Latest Tech News

Google will have to answer in court allegations of collecting users’ private information inside its Chrome browser without their permission following a new ruling.

A US federal appeals court has reversed a previous dismissal of the case Calhoun v. Google LLC on the basis that the lower court should have assessed “whether a reasonable user reading [Google’s privacy disclosures would think that he or she was consenting to the data collection].

Per The Verge, at the heart of the case is the allegation that Google harvested data on users of Chrome without opting into Chrome Sync - a feature designed to sync bookmarks, passwords and tabs across multiple Chrome clients.

Google back in court on appeal

The plaintiffs in the case assert that Chrome sent Google their browsing history, IP addresses, and identifying cookies without their say-so. This was previously dismissed on the basis of Judge Yvonne Gonzales Rogers noting that this behaviour was established in Chrome’s privacy policy, and finding users’ continued use of the web browser enough to establish agreement with that policy.

However, on appeal, Judge Milan D. Smith Jr. wrote users may not have understood these disclosures thanks to conflicting customer-facing information provided by Google.

“Google had a general privacy disclosure yet promoted Chrome by suggesting that certain information would not be sent to Google unless a user turned on sync.”

Google, naturally, aren’t happy with this, with a spokesperson for the company telling The Verge that it intends to fight the case. And in the midst of all this is the announcement that passwords will soon sync across Android and Desktop Chrome clients without Chrome Sync, so long as users are signed into the browser with their Google account. 

So, data is still being synced to a Google account without express permission being given via Chrome Sync, but at least it’s just passwords, and a presumably optional measure designed to be convenient for users. It’s also not an entirely new feature, with the change having arrived on iOS in November 2023

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Latest Tech News

AMD has announced it will acquire AI infrastructure provider ZT Systems in a $4.9 billion cash and stock deal, marking a major milestone in the chipmaker’s plan to challenge Nvidia in the AI data center market.

The company says the deal will help accelerate the deployment of its AI solutions and strengthen its position in the growing AI accelerator market, which it predicts will be worth $400 billion by 2027.

Buying ZT Systems will also mean AMD will acquire over a thousand design engineers to help boost scale.

AMD uses ZT Systems to edge closer to Nvidia

AMD CEO Dr Lisa Su emphasized the strategic importance of the deal, noting it would enable the company to integrate its AI hardware, including the Instinct line of AI accelerators and EPYC CPUs, with ZT Systems’ expertise in system design.

The goal, she says, is to, "deliver end-to-end data center AI infrastructure at scale with [AMD’s] ecosystem of OEM and ODM partners.”

ZT Systems has been a critical player in building custom AI infrastructure for global tech giants like Microsoft, Meta and Amazon over the past few years. The company also has an existing partnership with Nvidia, which is set to continue.

The transaction is expected to close during the first half of 2025, certain to customary closing conditions and regulatory approval, and marks the latest in a series of AI-focused investments including more than $1 billion to expand the AMD AI ecosystem and strengthen the company’s AI software capabilities in the last year.

The company also acquired Finnish AI startup Silo AI last month for $665 million.

After a month of decline, AMD stock is on the rise again, up 4.5% following the ZT Systems announcement. However, while AMD’s market cap of $251.31 billion is comfortably ahead of Intel’s, at $92.01 billion, the company lags behind Nvidia, currently the world’s second-most valuable company with a cap of $3.197 trillion.

Earlier this year, AMD also acquired Europe's largest private AI lab, Silo AI, in a $700 million deal signalling a strategic expansion into the AI tools eco-system, alongside its acquisitions of Mipsology and Nod.ai. 

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Bad Sisters is one of the best Apple TV Plus shows with a flawless 100% Rotten Tomatoes score, so it should come as no surprise to hear that it will return for season 2 on Wednesday, November 13.

The critically acclaimed dramedy will make its global debut on one of the best streaming services, with the first two episodes dropping on Wednesday, November 13 followed by one episode weekly through Wednesday, December 25 – what a killer Christmas treat!

Although Apple TV Plus has become a sci-fi utopia, the streaming platform has become a haven for engrossing drama series like Bad Sisters where "the Irish sense of humor is naturally driven by a delicious darkness," according to our Bad Sisters review.

Still killing it. #BadSisters Season 2 premieres November 13.Catch up with Season 1 now streaming on Apple TV+ pic.twitter.com/jSeYTLSBJDAugust 19, 2024

What is Bad Sisters about and what can we expect from season 2?

Sharon Horgan (Catastrophe) is one of the masterminds behind this Irish black comedy, which she also stars in. Based on the Flemish series Clan, the series follows four sisters who despise their brother-in-law John-Paul (Claes Bang) so much that they conjure up a series of plans to kill him and protect their sister Grace (Anne-Marie Duff). The story unravels in two timelines where one leads up to John-Paul's death and the other follows two insurance agents who suspect foul play. 

Bad Sisters will return in season 2 to follow the lives of the Garvey sisters, Eva (Horgan), Grace, Ursula (Eva Birthistle), Bibi (Sarah Greene), and Becka (Eve Hewson), who have since moved on from the "accidental death" of Grace's abusive husband. However, when past truths resurface and the close-knit sisters are propelled back into the limelight, the ladies are forced to work out who they can trust as suspicions, lies and secrets run rampant.

The new and returning cast includes: Fiona Shaw, Owen McDonnell, Thaddea Graham, Barry Ward, Michael Smiley, Saise Quinn, Daryl McCormack, Yasmine Akram, Jonjo O’Neill, Peter Claffey, Deirdre Mullins, Lorcan Cranitch, Liz Fitzgibbon, and Justine Mitchell. 

The show has been described as an Irish iteration of one of the best Max shows Big Little Lies, from the plot to the cinematography and aesthetic, so now might be the best time to tuck in to this tasty treat of a dark comedy before your Christmas turkey!

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Latest Tech News

Researchers have discovered the data of 10 million citizens of Chile has been leaked online in an exposure that puts over half the population of the country at risk.

Experts from Cybernews say the data originated from Caja Los Andes, a firm which provides Chileans with health insurance, loans, mortgages, and pension funds.

It is the largest Family Allowance Compensation firm in Chile, and employs nearly 3,000 people.

The fund was reported to have four million members in 2023, but the leaked data set contained details of over double that amount. This suggests the database includes family members, individuals who have switched providers, or those who may have passed away, explained Cybernews researchers.

“Leaked home addresses and financial details coupled in one leak make these people vulnerable to targeted robberies or physical threats. What’s more, they could become prime targets for scams and financial exploitation even without direct physical threats as there are plenty more PII, such as email addresses, that make this dataset a valuable target for phishing operations.”

The leak of the Apache Cassandra database was reportedly due to a lack of authentication. According to Chile’s data protection laws, the company responsible for leaking personal data could be subject to severe penalties, with fines that could reach up to 4% of its annual income and large scale lawsuits from affected individuals.

Protecting yourself

The news comes shortly after reports of one of the largest data breaches in history left almost three billion individuals vulnerable. Data breaches are all too common, and with so many different organizations holding everyone’s information, how can you keep your information safe?

Staying alert is the most important thing, especially being vigilant and changing your passwords often. For anyone concerned that their information may be exposed, Identity theft protection plans with dark web monitoring and credit monitoring make sure you are on top of any vulnerabilities as soon as they arise.

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Latest Tech News

New research has found three-quarters of US lawmakers could be vulnerable to security risks such as identity theft as their personal information is easily accessible online through people search finder sites.

A report from Incogni identified contact details, relative information, and home addresses for 80% of male Republican house members, and 74% of male house Democrats. In comparison, female house members' information was marginally harder to obtain, with 62% and 73% of Republican and Democratic house members information available respectively.

People search sites are specialized search engines which compile and sell personal data - often unbeknownst to the owner. Information available on the House member varied, with some members of Congress’ court records, property values, and relative information exposed.

Security risks

Smaller US states were most unprotected, whereas Arizona, Washington, New York, Minnesota, Indiana, and Connecticut the best protected, with less than 60% of house members’ information found on people search sites.

Unprotected personal information was a massive oversight from security services, said Darius Belejeva, Head of Incogni and data privacy expert.

“The safety of U.S. lawmakers has rarely felt so precarious, so it was frightening to uncover how much of their personal data is easily obtainable," she added. "This is a massive oversight that exposes House Members to security risks, and needs to be urgently addressed.”

The news comes at an important time for US political security after the recent assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump, as well as a Virginia man being charged with making violent online threats against Vice President Harris.

‘“This is not just an issue affecting high-profile politicians though," added Belejeva. "Millions of Americans unknowingly have their personal data stored on people search sites that can be exploited by fraudsters and identify thieves and sold to unknown entities for purposes they haven’t consented to.”

Personal information data removal services are available and can be used to keep track of and remove data from online brokers.

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Latest Tech News

Google Pixel Watch 3 has landed. Google has used its Made by Google event (on August 13, 10am PT / 1pm ET / 6pm BST) to unveil the latest iteration of its best smartwatch. While you can read our hands-on review to check out our first impressions of the watch (and check out our run-down of the whole Made By Google event live here) one aspect of the device we've not yet had a chance to test is the set of new fitness tools. 

As well as smart features and the new emergency Loss of Pulse Detection tool, which alerts emergency services if you’re having a cardiac event, there’s a big new suite of fitness functions from Fitbit. The Pixel Watch 3 now uses machine learning to analyze advanced running metrics, so runners can benefit from knowing their stride length, ground contact time, and vertical oscillation (which means 'how much you bounce up and down during a run' in runner-speak). 

The Pixel Watch 3 also offers a new Target Load feature and more advanced workout plans, allowing you to schedule in multi-stage workouts incorporating warm-ups, intervals and target paces. The watch will alert you if you’re falling behind your target pace during your run. 

While it collects information about your workout, it also gathers recovery information, serving you up your Daily Readiness Score and other health metrics in a new Fitbit Morning Brief, a daily digest of your health sent directly to your watch. 

Familiar (watch) faces

(Image credit: Matt Evans)

If all this sounds great, that’s because it is. As a keen runner, I’m certainly looking forward to testing these advanced running metrics. However, I’ve also already been using them for years… because they’re already on other watches. 

None of this is anything new. The best running watches and best Garmin watches have been estimating stride length, oscillation and ground contact time for a very long time, and even Apple advertised that advanced training tools for runners just like these were arriving to its new suite of watches – two years ago, during its watchOS 9 debut. 

Likewise, the Morning Brief sounds almost exactly like Garmin’s Morning Report, a feature I also loved when it was introduced, and I welcome it here. Garmin has also long allowed its users to design custom multi-segment running programmes, or use its premade ones, with warm-ups, virtual pacers and intervals. Garmin has actually moved on and is now using algorithms to adjust its running plans based on your recovery statistics.  

I’m glad Google has caught up with the pack. Its Fitbit devices have long been lagging behind, and Google seems intent on making the Google Pixel Watch 3 the best Fitbit ever created, even if it’s not a device that’s properly under the Fitbit name. However, the implication that these features as groundbreaking or innovative is silly, as competitive smartwatch brands have been doing this for ages. 

Google Pixel Watch wearers who happen to be runners - and I’m betting there are quite a few - will definitely benefit from these powerful running tools. The bit I’m interested in is the mention of “machine learning” used to calculate statistics: as soon as I get the opportunity, I’ll be running with a Google Pixel Watch 3 on one wrist and an Apple Watch Ultra 2 or Garmin Epix Pro on the other, to see if the two watches spit out similar results. 

Check out our Google Pixel Watch 3 TikTok coverage here:

@techradar ♬ original sound - TechRadar

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With ChatGPT rolling out Advanced Voice Mode to some users this month, and Apple on the verge of launching Apple Intelligence, Google has fired back with Gemini Live, a version of the Gemini AI that you can talk to on your phone as if it were a real person. Gemini Live is currently only available to Gemini Advanced customers, as part of the AI Premium plan for $20 (£18.99, AU$30) a month, but should be available to all subscribers with a compatible phone, not just those with a shiny new Google Pixel 9, which the search giant just launched.

My first impression is that Gemini Live is really impressive to hear in action. Finally, I can chat with my phone as if it were a real person, which is all I've ever wanted to do since voice assistants like Google Assistant, Siri and Alexa became a thing. Unfortunately, for the last few years I've been reduced to using Siri and Alexa to set timers on my phone, or play music, since there’s a limit to how useful they can be, usually referring me to a web page if I ask anything too complicated. In contrast, with Gemini Live I can have a conversation on just about anything and it will give me a meaningful answer. It understands my words and intent on a whole new level. Ask Gemini how the USA did in the recent Paris Olympics and it will respond with a real answer. Ask it to recommend a diet plan and it will give me some ideas, based on what it knows about me. 

Of course, I could already talk to Gemini on an Android phone and ask it basic math questions, or ask it about the weather, but the new Gemini Live is a whole new beast. With Gemini Live I can have a real conversation about complex topics, ask it to brainstorm or ask it for advice. To make the conversation truly realistic, I can also interrupt its responses, so if I'm finding the answer I'm getting is just going on too long, I can interrupt Gemini and ask it something else. It feels a bit rude, but machines don't have feelings, right? I don’t need to press anything on the screen to talk to Gemini either, so it’s a totally hands-free experience, meaning I can use it while doing other tasks.

The mysterious blue glow of Gemini Live working away. (Image credit: Future, Lance Ulanoff)

Gemini Live is also multimodal, so it can 'look' at images or videos on your phone and answer questions about them. This can be particularly useful if I want to take a photo of something then ask Gemini Live a question about it. It will intelligently take information from the photos and use it in its response. Despite a few hiccups in the live demo at the recent Made for Google event, this is genuinely useful.

Google is still adding features to Gemini (and presumably, will be adding them forever), and “in coming weeks” extensions will be added that start to making it really useful, and allow Gemini to integrate with various apps, like Calendar and Gmail. So, you will be able to say things like, “Find the specs that James sent me in an email a couple of weeks ago”, and it will be able to do it. That feature could end up being the sleeper hit for Gemini Live.

All in all, Gemini Live is the best use of AI I've seen from Google so far. Google has spent a lot of time and money trying to integrate AI into its search pages with AI Overview, which isn’t what I want. I don’t want AI taking over from my searches and getting in the way with unhelpful answers, when all I want is to be directed to a web page. AI can still get its facts wrong, and Gemini is no different in that regard. I simply want AI to help me with my life, and while there’s still lots to come that will take Gemini Live up to a whole new level, for now I can wave goodbye to Google Assistant and I get to have a real conversation with my phone, and that’s pretty amazing.

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The president of CrowdStrike has accepted the award for ‘Most Epic Fail’ at the 2024 ‘Pwnie Awards’, hosted at this year’s DefCon hacking conference.

Per TechCrunch, CrowdStrike was already in attendance at the cybersecurity gathering, manning one of the largest booths at the event, and dispatching free t-shirts and action figures to attendees/

Fans have already been leaping to the defence of the company that put millions of Windows machines out of action pending a fix to be manually applied in safe mode, calling them a “class act” after CrowdStrike president Michael Sentonas acknowledged that the ward was “definitely not [one] to be proud of receiving”.

CrowdStrike hanging by a thread

I’m fascinated by the idea by a company in line for a lawsuit leveraged by the airline Delta and another by its own shareholders can rehabilitate itself.

Sentonas was, to be clear, quite apologetic for thrusting a great deal of the world’s digital infrastructure, from transport to retail, into chaos, admitting that “[CrowdStrike] got this horribly wrong [...] and it’s super important to own it when you do things horribly wrong.”

“Our goal is to protect people,” he went on, “and we got this wrong, and I want to make sure everybody understands [that] these things can’t happen.”

This is a lovely sentiment from CrowdStrike, but it’s also one being expressed on camera in front of a sympathetic audience proud to host them. Actions speak louder than words, which is at least something that the company claims to understand.

Last week, it was revealed that systems in place to truly make it so that ‘these things’ (a broken update to CrowdStrike’s Falcon software) can’t happen failed to work as intended, allowing the things that can’t happen to happen.

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