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☆ ‘Smartphones on Wheels’ Draw Attention From Regulators
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-30 | by ( Kashmir Hill | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

In the American imagination, car keys and a driver’s license have long represented freedom, autonomy and privacy. But modern cars, which have hundreds of sensors, cameras and internet connectivity, are now potential spying machines acting in ways drivers do not completely understand. The senators, both Democrats, say this sharing can “seriously threaten Americans’ privacy” by revealing their visits to protests, health clinics, places of worship, support groups or other sensitive places. “As far-right politicians escalate their war on women, I’m especially concerned about cars revealing people who cross state lines to obtain an abortion,” Senator Wyden said in a statement. Government attention to the car industry is intensifying, experts say, because of the increased technological sophistication of modern cars.

Persons: Ron Wyden, Edward J, Markey, Lina Khan, Wyden Organizations: Oregon, Massachusetts, Federal Trade Commission

☆ Regulators Seize Republic First, a Troubled Philadelphia Bank
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-26 | by ( Kashmir Hill | More About Kashmir Hill | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Regulators late Friday seized Republic First Bancorp, a troubled Philadelphia lender, in the first U.S. bank failure this year. Republic First Bancorp, known as Republic Bank, had about $4 billion in deposits at the end of January and assets worth $6 billion, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation said in a statement. said, with Republic First’s 32 branches in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York reopening as soon as Saturday as Fulton Bank branches. Founded in 1988, Republic First was smaller than the midsize banks that collapsed last year — including First Republic Bank and Silicon Valley Bank, whose assets each topped $200 billion. expects the cost to the Deposit Insurance Fund to be $667 million.

Organizations: First Bancorp, Republic First Bancorp, Republic Bank, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Fulton Bank of Lancaster, Fulton Bank, First Republic Bank, Silicon Valley Bank, Deposit Insurance Fund Locations: Philadelphia, U.S, Republic, Pa, Pennsylvania , New Jersey, New York

☆ How G.M. Tricked Millions of Drivers Into Being Spied On (Including Me)
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-23 | by ( Kashmir Hill | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Automakers have been selling data about the driving behavior of millions of people to the insurance industry. In the case of General Motors, affected drivers weren’t informed, and the tracking led insurance companies to charge some of them more for premiums. This month, my husband received his “consumer disclosure files” from LexisNexis Risk Solutions and Verisk, two data brokers that work with the insurance industry and that G.M. I had requested my own LexisNexis file while reporting, but it didn’t have driving data on it. Though both of our names are on the car’s title, the data from our Bolt accrued to my husband alone because the G.M.

Persons: Bolt, heeding Organizations: General Motors, LexisNexis Risk, LexisNexis

Listen and follow The DailyApple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon MusicAs cars become ever more sophisticated pieces of technology, they’ve begun sharing information about their drivers, sometimes with unnerving consequences. Kashmir Hill, a features writer for The Times, explains what information cars can log and what that can mean for their owners.

Persons: they’ve Organizations: Spotify, The Times Locations: Kashmir

☆ Florida Man Sues G.M. and LexisNexis Over Sale of His Cadillac Data
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-14 | by ( Kashmir Hill | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

According to a federal complaint filed this week seeking class-action status, it was because his 2021 Cadillac XT6 had been spying on him. When Mr. Chicco requested his LexisNexis file, it contained details about 258 trips he had taken in his Cadillac over the past six months. The data had been provided by General Motors — the manufacturer of his Cadillac. In a complaint against General Motors and LexisNexis Risk Solutions filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, Mr. Chicco accused the companies of violation of privacy and consumer protection laws. LexisNexis Risk Solutions, and another data broker called Verisk, claim to have real-world driving behavior from millions of cars.

Persons: Romeo Chicco, XT6, Chicco, General Motors Organizations: Liberty Mutual, LexisNexis, General, General Motors, Southern, Southern District of, The New York Times, Solutions Locations: U.S, Southern District, Southern District of Florida

☆ Automakers Are Sharing Consumers’ Driving Behavior With Insurance Companies
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-11 | by ( Kashmir Hill | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

So Mr. Dahl, 65, was surprised in 2022 when the cost of his car insurance jumped by 21 percent. One insurance agent told him his LexisNexis report was a factor. Upon Mr. Dahl’s request, LexisNexis sent him a 258-page “consumer disclosure report,” which it must provide per the Fair Credit Reporting Act. What it contained stunned him: more than 130 pages detailing each time he or his wife had driven the Bolt over the previous six months. The only thing it didn’t have is where they had driven the car.

Persons: Kenn Dahl, He’s, Dahl, Dahl’s Organizations: Chevrolet, LexisNexis Locations: Seattle, New York

☆ A Practical Guide to Quitting Your Smartphone
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-01 | by ( Kashmir Hill | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Last May, Fabuwood, a kitchen cabinet manufacturer in Newark, instituted a new company policy: No phones allowed during meetings. To enforce it, the company installed “device shelves” outside each of its six glass-walled conference rooms. On a recent Wednesday morning, there were animated meetings in three of the conference rooms, and the shelves outside were full of smartphones, tablets and ’90s-style flip phones. The 1,200-person company pays the cost of a flip phone for employees who give up their smartphone, and 80 people have acted on the offer. Fabuwood’s founder and chief executive, Joel Epstein, was motivated by his personal belief that smartphones are “destroying our personal and professional lives.”

Persons: Rena Stoff, ”, Joel Epstein Locations: Fabuwood, Newark

☆ How Your Child’s Online Mistake Can Ruin Your Digital Life
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-27 | by ( Kashmir Hill | More About Kashmir Hill | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The New York Times has documented other episodes in which parents’ digital lives were upended by naked photos and videos of their children that Google’s A.I. systems flagged and that human reviewers determined to be illicit. Her account would eventually be deleted, a Google login page informed her, but she could appeal the decision. Children’s advocates and lawmakers around the world have pushed technology companies to stop the online spread of abusive imagery by monitoring for such material on their platforms. Many communications providers now scan the photos and videos saved and shared by their users to look for known images of abuse that had been reported to the authorities.

Persons: Watkins, “, Children’s Organizations: New York Times, Google Locations: New South Wales, Australia

☆ The Technology Facebook and Google Didn’t Dare Release
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-09 | by ( Kashmir Hill | More About Kashmir Hill | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The absurd hat-phone, a particularly uncool version of the future, contained a secret tool known only to a small group of employees. The room went silent; the demo was underway. Mr. Leyvand turned toward a man across the table from him. Two seconds later, a robotic female voice declared, “Zach Howard.”“That’s me,” confirmed Mr. Howard, a mechanical engineer. But when the phone started correctly calling out names, he found it creepy, like something out of a dystopian movie.

Persons: Tommer Leyvand, Leyvand, —, “ Zach Howard, ”, Howard Organizations: Mr Locations: Menlo Park, Calif

☆ Eight Months Pregnant and Arrested After False Facial Recognition Match
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-06 | by ( Kashmir Hill | More About Kashmir Hill | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

After being charged in court with robbery and carjacking, Ms. Woodruff was released that evening on a $100,000 personal bond. The ordeal started with an automated facial recognition search, according to an investigator’s report from the Detroit Police Department. Ms. Woodruff is the sixth person to report being falsely accused of a crime as a result of facial recognition technology used by police to match an unknown offender’s face to a photo in a database. All six people have been Black; Ms. Woodruff is the first woman to report it happening to her. “And it’s happening anyway.”On Thursday, Ms. Woodruff filed a lawsuit for wrongful arrest against the city of Detroit in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan.

Persons: Woodruff, ”, Clare Garvie Organizations: Detroit Police Department, Detroit’s, Police, National Association of Criminal Defense, Eastern, Eastern District of Locations: Wayne, Detroit, U.S, Eastern District, Eastern District of Michigan

☆ A.I. and Blindness: I Have a Choice to Make - The New York Times
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-05 | by ( Andrew Leland | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +4 min

Advances in machine vision, like the astonishingly powerful image-recognition capabilities of modern A.I., are erasing even these human actors from the equation. A blind beta tester pointed his camera at a frozen meal, and the A.I. read him the description of the contents on the package, including the date of expiration and the size of the meal. As delighted as blind beta testers of OpenAI’s visual interpreter were, it also made some obvious mistakes: As Kashmir Hill recently reported in The New York Times, OpenAI confidently described a remote control for a blind user, including descriptions of buttons that weren’t there. (According to the World Blind Union, 95 percent of the world’s published knowledge is “locked” in inaccessible print formats.)

Persons: OpenAI’s GPT, OpenAI, “, I’d, Lily, Oscar, who’s Organizations: Virtual Volunteer, The New York Times, World Blind Union, Facebook Locations: Kashmir, The

Yeah, you’re going to need one of those fancy pizza ovens to replicate this in your home. I think right now, every media company in the world is trying to figure out what replaces Twitter. And they say, you’re going to about to make the easiest money you’ve ever made in your entire life. You’re going to have more people beating a path down your door than you thought was possible. We now have Ubers that are so — I don’t know if you’ve looked at your Uber receipts recently.

Persons: kevin roose I’m, casey newton, kevin roose, casey newton They’re, kevin roose Gang, casey newton Oh, let’s, Kevin Roose, ” casey newton, Casey Newton, —, Casey, casey newton Mhmm, it’s, kevin roose I’d, you’re, you’ve, — casey newton, Sam Altman, casey newton Isn’t, that’s, Silly Putty, I’m, casey newton Well, Kevin, what’s, kevin roose Totally, casey newton I’ll, Unobtainium, James Cameron, You’ve, Meissner, we’re, There’s, they’re, casey newton Here’s, Twitch, kevin roose There’s, Iris_IGB, she’s, there’s, casey newton There’s, Russia she’s, I’ve, They’ve, hasn’t, ChatGPT, Claude, They’re, hydroxychloroquine, Joe Rogan, Bravo, “ Fortnite, casey newton That’s, we’ve, casey newton Kevin, India Venom, Lydia Tár, we’ll, don’t, casey newton Sure, ”, Joe Biden, casey newton I’m, casey newton Mike Masnick, he’s, Mike, — casey newton Look, who’d, It’s, HatGPT, kevin roose —, casey newton We’re, Rupert Murdaugh, Beast, James Donaldson, Jimmy Donaldson, a.k.a, Beast — casey newton James, Uber, Beast Burger, Burger, We’re, Meta, Abraham Lincoln, Facebook — Abraham Lincoln, casey newton It’s, kevin roose Oh, Abraham —, roose, casey newton Greg Rutkowski, Greg Rutkowski, Greg Rutkowski’s, Greg, You’re, casey newton Wow, Elon Musk, San Francisco NIMBYs, Don’t, kevin roose It’s, you’re Uber Organizations: Mmm, casey newton Mmm, The New York Times, Quantum Energy Research Center, collider, Twitter, Capitol, Federal Trade Commission, Netflix, Heritage Foundation, Republican, Democrats, Republicans, California, Tax, Facebook, YouTube, HatGPT, BBC, WordPress, Health Department, Financial Times, Ford Theater, ” Workers, San, Wall Street Locations: Seoul, Russian, Russia, India, KOSA, SESTA, The, Kashmir, tooting, Washington, San Francisco, Ha, Canada

☆ An Internet Veteran’s Guide to Not Being Scared of Technology
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-29 | by ( Kashmir Hill | More About Kashmir Hill | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

That was the question that Mike Masnick found himself fielding this summer in a WhatsApp chat with about 100 directors, actors and screenwriters. The group, including marquee talent, was worried about a grim possible future in which deepfake versions of actors perform screenplays written by ChatGPT. is one reason for the writers’ and actors’ strikes that have paralyzed the film and television industry.) plus human” is the future, he pointed to the singer Grimes. “Let people be creative and they’ll do creative things and expand the interest in your own work,” Mr. Masnick, 48, said.

Persons: Mike Masnick, ChatGPT, Masnick, ’, “, Grimes, ” Mr, ” Organizations: Hollywood, Spotify

☆ OpenAI Worries About What Its Chatbot Will Say About People’s Faces
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-18 | by ( Kashmir Hill | More About Kashmir Hill | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The chatbot that millions of people have used to write term papers, computer code and fairy tales doesn’t just do words. ChatGPT, the artificial-intelligence-powered tool from OpenAI, can analyze images, too — describing what’s in them, answering questions about them and even recognizing specific people’s faces. For the last few months, Jonathan Mosen has been among a select group of people with access to an advanced version of the chatbot that can analyze images. It told me about the tiles in the shower,” Mr. Mosen said. And with one picture, I had exactly the answers that I needed.”For the first time, Mr. Mosen is able to “interrogate images,” he said.

Persons: Jonathan Mosen, Mosen, Mr, ”, ChatGPT

☆ Barred From Grocery Stores by Facial Recognition
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-28 | by ( Adam Satariano | Kashmir Hill | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Simon Mackenzie, a security officer at the discount retailer QD Stores outside London, was short of breath. He then logged in to a facial recognition program, Facewatch, which his store uses to identify shoplifters. The next time those people enter any shop within a few miles that uses Facewatch, store staff will receive an alert. Use of facial recognition technology by the police has been heavily scrutinized in recent years, but its application by private businesses has received less attention. No longer just the purview of government agencies, facial recognition is increasingly being deployed to identify shoplifters, problematic customers and legal adversaries.

Persons: Simon Mackenzie, ’, Mr, Mackenzie Organizations: QD Locations: London

☆ Google’s Photo App Still Can’t Find Gorillas. And Neither Can Apple’s.
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-22 | by ( Nico Grant | Kashmir Hill | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Google’s and Apple’s tools were clearly the most sophisticated when it came to image analysis. And Apple, with technology that performed similarly to Google’s in our test, appeared to disable the ability to look for monkeys and apes as well. Mr. Alciné was dismayed to learn that Google has still not fully solved the problem and said society puts too much trust in technology. Computer vision products are now used for tasks as mundane as sending an alert when there is a package on the doorstep, and as weighty as navigating cars and finding perpetrators in law enforcement investigations. As a result, the technology was not familiar enough with darker-skinned people and confused them for gorillas.

☆ Echoes of History in New National Push to Shield Children Online
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-30 | by ( Kashmir Hill | Natasha Singer | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Mounting concerns over young people’s mental health have prompted state legislatures across the country to propose a slew of age restrictions to protect minors online. Lawmakers say the rules should help shield young people from online pornography, predators and harmful social media posts. The current push for age restrictions on certain online content echoes a similar legislative drive three decades ago, when the internet was in its infancy. Among other objections, they said it was too difficult and expensive for websites to verify a visitor’s age. That could have led sites to simply get rid of anything inappropriate for children, creating a Disneyfied internet.

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