The House of Representatives passed a bill that bars data brokers from selling the sensitive personal information of U.S. citizens to foreign adversaries, identified in the federal code as China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia and Venezuela. The Protecting Americans’ Data from Foreign Adversaries Act of 2024 passed unanimously on Wednesday, 414-0. The bill prohibits organizations that profit from selling personal consumer information from making it accessible to foreign adversary countries or entities controlled by them, authorizing the Federal Trade Commission to impose civil fines of more than $50,000 per violation. Continue reading Bill Barring Brokers from Selling Personal Data Passes House

CES 2024 attracted more than 135,000 attendees to Las Vegas where 4,300 companies filled 2.5 million square feet of exhibit space. Technology that empowers creators, a new generation of displays, and the promise and peril of artificial intelligence dominated the show. After several years of incremental advances, market development built on maturing technology, and over-hyped trends, this year felt different with an energy that suggests the beginning of a new era. Among the major themes were embedded AI, vehicle tech, digital health, screens and XR, and numerous policy and regulation topics. ETC@USC attended the conference for live reporting on products and services. Our post-show report features extensive coverage and perspectives related to key creative, business, and technology areas. Continue reading ETC’s CES 2024 Report: Creators, Displays, and AI Innovation

New York has become the first city in the nation to designate a public health crisis with regard to use of social media by young children. In a State of the City address, Mayor Eric Adams name-checked TikTok, YouTube and Facebook, calling them (and “companies like” them) “addictive and dangerous.” Adams referenced last week’s advisory from the city’s Department of Health as “officially designating social media as a public health crisis hazard in New York City.” The advisory urges adults to establish “tech free times” for kids, and delay smartphone access until age 14. Continue reading New York City Classifies Social Media a ‘Public Health Threat’

Introduced by Consumer Technology Association VP of Regulatory Affairs David Grossman, FDA Commissioner Robert Califf took the CES stage with interviewer Lisa Dwyer, a partner at international law firm King & Spalding. Califf noted the monumental differences in technology that have taken place between his first stint at the Food & Drug Administration in 2015 and today. “The changes are so dramatic, it’s hard to characterize them,” he said. “We’re moving into a different world.” He’s excited about “the hundreds of products with AI” that can bring so much good to the market but also noted the potential harms. Continue reading CES: FDA Commissioner Robert Califf on Bias in Healthcare

Apple is pausing sales of its two newest Apple Watch models following a U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) import ban due to unauthorized use of technology patented by Irvine, California-based medical device maker Masimo. Apple plans to have the Series 9 and Ultra 2 watches removed from its online and retail stores by December 26. The move, which comes at the height of the holiday shopping season, will no doubt prompt a frenzy of in-store purchases between now and Sunday. Apple has the decision under review. Barring reversal, it could take steps to reintroduce the watches. Continue reading Apple Yanks Newer Watches from Retail Following Patent Suit

Apple has released the iOS 17.2 update for newer iPhones. New features include spatial video recording and a Journal app that generates prompts designed to get users writing about their lives based on data running through the phone. The 3D spatial video can also playback on 2D on any device but is optimized for dimensional viewing on Apple’s Vision Pro headset, due for release in 2024, starting at $3,500. The Journal app, unveiled at June’s WWDC, is described as a health and wellness feature (that oddly does not yet integrate with the Apple Watch). Continue reading Apple Intros Spatial Video Recording with Latest iOS Update

Bill Gates has published his thinking about the future of computing, and fascinatingly, it’s the same as his prediction from decades ago: agents. No mere bots — and certainly not anthropomorphized paperclips — agents (to Gates) will abstract almost all HCI to a natural language conversation with systems that have our permission to take meaningful actions. Gates makes a highly specific prediction: within five years, the very idea of an app itself will seem as outdated as a rotary phone dial does next to an iPhone. A conversational UI will sit on top of a language model that has access to as much of our private data as we wish to give it. Continue reading Bill Gates Imagines Agents as the Human-Computer Interface

Walmart has doubled the size of its Marketplace platform in the past 18 months, with about 100,000 active sellers. Now, the company — which receives seller applications at the rate of about 20,000 per month, about 10 percent of which get approved — feels it is within striking distance of Amazon. Some say Walmart has been emulating the moves of the Seattle-based e-retail giant, including now adding sponsored video ad units in time for the holiday shopping season. The Walmart+ online brand has been emphasizing convenience, membership, free delivery and even a Paramount+ Essential plan, similar to Amazon’s approach of offering Prime Video. Continue reading Walmart Extends E-Commerce Push, Adds Sponsored Videos

Google is readying an API and other enterprise tools for its Pathways Language Model (PaLM) — a large language model similar to GPT — to encourage developers to create chatbots and other apps using the platform. PaLM is one of Google’s most advanced systems, with the capability to generate text, images, code, video and audio from natural language prompts. Much like OpenAI’s GTP series and the LLaMA family from Meta Platforms, it is suitable for a wide variety of general tasks. To facilitate PaLM’s use for specific tasks, Google is launching the MakerSuite along with the PaLM API. Continue reading Google’s PaLM API, MakerSuite Coming to Select Developers

There are a growing number of companies working on technologies that strive to make a person’s voice more intelligible to the listener over speakers, headphones, hearing aids and other consumer audio devices. Augmented Hearing, a Danish startup launched two years ago, is one of the more interesting companies at CES 2023 focusing on this space. The firm’s software-based solution runs on iOS, Windows and other CE operating systems. Their solution could mitigate the current trend of people across all age groups turning on closed captioning because they often find video dialogue difficult to understand. Continue reading CES: Startup Leverages AI to Address Problematic Acoustics

Amazon is continuing the cost-cutting that CEO Andy Jassy emphasized when the company reported a $2 billion loss in Q2. The company is shutting down Amazon Explore, a virtual tourism initiative launched during the COVID-19 lockdown, unplugging the robotics ventures Canvas and ORCA, and dimming the lights on the Amazon Glow, a video-calling projector for kids. In recent weeks, Amazon also confirmed the end of field tests for the autonomous delivery service Scout. This in the wake of a hiring freeze at its retail division and the closure of the Amazon Care telehealth venture. Continue reading Amazon Faces Economic Challenges, Continues Cost-Cutting

Governor Gavin Newsom signed the California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act into law last week, making his state the first in the nation to adopt online child safety measures. The bipartisan legislation requires online platforms to default to privacy and safety settings that protect children’s mental and physical health. The new law, cosponsored by Assemblymembers Buffy Wicks (D-15th District) and Jordan Cunningham (R-35th District), prohibits companies that provide online services and products in California from using a child’s personal information and forbids collecting, selling, or retaining a child’s geolocation, among other things. Continue reading California Governor Signs Online Child Protection Bill into Law

ETC’s George Gerba visited the CES Unveiled show floor in Las Vegas Monday evening looking for companies and products that would be of interest to our members, illustrate emerging trends, or are simply unusual. Gerba discovered a range of compelling technologies across areas such as blockchain, non-fungible tokens, Li-Fi, wearables, large-scale video screens, the metaverse, remote work, cell signal boosters, health, batteries and more. Among the more interesting companies at CES Unveiled this year were Icecap, Oledcomm, Somalytics, VideowindoW, Toraru, SureCall, Biospectal, Prinker, Airxom and Nanotech Energy.  Continue reading CES: Highlights from the 2022 CES Unveiled Pre-Show Event

About 76 percent of adults believe Facebook makes U.S. society worse while 11 percent say the social network makes society better and 13 find it neutral, according to a new CNN poll by SSRS. Roughly 50 percent said they know someone who bought into a conspiracy theory they read about on the site. Meanwhile, Facebook parent Meta Platforms says that beginning January 19 it will discontinue advertisers’ ability to target users based on their history of accessing content about health, ethnicity, politics, religion, sexual orientation and myriad other topics. The change applies to Facebook, Messenger and Instagram. Continue reading Facebook Negatively Impacts Society, According to CNN Poll

A Facebook team researching user well-being found that 1 in 8 users engage in compulsive social media habits that impact work, sleep, parenting or relationships, an analysis of recently released company documents suggests. The potentially harmful behavior, said to be categorized as “problematic use,” is comparable to what is also known as “Internet addiction.” Researchers said while some users lack control over disengaging from Facebook, the behavior isn’t considered “clinical addiction” because it doesn’t impact the brain the same way as habits like gambling or substance abuse. The research also referenced compulsive behavior among users of other social media apps. Continue reading Research Highlights Effects of Social Media on Mental Health