Category: Links

Abhimanyu Ghoshal: The ruling is significant because it runs counter to previous interpretations of the law in cases requiring access to data locked on personal devices. With that, biometric methods for unlocking phones are now being viewed similar to alphanumeric passcodes in the eyes of the law in the US.

Interesting, as it’s not the toolkit or setup I would have expected.

This should surprise no one, and yet I am guessing this will surprise most.

John Porter: Apple tells The Verge that Samsung’s smart TV ad-tracking features cannot track viewing usage within the iTunes Movies and TV Shows app, in another example of Apple’s focus on privacy. Here’s the thing: this means you’ll need to connect your Samsung TV to WiFi in order for this to work. And there’s long […]

No. Just no. I’d also extend this to mobile devices too.

Jennifer Valentino-DeVries and Natasha Singer: In the complaint, the city attorney excoriated the Weather Company, saying it unfairly took advantage of its app’s popularity and the fact that consumers were likely to give their location data to get local weather alerts. The city said that the company failed to sufficiently disclose its data practices when […]

Easily the greatest laptop ever made.

Emily Badger: Surely there is nothing left to fear in New York, a place that already has tall buildings and high rents. But the pending arrival of Amazon in Long Island City, as Vice recently put it, has some residents on edge about “becoming Seattle on steroids.” The specter captures the particular mix of high […]

Good list.

Dr. Nathalie Maréchal in a very damning essay on targeted advertising has this brutal quote: “That’s all ‘AI’ and ‘machine learning’ is for these companies: getting better at guessing what ads to show you,” (Tim) Libert said. “Every tiny bit of data increases the chances they show the ‘right’ ad so they never stop, they […]

This article actually prompted me to change to passwords in many places where I used biometric access before.

Michael Bungay Stanier: Coaching is an essential leadership behavior. Curiosity is the driving force in being more coach-like. Questions fuel curiosity. Be sure not to read ‘leadership’ as ‘management’. They are not the same. Most managers aren’t leaders. This lack of curiosity Stanier talks about is a dead giveaway as to which type of manager, […]

Emma Thomason: A recent survey of 3,000 employees in eight countries including the United States, Britain and Germany found that nearly half thought they could easily finish their tasks in five hours a day if they did not have interruptions, but many are exceeding 40 hours a week anyway – with the United States leading […]

Kieren McCarthy: By any measure, Facebook as an organization has knowingly, willingly, purposefully, and repeatedly lied. And two reports this week demonstrate that the depth of its lying was even worse than we previously imagined.

It’s hard to argue with Raymond Wong, about how Microsoft really crushed it this year. They quietly ,add great stuff, reminded me a bit of Apple ten years ago. I had to chuckle at this line too: The Windows company started by Bill Gates and mismanaged by Steve Ballmer, has flourished under CEO Satya Nadella […]

Great read, and really shows how little we know about this.

Arno Schuetze: On the recordings, a man and a female companion could be overheard in his home and the magazine was able to identify and contact him through the recorded information, according to the report. That’s a pretty big “human error”. I’m so glad I don’t have one of these eavesdropping devices in my home.

My personal favorite part, is the part where this still surprises anyone. Second only to the part that people still use this shit.

Lauren Goode: At the same time, the value of an activity tracker isn’t always proportionate to the burden of one. They all have these damn proprietary chargers, and you have to charge them all the time, and for what? So they can count steps? The more I thought about it, the more I needed a […]

That’s a way higher price than any monetary expense of paying for the app.