Google has just made the history and geography nerd in me very happy. The company has announced that Google Earth is getting historical imagery of areas through satellite and aerial captures dating back 80 years. Google previously released a Timelapse tool that shows satellite images from 1984 to 2022.
Mozilla is the latest company to get in trouble with the EU. Austrian advocacy group Noyb has filed a complaint against Mozilla for setting a Privacy Preserving Attribution (PPA) feature to default without informing its users. Noyb claims the setting impacts millions of Europeans.
Workout tracker app Strava has a history of being used to stalk people, identifying where they live or their typical running paths (take a look at this
Clearview AI is back in hot — and expensive — water, with the Dutch Data Protection Authority (DPA) fining the company €30.5 million ($33.6 million) for violating the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The release explains that Clearview created "an illegal database with billions of photos of faces," including Dutch individuals, and has failed to properly inform people that it's using their data.
British tech billionaire Mike Lynch died in August after the yacht he was on capsized off the coast of Sicily. Yet, Hewlett-Packard is continuing its UK lawsuit, seeking up to $4 billion in damages — just against his estate instead. In a statement, HP said it intended "to follow the proceedings through to their conclusion."
ESPN's broadcast of the US Open was cut short for DirecTV users on Sunday after Disney issued a blackout midway through on all of its networks. It occurred after a 2019 deal expired without a new agreement for a licensing deal between the two companies.
Meta's Oversight Board is looking at two anti-transgender posts shared in 2024 that were reported multiple times for hate speech, bullying and harassment. The first is a video shared on Facebook that shows a trans woman being confronted in the bathroom by another woman. The post misgenders the person as a man and questions why they should be allowed to use a women's bathroom.
When I was a preteen, social media was just getting going, so there weren't many restrictions in place regarding access. Now, regulations — and the consequences of not having them — are everywhere, with the latest example coming courtesy of Meta (a case study for all the good and bad social media has to offer).
Just because summer is ending (yes, I will admit it) doesn't mean that the day trips or weekend getaways must stop. If you spent the whole season desperately looking for an outlet, then maybe reward yourself this fall with a power bank?
Misinformation is all over the internet, including the — at times — chaos that is X (formerly Twitter). AI bots have a habit of adding to it. Now, with barely two months left until the presidential election, an update to Grok, X's premium chatbot, could curb some of it (after being called out for said election misinformation).