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À partir d’avant-hierArs Technica

GM stops sharing driver data with brokers amid backlash

Scissors cut off a stream of data from a toy car to a cloud

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images)

After public outcry, General Motors has decided to stop sharing driving data from its connected cars with data brokers. Last week, news broke that customers enrolled in GM's OnStar Smart Driver app have had their data shared with LexisNexis and Verisk.

Those data brokers in turn shared the information with insurance companies, resulting in some drivers finding it much harder or more expensive to obtain insurance. To make matters much worse, customers allege they never signed up for OnStar Smart Driver in the first place, claiming the choice was made for them by salespeople during the car-buying process.

Now, in what feels like an all-too-rare win for privacy in the 21st century, that data-sharing deal is no more.

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Android 15 gets satellite messaging, starts foldable cover app support

Par : Ron Amadeo
The Android 15 logo. This is "Android V," if you can't tell from the logo.

Enlarge / The Android 15 logo. This is "Android V," if you can't tell from the logo. (credit: Google)

Android 15 continues its march toward release with the Android 15 Developer Preview 2. Android 15 won't be out until around October, but the first preview shipped a month ago. It's time for another one!

Android's satellite messaging support has been in the works for about a year now, and it sounds like Android 15 is going to launch the feature for apps. The new OS is including notifications and better status bar indicators for when you're connected to space. A "NonTerrestrialNetwork" API will let apps know when they're limited to barely there satellite connectivity. Google says Android 15 will let third-party SMS and MMS applications tap into the satellite connectivity APIs, but enhanced messaging with RCS support will be limited to "preloaded" applications only. It seems incredible that Google doesn't have public APIs for third-party RCS apps, but here's your confirmation that Android 15 will continue locking out Play Store apps from RCS.

  • Android 15's new satellite messaging UI. [credit: Google ]

Android's PDF support can be all over the place depending on what device you have, so Android 15 is including making some big improvements to the built-in PDF render. First it's going to end up as a module so it can be updated via the Play Store. Google says this Android 15 version is getting "advanced features such as rendering password-protected files, annotations, form editing, searching, and selection with copy."

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Airbnb bans creepy surveillance cameras inside rentals starting April 30

camera hidden in flower pot indoors

Enlarge (credit: Liudmila Chernetska/Getty)

Airbnb, like hotels and rival vacation rental site Vrbo, will no longer allow hosts to record guests while they're inside the property. Airbnb previously allowed hosts to have disclosed cameras outside the property and in "common areas" inside, but Airbnb's enforcement of the policy and the rules' lack of specificity made camera use troubling for renters.

Airbnb announced today that as of April 30, it's "banning the use of indoor security cameras in listings globally as part of efforts to simplify our policy on security cameras and other devices" and to prioritize privacy.

Cameras that are turned off but inside the property will also be banned, as are indoor recording devices. Airbnb's updated policy defines cameras and recording devices as "any device that records or transmits video, images, or audio, such as a baby monitor, doorbell camera, or other camera."

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Vending machine error reveals secret face image database of college students

Vending machine error reveals secret face image database of college students

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson | Mars | Getty Images)

Canada-based University of Waterloo is racing to remove M&M-branded smart vending machines from campus after outraged students discovered the machines were covertly collecting facial-recognition data without their consent.

The scandal started when a student using the alias SquidKid47 posted an image on Reddit showing a campus vending machine error message, "Invenda.Vending.FacialRecognitionApp.exe," displayed after the machine failed to launch a facial recognition application that nobody expected to be part of the process of using a vending machine.

"Hey, so why do the stupid M&M machines have facial recognition?" SquidKid47 pondered.

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“So violated”: Wyze cameras leak footage to strangers for 2nd time in 5 months

Wyze's Cam V3 Pro indoor/outdoor smart camera mounted outside

Enlarge / Wyze's Cam V3 Pro indoor/outdoor smart camera. (credit: Wyze)

Wyze cameras experienced a glitch on Friday that gave 13,000 customers access to images and, in some cases, video, from Wyze cameras that didn't belong to them. The company claims 99.75 percent of accounts weren't affected, but for some, that revelation doesn't eradicate feelings of "disgust" and concern.

Wyze claims that an outage on Friday left customers unable to view camera footage for hours. Wyze has blamed the outage on a problem with an undisclosed Amazon Web Services (AWS) partner but hasn't provided details.

Monday morning, Wyze sent emails to customers, including those Wyze says weren't affected, informing them that the outage led to 13,000 people being able to access data from strangers' cameras, as reported by The Verge.

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Wyze outage leaves customers without camera coverage overnight

Wyze v3 camera pointed at viewer

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)

Wyze cameras have been unreliable for many users for more than nine hours today, with cameras disappearing from the Wyze app or simply reporting errors when owners try to view them.

Users started reporting issues on Down Detector just before 4 am Eastern time, and the company issued a service advisory at 9:30 am. As of 1 pm, the company stated that its "metrics show that devices are starting to recover," and later that there was "continued improvement," but it was still investigating history viewing issues. At 1:15 pm, an Ars writer was able to view his Wyze v3 camera feed and update its firmware.

A Wyze employee updated the service advisory at 2:28 p.m. Eastern to note "continued improvement for device connection recovery." They added that the Event tab in the Wyze app, where one can see prior recordings activated by motion or other detections, is disabled, "to investigate a possible security issue," and it will be back soon.

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Can you manage your house with a local, no-cloud voice assistant? Mostly, yes.

Home Assistant's voice assistant running on an ESP32-S3-Box3

Enlarge / The most impressive part is what Home Assistant's voice control does not do: share your voice input with a large entity aiming to sell you things. (credit: Kevin Purdy)

The leaders of Home Assistant declared 2023 the “Year of the Voice.” The goal was to let users of the DIY home automation platform “control Home Assistant in their own language.” It was a bold shot to call, given people’s expectations from using Alexa and the like. Further, the Home Assistant team wasn’t even sure where to start.

Did they succeed, looking in from early 2024? In a very strict sense, yes. Right now, with some off-the-shelf gear and the patience to flash and fiddle, you can ask “Nabu” or “Jarvis” or any name you want to turn off some lights, set the thermostat, or run automations. And you can ask about the weather. Narrowly defined mission: Accomplished.

In a broader, more accurate sense, Home Assistant voice control has a ways to go. Your verb set is limited to toggling, setting, and other smart home interactions. The easiest devices to use for this don’t have the best noise cancellation or pick-up range. Errors aren’t handled gracefully, and you get the best results by fine-tuning the names you call everything you control.

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I was wrong to ignore Zigbee and Z-Wave. They’re the best part of my smart home.

Hue hub in stark relief against wood desk

Enlarge / Where it all started for the author, even if he didn't know it at the time. (credit: Getty Images)

I've set up dozens of smart home gadgets across two homes and two apartments over the last five years. I have a mental list of brands I revere and brands from which nothing shall ever be purchased again. In my current abode, you can stand in one place and be subject to six different signal types bouncing around, keeping up the chatter between devices.

What can I say? I'm a sucker for a certain kind of preparedness and creativity. The kind that's completely irrelevant if the power goes out.

When I started at Ars in the summer of 2022, the next generation of smart home standards was on the way. Matter, an interoperable device setup and management system, and Thread, a radio network that would provide secure, far-reaching connectivity optimized for tiny batteries. Together, they would offer a home that, while well-connected, could also work entirely inside a home network and switch between controlling ecosystems with ease. I knew this tech wouldn't show up immediately, but I thought it was a good time to start looking to the future, to leave behind the old standards and coalesce into something new.

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“Time to move on”: Fitbit owners fed up with battery problems, Google response

Fitbit Charge 5

Enlarge / The Fitbit Charge 5 came out in September 2021. (credit: Google)

Fitbit owners are getting frustrated with Charge 5 fitness trackers quickly losing their charge and, in some cases, exhibiting additional problems. Google has denied that the problems are tied to firmware updates. But users remain skeptical, and some are fed up with Google's limited response to a recurring problem.

Charge 5 battery complaints

On December 21, Fitbit announced Charge 5 firmware update 194.91 on its support forum. On paper, the update seemed typical, promising things like new clock faces, support for right-to-left text, and "bug fixes and improvements," per the release notes.

But by early January, there were complaints on the forum from people who said they updated their Charge 5 and then saw their device's battery suddenly drain much faster. Examples include one user claiming their battery life drains from 100 percent to 0 percent in 25 minutes and others saying their Charge 5 lasts about 12 hours. Most say their Charge 5 no longer lasts for a full day despite staying powered for days between charges before the update. The problems led a user going by Ge0ffh to call his device "completely unusable."

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Ambient light sensors can reveal your device activity. How big a threat is it?

Par : Dan Goodin
Ambient light sensors can reveal your device activity. How big a threat is it?

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)

An overwhelming majority of handheld devices these days have ambient light sensors built into them. A large percentage of TVs and monitors do, too, and that proportion is growing. The sensors allow devices to automatically adjust the screen brightness based on how light or dark the surroundings are. That, in turn, reduces eye strain and improves power consumption.

New research reveals that embedded ambient light sensors can, under certain conditions, allow website operators, app makers, and others to pry into user actions that until now have been presumed to be private. A proof-of-concept attack coming out of the research, for instance, can determine what touch gestures a user is performing on the screen. Gestures including one-finger slides, two-finger scrolls, three-finger pinches, four-finger swipes, and five-finger rotates can all be determined. As screen resolutions and sensors improve, the attack is likely to get better.

Always-on sensors, no permissions required

There are plenty of limitations that prevent the attack as it exists now from being practical or posing an immediate threat. The biggest restrictions: It works only on devices with a large screen, in environments without bright ambient light, and when the screen is displaying certain types of content that are known to the attacker. The technique also can’t reveal the identity of people in front of the screen. The researchers, from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, readily acknowledge these constraints but say it’s important for device makers and end users to be aware of the potential threat going forward.

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Apple Watch redesigned without blood oxygen monitoring to avoid import ban

Apple Watch Series 9

Enlarge / The Apple Watch Series 9. (credit: Apple)

Apple has developed a backup plan for if the Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 are import banned again. As it currently appeals the US International Trade Commission's (ITC's) ruling that its watches violate a patent owned by Masimo, Apple has come up with a software workaround that strips its current smartwatches of their controversial blood oxygen monitoring capabilities.

In January 2023, the ITC ruled that the Watch violated one of California-headquartered Masimo’s light-based pulse oximetry patents. The Apple Watch Series 6, which came out in 2020, was the first Apple smartwatch to use a pulse oximeter sensor.

Facing a US import ban of the current Watch Series 9 and Watch Ultra 2, both released in September 2023, Apple started pulling the smartwatches on December 21. But on December 27, Apple, which filed its appeal against the ITC’s ruling on December 26 (after US President Joe Biden declined to overrule the ITC ruling), received an emergency interim stay from the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, allowing it to continue selling the Watch.

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Appeals court pauses ban on patent-infringing Apple Watch imports

Apple Watch Series 9

Enlarge / The Apple Watch Series 9 released in September 2023. (credit: Apple)

Just before Christmas, Apple pulled two of its latest smartwatches from stores. The cause was not an unwelcome visit from the ghost of mechanical timepieces past but the International Trade Commission, which found that the California-based computer maker had infringed on some patents, resulting in the ITC banning the import of said watches. Yesterday, Reuters reported that Apple filed an emergency request for the courts to lift the ban and will appeal the ITC ruling.

And today, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit granted Apple's wish, pausing the ban while it considers the tech company's argument.

Apple's watch problems started back in January. That's when a court found that the light-based pulse oximetry sensor (found on the back of the watches) infringed patents held by Masimo, a medical device manufacturer also based in California.

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Matter, set to fix smart home standards in 2023, stumbled in the real market

Illustration of Matter protocol simplifying a home network

Enlarge / The Matter standard's illustration of how the standard should align a home and all its smart devices. (credit: CSA)

Matter, as a smart home standard, would make everything about owning a smart home better. Devices could be set up with any phone, for either remote or local control, put onto any major platform (like Alexa, Google, or HomeKit) or combinations of them, and avoid being orphaned if their device maker goes out of business. Less fragmentation, more security, fewer junked devices: win, win, win.

Matter, as it exists in late 2023, more than a year after its 1.0 specification was published and just under a year after the first devices came online, is more like the xkcd scenario that lots of people might have expected. It's another home automation standard at the moment, and one that isn't particularly better than the others, at least how it works today. I wish it was not so.

Setting up a Matter device isn't easy, nor is making it work across home systems. Lots of devices with Matter support still require you to download their maker's specific app to get full functionality. Even if you were an early adopting, Matter-T-shirt-wearing enthusiast, you're still buying devices that don't work quite as well, and still generally require a major tech company's gear to act as your bridge or router.

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Homey Pro review: A very particular set of home automation skills

Homey Pro hub sitting on a desk, with a blue-ish rainbow glow on bottom

Enlarge / The Homey Pro, settling in for some quiet network check-ins at dusk. (credit: Kevin Purdy)

I know there are people who will want to buy the Homey Pro. I’ve seen them on social media and in various home automation forums, and I’ve even noticed them in the comments on this website. For this type of person, the Homey Pro might serve as a specialized, locally focused smart home hub, one that's well worth the cost. But you should be really, truly certain that you’re that person before you take a $400 leap with it.

Homey Pro is a smart home hub pitched primarily at someone who wants to keep things local as much as possible, forgoing phone apps, speakers, and cloud connections. That means using the Homey Pro to boost a primarily Zigbee or Z-Wave network, while also looping in local Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and even infrared remotes. It’s for someone willing to pay $400 for a device that offers robust local or cloud backups, professional design, advanced automation, and even a custom scripting language, along with access to some “experiments” and still-in-progress tech like Matter and Thread. It’s for someone who might want to add a select cloud service or two to their home, but not because they have no other option.

But this somebody has also, somehow, not already invested in Home Assistant, Hubitat, or HomeBridge, which are more open to both add-on hardware (like new capabilities added on by USB stick or GPIO pins) and deep tinkering. It's someone who is willing to check that every device they want to control will work with Homey. While the device offers a pretty sizable range of apps and integrations, it’s far from the near-universal nature of major open-source projects or even the big smart home platforms. And you have to do a little checking further, still, to ensure that individual products are supported, not just the brand.

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Apple admits to secretly giving governments push notification data

Apple admits to secretly giving governments push notification data

Enlarge (credit: Dilok Klaisataporn | iStock / Getty Images Plus)

Governments have been secretly tracking the app activity of an unknown number of people using Apple and Google smartphones, US Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) revealed today.

In a letter demanding that the Department of Justice update or repeal policies prohibiting companies from informing the public about these covert government requests, Wyden warned that "Apple and Google are in a unique position to facilitate government surveillance of how users are using particular apps."

Push notifications are used to provide a wide variety of alerts to app users. A friendly ding or text alert on the home screen notifies users about new text messages, emails, social media comments, news updates, packages delivered, gameplay nudges—basically any app activity where notifications have been enabled could be tracked by governments, Wyden said.

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How Huawei made a cutting-edge chip in China and surprised the US

montage of logos and chips

Enlarge (credit: FT)

In late 2020, Huawei was fighting for its survival as a mobile phone maker.

A few months earlier, the Trump administration had hit the Chinese company with crippling sanctions, cutting it off from global semiconductor supply chains.

The sanctions prevented anyone without a permit from making the chips Huawei designed, and the company was struggling to procure new chips to launch more advanced handsets.

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Alexa just cost Amazon another $46.7 million

An

Enlarge / The first Amazon Echo speaker. (credit: Luke MacGregor/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

A Delaware federal court has ordered Amazon to pay $46.7 million for infringing on four patents belonging to VB Assets with Amazon's Echo smart speakers and Alexa virtual assistant. A lawsuit from Nuance Communications-owned VB Assets, previously known as VoiceBox Technologies, claimed to have already invented a circular speaker that could connect to the web and answer voice-dictated prompts with a female, robotic voice.

Wednesday's judgment [PDF], initially reported by Reuters, orders Amazon to pay the sum via running royalty rather than a lump sum. The ruling follows a jury verdict [PDF] finding that Amazon infringed upon four of VoiceBox's patents. The patents relate to providing network-coordinated conversational services, a conversational voice user interface, and tying advertisements to natural language processing of voice-based input. VB Assets originally accused Amazon of infringing on six of its patents.

Amazon still has time to appeal the judgment, and VoiceBox has time to seek reimbursement for related costs.

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Apple Watch facing potential ban after losing Masimo patent case

Two smartwatches are intertwined in this promotional image.

Enlarge / The Apple Watch Series 6. (credit: Apple)

The Apple Watch violates patents owned by California-based Masimo, the US International Trade Commission (ITC) ruled on Thursday [PDF]. The federal agency issued a limited exclusion order for the smartwatches, meaning the Apple Watch is in jeopardy of an import ban.

The ITC's ruling upholds a January ruling that found that the Apple Watch infringed on a Masimo patent. The exclusion period recommended on Thursday is supposed to go into effect after 60 days, during which time President Joe Biden can overturn the ruling. Biden previously declined to veto an ITC ruling that found the Apple Watch violated patents of a different company, AliveCor.

The debate is over Masimo's light-based pulse oximetry. The ITC's ruling doesn't specify which watches are affected. But the first Apple Watch to feature blood oxygen monitoring was the Apple Watch Series 6, which came out in 2020.

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Motorola demos smartphone that can wrap around your wrist (again) 

  • Smartphone turned wearable. [credit: Motorola ]

Lenovo's Motorola mobile brand is resurfacing the idea of the bendable, bracelet-like smartphone. Demoed at Lenovo Tech World '23 in Austin, Texas, yesterday, Motorola's "adaptive display" revisits a concept that we've seen discussed for years but that doesn't seem any closer to actually being sold.

On stage at the event, Lexi Valasek, 312 Labs innovation strategy and product research Lead for Motorola Mobility, proudly held a prototype. The smartphone looked ordinary to start: a slab of OLED with a chassis that's a bold orange on the backside. But Valasek quickly bent the phone into an arch shape, where it stood on her hand before she wrapped it around her wrist like a cuff.

The phone seemed to adapt to its new positioning rapidly, quickly showing a large clock, making the device feel like a smartwatch.

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Mazda’s DMCA takedown kills a hobbyist’s smart car API tool

Mazda MX-30

Enlarge (credit: Jonathan Gitlin)

Before last week, owners of certain Mazda vehicles who also had a Home Assistant setup could create some handy connections for their car.

One CX60 driver had a charger that would only power on when it confirmed his car was plugged in and would alert him if he left the trunk open. Another used Home Assistant to control their charger based on the dynamic prices of an Agile Octopus energy plan. Yet another had really thought it through, using Home Assistant to check the gas before their morning commute, alert them if their windows were down before rain was forecast, and remotely unlock and start the car in cold conditions. The possibilities were vast and purportedly beyond what Mazda's official app offered.

Mazda, however, had issues with the project, which was largely the free-time work of one software developer, Brandon Rothweiler. In a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) notice sent to GitHub, Mazda (or an authorized agent) alleges that Rothweiler's integration:

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Samsung’s new Bluetooth trackers have a giant keyring on top, UWB support

Par : Ron Amadeo
  • Samsung's new smart tags. [credit: Samsung ]

Samsung has announced its next Tile/AirTag competitor, the Galaxy SmartTag 2. The new Bluetooth trackers are $30 each and ship globally on October 10.

The design is interesting, with a giant ring on the top and a large overall size. Samsung says the battery, a removable CR2032, will last for 500 days in "normal" mode, while a new "Power Saving" mode will last 700 days (Samsung did not expand on what "power saving" mode does). It's also IP67-rated.

The big ring on top feels like it should somehow attach to an object, but it's a solid ring that never opens; it's not a clip. The press release says you'll need a "clip or keyring" to attach the SmartTag 2 to something. Samsung's hero shot shows the tag directly attached to some objects like a key, but this does not appear to be possible outside the world of Photoshop.

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The $10,000-plus golden Apple Watch is now “obsolete,” according to Apple

18-karat rose gold Apple Watches in a light wood display

Enlarge / 18-karat rose gold Apple Watches on display, ready for you to invest more than five figures into their inevitably limited lifespan as a functional timekeeping device. (credit: Getty Images)

When purchasing a luxury watch, you might consider it more of an heirloom than a simple timekeeper. You can pass a well-maintained Submariner down to your progeny. You can generally sell a Nomos or an Omega long after you purchase it, often at a profit. Or you can simply keep it on your wrist as a reminder of the inexorable march of time, the importance of punctuality, and the genius of so many tiny mechanical pieces working together toward one simple but crucial function.

This will not happen with the first Apple Watch Edition models, despite Jony Ive's strong desire to enter that realm. As of September 30, Apple moved the original Apple Watch models to its "obsolete" list, at least internally. That includes the "Edition" models that ranged from $10,000 to $17,000 at their April 2015 launch. When a product is "obsolete," Apple no longer offers parts, repairs, or other replacement services for it.

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