Sunday already? That week sure went by quickly! Hope you had an excellent one. So, as you’re sitting at home—possibly snowed in—you can take a look back at the tech news articles from this week. What did you miss and what requires another look? Here’s the Leaf and Core Weekly Rewind! (And here’s the last one, in case you missed that too.)
Ring’s security cameras are anything but secure. Employees had and may still have access to customer videos. They frequently teased other employees for bringing dates home. Those unencrypted videos traveled all around the world, and likely ended up in the hands of hackers, looking to exploit vulnerable users.
Do you love your smartphone? Probably not. It has likely become an unexciting tool. What happened? We used to be so excited about these things. We’d share unboxing videos, rush to read reviews, and even argue about these things. Now? No one cares. Perhaps the smartphone has become boring. However, that bland, unexciting case you slapped on your phone to protect it isn’t helping. How has increasing smartphone costs, bland design, trade-ins, and cases destroyed our smartphone lust?
Map of Russia, Ukraine, and Crimea. Map via Wikipedia.
While fewer than two dozen countries have officially acknowledged Crimea as a part of Russia after a violent annexation of the peninsula, Twitter can count themselves among them. Ukrainian leaders aren’t happy with the social network. By verifying a Russian government account in Crimea, Twitter added legitimacy to Russia’s claim over the Ukrainian land.
Moving apps around on iOS shouldn’t be so difficult. However, as I demonstrate in this video, it’s tricky. Apple can do better. How can machine learning improve iOS, and should we use machine learning in every aspect of a user interface? Here are the ways machine learning could improve navigation on iOS, and why we need to put it everywhere.
Worried about police getting into your phone? You don’t have to be a criminal to appreciate the fact that they won’t go snooping through your personal information and photos. In fact, some women have found that, after their devices are returned to them, their private photos have found their way onto police officers’ phones. A judge in California has elevated Face ID and Touch ID to the same level as a passcode: it’s protected testimony.
Facebook claims it didn’t encourage employees to rate its new Portal video calling device 5 stars on Amazon, but someone did. Facebook’s Portal seems like a great product, marred by a history of privacy violations at the company. Amazon doesn’t allow employees of a company to review their own product, and will remove the videos.
Amazon’s Rekognition software has clear biases. It’s less likely to correctly identify women and people of color. Why? Because its engineers are primarily white and male, and didn’t think of the possibility of other people. The ACLU, politicians, journalists, and critics within the scientific community have called Amazon out. Now, Amazon’s own shareholders state that, if they’re infringing on civil rights—as it seems they are—they must stop selling the faulty software to law enforcement.
A lot of people play a mobile game while watching TV. But what if you could play an episode of a TV show? That’s the goal of Amazon’s The Grand Tour game. It’s a game with an episode release schedule that mirrors the weekly releases of the the show’s episodes. If you’re a fan of The Grand Tour (or the show the boys previously worked on, Top Gear), you might want to check out the game that mirrors each episode. I don’t know about you, but I’ve always been jealous of all the cool places they get to go to and the amazing cars they get to drive.
Are you ready to stop tying your shoes? I don’t know about you, but I hate the act of untying (because I kick them off) and then tying my shoes every morning. I look forward to the future that Back to the Future promised us. First, Nike gives us the self-lacing shoes. After that? Well, I can’t tell you how much smoother my commute over the cracked and pothole ridden NYC streets would be if I could replace my skateboard with a hoverboard.
Machine learning usually requires human input, either in labeling photos or through historical data. However, if unaware developers aren’t careful, they can bake human biases, including racism and sexism, into their algorithms. Software developers continue to make the same mistakes. It’s almost as though an alarming number of them don’t know the sting of racism and sexism in America, and fail to anticipate it in their data….
