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☆ My Apple Vision Pro nightmare
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-26 | by ( Albert Fox Cahn | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +12 min

So when the Apple Vision Pro arrived, I was giddy with excitement to dive into the type of toy I'd dreamt of since childhood. The Vision Pro tries to answer the question of how you can use a computer without a mouse or keyboard. Apple Vision Pro marks the foundation of a new architecture of total digital isolation. Apple touted your ability to use the Apple Vision Pro to connect to your laptop, simulating a screen for your device. In the end, I followed the path of so many other Vision Pro early adopters and became an early returner.

Persons: Apple's, it's, peck, Apple, audibly, hadn't, Newton, keystroke, I've, I'd Organizations: Sony, Apple Vision Pro, Vision, Apple, Department of Justice, Disney, Cupertino colossus Locations: New York

☆ Microsoft debuts first Surface PCs with dedicated Copilot AI button
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-21 | by ( Jordan Novet | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

Microsoft is releasing its first Surface PCs featuring a dedicated Copilot button on the keyboard for quickly accessing the chatbot, following through on a promise it made in January. The addition of the button, to the left of the arrow keys, represents the biggest change to the computer keyboard in decades. While Microsoft is not the largest PC seller — that distinction belongs to Lenovo — it does run the most popular operating system with Windows. Lenovo has announced its own PCs featuring Copilot keys, as have Dell and HP. When people type a few words in to the Copilot, which draws on AI models from Microsoft-backed OpenAI, servers in faraway data centers perform the necessary computing work to craft a response.

Organizations: Microsoft, Lenovo, Windows, Dell, HP, Business

☆ Paranoid Bridgewater employees ventured into the woods to take some calls — until a rumor spread that the company was looking into installing listening devices in the trees, a new book says
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-07 | by ( Grace Dean | Sarah Jackson | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Some staff at Bridgewater Associates took personal calls in the woods so their employer couldn't listen in, a new book says. This stopped when a rumor claimed the firm might install devices in the trees, per "The Fund." AdvertisementAdvertisementSome employees at Ray Dalio's investment-management firm Bridgewater Associates took non-work calls in the woods near their offices because they were worried about their employer listening in, according to a new book. This practice stopped, though, when a rumor claimed that the firm was looking into installing devices in the trees that could intercept calls, per the book. AdvertisementAdvertisementIt added that the company "did not investigate installing 'devices in the trees.'"

Persons: Rob Copeland's, —, Ray, Rob Copeland, Ray Dalio, James Comey, printout, printouts, Bridgewater, Dalio Organizations: Bridgewater Associates, Service, New York Times, FBI, Staff, Bridgewater, St Martin's Press Locations: Bridgewater, New, keystroke

☆ If you work remotely, your bosses are probably using software to track you. Here's how they'll catch you slacking off.
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-31 | by ( Jacob Zinkula | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

About three-quarters of respondents said they had fired employees based on findings from their tracking software. In the Resume Builder survey, only 5% of the business leaders who reported using tracking software said their employees were not aware they were being monitored. While Borja said Time Doctor encourages its customers to disclose the use of tracking software to their employees, it can't guarantee that they do so. Refusing to turn on your webcam during a meeting, for instance, could give your employer the right to fire you if you live in the US, legal experts previously told Insider. Some workers at employee-tracking software companies have expressed privacy concerns.

Persons: Michael Patrón, he'd, they'd, Patrón, Liam Martin, Carlo Borja, Borja, hasn't, they've, — you've, Big Organizations: Service, Tesla's, Bloomberg, New York Times, Workers Locations: Wall, Silicon, Australia, York

☆ I'm the former VP of HR at Microsoft. Here's the 4 traits that indicate a bad manager.
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-29 | by ( Chris Williams | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

AdvertisementAdvertisementI've seen more than a few bad managers in my over 40 years of business, leadership, and consulting — including as the Vice President of HR at Microsoft. Whether it's driven by ego or panic, bad managers are always worried about how they appear to others. Afraid of upsetting the team, the bad manager hides bad news they learn from above or around them. These teams rarely outperform, but you'd never know that from the limited available information — information hoarded jealously by their bad manager. Managers like this are famous — for the wrong reasonsWith this array of common traits, bad managers often become famous within the organization.

Persons: Chris Williams, Williams, you'd Organizations: Microsoft, Smart

☆ I'm the former VP of HR at Microsoft. I've witnessed many bad managers in my career — and they almost all had these 4 traits.
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-29 | by ( Chris Williams | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

AdvertisementAdvertisementI've seen more than a few bad managers in my over 40 years of business, leadership, and consulting — including as the vice president of HR at Microsoft. Self-centeredThe most common trait I've seen in bad managers is a relentless focus on themselves. Whether it's driven by ego or panic, bad managers are always worried about how they appear to others. These teams rarely outperform, but you'd never know that from the limited available information — information hoarded jealously by their bad manager. Managers like this are famous — for the wrong reasonsWith this array of common traits, bad managers often become famous within the organization.

Persons: Chris Williams, Williams, you'd Organizations: Microsoft, Smart

☆ Hackers could now steal passwords over Zoom by listening to keystrokes using AI — and they'll be right 93% of the time, study says
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-16 | by ( Kai Xiang Teo | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

AI can steal passwords from keystroke sounds recorded over Zoom with up to 93% accuracy, per a new study. The accuracy rate ratcheted up to 95% when keystrokes were recorded using an iPhone 13 mini. Moreover, the accuracy rate rose to 95% when keystrokes were recorded using an iPhone 13 mini. Touch typing and adding background noise also seemed to lower the accuracy rate of the AI tool. AI tools can make online scams harder to detect because AI makes it easier to personalize scams for each target, Insider reported last Tuesday.

Organizations: Durham University, University of Surrey, Royal Holloway University of London, NSA

☆ A WFH employee in Australia is hitting out at her ex-employer after it tracked how much she was typing — and then fired her
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-16 | by ( Huileng Tan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

An employee in Australia was fired for not typing enough when she worked from home. Her manager said she should be hitting over 500 keystrokes per hour. She was typing 80 keystrokes per hour between December 1-16. The insurance company presented precise details saying Cheikho logged 48.6 keystrokes per hour in October, 34.56 keystrokes per hour in November, and 80 keystrokes per hour in December. The case in Australia highlights the use of employee surveillance technology as more employees work remotely following the COVID-19 pandemic.

Persons: Suzie Cheikho, Cheikho, IAG, ResumeBuilder.com Organizations: Service, Insurance Australia Group, Australia's Sunrise Locations: Australia, Wall, Silicon

☆ FBI takes down Russian malware network that attacked allies, journalist computers
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-09 | by ( Rohan Goswami | In Rohangoswamicnbc | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Taxis move past the headquarters of Russia's Federal Security Service, known as the FSB, in central Moscow, May 12, 2022. The Federal Bureau of Investigation disrupted a Russian government-controlled malware network that compromised hundreds of computers belonging to NATO-member governments and other Russian targets of interest, including journalists, the Justice Department said Tuesday. The unit, called Turla, used the malware to selectively target high-value devices used by allied foreign ministries and governments. Disrupting the malware was part of an effort by U.S. law enforcement to protect victims around the world. Snake's targeted capacities fed Russian intelligence huge amounts of information until U.S. law enforcement took down the network on Monday.

☆ OpenAI has its tentacles in hundreds of companies. Here's how it's making them more productive.
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-03 | by ( Melia Russell | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Developers are linking arms with OpenAI to access the large language models powering their apps. In doing so, OpenAI has its tentacles in hundreds of Silicon Valley startups. OpenAI's artificial intelligence technology is now baked into hundreds of apps, making it one of the key levers that help companies and their developers be more productive. The latest company utilizing the company's large language models is Superhuman, an email app with a cultish following. The feature came together so fast, according to Akshay Kothari, the third cofounder and chief operating officer, because Notion hadn't done the grunt work of training a large language model itself.

☆ Employee Monitoring and Surveillance
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-01 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +50 min

Ensuring Employee Safety and Systems SecurityEmployers may use electronic workplace monitoring and surveillance to protect their:Worksites. Potential Liability for Electronic Workplace Monitoring and SurveillanceEmployers that engage in electronic workplace monitoring and surveillance must comply with various federal and state laws, including:The Wiretap Act. Best Practices for Electronic Workplace Monitoring and SurveillanceTo avoid violating relevant state and federal laws, before conducting workplace monitoring and surveillance, employers should:Consider the purpose and appropriate scope of their monitoring and surveillance activities and what methods will help them achieve their objectives. Determine the Purpose of Workplace Monitoring and SurveillanceBefore conducting any workplace monitoring or surveillance, best practice is for employers to identify the purpose and goals of these activities to:Ensure that there is a legitimate business purpose for the planned monitoring and surveillance activities. Determine the scope of monitoring and surveillance necessary to accomplish the business purpose, and conduct only the minimum monitoring and surveillance necessary to meet that business need.

☆ SBF's parents could have every text, call, and download monitored while their son is under house arrest
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-22 | by ( Aaron Mcdade | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Sam Bankman-Fried's lawyers have proposed a system to monitor activity on his parents' cell phones to ensure he isn't using them. They told the court this week the software they downloaded doesn't have a function they agreed to use. The proposed monitoring is part of the bail agreement that allow SBF to remain out of jail on house arrest. In a letter to Judge Lewis Kaplan Friday, Bankman-Fried's attorneys presented a new solution to monitoring digital activity in the household. Under the new proposed conditions, the monitoring software would instead be used to track every keystroke, app download, internet search, text message, and phone call sent and received by his parents' phones.

☆ You can now order from MrBeast Burger through your Xbox while gaming — here's how to do it
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-20 | by ( Alex Bitter | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

You can now order MrBeast Burger through video games on Xbox and computers. The Youtuber's fast food brand is now available through Liifer, a food ordering app that integrates with games, Liifer said Thursday. The Liifer partnership is the latest expansion for MrBeast Burger. "MrBeast Burger is increasingly popular with gamers, especially after MrBeast was included in Epic Game's Fortnite in December," said Stephanie Sollers, CEO of Virtual Dining Concepts. MrBeast Burger fills orders using a mix of ghost kitchens, some of which it owns and some it has partnership agreements with.

☆ Jack Teixeira's alleged Discord leaks show why the US should not give Top Secret clearances to 21-year-olds
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-15 | by ( Mattathias Schwartz | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +9 min

Nevertheless, that looks to be the US intelligence community's approach to handling classified information. The tangled views of Jack Teixeira, who was indicted Friday in connection with leaking hundreds of classified documents to a private Discord server, are still coming into focus. There are classified phone systems, email systems, fiber optic cables, and a Wikipedia clone. Aside from the question of how many people have access to secrets, it's also worth considering how many of those supposed secrets belong on classified systems at all. Who was tracking the whereabouts of the volume of secret files he appears to have sent to the printer?

☆ Everyone in Washington is talking about a TikTok ban. But is it really a national security threat?
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-24 | by ( Brian Fung | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +16 min

However, more than two years after the Trump administration first issued a similar threat to TikTok, evidence remains unclear about whether the app is a national security threat. “Regarding privacy, we also did not see the TikTok app exhibiting any behaviors similar to malware.”TikTok has cited Lin’s research as part of its defense. He also repeatedly noted that TikTok does not collect more user data than most of its peers in the industry. TikTok later confirmed the incident and ByteDance fired several employees who had improperly accessed the TikTok data of two journalists. “And governments around the world are ignoring their duty to protect citizens’ private information, allowing big tech companies to exploit user information for gain.

☆ Inside the little-known tool that gives JPMorgan Chase the power to collect data about everything its employees do at work
▼ + stars: | 2022-05-27 | by ( Reed Alexander | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +22 min

Insider learned about the WADU system through interviews and leaked internal documents that explain what kinds of data it captures. Though the use of Palantir was reportedly for security purposes, JPMorgan employees who spoke to Bloomberg said the situation quickly escalated. When companies are opaque about how they use employee data, the consequences can be detrimental — from harming employee "engagement" to eroding their "mental health," Garr said. Companies that fail to do this run the risk of cultivating the kind of mistrust that JPMorgan employees claim is running rampant through their ranks. "It does not sit well with me, what they're doing," said the US-based staffer with direct knowledge of the WADU system.

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