Business Guide to Facial Recognition: Applications and Issues to Consider

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Business Guide to Facial Recognition: Applications and Issues to Consider

In a world where technology is continually pushing boundaries, facial recognition stands out as a captivating force that has reshaped our reality. Through its remarkable ability to recognize and validate individuals by their exclusive facial characteristics, this technology has fundamentally altered the operational dynamics of businesses. For example, in recent years, Unity face tracking has gained significant traction among developers and researchers due to its powerful capabilities in accurately capturing and analyzing facial movements, enabling a wide range of applications in the fields such as animation, robotics, and user experience design. However, as with any powerful technology, there are also ethical and privacy concerns that need to be addressed. So, in this article, we will explore the diverse applications of facial recognition, examining its impact on industries.

Use Cases of Facial Recognition Technology

Boosting Security:

The fusion of surveillance cameras and facial recognition systems has propelled security measures into a new realm of unprecedented effectiveness. The ability to identify and track individuals in real time positions these advanced technologies as indispensable tools in protecting critical environments like airports, banks, and high-security facilities. By conducting rapid comparisons of facial features against comprehensive databases of known individuals, these systems efficiently identify potential threats, empowering security personnel to take rapid and appropriate measures to ensure public safety.

Facilitating Access:

Embracing modern access control, facial recognition technology presents a secure and seamless alternative to traditional methods like passwords or key cards. Whether it’s unlocking smartphones or granting entry to restricted areas, businesses can harness the power of this innovative technology to verify and permit access exclusively to authorized individuals. By doing so, they not only bolster overall security but also effectively eliminate the risks associated with unauthorized access attempts, ensuring a safer and more efficient access management system.

Tailored Marketing and Customer Service:

Through the examination of facial expressions and reactions, enterprises can gain valuable insights into customer preferences, allowing them to fine-tune their offerings for enhanced customer satisfaction. For instance, retail stores can detect loyal customers and offer them personalized recommendations or special deals that align with their previous purchases or preferences, fostering a deeper connection with their clientele.

Efficient Attendance and Time Tracking:

With the seamless implementation of facial recognition systems, businesses can efficiently track employee attendance, effectively curbing time theft, and streamlining payroll processes. This groundbreaking approach not only enhances overall efficiency but also lightens administrative burdens, empowering employees to dedicate their time to more impactful and fulfilling tasks. As a result, organizations can optimize their workforce management and unlock newfound productivity potentials.

Unleashing Augmented Reality Experiences:

Facial recognition plays a pivotal role in creating captivating augmented reality (AR) experiences that transport users into a world of immersive wonder. For example, Banuba’s Face AR SDK empowers businesses to incorporate facial recognition capabilities into their AR applications. With this cutting-edge SDK, developers can leverage facial tracking, emotion analysis, and face filters to craft interactive and mesmerizing AR experiences across various industries such as gaming, entertainment, social media, and e-commerce. The possibilities for engaging and enchanting customers are limitless.

Factors to Keep in Mind Regarding Facial Recognition

While facial recognition technology offers undeniable advantages, it also presents significant challenges that businesses must carefully contemplate before embracing it. By addressing these concerns, companies can ensure the responsible and ethical implementation of facial recognition systems. Here are critical issues to be mindful of:

Safeguarding Privacy and Data Security:

The collection and storage of sensitive biometric data require robust measures to protect privacy and ensure data security. Encryption, secure storage, and strict access controls should be implemented. Transparent privacy policies must be established to inform individuals about the collection, storage, and usage of their facial data.

Bias and Accuracy Awareness:

Facial recognition systems have been criticized for exhibiting biases and inaccuracies, particularly in recognizing faces from specific ethnicities, genders, or age groups. Rigorous testing is essential to ensure fairness, accuracy, and bias mitigation within facial recognition algorithms, thereby avoiding discriminatory outcomes and disproportionate impacts on certain demographics.

Consent and Opt-Out Mechanisms:

Individuals should have control over the collection and utilization of their facial data. Obtaining informed consent prior to capturing facial images is crucial. Clear opt-out mechanisms should be readily available, allowing individuals to withdraw consent and request the deletion of their data. Transparent communication builds trust and ensures individuals’ autonomy.

Legal and Regulatory Compliance:

Facial recognition technology is subject to diverse legal and regulatory frameworks that vary across jurisdictions. Businesses must stay informed about applicable laws and regulations concerning facial data collection, storage, and usage. Compliance with privacy laws, data protection regulations, and consent requirements is vital to mitigate legal risks and maintain a strong reputation.

Ethical Reflections:

Ethical dilemmas arise with facial recognition technology and demand careful consideration. Questions of consent, transparency, and potential misuse of facial data should be addressed. Establishing clear ethical guidelines and frameworks governing facial recognition system use is essential. Ethical practices should prioritize the protection of individuals’ rights, dignity, and freedom, ensuring technology benefits society without infringing on civil liberties.

By proactively tackling these issues, businesses can minimize risks associated with facial recognition technology and ensure responsible implementation. Open dialogues with stakeholders, including customers, employees, and regulatory bodies, foster transparency and accountability in the use of facial recognition systems. This approach promotes trust, protects privacy, and upholds ethical standards, enabling businesses to harness the benefits of facial recognition while respecting individual rights and societal concerns.

Business Guide to Facial Recognition: Applications and Issues to Consider
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Amazon CEO: Prime Delivering Items Faster Than Ever Before

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Amazon CEO: Prime Delivering Items Faster Than Ever Before

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy says the company’s Prime service is delivering more goods to more customers faster than ever in its 18-year history.

Amazon Prime is one of the company’s most popular services, providing members with discounted prices and same or next-day delivery. According to a tweet by Jassy, the company has hit a new record in terms of Prime deliveries:

We’re now delivering for U.S. Prime members faster than we have in the 18-year history of Prime (over 1.8B same-day or next-day deliveries so far this year). Customers really appreciate being able to get their items this quickly, and I’m proud of the invention and hard work from our teams to get to this point. We’re not done inventing here.

— Andy Jassy (@ajassy) — July 31, 2023

Doug Herrington, CEO of Worldwide Amazon Stores, credits “regionalizing” US operations with the improved service:

In short, we divided the country into smaller, easier-to-reach regions. Previously, we fulfilled orders from any of our operational sites across the country. Now we have eight interconnected regions serving smaller geographic areas. We keep a broad selection of inventory in each region, making it faster and less expensive to get those products to customers. Today, more than 76% of the orders we fulfill come from within the customer’s region. Items shipped from nearby fulfillment centers or delivery stations helps packages get to customers not only faster, but also with fewer emissions.

Herrington also says the company has started using smaller, same-day delivery facilities to facilitate faster processing and delivery:

As a result, the average time from picking a customer’s items to positioning the customer’s package on the outbound dock is 11 minutes in Same-Day facilities, more than an hour faster than our traditional fulfillment centers. And these hybrid facilities allow us to fulfill, sort, and deliver all from one site—making the entire process of delivering customer packages even faster.

Amazon is clearly firing on all cylinders, giving Prime customers the price and service they want and demonstrating why Amazon is a growing threat to traditional retailers.

Amazon CEO: Prime Delivering Items Faster Than Ever Before
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Walmart and PepsiCo Collaborate On Regenerative Agriculture

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Walmart and PepsiCo Collaborate On Regenerative Agriculture

Walmart and PepsiCo have announced a seven-year collaboration to bring regenerative agriculture to more than two million acres of farmland.

Regenerative agriculture involves improving soil health and water quality, as well as protecting the environment by reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The companies tout the impressive gains that can come from regenerative agriculture:

PepsiCo and Walmart today announced a 7-year collaboration to pursue $120 million worth of investments focused on supporting U.S. and Canadian farmers in their pursuit to improve soil health and water quality. By establishing and scaling financial, agronomic and social programs, it aims to enable and accelerate the adoption of regenerative agriculture practices on more than 2 million acres of farmland and deliver approximately 4 million metric tons of greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reductions and removals by 2030 – roughly equivalent to the amount of electricity needed to power 778,300 homes for one year.

Rather than a one-size-fits-all endeavor, the two companies are taking a pragmatic approach, with the program being voluntary and offering farmers flexible options.

“Successful sustainability starts and ends with trust. At PepsiCo, we work very hard to earn the trust of the farmer so they understand that we are investing in their legacy, and they can hand their farm down to the next generation,” said Jim Andrew, Chief Sustainability Officer, PepsiCo. “Farmers know their business better than anyone else, and what we hear from them is that for regenerative agriculture to make business sense, three things need to happen. They need economic support, social and cultural support, and agronomic support. This strategic collaboration with Walmart will advance our shared goal to have farmers’ backs as they transform farming in a way that benefits the planet and people.”

“At Walmart, our sustainability strategy is built to make the everyday choice the sustainable choice for our customers,” said Jane Ewing, Senior Vice President for sustainability at Walmart. “This collaboration with PepsiCo is a great example of how we are prioritizing the expansion of regenerative agricultural practices among farmers across North America so that we can continue to make quality products affordable and accessible for customers. This collaboration aims to help elevate farmer livelihoods, engage them on how to more sustainably manage soil health, increase yields and create a model that others can mimic across other product categories, including encouraging additional investments in regenerative agriculture by other brands.”

Walmart and PepsiCo Collaborate On Regenerative Agriculture
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Four-Day Work Weeks Lead to Happier Employees and Higher Revenue

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Four-Day Work Weeks Lead to Happier Employees and Higher Revenue

Companies looking to increase revenue while boosting employee happiness should consider adopting a four-day workweek.

According to Business Insider, New Zealand nonprofit, 4 Day Week Global conducted a pilot program with companies in the US, UK, and Australia. The program was designed to determine what, if any, benefits there were from transitioning to a four-day workweek.

The pilot program’s results were rather enlightening, with company revenue increasing by 15%. What’s more, despite employee work intensity dropping, overall efficiency was up, as was employee satisfaction. In fact, one-third of employees said they were less likely to leave their job as a result of the change.

The study, conducted over an entire year, is one of the most comprehensive such studies, giving companies plenty of long-term data in support of a four-day work work.

“A concern we frequently hear is there’s no way the results from our six-month trials can be maintained, as the novelty eventually must wear off, but here we are a year later with benefits only continuing to grow,” said Dale Whelehan, CEO of 4 Day Week Global. “This is very promising for the sustainability of this model, and we look forward to tracking companies’ experiences well into the future.”

As Insider points out, at least one US lawmaker is using the study as impetus for permanent change in the American workforce.

“4 Day Week Global’s latest study make the urgent need for my Thirty-Two Hour Workweek Act overwhelmingly clear,” Rep. Mark Takano said in a statement. “The four-day workweek can be implemented with positive impacts on workers and businesses, and this extensive study bolsters the employee feedback from shorter trial studies. The four-day workweek is here to stay.”

Four-Day Work Weeks Lead to Happier Employees and Higher Revenue
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Former Microsoft President Joins Google Cloud, Touts ‘Staggering Depth of Talent’

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Former Microsoft President Joins Google Cloud, Touts ‘Staggering Depth of Talent’

James Phillips, a former Microsoft President, has joined Google Cloud, saying, “the depth of talent here is staggering.”

Phillips worked at Microsoft for a decade, serving as VP for eight years and company President for another two, before leaving in April 2022. Phillips revealed his new role as VP at Google Cloud in a LinkedIn post:

This week I joined the Google Cloud leadership team. I’m grateful for the warm welcome from Thomas Kurian and all my new colleagues. And with so many former colleagues who’ve joined before me, it feels a bit like a homecoming. The depth of talent here is staggering – across every discipline; and the energy and momentum is palpable and contagious.

Given Google’s emphasis on AI, Phillips unsurprisingly touts the benefits of the technology for the cloud industry:

We are accelerating into a world in which data (information) and AI will transform every business process, across every enterprise, spanning every industry. Since its founding, Google’s mission has been to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. The company’s innovations and contributions in furtherance of this mission are nearly innumerable – but includes the foundational work underlying the recent explosion of generative AI models. The depth and breadth of that innovation is embodied in the Google Cloud platform.

Google has been making moves in the cloud industry, furthering CEO Thomas Kurian’s efforts to move from third to second place. Part of Kurian’s strategy has been to remake the company’s leadership to make it more competitive. Google Cloud most recently recruited Chris Vonderhaar, former AWS data center lead.

Nabbing high-profile execs like Phillips and Vonderhaar is sure to help that goal.

Former Microsoft President Joins Google Cloud, Touts ‘Staggering Depth of Talent’
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Apple Promises Screen Time Fix

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Apple Promises Screen Time Fix

Apple says it will fix a bug in Screen Time parental controls, one that is preventing changes from being saved.

Screen Time with Family Sharing provides a way for parents to review their children’s activity and limit how much they use their devices. Unfortunately, a bug is preventing settings from being saved. As a result, whatever the settingswere before the bug was introduced are the settings that will remain in effect, regardless of how much a parent tries to change them.

Apple confirmed to The Wall Street Journal that it is aware of the bug and a fix is planned.

“We are aware that some users may be experiencing an issue where Screen Time settings are unexpectedly reset,” an Apple spokeswoman told WSJ. “We take these reports very seriously and we have been, and will continue, making updates to improve the situation.”

Apple Promises Screen Time Fix
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Health Data of Up to 11 Million Accessed by Hackers in MOVEit Breach

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Health Data of Up to 11 Million Accessed by Hackers in MOVEit Breach

Maximus, a US government contractor, says the health data of up to 11 million individuals was accessed by hackers exploiting a MOVEit zero-day flaw.

MOVEit is a secure file transfer utility used by many organizations. Unfortunately, the company behind it discovered a zero-day vulnerability that allowed hackers to gain access, according to an SEC filing by Maximus:

On May 31, 2023, Progress Software Corporation, the developer of MOVEit (“MOVEit”), a file transfer application used by many organizations to transfer data, announced a critical zero-day vulnerability in the application that allowed unauthorized third parties to access its customers’ MOVEit environments. It appears that a significant number of commerhttps://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/1032220/000103222023000061/mms-20230726.htmcial and government customers worldwide were affected by this vulnerability. Maximus, Inc. (“Maximus” or the “Company”) uses MOVEit for internal and external file sharing purposes, including to share data with government customers pertaining to individuals who participate in various government programs. The Company believes that the personal information of a significant number of individuals was accessed by an unauthorized third party by exploiting this MOVEit vulnerability. The Company is cooperating with law enforcement regarding this cybersecurity incident.

Maximus estimates that investigation and remediation costs will come in at $15 million.

Health Data of Up to 11 Million Accessed by Hackers in MOVEit Breach
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Google Lays Off Its Director of News Ecosystem Development

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Google Lays Off Its Director of News Ecosystem Development

Google has laid off Madhav Chinnappa, its Director of News Ecosystem Development, in a move that raises questions about its future plans.

Google has a number of initiatives to help support news publishers and journalists. Despite this, the company has increasingly been in the headlines for being at odds with jurisdictions that want the company to pay publishers for the news it links to and uses, most recently blocking news in Canada.

In the midst of this, Google has laid off Chinnappa, a 13-year veteran of the company. Chinnappa revealed the news in a LinkedIn post, in which he showed his Google employee badge:

tl;dr from the image you can probably guess what this is about: I am leaving Google as part of the #googlelayoffs

Chinnappa says he will take some time off before looking for a new job:

And what now: I am in the privileged position of being able some time to figure that out. In the near term, I have some pressing family issues that need my fuller attention so in the spirit of the Zen proverb that the tea cup must be empty before it can be full, I will take August off then spend September looking after my mum in India and only start thinking about work in October with a view to doing more things in 2024. Though if you have any ideas or thoughts, please message me as I am all ears and have more time on my hands now!

Thank you if you made it all the way down here and have a lovely summer and take care – Madhav

Chinnappa’s departure, especially after more than a decade at the company, certainly raises questions about what Google has planned for its news initiatives.

Google Lays Off Its Director of News Ecosystem Development
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Intel Is Going All-In on AI; Will Include It Across Entire Product Line

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Intel Is Going All-In on AI; Will Include It Across Entire Product Line

AI is taking the tech world by storm, and Intel is determined not to be left behind, with plans to include AI across all its products.

Intel has been working to regain its crown as the world’s leading chipmaker. With the rise of AI, the company clearly sees an opportunity to leverage the new technology. In the company’s recent earnings call, CEO Pat Gelsinger said Intel will “build AI into every product that we build.”

Gelsinger also emphasized his belief that AI must make the transition to client devices rather than the cloud if it is to see full-scale adoption (via The Verge).

Today, you’re starting to see that people are going to the cloud and goofing around with ChatGPT writing a research paper and, you know, that’s like super cool, right? And kids are of course simplifying their homework assignments that way, but you’re not going to do that for every client — because becoming AI enabled, it must be done on the client for that to occur, right? You can’t go to the cloud. You can’t round trip to the cloud.

All of the new effects: real-time language translation in your zoom calls, real-time transcription, automation inferencing, relevance portraying, generated content and gaming environments, real-time creator environments through Adobe and others that are doing those as part of the client, new productivity tools — being able to do local legal brief generations on a clients, one after the other, right? Across every aspect of consumer, developer and enterprise efficiency use cases, we see that there’s going to be a raft of AI enablement and those will be client-centered. Those will also be at the edge.

You can’t round trip to the cloud. You don’t have the latency, the bandwidth, or the cost structure to round trip, say, inferencing at a local convenience store to the cloud. It will all happen at the edge and at the client.

Gelsinger even made the case that AI will eventually be used in devices as small as a hearing aid:

AI is going to be in every hearing aid in the future, including mine. Whether it’s a client, whether it’s an edge platform for retail and manufacturing and industrial use cases, whether it’s an enterprise data center, they’re not going to stand up a dedicated 10-megawatt farm.”

Gelsinger and Intel clearly see AI, especially client-side AI, as a way for Intel to make up lost ground. It will be interesting to see if the company can execute its vision.

Intel Is Going All-In on AI; Will Include It Across Entire Product Line
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Google Messages Expands Pinned Conversations

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Google Messages Expands Pinned Conversations

Google Messages is getting a nice feature upgrade, giving users the ability to pin up to five conversations at the top of the screen.

Conversation pinning is a popular feature in messaging apps, including iMessage, Signal, and Telegram. Google Messages already has the feature, but it was limited to three conversations.

First spotted by 9to5Google, the latest beta of Messages increases the number of pinned conversations to five. The new version will display a helpful tip bubble to let users know the feature is available.

Google Messages Pin 5 Conversations – Credit 9to5Google

Google Messages Expands Pinned Conversations
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Elon Musk: Twitter ‘Will Soon Only Have Dark Mode’

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Elon Musk: Twitter ‘Will Soon Only Have Dark Mode’

Twitter users are in for yet another big change, with Elon Musk saying the platform will ditch light mode in favor of dark mode.

Dark mode is a popular option for computer and phone interfaces, but many people still prefer traditional light interface options. According to a tweet by Musk, however, Twitter is going all-in on dark mode:

This platform will soon only have “dark mode”. It is better in every way.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 27, 2023

The news shouldn’t really come as a surprise, with recent events showing that nothing is off the table when it comes to decisions at Twitter.

Elon Musk: Twitter ‘Will Soon Only Have Dark Mode’
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Sen. Wyden: ‘Hold Microsoft Responsible for Its Negligent Cybersecurity Practices’

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Sen. Wyden: ‘Hold Microsoft Responsible for Its Negligent Cybersecurity Practices’

Senator Ron Wyden is calling on the Department of Justice to “hold Microsoft responsible for its Negligent cybersecurity practices.”

Microsoft has been under fire since Chinese hackers compromised the company’s cloud email service, including US government email accounts. Critics accused the company of placing critical security features behind its most expensive plans, making it all but impossible for customers on lower-priced plans to have any indication they were compromised.

The company has also faced ongoing accusations that it is not divulging the full extent of the breach, especially in regard to questions about encryption keys that were compromised.

Senator Wyden is one of those who is not happy with Microsoft’s official line, and the senator wants answers. In a letter to US Attorney General Merrick B. Garland, FTC Chairwoman Lina Khan, and CISA Director Jen Easterly, Senator Wyden calls for an investigation into Microsoft’s lapses.

I write to request that your agencies take action to hold Microsoft responsible for its negligent cybersecurity practices, which enabled a successful Chinese espionage campaign against the United States government.

Senator Wyden then goes on to demonstrate that Microsoft has a history of not taking appropriate safeguards to protect its customers, citing the company’s involvement in the Solar Winds incident as an example before tying it to this latest incident.

Even with the limited details that have been made public so far, Microsoft bears significant responsibility for this new incident. First, Microsoft should not have had a single skeleton key that, when inevitably stolen, could be used to forge access to different customers’ private communications. Second, as Microsoft pointed out after the SolarWinds incident, high-value encryption keys should be stored in an HSM, whose sole function is to prevent the theft of encryption keys. But Microsoft’s admission that they have now moved consumer encryption keys to a “hardened key store used for our enterprise systems” raises serious questions about whether Microsoft followed its own security advice and stored such keys in an HSM. Third, the encryption key used in this latest hack was created by Microsoft in 2016, and it expired in 2021. Federal cybersecurity guidelines, industry best practices, and Microsoft’s own recommendations to customers, dictate that encryption keys be refreshed more frequently, for the very reason that they might become compromised. And authentication tokens signed by an expired key should never have been accepted as valid. Finally, while Microsoft’s engineers should never have deployed systems that violated such basic cybersecurity principles, these obvious flaws should have been caught by Microsoft’s internal and external security audits. That these flaws were not detected raises questions about what other serious cybersecurity defects these auditors also missed.

Senator Wyden is calling for an investigation to determine “whether Microsoft’s negligent practices violated federal law,” as well as whether the company violated a 20-year consent decree pertaining to cybersecurity. Although the decree expired in December 2022, it is possible that Microsoft’s action may predate the expiration of that agreement.

Senator Wyden has a well-deserved reputation as a tech-savvy lawmaker with a focus on cybersecurity and privacy protection. As a result, Microsoft should be concerned that he, of all senators, is taking aim at the company.

Sen. Wyden: ‘Hold Microsoft Responsible for Its Negligent Cybersecurity Practices’
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Google Rightfully Gets Panned For Its ‘Web Environment Integrity’

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Google Rightfully Gets Panned For Its ‘Web Environment Integrity’

Google is once again mucking with internet technologies and standards, this time pushing one critics say will essentially ‘DRM the web.’

Four Googlers took to GitHub to author an explainer on exactly what Web Environment Integrity does and the problem it tries to solve. It doesn’t take long to figure out exactly what Google’s motivations are:

Users often depend on websites trusting the client environment they run in. This trust may assume that the client environment is honest about certain aspects of itself, keeps user data and intellectual property secure, and is transparent about whether or not a human is using it. This trust is the backbone of the open internet, critical for the safety of user data and for the sustainability of the website’s business.

That last statement is the key part of that entire paragraph, as evidenced by the next section:

Some examples of scenarios where users depend on client trust include:

• Users like visiting websites that are expensive to create and maintain, but they often want or need to do it without paying directly. These websites fund themselves with ads, but the advertisers can only afford to pay for humans to see the ads, rather than robots. This creates a need for human users to prove to websites that they’re human, sometimes through tasks like challenges or logins.
• Users want to know they are interacting with real people on social websites but bad actors often want to promote posts with fake engagement (for example, to promote products, or make a news story seem more important). Websites can only show users what content is popular with real people if websites are able to know the difference between a trusted and untrusted environment.
• Users playing a game on a website want to know whether other players are using software that enforces the game’s rules.
• Users sometimes get tricked into installing malicious software that imitates software like their banking apps, to steal from those users. The bank’s internet interface could protect those users if it could establish that the requests it’s getting actually come from the bank’s or other trustworthy software.

It’s no surprise that Google, the internet’s leading advertising platform, lists web advertising as the first reason for its Web Environment Integrity.

The explainer then goes on to outline Google’s solution, which involves websites using a “web environment integrity API” to verify the client device and decide whether to trust it.

Per Google’s own explainer, however, there are a slew of problems with this approach, including trying to prevent websites from tracking users’ browsing history, fingerprinting users, and engaging in cross-site tracking.

Unfortunately, Google takes inspiration from Android’s Play Integrity API and Apple’s App Attest, both of which verify the authenticity of the OS running on a smartphone. If a phone fails attestation, some apps will not work.

Unfortunately, rooting a device or installing a non-standard version of the OS can interfere with the attestation, setting up a user to be locked out from using some apps. Yet this is the model that Google is taking inspiration from for the web.

Imagine altering your computer or OS in some way that is not within the scope of the attestation process. Will your favorite websites still work? Or will you be locked out of online banking, membership sites, and more?

Google has been slammed by critics across industries for this idea — and with good reason. This is exactly the kind of nonsense that happens when the leading web advertising has too much influence on the direction of the internet.

Google Rightfully Gets Panned For Its ‘Web Environment Integrity’
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Automakers Team Up to Create a New EV Charging Network in North America

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Automakers Team Up to Create a New EV Charging Network in North America

A group of seven automakers are teaming up to create a new universal EV charging network in North America, with plans for 30,000 stations.

As the switch to EVs continues, range anxiety continues to be one of the biggest challenges. BMW Group, General Motors, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Mercedes-Benz Group, and Stellantis NV are working to help solve that problem with plans to deploy 30,000 new charging stations beginning in the summer of 2024.

The new charging stations will support both the Combined Charging System (CCS) and the North American Charging Standard (NACS).

“North America is one of the world’s most important car markets – with the potential to be a leader in electromobility,” said BMW Group CEO Oliver Zipse. “Accessibility to high-speed charging is one of the key enablers to accelerate this transition. Therefore, seven automakers are forming this joint venture with the goal of creating a positive charging experience for EV consumers. The BMW Group is proud to be among the founders.”

“GM’s commitment to an all-electric future is focused not only on delivering EVs our customers love, but investing in charging and working across the industry to make it more accessible,” said GM CEO Mary Barra. “The better experience people have, the faster EV adoption will grow.”

“The creation of EV charging services is an opportunity for automakers to produce excellent user experiences by providing complete, convenient and sustainable solutions for our customers,” said Honda CEO Toshihiro Mibe. “Toward that objective, this joint venture will be a critical step in accelerating EV adoption across the U.S. and Canada and supporting our efforts to achieve carbon neutrality.”

With roughly 32,000 EV chargers already in North America, this new network will nearly double the number available to consumers.

Automakers Team Up to Create a New EV Charging Network in North America
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Microsoft Finally Adds Firmware Analysis to Microsoft Defender for IoT

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Microsoft Finally Adds Firmware Analysis to Microsoft Defender for IoT

Microsoft has added the ability to analyze firmware for security risks to Microsoft Defender for IoT.

Firmware vulnerabilities are an often-overlooked attack vector, one that can be especially problematic for the IoT industry, given the plethora of devices organizations may be managing. Microsoft is finally making it easier for them to analyze their IoT devices.

The company announced the new features in a blog post:

“With modern endpoint solutions, IT and security analysts get visibility into the software inventories and known vulnerabilities for IT devices,” writes Microsoft’s Derick Naef. “But for IoT and OT devices without an agent, organizations don’t get the same level of visibility into the growing number of devices on their network. The devices are basically black boxes – without insight into what software or patch level was used to build the device, known vulnerabilities, or other potential anomalies. To help address this challenge, we are excited to announce the firmware analysis capability in Microsoft Defender for IoT – now available in Public Preview.”

The blog post goes on to highlight how the new feature works:

Firmware analysis takes a binary firmware image that runs on an IoT device and conducts an automated analysis to identify potential security vulnerabilities and weaknesses. This analysis provides insights into the software inventory, weaknesses, and certificates of IoT devices without requiring an endpoint agent to be deployed.

To use the firmware analysis capability, navigate to the “Firmware analysis (preview)” blade in Defender for IoT and upload an unencrypted Linux-based firmware image directly. The image needs to be acquired from the device vendor. Once the image is unpacked and the embedded file system is identified, a thorough security analysis of the firmware image identifies hidden threat vectors.

The new feature is a welcome addition, one that should go a long way toward helping organizations secure their IoT devices.

Microsoft Finally Adds Firmware Analysis to Microsoft Defender for IoT
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Ubuntu Users Uniquely Vulnerable to Linux Kernel Security Flaws

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Ubuntu Users Uniquely Vulnerable to Linux Kernel Security Flaws

A new report says nearly 40% of Ubuntu users are vulnerable to a pair of kernel vulnerabilities unique to Ubuntu and its derivative distributions.

According to Wiz researchers Sagi Tzadik and Shir Tamari, the issues stem from Ubuntu’s OverlayFS module. Several years ago, Ubuntu made custom modifications to OverlayFS. When combined with the changes made to the mainline Linux kernel, however, vulnerabilities in Ubuntu were overlooked, as the researchers describe:

The two vulnerabilities are exclusive to Ubuntu because Ubuntu introduced several changes to the OverlayFS module in 2018. These modifications did not pose any risks at the time. In 2020, a security vulnerability was discovered and patched in the Linux kernel, however due to Ubuntu’s modifications, an additional vulnerable flow was never fixed in Ubuntu. This shows the complex relationship between Linux kernel and distro versions, when both are updating the kernel for different use cases. This complexity poses hard-to-predict risks.

The researchers say that Ubuntu’s modifications pose serious risks to users:

Our team has discovered significant flaws in Ubuntu’s modifications to OverlayFS. These flaws allow the creation of specialized executables, which, upon execution, grant the ability to escalate privileges to root on the affected machine. Linux has a feature called “file capabilities” that grants elevated privileges to executables while they’re executed. This feature is reserved for the root user, while lower-privileged users cannot create such files. However, we discovered that it’s possible to craft an executable file with “scoped” file capabilities and trick the Ubuntu kernel into copying it to a different location with “unscoped” capabilities, granting anyone who executes it root-like privileges.

Fortunately, the researchers say that remote exploitation of these vulnerabilities — labeled CVE-2023-2640 and CVE-2023-32629 — is “improbable,” and local access to a machine is likely required.

However, all users should update their kernel as soon as possible to mitigate these two security issues.

Ubuntu Users Uniquely Vulnerable to Linux Kernel Security Flaws
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Occidental Signs Multiyear Agreement to Make AWS Its Preferred Cloud Provider

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Occidental Signs Multiyear Agreement to Make AWS Its Preferred Cloud Provider

AWS has scored Occidental as a cloud customer, signing a multiyear agreement to be the energy and carbon management company’s preferred cloud provider.

Occidental is in the midst of a major digital transformation and plans to move its applications and on-premise infrastructure to Amazon’s cloud. The company will use AWS to help it develop “systems that will remove carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere, including large-scale direct air capture (DAC) plants.”

AWS will work with Occidental and its 1PointFive subsidiary to develop the necessary systems architecture to power its DAC plants.

“AWS is helping Occidental digitally transform our operations, and together we are using innovative cloud solutions to drive energy efficiencies and decarbonize the atmosphere,” said Yanni Charalambous, vice president and chief information officer at Occidental. “Migrating our existing on-premises IT infrastructure to the AWS Cloud will help Occidental reduce infrastructure costs and enhance operational efficiencies, so we can innovate faster to advance our plans to reach net-zero and help others do the same.”

“Reducing carbon emissions, addressing growing energy demand, and ensuring energy security are top priorities for communities and companies across the globe,” said Uwem Ukpong, vice president of Global Services at AWS. “Occidental is using AWS’s advanced cloud technologies to take on these generational challenges, at scale, by optimizing carbon removal technology to hasten the world’s decarbonization efforts while increasing efficiencies and reducing the carbon footprint associated with energy production. We look forward to working with Occidental to make environmental sustainability and decarbonization a reality.”

Occidental Signs Multiyear Agreement to Make AWS Its Preferred Cloud Provider
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Facebook Tops 3 Billion Users, Threads Continues to Gain Ground

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Facebook Tops 3 Billion Users, Threads Continues to Gain Ground

Meta posted its quarterly results, shedding light on Facebook’s user base and Threads’ adoption rates.

According to Meta’s quarterly results, Facebook now has 3 billion monthly active users. The company had good news for its daily active users as well:

For the first time, we crossed 3 billion monthly active users, with Facebook MAU ending at 3.03 billion in June, up 3% or 96 million compared to last year. Facebook daily active users were 2.06 billion, up 5% or 96 million. DAUs represented approximately 68% of MAUs.

Interestingly, when taking all of Meta’s platforms together, Zuckerberg says the company has 3.8 billion monthly active users.

This was a good quarter for our business. We’re seeing strong engagement trends across our apps. There are now more than 3.8 billion people who use at least one of our apps every month. Facebook now has more than 3 billion monthly actives — with daily actives continuing to grow around the world, including in the US and Canada.

All eyes are on Threads, Meta’s Twitter-killer that saw some of the fastest adoption in the history of social media. The app passed 100 million users in five days, before settling down. Zuckerberg says Meta will be using its time-tested formula to continue growing Threads.

On Threads, briefly, I’m quite optimistic about our trajectory here. We saw unprecedented growth out of the gate and more importantly we’re seeing more people coming back daily than I’d expected. And now, we’re focused on retention and improving the basics. And then after that, we’ll focus on growing the community to the scale that we think is going to be possible. Only after that will we focus on monetization. We’ve run this playbook many times before — with Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Stories, Reels, and more — and this is as good of a start as we could have hoped for, so I’m really happy with the path that we’re on here.

Meta’s latest quarterly results show the company still has substantial room for growth, despite Facebook not being as popular among younger audiences as some newer rivals.

Facebook Tops 3 Billion Users, Threads Continues to Gain Ground
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EU Opens Anticompetition Investigation Into Microsoft Teams Bundling

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EU Opens Anticompetition Investigation Into Microsoft Teams Bundling

Microsoft has failed to head off a full-fledged EU investigation into Teams, with the bloc announcing it will investigate the company’s “anticompetitive practices.”

Microsoft has been under fire in the EU over Teams ever since Slack filed a complaint in July 2023. Slack maintained that Microsoft’s practice of bundling Teams with Office gave it an unfair advantage in the market.

The EU has been looking at how Microsoft bundles Teams but had stopped short of a full-fledged antitrust investigation. Microsoft, in turn, has signaled a willingness to make concessions, including decoupling Teams from Office and even being willing to charge for Teams.

Despite these concessions, it appears the EU is not satisfied and is opening a full investigation into Microsoft’s practices with Teams. The EU Commission outlined its concerns in a press release:

Microsoft includes Teams in its well-entrenched cloud-based productivity suites for business customers Office 365 and Microsoft 365. The Commission is concerned that Microsoft may be abusing and defending its market position in productivity software by restricting competition in the European Economic Area (‘EEA’) for communication and collaboration products.

In particular, the Commission is concerned that Microsoft may grant Teams a distribution advantage by not giving customers the choice on whether or not to include access to that product when they subscribe to their productivity suites and may have limited the interoperability between its productivity suites and competing offerings.

These practices may constitute anti-competitive tying or bundling and prevent suppliers of other communication and collaboration tools from competing, to the detriment of customers in the European Economic Area (‘EEA’).

“Remote communication and collaboration tools like Teams have become indispensable for many businesses in Europe,” said Margrethe Vestager, Executive Vice-President in charge of competition policy. “We must therefore ensure that the markets for these products remain competitive, and companies are free to choose the products that best meet their needs. This is why we are investigating whether Microsoft’s tying of its productivity suites with Teams may be in breach of EU competition rules.”

EU Opens Anticompetition Investigation Into Microsoft Teams Bundling
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OpenAI Is Tied to Microsoft — For Better or Worse

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OpenAI Is Tied to Microsoft — For Better or Worse

OpenAI’s biggest investor is Microsoft, but the firm’s ties to the Redmond company may be costing it some business.

Part of Microsoft’s deal with OpenAI involves Microsoft Azure being OpenAI’s exclusive cloud provider. According to Semafor, however, that exclusivity may be costing OpenAI customers.

The outlet reports that some customers have asked to use ChatGPT on their own on-premise servers or on the cloud service of their choice, but OpenAI does not currently support either option. In contrast, OpenAI’s rivals have made a point of supporting multiple deployment options and infrastructures.

As Semafor reports, the Microsoft lock-in could hinder adoption for companies that are hesitant to have their data sent to OpenAI or Microsoft’s servers.

While OpenAI may be leading the AI revolution, it will likely need to adopt wider deployment options or risk being surpassed by rivals.

OpenAI Is Tied to Microsoft — For Better or Worse
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Apple May Bring macOS Game Mode to iOS

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Apple May Bring macOS Game Mode to iOS

Apple’s iOS may be getting a major upgrade in the gaming department, with reports the company is trying to bring Game Mode to the mobile platform.

As part of WWDC, Apple introduced Game Mode as a way to improve gaming on macOS. Much like the Linux service of the same name, Game Mode works by enhancing performance in the background. Apple’s implementation, however, goes even further by improving Bluetooth latency.

According to 9to5Mac, Apple is looking to bring Game Mode to iOS, adding some of the underlying frameworks to iOS17 beta 4.

While Apple is working to improve the Mac’s gaming ability, implementing Game Mode on iOS makes even more sense. iOS is already used heavily for gaming, and Game Mode’s enhancements would improve that experience even more.

Apple May Bring macOS Game Mode to iOS
Matt Milano

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Teamsters Claim ‘Historic UPS Contract’ Win

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Teamsters Claim ‘Historic UPS Contract’ Win

The Teamsters have claimed a major victory in their negotiations with UPS, calling it a “historic UPS contact.”

Negotiations between UPS and the Teamsters broke down in early July, opening the door to a potential strike. Ultimately, it appears the two parties have managed to work out their differences, striking a deal the Teamsters hailed as a game changer.

“Rank-and-file UPS Teamsters sacrificed everything to get this country through a pandemic and enabled UPS to reap record-setting profits. Teamster labor moves America. The union went into this fight committed to winning for our members. We demanded the best contract in the history of UPS, and we got it,” said Teamsters General President Sean M. O’Brien. “UPS has put $30 billion in new money on the table as a direct result of these negotiations. We’ve changed the game, battling it out day and night to make sure our members won an agreement that pays strong wages, rewards their labor, and doesn’t require a single concession. This contract sets a new standard in the labor movement and raises the bar for all workers.”

“UPS came dangerously close to putting itself on strike, but we kept firm on our demands. In my more than 40 years in Louisville representing members at Worldport — the largest UPS hub in the country — I have never seen a national contract that levels the playing field for workers so dramatically as this one. The agreement puts more money in our members’ pockets and establishes a full range of new protections for them on the job,” said Teamsters General Secretary-Treasurer Fred Zuckerman. “We stayed focused on our members and fought like hell to get everything that full-time and part-time UPS Teamsters deserve.”

The new contract sees significant raises for full and part-time employees, bringing the average top rate of UPS drivers to $49 per hour. The contract also stipulates improved safety and health measures, including air conditioning and cargo ventilation in company vehicles. The contract also prevents employees from being forced to work overtime on their days off, as well as limits the busiest seasonal work period. All employees will also receive Martin Luther King Day as a full holiday.

The entire list of contract wins can be viewed here.

Teamsters Claim ‘Historic UPS Contract’ Win
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Senate Passes Measures to Restrict Chinese Tech and Farming Interests

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Senate Passes Measures to Restrict Chinese Tech and Farming Interests

The US Senate has passed two measures that will impact China’s tech and farming industries in an effort to protect US interests.

US lawmakers have grown increasingly concerned about US investment in Chinese tech companies, potentially sowing the seeds that will undo US dominance in the tech industry.

“We shouldn’t be funding our own destruction,” said Rep. Mike Gallagher, Chairman of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party.

According to Reuters, the US Senate has taken action, approving an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The new measure would require US companies to notify authorities of any investments in Chinese tech companies.

“We need this type of outbound investment notification to understand just how much… critical technology we are transferring to our adversaries via these capital flows. With this information in hand, we can begin to take control of our economic future,” said Senator Bob Casey when urging senators to vote in favor of the amendment. The vote passed 91-6.

The Senate also passed another amendment to NDAA, one that adds additional reviews and restrictions on Chinese, Russian, Iranian, or North Korean interests purchasing US farmland. That amendment passed 91-7.

Senate Passes Measures to Restrict Chinese Tech and Farming Interests
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Google CFO Ruth Porat Appointed to a New Role

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Google CFO Ruth Porat Appointed to a New Role

Google CFO Ruth Porat has been appointed to a new position, taking on the role of President and Chief Investment Officer of Alphabet and Google.

Google disclosed the news in its quarterly report press release, saying Porat will continue as CFO while the company looks for her successor. In her new role, Porat will oversee the company’s Other Bets portfolio, reporting directly to Alphabet/Google CEO Sundar Pichai.

“Ruth has worked to drive financial discipline and returns for shareholders, while spearheading investment to create sustainable, long-term value. As today’s results show, we’re making good progress and we’re committed to continuing this important work,” Sundar said. “In her new role, Ruth will strengthen our collaboration with policy makers and shape our corporate investments to have maximum economic impact for people and economies around the world.”

“I’m excited about this new role and the opportunity to engage with leaders globally to unlock economic growth via technology and investment,” said Ruth. “I’m committed to Google’s continued growth and ensuring that our diverse global investments are supported with strong partnership to create opportunities for people and communities, everywhere.”

Google CFO Ruth Porat Appointed to a New Role
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Google’s Foldables and Tablets Get a New Play Store

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Google’s Foldables and Tablets Get a New Play Store

Google is going all in on its new foldables and tablets, redesigning the Play Store to help showcase apps designed to work with larger devices.

The Google Pixel Fold was released to fairly good reviews, with many praising Google’s design and engineering. One weak point, however, was the lack of apps that took advantage of the new form factor.

The company seems intent on addressing the issue, redesigning the Play Store to place large apps front and center. The company says the Play Store has been improved in four ways:

1. Refreshed app listing pages for high-quality appsYour store listing page is the best way to demonstrate the functionality and value of your app, so we’ve revamped the experience to put your content front and center. Games with high-quality videos will show a video banner at the top of their app listing page, allowing users to get a sense of gameplay in an immersive way. We’ve also reorganized apps and games details pages in a multi-column layout, bringing more of your content higher up the page.
2. Ranking and quality improvementsTo promote high-quality apps that shine on large screens, we’ve made several ranking changes to boost quality across Play. Apps and games that adhere to our large screen app quality guidelines will now be ranked higher in search and Apps and Games Home. This helps users find apps that resize well, aren’t letterboxed, and support both portrait and landscape orientations. Editors’ Choice and other curated collections and articles will also consider these criteria going forward, creating new featuring opportunities for optimized apps.
3. Streamlined store navigationFor more seamless browsing, we’ve simplified our store navigation and moved to a left-side navigation rail on larger screens. This puts menu items closer to users’ thumbs and makes them more accessible, especially when holding a device in landscape mode.
4. Split-screen searchWe’re launching a split-screen search experience on large screens, displaying search results and app details pages side by side. This prevents users from switching back and forth when exploring new apps and streamlines the discovery process.

The new features should go a long way toward addressing the criticism some users had regarding the Pixel Fold.

Google’s Foldables and Tablets Get a New Play Store
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3 Ways to Set Your Brand Apart in the B2B Space

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3 Ways to Set Your Brand Apart in the B2B Space

The landscape of marketing is changing, and many of the principles you learned a few years ago no longer apply. Indeed, in just a few short years, the entire internet could look very different from how it does today. One of the biggest differences is that you can’t just sell customers on the problem-solving aspects of your solution anymore. You have to make them choose you by convincing them you’re a trusted source of information that will help them succeed.

This may be even more true for B2B customers than it is for individual consumers. Top decision-makers need to know what makes your brand the strongest possible partner. You have to persuade them to choose you by winning their trust. Read on to learn more about three powerful ways to establish yourself as a reliable source and a stellar brand.

1. Host a Podcast

Podcasting is one of the most accessible formats for B2B marketers who want to establish brand credibility. This is in part because, unlike building a website or creating video content, podcasting requires little technical expertise. You can get started with as little as a smartphone and a quiet space like a conference room, garage, or home office.

With podcasting, you don’t need to know how to craft a flawless paragraph or equip your site with the right codes and widgets. If you can talk about your product, most of your work is already done for you. You can then get deeper into the tech aspect of podcasting, tweaking sound levels or adding advanced effects. 

Podcasting is an ingenious method of connecting on a deeper level with your customers and gaining their trust. People who regularly listen to your voice will feel personally invested in your brand. With the right podcast marketing strategy, you’re not just producing and sharing content with your listeners. You’re getting into their kitchens and cars, becoming a confidante and an important part of their weekly routine.

That relationship with your customers is a key part of establishing your brand authority. But so is the content you curate and how you choose to present it on your podcast. For podcast marketing to succeed, you need to share helpful, expert content on the right subject matter. This can include following and analyzing breaking news in your industry and offering your customers practical insights and recommendations.

2. Up Your Social Media Game

You doubtless already know that social media is a good way to build trust and authority with your customer base. As in podcasting, your followers can come to feel close to you and rely on you for important content. Research shows that most people trust influencers more than they trust information coming directly from brands. This is likely because of the relationships they build mentally with these creators. Partnering with an influencer to represent your brand can help foster this closeness.

One way social media and other forms of brand content can establish greater credibility is through the use of experts. This could mean hiring an expert to represent you as the face of your company on social media. Let’s say you own a tech solution that analyzes supply chain data to help big retailers with inventory management. You could hire a shipping and logistics expert to speak on social media about common problems your product could solve. 

Besides influencer and expert content, there are other ways to use social media to build brand authority. One huge one is being available — 24/7, if possible — to respond to mentions and DMs from customers. Being able to answer customer questions accurately and immediately can establish customer trust and satisfaction. Doing so in a friendly, casual tone also makes your brand seem more accessible.

One important caveat about a social media brand authority strategy: It raises the stakes. Screwing up can cause you to hemorrhage brand authority, and fast. If you’re wrong about a fact, accidentally post something offensive, or commit another social media faux pas, own up immediately. Every second you waste defending an online mistake can cost you thousands of followers — and your reputation.

3. Don’t Neglect Email and Onsite Content

One of your most important brand authority tools is the content you share on your website and in regular emails. Providing useful, newsworthy, informative, expert content can get your customers to your site (or opening your emails) again and again. The more well-researched and engaging your content is, the more effective it will be.

If you’ve performed any kind of internet search lately, you might have noticed results have been looking a little different. Increasingly, large search engines are turning up trustworthy blog content rather than other educational resources to answer user questions. More often than not, the snippet with an answer will turn up a B2B blog post over a Wikipedia entry.

Not only that, more and more companies like Google and Microsoft are experimenting with AI search. This conversational search format is designed to discover content with well-packaged, useful sentences and paragraphs more readily than SEO keywords. What that means is, developing truly useful content on your website or blog is no longer optional. You’ll need to be a topical authority in your industry if you want to stay relevant in the AI world.

One highly effective strategy for using blog, website, or other content to establish credibility and a following is called newsjacking. In newsjacking, you take a timely topic or search term and post an in-depth, newsworthy analysis piece on your blog. To use the supply chain solution example again, let’s say a major shipping company’s workers are about to strike. A thoroughly researched post on the potential consequences of the strike could help your customers see you as an expert on the topic.

Inform and Engage

In plotting your podcasts, social media efforts, and written content, think about interactivity and connection. How can you make the experience feel less like work and more like fun? Some examples are running polls or Live Q&As on social media or podcasts, where customers can participate in real time. You can also include game-like tools on your website, like cost calculators or interactive demos.

To establish brand authority, you do need to be a solid source of industry insights, facts, and stats. You want your customers to have total trust in any data or other details you share. That said, it’s just as crucial to keep your audience entertained and interested. Getting them to come to you because it’s useful and enjoyable will keep your brand image positive.

3 Ways to Set Your Brand Apart in the B2B Space
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Back From the Dead: Chevrolet Announces a New Bolt

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Back From the Dead: Chevrolet Announces a New Bolt

Just weeks after it announced it was killing off the Chevy Bolt, Chevrolet has revealed plans for a next-generation model.

The Chevy Bolt is GM’s most popular electric vehicle, making its discontinuation a surprise to many. Chevrolet’s decision also left a gaping hole in the EV market, as the Bolt was one of the only affordable options for many consumers.

CEO Mary Barra announced the next-generation Bolt during the company’s quarterly earnings.

“Our customers love today’s Bolt. It has been delivering record sales and some of the highest customer satisfaction and loyalty scores in the industry,” said Barra. “It’s also an important source of conquest sales for the company and for Chevrolet.”

“We will keep the momentum going by delivering a new Bolt…and we will execute it more quickly compared to an all-new program with significantly lower engineering expense and capital investment by updating the vehicle with Ultium and Ultifi technologies and by applying our ‘winning with simplicity’ discipline.”

The current generation will still be discontinued according to schedule, but at least customers won’t have to wait long for the next-gen replacement.

Back From the Dead: Chevrolet Announces a New Bolt
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TikTok Unveils Text Posts

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TikTok Unveils Text Posts

TikTok has unveiling a new way for creators to post content and potentially taking a swipe at Twitter in the process.

The company announced the new feature in a blog post:

Today we’re thrilled to announce the expansion of text posts on TikTok, a new format for creating text-based content that broadens options for creators to share their ideas and express their creativity. With text posts, we’re expanding the boundaries of content creation for everyone on TikTok, giving the written creativity we’ve seen in comments, captions, and videos a dedicated space to shine.

The company says text creation will be accessed via the Camera page:

When you access the Camera page, you’ll be able to choose from three options: photo, video, and text. By selecting text, you’ll be directed to the text creation page, where you can type out the content of your post.

TikTok is also adding various ways to enhance text posts:

Upon reaching the Post page, you’ll find familiar options to customize your content. These include adding Sound, tagging a location, enabling comments, and allowing Duets, among others. These features make it so your text posts are just as dynamic and interactive as any video or photo post.

The timing is conspicuous, with TikTok releasing the new feature while Twitter is in the midst of a major rebranding that is not going well. TikTok likely sees the new feature as a way to steal some of Twitter’s thunder.

TikTok Unveils Text Posts
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EU Adopts Law to Deploy EV Charging Stations Every 60 KM

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EU Adopts Law to Deploy EV Charging Stations Every 60 KM

The EU has adopted a new law that will see an explosion of EV charging stations by 2025, with a station placed every 60 km (37 miles) on EU highways.

The EU is aggressively moving forward with legislation to promote EVs, but its latest law could solve one of the biggest challenges to EV adoption: range anxiety.

The bloc plans to deploy charging stations every 60 km on the main EU transport corridors, also knows as the ‘trans-European transport (TEN-T) network.’ The stations will provide 150kW. These stations must be installed by 2025. These stations will be for passenger vehicles and vans.

At the same time, chargers for heavy-duty vehicles will need to be installed every 60 km on the core TEN-T network by 2025, providing at least 350kW. Coverage on the broader TEN-T network will be provided every 100 km (62 miles) beginning in 2025, with complete TEN-T coverage by 2030.

“The new law is a milestone of our ‘Fit for 55’ policy providing for more public recharging capacity on the streets in cities and along the motorways across Europe,” said Raquel Sánchez Jiménez, Spanish Minister of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda. “We are optimistic that in the near future, citizens will be able to charge their electric cars as easily as they do today in traditional petrol stations.”

EU Adopts Law to Deploy EV Charging Stations Every 60 KM
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Verizon Is Raising the Price of Its Home Internet

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Verizon Is Raising the Price of Its Home Internet

Verizon is raising the price of its 5G and 4G wireless home internet service at the end of the summer.

Verizon offers 5G and 4G LTE home internet to select markets. The company has confirmed to CNET that it is raising the price of plans by $10 at the end of summer. Both options currently cost $25 when bundled with one of Verizon’s high-end phone plans, but will jump to $35.

When purchased alone, without a phone plan, the 5G home internet is available for $50 with paperless billing and autopay enabled or $60 without those options. The 4G plan is similarly available for $60 without autopay or paperless billing.

Verizon told CNET that the standalone price will not change and that the price increases for the bundled option will only impact new customers, not existing ones.

“Verizon Mobile customers have limited time left to take advantage of our introductory promotional pricing of $25 for home internet on our 5G Home and LTE Home plans,” the company told the outlet in a statement. “The discount will change later this summer when we launch new 5G Home and LTE Home internet plans with enhanced features and discounts.”

Customers wanting to secure the lower price should order service immediately.

Verizon Is Raising the Price of Its Home Internet
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Inkscape 1.3 Released

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Inkscape 1.3 Released

Inkscape, the open-source alternative to Adobe Illustrator, has been updated to 1.3, bringing a number of performance improvements.

Inkscape is the popular, cross-platform vector graphics editor that is available as open-source software. The latest version, 1.3, brings a number of improvements:

A lot of effort has gone into improving the performance and speed of all aspects of Inkscape. This involved the refactoring of inefficient code, rewriting how Inkscape works with patterns, moving bitmap tracing into a separate thread and so much more.

Canvas rendering is now both multithreaded, and done outside of Inkscape’s main process thread.

If your computer’s processor has more than one core (which it most likely does), this can result in a 2–4× speedup while zooming / panning / transforming objects.

The number of processor cores used for rendering can be adjusted in Edit ➞ Preferences ➞ Rendering ➞ Number of Threads. By default, Inkscape tries to be as fast as possible by using as many cores as possible.

The list of changes is exhaustive, but can be found in more detail in this blog post.

Inkscape 1.3 Released
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Windows 11 Adds a Warning When You Copy and Paste Your Password

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Windows 11 Adds a Warning When You Copy and Paste Your Password

Microsoft is trying to protect customers from malware and phishing attacks, with a warning in Windows 11 when copying and pasting your password.

Microsoft revealed the new feature in a blog post:

Starting in Windows 11, version 22H2, Enhanced Phishing Protection in Microsoft Defender SmartScreen helps protect Microsoft school or work passwords against phishing and unsafe usage on sites and apps. We are trying out a change starting with this build where users who have enabled warning options for Windows Security under App & browser control > Reputation-based protection > Phishing protection will see a UI warning on unsafe password copy and paste, just as they currently see when they type in their password.

Password Copy/Paste Warning – Credit Microsoft

It remains to be seen if this feature will make a measurable difference, or if people will simply disable it.

Windows 11 Adds a Warning When You Copy and Paste Your Password
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Shopify Is Replacing Laid-Off Employees With AI

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Shopify Is Replacing Laid-Off Employees With AI

A laid-off Shopify employee was willing to break their NDA to shed light on the company’s actions, revealing it is replacing workers with AI.

Shopify laid off 1,000 employees in July 2022, with CEO Tobi Lütke saying it was a necessary step after a “bet didn’t pay off.” According to The Deep Dive, however, it appears there is much more behind the company’s layoffs than just a bad bet on the economy.

According to an employee willing to risk legal repercussions to shed light on the matter, Shopify is quietly replacing employees with cheap contract labor and AI. Customer service teams in the US, Canada, and Ireland seem to be especially impacted.

The company’s actions have also cast doubts and raised questions about how much it can be trusted, with both employees and customers alike concerned. Employees wonder if the company’s promise that the layoffs are over can be trusted, while customers wonder if the shift to AI is contributing to the company behaving like other Big Tech companies rather than empowering ‘the little guy.’

Whatever is going on at Shopify, if trust in the company continues to erode, misjudging the economy may not be the last bad bet its leadership is guilty of.

Shopify Is Replacing Laid-Off Employees With AI
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US Army Set to Receive Improved Microsoft HoloLens Goggles For Testing

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US Army Set to Receive Improved Microsoft HoloLens Goggles For Testing

The US Army is slated to receive a new and improved version of Microsoft’s HoloLens combat goggles as the company tries to address motion sickness issues.

Initial testing of Microsoft’s goggles resulted in “mission-affecting physical impairments” in 80% of soldiers. Impairments manifested after less than three hours of use. As a result of those tests, Congress refused to give the Army $400,000 million to purchase an additional 6,900 units. Instead, legislators approved $40 million to address the issues and improve the designs.

The company confirmed to Engadget that it will deliver 20 IVAS (Integrated Visual Augmentation System) 1.2 devices in July, with Bloomberg saying the Army intends to begin testing them in late August.

As Engadget points out, much is riding on these tests, especially for Microsoft. If the company has not resolved the issues with motion sickness, it will likely lose the Army contract, casting doubt on the overall project.

US Army Set to Receive Improved Microsoft HoloLens Goggles For Testing
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Oracle Has Removed the Download Links for VirtualBox 7.0.10

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Oracle Has Removed the Download Links for VirtualBox 7.0.10

Users looking to download the latest version of VirtualBox are in for a disappointment, with Oracle removing the downloads links to 7.0.10.

VirtualBox is a popular cross-platform virtualization option, giving users the ability to run guest operating systems in virtual machines at near-native speed. The latest version, 7.0.10, was well received and included support a number of major new features and performance enhancements.

Unfortunately, the download links for 7.0.10 have disappeared from the VirtualBox website. There has been no official notification or reason given.

We will update with more information as it becomes available.

Oracle Has Removed the Download Links for VirtualBox 7.0.10
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Amazon Building a $120 Million Building at Kennedy Space Center

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Amazon Building a $120 Million Building at Kennedy Space Center

Amazon is building a $120 million building at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center to process satellites for Project Kuiper.

Project Kuiper is Amazon’s answer to SpaceX’s Starlink. Amazon has been working to deploy its satellite constellation, and the facility at Kennedy Space Center will serve as a staging area where the satellites will be paired with rockets.

“We have an ambitious plan to begin Project Kuiper’s full-scale production launches and early customer pilots next year, and this new facility will play a critical role in helping us deliver on that timeline,” said Steve Metayer, vice president of Kuiper Production Operations. “We are proud to partner with Space Florida to bolster the growing space industry in Florida and elsewhere across the United States, and we look forward to adding more talent to our skilled operations and manufacturing team. These employees will play an important part in our mission to connect tens of millions of customers worldwide.”

“We are proud to continue our investment in Florida and to join the historic Space Coast community as we invest in people and facilities to support Project Kuiper, Amazon’s satellite broadband network,” said Brian Huseman, vice president of public policy and community engagement at Amazon. “We are grateful to Governor DeSantis and his administration, as well as our regional partners, for investing in infrastructure, training a highly skilled workforce, and maintaining an economic climate that allows Project Kuiper to advance our mission of providing internet access to unserved and underserved communities around the world.”

“Adding Amazon’s Project Kuiper satellite payload processing facility to the region’s growing industrial capability in commercial space is a testament to the power of building a statewide ecosystem that supports companies across the entire aerospace supply chain. Space Florida has invested in bringing together unrivaled experience, unmatched financial tools, and an unbeatable location to offer companies opportunities for sustainable, long-term growth. Since the early days of rocket launches and payload processing, decades of infrastructure and capital investment has been made, transforming Florida into a global center for the aerospace economy. We couldn’t be more thrilled that Project Kuiper chose Space Florida’s Launch and Landing Facility for this facility, and we look forward to being a part of their mission of global connectivity,” said Frank DiBello, president and CEO, Space Florida.

Amazon says its plans will create at least 50 news jobs on the Space Coast.

Amazon Building a $120 Million Building at Kennedy Space Center
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