to its mother or father, its relationship with the Chinese language authorities, and the potential for Individuals’ information to be misused. And whereas on one degree it was merely the newest probability for our Senate to grandstand concerning the tech business whereas doing nothing to control it, the listening to additionally showcased the rising momentum to take extra definitive motion in opposition to TikTok.

“Are there members of the Chinese language Communist Get together employed by TikTok or ByteDance, or no?” snarled the insurrectionist Josh Hawley of Missouri, who has long-established himself as an anti-tech crusader.

Emily Baker-White captured what occurred subsequent at Forbes:

Pappas answered that no one that “makes a strategic resolution at this platform” is a CCP member. However with respect to the remainder of the app’s workers, she stated the corporate doesn’t vet its workers primarily based on their political affiliations. She famous that no different tech platform current on the listening to asks its workers what political events they belong to.
Hawley continued: “Wouldn’t it shock you to study that Forbes Journal not too long ago reported that at the very least 300 present TikTok or ByteDance workers have been members of Chinese language state media?” Pappas reiterated that the corporate doesn’t “have a look at the political affiliations of people.”
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Visibly pissed off, Hawley stated, “Your organization has loads to cover. You’re a strolling safety nightmare, and for each American who makes use of this app, I’m involved.”

This change captured the basically inconceivable nature of the state of affairs TikTok is in.

On one hand, it’s true that the opposite firms on the stand in the present day — Fb, YouTube, and Twitter — don’t ask workers about their political events. You may think about the howling in the event that they did.

On the opposite, it does appear truthful to ask whether or not any TikTok workers are members of the Chinese language Communist Get together, at the very least insofar as that may create factors of leverage throughout the firm that might allow the Chinese language authorities to affect the corporate or receive Individuals’ information with out formally demanding it. (Formally, China by no means has, in line with TikTok’s transparency report and public statements.)

Given the 1000’s of people that work for ByteDance and TikTok, and the truth that the Chinese language Communist Get together has greater than 95 million members, it’s a on condition that a few of ByteDance’s workers are social gathering members. However Pappas couldn’t carry herself to say even that — and regardless of how performative Hawley’s exasperation on that entrance was, the distrust that TikTok is now engendering amongst lawmakers on that entrance appears actual.

The declare appears risible — and reporters preserve discovering smoke round what may very well be fireplace

TikTok’s activity is inconceivable as a result of to earn the senators’ belief absolutely, it should show a destructive: that China has by no means sought to make use of the app for affect operations or surveillance functions, by no means will, and by no means may even when it tried. The corporate swears up and down that nothing of the kind may ever happen.

TikTok has both denied or shared necessary caveats to all these tales, which I lined right here intimately final month. A very powerful, to my thoughts, is that tech firms discover it extraordinarily troublesome to trace information flows typically, and have hassle correctly logging entry, managing permissions, and understanding the origin of the information and metadata flowing by means of their servers. (There may be lots of this, for instance in, Pieter “Mudge” Zatko’s whistleblower criticism in opposition to Twitter.)

After in the present day’s listening to, although, it now appears clear that TikTok will likely be held to a better commonplace than its rivals on this regard. When Fb or Twitter are discovered to have mishandled person information, or by chance employed a international agent, the worst they’ll count on are fines and a few theatrical grandstanding in a congressional listening to. For ByteDance, although, the identical crimes threat the equal of a demise penalty — TikTok being banned altogether, because it was in India in 2020; or being pressured to divest it, as former President Trump tried whereas he was in workplace.

TikTok’s method to all this has been to market its “transparency” — to disclose extra about its operations and algorithms than any of its friends. In a weblog publish afterward Wednesday — titled “Strengthening our dedication to transparency,” in fact — Pappas stated that amongst different issues that the corporate would start reporting covert affect networks discovered throughout the app, simply as Fb has achieved for years now.

That’s along with a raft of different measures that almost all of its friends haven’t tried, together with still-embryonic efforts to offer APIs to researchers to assist them research each content material on the platform and the way TikTok moderates it. The corporate additionally stated final month it could let Oracle commonly vet its fashions for suggestions and moderation techniques.

Listening to senators’ questions in the present day, I questioned: how may any such settlement put these inquiries to relaxation for good?

These are worthy efforts, and I’m glad TikTok is pursuing them. However we are actually two years into TikTok’s actual transparency period, which started with the (digital) opening of its first bodily “transparency heart,” the place lawmakers and different events have been to be invited to examine and perceive its algorithms up shut.

These measures might have labored within the second. Trump’s effort to forcibly ship TikTok to his marketing campaign donors was nonetheless nicely below approach at the moment, nevertheless it fizzled because the president turned his consideration to extra urgent issues, comparable to tips on how to overturn the election that he misplaced. I doubt “transparency” had a lot to do with that, however on the very least President Biden took a softer tone in opposition to ByteDance when he took workplace.

However how for much longer will that final? The Committee on International Funding in the USA, or CFIUS, continues to be conducting a safety evaluate of the app. Testifying in the present day, Pappas stated TikTok is transferring nearer towards reaching an settlement with the US authorities that may put these inquiries to relaxation for good. And but listening to senators’ questions in the present day, I questioned: how may any such settlement do this?

Notably as a result of, as I famous right here earlier this week, increasingly more executives have begun to bang the drum that possibly TikTok ought to be banned in spite of everything. On the Code Convention in Los Angeles final week, Axel Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner stated TikTok must be banned in each democracy; Snap CEO Evan Spiegel, in his feedback, didn’t push for any explicit final result however made clear he was following the CFIUS evaluate intently. (For its half, Meta has been conducting a nationwide affect operation meant to bitter everybody on its chief rival.)

In brief, we’ve arrived at a second the place a number of the most influential individuals in the USA, from its lawmakers to its leaders of business, stand to profit by urgent the identical level: {that a} TikTok owned by ByteDance is just not good for America.

(I’d additionally add that this has turn into an more and more standard level within the press; not too long ago Ezra Klein and Ben Thompson have made studied instances for ByteDance to divest the app.)

In her opening assertion in the present day, Pappas notably averted any point out of China in any respect. Within the firm’s telling of the story, it’s a pure leisure app, owned by an organization integrated within the Cayman Islands, created by a distributed international workforce that simply occurs to have some Chinese language workers.

By the top of the day, although, it didn’t seem to be many senators have been shopping for it. And I believe that will lead, ultimately, to ByteDance having to promote it.

Technology

The smells and tastes of a great video game

Published

3 hours ago

May 19, 2024

Press Room

The smells and tastes of a great video game

As video games and movies become more immersive, it may start to become apparent what sensations are missing in the experience. Is there a point in Gran Turismo that you wish you could smell the burning rubber and engine exhaust? Would an experience playing beer pong in Horizon Worlds not be complete unless you could taste the hops?

On this episode of The Vergecast, the latest in our miniseries about the five senses of video games, we’re tackling the topics of smell and taste in video games — and whether either could actually enhance the virtual experience for gamers. In other words: Smellovision is back for a new generation of media.

First, we try out a product (actually available to buy today) called the GameScent, an AI-powered scent machine that syncs with your gaming and movie-watching experience. The GameScent works by listening in on the sound design of the content you’re playing or watching and deploying GameScent-approved fragrances that accompany those sounds. We tried the GameScent with games like Mario Kart and Animal Crossing to see if this is really hinting at a scent-infused gaming future.

On the taste side, we speak to Nimesha Ranasinghe, an assistant professor at the University of Maine working on taste sensations and taste simulation in virtual reality experiences. Ranasinghe walks us through his research on sending electrical pulses to your tongue to manipulate different taste sensations like salty, sweet, sour, and bitter. He also talks about how his research led to experimental gadgets like a “virtual cocktail,” which would allow you to send curated tasting and drinking experiences through digital signals.

If you want to know more about the world of smelling and tasting digital content, here are some links to get you started:

Technology

7 things Google just announced that are worth keeping a close eye on

Published

4 hours ago

May 19, 2024

Press Room

7 things Google just announced that are worth keeping a close eye on

Google’s flagship developer conference called I/O just wrapped up with interesting leaps in how the big tech giant is planning to change the world.

Here are the seven biggest things we learned from Google at I/O 2024.

Google’s injecting AI into nearly every aspect of its products and services

Google’s I/O 2024 conference (Google)

Google’s I/O event was largely an opportunity for it to make its case to developers — and, to a lesser extent, consumers — as to why its artificial intelligence is ahead of rivals Microsoft and OpenAI. Here’s a rundown of the seven highlights to keep an eye on. Google’s AI, named Gemini, was featured prominently at the I/O conference and is now available to developers worldwide.

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According to the conference, Gemini is now capable of pulling information from text, photos, audio, web pages and live videos from your phone’s camera and is able to synthesize the information it receives and answer questions you may have about it. Here’s what the Gemini improvements look like in practice.

1. Phone call scam detection coming to Android could compromise your privacy

Google showed a demo for its phone call scam detection feature, which the company says will be coming to a future version of Android. How it works is revolutionary and concerning. The feature will scan voice calls as they occur in real time, and it’s already drawing enormous privacy concerns.

It would be like allowing your phone calls to be tapped and monitored by big tech instead of big brother. Apple had planned a similar feature on iOS back in 2021 but abandoned it after backlash from privacy advocates. Google is under similar pressure, with privacy advocates worried that the company notorious for harvesting and profiting from personal data might soon misuse AI voice scanning technology.

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2. ‘Ask Photos’ will let AI help you find out about specific things in photos

The Ask Photos feature (Google)

Google unveiled a new feature called Ask Photos, in which users can ask Gemini to search for their photos and deliver exact results. One example showcased was the use of Gemini to locate images of your car in your photo album by telling it your license plate number.

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3. An AI button is coming to many of Google’s most popular productivity tools

Starting immediately, Google has added a button to toggle Gemini AI in the side panel of several of its Google Suite apps, including Gmail, Google Drive, Docs, Sheets and Slides. Similar to Microsoft’s Co-Pilot AI function, the Gemini button can help answer questions, craft emails and provide summaries of documents and email threads.

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4. AI tool called ‘Veo’ makes video from text

Music AI Sandbox (Google)

WHAT IS ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI)?

On a more experimental note, Google also unveiled its VideoFX feature, a generative video model based on Google’s DeepMind video generator. Veo. VideoFX can create Full HD (1080p) videos from text prompts, and we also saw improvements made to ImageFX, Google’s high-resolution AI image generator.

For musicians, Google also showed their new DJ Mode in MusicFX, an AI music generator that can be used to create loops and samples from prompts.

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5. AI summaries will replace search results

A Google search (Google)

There’s been a lot of press lately regarding how difficult searching for things on Google has become. Constant changes to search engine optimization as well as a new wave of bots and AI-created content has disrupted the once monolithic search engine. However, Google showed off its new AI-organized search, which promises more readable search results.

Google also showed off how it is using AI to create overviews, which are short summaries to help you answer questions posed in the search box. These summaries will appear at the top of the search results page, so you don’t even need to visit another website to get answers you may be looking for.

6. Google TV gets the AI treatment

Google managed to work its Gemini AI into its Google TV smart TV operating system, allowing it to generate descriptions for movies and TV shows. When you are viewing content that is missing a description, Gemini will fill it in automatically. Gemini on Google TV will also now translate descriptions into the viewers’ native language, making it easier to find international shows and movies to watch.

7. AI for educational purposes

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Google also unveiled LearnLM, a new generative AI model that is designed for education. It comes as a collaboration between Google’s DeepMind AI research division and Google’s Research lab. LearnLM is designed as a chatbot that looks to tutor students on a range of subjects, from mathematics to English grammar.

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Kurt’s key takeaways

If you missed Google I/O 2024, here’s the scoop: Google’s AI, Gemini, stole the show with its ability to integrate information from various media and answer your queries on the fly. Noteworthy features include a call scam detection for Android, a photo search tool that can find your car using your license plate number and the integration of Gemini into Google’s Workspace suite for smarter document handling.

Plus, Google’s new AI-powered search promises more readable results, and Google TV now boasts AI-generated content descriptions. For creatives and learners, Google introduced VideoFX for AI-generated videos, MusicFX’s DJ Mode for music creation and LearnLM, an AI tutor for students. It’s clear that Google is betting big on AI to keep ahead of the competition.

Are there any concerns that you believe should be addressed as these technologies become more integrated into our personal and professional environments? Let us know by writing us at Cyberguy.com/Contact

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Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson is an award-winning tech journalist who has a deep love of technology, gear and gadgets that make life better with his contributions for Fox News & FOX Business beginning mornings on “FOX & Friends.” Got a tech question? Get Kurt’s free CyberGuy Newsletter, share your voice, a story idea or comment at CyberGuy.com.

Technology

Replacing the OLED iPad Pro’s battery is easier than ever

Published

11 hours ago

May 19, 2024

Press Room

Replacing the OLED iPad Pro’s battery is easier than ever

Apple’s newest iPad Pro is remarkably rigid for how thin it is, and apparently also a step forward when it comes to repairability. iFixit shows during its teardown of the tablet that the iPad Pro’s 38.99Wh battery, which will inevitably wear down and need replacement, is actually easy to get to. It’s a change iFixit’s Shahram Mokhtari says during the video “could save hours in repair time” compared to past iPad Pro models.

Getting to it still requires removing the glued-in tandem OLED screen, which iFixit notes in the video and its accompanying blog isn’t two panels smashed together, but a single OLED board with more electroluminescence layers per OLED diode. With the screen out of the way, iFixit was essentially able to pull the battery almost immediately (after removing the camera assembly and dealing with an aluminum lip beneath that, which made some of the tabs hard to get to). For previous models, he notes, you have to pull out “every major component.”

The battery is surprisingly accessible in the 13-inch OLED iPad Pro.

Screenshot: iFixit

After that, though, the thinness proves to be an issue for iFixit, as many of the parts are glued in, including the tablet’s logic board. In the blog, the site goes into more detail here, mentioning that the glue means removing the speakers destroys them, and the tablet’s daughter board is very easy to accidentally bend.

The site also found that the 256GB model uses only one NAND storage chip, meaning it’s technically slower than dual-chip storage. As some Verge readers may recall, that’s also the case for M2 MacBook Air’s entry-level storage tier. But as we noted then (and as iFixit says in its blog), that’s not something people who aren’t pushing the device will notice, and those who are may want more storage, regardless.

This used to be an Apple Pencil Pro.

Screenshot: iFixit

But you can’t say the same for Apple’s new $129 Apple Pencil Pro, which shouldn’t shock anyone. Mokhtari was forced to cut into the pencil using an ultrasonic cutter, a moment he presented as “the world’s worst ASMR video.” (That happens just after the five-minute mark, in case you want to mute the video right there to avoid the ear-piercing squeal of the tool.) Unlike the iPad Pro itself, the Pencil Pro’s battery was the last thing he could get to.

By the time Mokhtari is done, the pencil is utterly destroyed, of course. He says the site will have a full chip ID soon that will include images of the MEMS sensor that drives the pencil’s barrel roll feature that lets you twist the pencil to adjust the rotation of on-screen art tools.