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Apple’s Tim Cook warns of adtech fuelling a ‘social catastrophe’ as he defends app tracker opt-in

Apple’s CEO Tim Cook has urged Europe to step up privacy enforcement in a keynote speech to the CPDP conference today — echoing many of the points he made in Brussels in person two years ago when he hit out at the ‘data industrial complex’ underpinning the adtech industry’s mass surveillance of Internet users. Reforming current-gen adtech is now a humanitarian imperative, he argued in a speech that took a bunch of thinly-veiled swipes at Facebook. “As I said in Brussels two years ago, it is certainly time, not only for a comprehensive privacy law here in the United States, but also for worldwide laws and new international agreements that enshrine the principles of data minimization, user knowledge, user access...

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What does a pandemic say about the tech we’ve built?

There’s a joke* being reshared on chat apps that takes the form of a multiple-choice question — asking who’s the leading force in workplace digital transformation? The red-lined punchline is not the CEO or CTO, but: C) COVID-19. There’s likely more than a grain of truth underpinning the quip. The novel coronavirus is pushing a lot of metaphorical buttons right now. “Pause” buttons for people and industries, as large swathes of the world’s population face quarantine conditions that can resemble house arrest. The majority of offline social and economic activities are suddenly off limits. Such major pauses in our modern lifestyle may even turn into a full reset, over time. The world as it was, where mobility of people has...

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Amazon’s Alexa Coming to High-End Speaker, Earbuds, and Eyeglasses

Consumer Reports has no financial relationship with advertisers on this site. Amazon announced a raft of new products that expands the reach of its digital assistant, Alexa; focuses on high-quality audio; and addresses some key privacy concerns. In all, the company unveiled 15 items, including a high-end Echo Studio smart speaker, a would-be AirPod headphone competitor called Echo Buds, a bargain-priced Eero mesh router, and various Ring security cameras. It rolled out a few eccentric options, too, such as an Alexa-powered ring and eyeglass frames. Almost all the items are available for preorder now and will ship in time for the holidays. Here’s a closer look at what’s on the way. Boosting the Sound Quality The company is hoping to...

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