How the Vision Pro Rollout Inflamed Tensions at Apple
… And we knew that was just never going to work for us. …
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Meta Is Warned That Facial Recognition Glasses Will Arm Sexual Predators
The coalition, which includes the ACLU, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, Fight for the Future, Access Now, and the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, is demanding Meta kill the feature before launch, after internal documents surfaced showing the company hoped to use the curr… …
Your Push Notifications Aren’t Safe From the FBI
… Gmail's End-to-End Encryption Finally Lands on Mobile—for a Select Few Google this week expanded Gmail’s end-to-end encryption to its Android and iOS apps, allowing enterprise users to compose and read E2EE messages natively on mobile for the first time without separate apps or mail portals require… …
I Asked ChatGPT 500 Questions. Here Are the Ads I Saw Most Often
… The company is expected to expand this ad push to Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. …
Taylor Swift Wants to Trademark Her Likeness. These TikTok Deepfake Ads Show Why
… A new report from the AI detection company Copyleaks shows that Swift and other stars have recently had their likenesses used in scammy advertisements. …
Meta Employees Are Scrambling to Use Up Benefits Ahead of Layoffs
… Employees also have been frustrated by being “drafted” onto a new AI team without any choice and the rollout of surveillance software that tracks US workers’ laptop use to train AI models. …
Google Search Goes Agentic—and Doesn’t Need You Anymore
… When a new shoe drops that fits these criteria, like A'ja Wilson’s pink Nikes, the user gets a notification alert with critical context and ways to buy the sneaks. …
This AI Button Wearable From Ex-Apple Engineers Looks Like an iPod Shuffle
… And now as we're going into this new era, maybe computers just look different.”
The Danger Behind Meta Killing End-to-End Encryption for Instagram DMs
… Meta is investing in at least one new project that would bring encryption protections to more of its users: a partnership with Signal creator Moxie Marlinspike to deploy his new private AI technology, known as Confer, for Meta AI. …
The Vatican’s Man Inside Anthropic
… This is an edition of Steven Levy’s Backchannel newsletter. Read previous newsletters here.