A little more than a year after ditching third-party fact checkers and rolling back much of its proactive content moderation, the company says it will further “transform” its approach by drastically reducing the number of human moderators in favor of AI-based systems. The company says the change will happen “over the next few years,” and will allow the company to catch more issues faster than its current approach. 

Meta didn’t say how much of its contract workforce might be cut as it makes this transition. The company employs thousands of contractors around the world to review content flagged by its AI systems and user reports among other tasks. The company said that as it shifts its approach humans will “play a key role” in “critical decisions” and aid in training and other tasks.

“Experts will design, train, oversee, and evaluate our AI systems, measuring performance and making the most complex, high‑impact decisions,” Meta said in an update. “For example, people will continue to play a key role in how we make the highest risk and most critical decisions, such as appeals of account disablement or reports to law enforcement.”

The company has been testing LLM-based systems for content moderation for a while and says that early tests have had “promising” results. Another advantage is that its AI can handle languages used by “98% of people online,” compared with the 80 languages currently supported by its moderation capabilities. 

While Meta says its underlying rules aren’t changing, the new approach could dramatically change users’ perception of how Meta enforces its policies. The company already relies heavily on AI for certain rules, and many users believe that these systems make too many mistakes and make it difficult for their appeals to reach a set of human eyes. On the other hand, Meta, which stands to save a lot of money if it significantly downsizes its contract workforce, says its new systems make “fewer over-enforcement mistakes” and catch more of the most “severe” violations. 

In the nearer term, Meta is introducing an AI powered “support assistant” that will help users with certain types of account issues. The chatbot, which is rolling out now in the Facebook and Instagram app, will be able to help users report content and manage appeals, reset passwords and manage other account settings. It will also be able to help people who get locked out of their accounts “starting with select cases in the US and Canada.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/meta-will-move-away-from-human-content-moderators-in-favor-of-more-ai-183000435.html?src=rss

The FBI has confirmed to the Senate it is once again buying data which can be used to track the locations of US citizens. That may have surprised the people who thought the precedent in Carpenter v. United States prohibited it. But while that case examined if it was legal for law enforcement to obtain location data from mobile networks without a warrant, here the FBI and other agencies have found a way to skirt the Fourth Amendment entirely. Over the last few years, they have taken to just buying location data from the same companies which power the enormous online advertising ecosystem.

Where does this data come from?

When your phone is connected to the internet, it broadcasts about itself, and so do the apps and platforms you use. That information includes your IP address and device type, as well as your longitude and latitude if your device has GPS. This data, known as Bidstream, alongside any third party cookies tied to your device, enables the process of Real Time Bidding (RTB). RTB is the process where your attention is auctioned off to the highest bidder in the milliseconds after you’ve loaded a page. In order to make the auctions work, these platforms need to know as much about you as they can.

As I explained in depth back in 2021, data such as your location and IP address is broadcast over the ad networks. This information can also be aggregated, licensed or sold to data brokers who can pair this with any “deterministic data” available. For instance, if you sign up to a platform and tell them your name, email address and annual income, that data could be licensed to a data broker. Even banks looking for new revenue streams are planning to license anonymized customer data to these companies. Data brokers can easily combine the two streams of information to build out a fairly extensive picture of you as a person, and what advertisers will be the most interested in you. Unfortunately, it’s extremely difficult to opt out of this and, even if it were, it would be even more difficult to destroy the data already in circulation.

In 2018 French company Vectaury, which acted as an ad sales intermediary for mobile apps, was inspected by the French data protection regulator. Officials found the company had built a database containing the personal data of 67.6 million people without proper consent.

Data brokers don’t just harvest and hoard this data to make online ad sales, however, they will also license and sell its databases to others. Lawmakers believe that these brokers have sold this data to rival nations looking for ways to spy on US citizens.

How are law enforcement agencies getting it?

In January, 404Media revealed the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) bought access to tools supplied by cybersecurity company Penlink. Specifically, it purchased access to tools named Tangles and Webloc, which can be used to surveil large numbers of people at once. The latter tool reportedly has the power to identify smartphones in a given area and time, and can then follow them on their journey through the day and back to their home at night.

Given the secretive nature of its business, Penlink does not reveal much about how its tools operate. A since-removed marketing page says Webloc automatically analyzes “location based information” available in “endless digital channels from the web ecosystem.” And 404Media’s report says these tools access “commercially available smartphone location data,” supplied by third-party data brokers. Forbes reports the system can also pull together data from a variety of sources, including social media, to offer a real-time view of an event. The Texas Observer says Webloc can use this information to enable “warrantless device tracking.”

A number of other US law enforcement agencies have also purchased location data from data brokers, including the Department of Homeland Security, Customs and Border Protection, the Secret Service and the Internal Revenue Service. This isn’t just limited to government agencies, however, as anti-abortion groups did similar while targeting people visiting Planned Parenthood clinics.

How can this be legal?

The Fourth Amendment guarantees the right of the people to be protected from “unreasonable searches and seizures,” made without probable case. But, as Dori H. Rahbar wrote in the Columbia Law Review, “the Fourth Amendment does not regulate open market transactions.” Aaron X Sobel, writing in the Yale Law and Policy Review, described the practice as “end-running warrants,” and urged legislators to close this loophole. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), is also pushing for legislation under the Fourth Amendment is Not For Sale Act.

It’s not likely that such legislation will be passed for a long time, and a cynic would suggest it’s not possible under the current administration. But, even if it is, it won’t address the bigger issue of the ad tech industry and its partners vacuuming up as much information about us as it can. When these companies — many of which aren’t even known to the public — are able to store up enough information on us that, if they were so motivated, they could follow our path through the day, it’s a sign something is very rotten indeed. If we’re concerned about governments having this sort of access, then we should be equally nervous about anyone else having it as well.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cybersecurity/dont-be-surprised-that-the-fbi-is-buying-your-location-data-182047627.html?src=rss

The dream of the metaverse may have died for now, but Meta has decided it’s not completely giving up on the VR experience in Horizon Worlds, the virtual worlds service that it originally envisioned as the first step toward said metaverse.

The news was announced via the Instagram account of Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth. “We have decided, just today in fact, that we will keep Horizon Worlds working in VR,” said Bosworth in an AMA on the platform in response to someone who expressed disappointment at the previously announced plan to end support.

He went on to clarify that only games and experiences that already support VR will continue to do so, while new games will be exclusive to mobile, and the majority of the team’s development focus will be on mobile instead of VR.

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On Wednesday, Afroman won a widely watched defamation lawsuit that seven cops filed after the rapper made music videos mocking them for conducting a 2022 raid of his home that resulted in no charges and no marijuana found.

Videos for songs like “Lemon Pound Cake,” “Why You Disconnecting My Video Camera,” and “Will You Help Me Repair My Door” used real footage from the raid, pulling from security camera footage and videos shot by Afroman’s wife. Cops from the Adams County Sheriff’s Office alleged they were humiliated and received death threats after the videos went viral.

Accusing Afroman of defamation, cops individually sought damages as high as $1.5 million. But Afroman’s lawyer, David Osborne, argued this was a clear-cut First Amendment case. At trial, Afroman testified that cops had no one to blame for the reputational damage but themselves, arguing that “if they hadn’t wrongly raided my house, there would be no lawsuit,” The New York Times reported.

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Google is planning big changes for Android in 2026 aimed at combating malware across the entire device ecosystem. Starting in September, Google will begin restricting application sideloading with its developer verification program, but not everyone is on board. Android Ecosystem President Sameer Samat tells Ars that the company has been listening to feedback, and the result is the newly unveiled advanced flow, which will allow power users to skip app verification.

With its new limits on sideloading, Android phones will only install apps that come from verified developers. To verify, devs releasing apps outside of Google Play will have to provide identification, upload a copy of their signing keys, and pay a $25 fee. It all seems rather onerous for people who just want to make apps without Google’s intervention.

Apps that come from unverified developers won’t be installable on Android phones—unless you use the new advanced flow, which will be buried in the developer settings.

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Stranger Things fans will soon have permanent access to the Upside Down, as a full DVD set is now available to preorder. Stranger Things: The Complete Series comes in Blu-Ray and 4K UHD editions.

This collection includes all five seasons of the hit show, which totals 25 discs. It’ll be available at brick-and-mortar and online retailers beginning on July 28. Prices range from $200 to $260, depending on the media type and edition.

To that end, there’s a deluxe edition available for true diehards. This includes the complete series, of course, but also bonus content like bloopers, interviews with the cast and crew and various behind-the-scenes featurettes. It also comes with a bunch of doodads, like a self-adhesive Hellfire Club patch, five posters, 25 smaller art cards, a fold-out map of Hawkins and a branded twenty-sided die.

There’s a collector’s box and each season comes in reversible sleeves with new artwork. Finally, this edition ships with a large artbook that includes original design sketches, concept art, storyboards and more. This is a pretty cool and comprehensive package.

The price might seem high, but Stranger Things consists of 42 episodes and they get pretty lengthy in seasons four and five. In any event, owning physical media of stuff you like is never a bad idea, given that everything on streaming is subject to the whims of executives looking to avoid paying residuals or whatever.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/the-complete-stranger-things-dvd-set-includes-25-discs-and-costs-around-200-172222577.html?src=rss

Ubisoft is ceasing game development at its studio, Red Storm Entertainment, best known for its work on the Tom Clancy’s series. While the studio is set to remain open, 105 people will be laid off, a Ubisoft source told GamesIndustry.biz.

Those who survive the cull will reportedly continue to work on the Snowdrop engine, used in many of Ubisoft’s tentpole games over the last decade, including Star Wars Outlaws and Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora more recently. Red Storm had been working on an untitled Splinter Cell VR game that was canceled in 2022, as well as the also-canceled The Division Heartland.

The studio was co-founded by the author Tom Clancy himself in 1996 (taking its name from Clancy’s novel Red Storm Rising), and in its 30 years has worked on a large number of Ghost Recon and Rainbow Six games, among others. It also developed 2023’s broadly well-received Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR.

According to GamesIndustry.biz’s source, the layoffs at Red Storm are part of Ubisoft’s wider cost-saving reorganization, which has resulted in sweeping job cuts and game cancellations across the French publisher’s portfolio.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/ubisoft-ends-development-at-tom-clancy-studio-red-storm-170847892.html?src=rss

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There’s nothing sweeter than listening to your favorite album or watching your favorite movie with pristine audio. And if you’re a true audiophile, few brands approach the quality Sonos can offer. Right now, Sonos is offering major discounts in the lead-up to Amazon’s Big Spring Sale, and the Sonos Beam G2 + Sub Mini combo in particular stands out; it’s currently $749, a 25% drop from the $998 list price and the lowest price it yet reached, according to price tracking tools.

Sonos Beam G2 + Sub Mini – White

$749.00
at Amazon

$998.00
Save $249.00

$749.00
at Amazon

$998.00
Save $249.00

Sonos Beam G2 + Sub Mini – Black

$749.00
at Amazon

$998.00
Save $249.00

$749.00
at Amazon

$998.00
Save $249.00

This soundbar and subwoofer combo is perfect for those who want to keep things minimalistic, whether for space or aesthetic reasons, without sacrificing sound quality. The deal includes the Sonos Beam Gen 2, which normally goes for $499, and the Sonos Sub Mini, which normally also goes for $499.

The Sonos Beam Gen 2 arrived in 2021 with Atmos compatibility, eARC connectivity, NFC connectivity, and a better processor than the Gen 1 from 2018. As a smart soundbar, it supports both Google and Alexa voice assistants, as well as AirPlay. Its flat, tablet-like design (measuring 2.7 x 25.7 x 4.0 inches) makes it extremely compact, yet it still produces big sound, as noted in PCMag’s “excellent” review. The Sonos Sub Mini is a smaller and more affordable version of the Sonos Sub Gen 3, perfect for a small apartment. You can learn more about it in CNET’s review.

The Sonos companion app has improved dramatically over the years, making for a much better experience, adding features like Sonos TruePlay, which calibrates the speaker based on its environment.

OpenAI announced it’s acquiring developer tooling startup Astral to strengthen its Codex AI coding assistant, which has over 2 million weekly users and has seen a three-fold increase in user growth since the start of the year. CNBC reports: “Through it all, though, our goal remains the same: to make programming more productive. To build tools that radically change what it feels like to build software,” Astral’s founder and CEO Charlie Marsh wrote in a blog post. The company’s acquisition of Astral is still subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approval.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Meta is backtracking on its plans to shut down the VR version of its metaverse. The company now plans to support Horizon Worlds in VR for the “foreseeable future,” though users shouldn’t expect new games, CTO Andrew Bosworth said in an update.

“We will keep horizon worlds working in VR for existing games, to support the fans who’ve reached out,” Bosworth said in a post on Instagram. “For people who already have games they like that they’re using in Horizon Worlds, [they] will be able to download the Horizon Worlds app and use it in VR for the foreseeable future.”

The reversal comes after Meta said earlier this week that Horizon Worlds in VR would no longer be accessible after June 15 as the company pivots its metaverse experiences to mobile. Though Horizon never gained mass appeal, even among VR enthusiasts, Meta’s move to shut it down was just the latest sign of how the company has pivoted away from its metaverse ambitions as it chases AI “superintelligence.” 

In his post on Instagram, Bosworth said there was “a lot of misinformation” about the company’s plans. “We announced, ‘hey, we’re moving away from Horizon Worlds in VR,’ and the headline is that Horizon is dead,” he said. “It’s not. And likewise, VR is not dead. We’re continuing to invest tremendously.” The company laid off more than 1,000 employees from its metaverse division and shut down three VR studios earlier this year. Bosworth said that the company is still working on its next two generations of VR headsets.

He described the metaverse as a “misunderstood concept” that was never meant to only encompass virtual reality. He said that AR is also part of the vision and that even people scrolling their phones could be part of the metaverse. “When somebody is using their phone and you’re physically with them, they’re at the dinner table with you, and yet when you talk to them, they hear nothing because they’ve transported themselves through the glowing rectangle into a digital space,” he said. “Maybe that they’re scrolling media, maybe that they’re in the text world, but like they have transported themselves. So we’ve always had this internally — at least me and Mark — this very expansive construct of the metaverse.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ar-vr/meta-isnt-shutting-down-its-vr-metaverse-after-all-165520696.html?src=rss

Apple’s MacBook Neo is impressive for its $600 price, but its A18 Pro processor is one of its biggest compromises compared to a modern MacBook Air—in our review, we found it was more than up to basic computing tasks, but for demanding workloads that benefit from more CPU and GPU cores and RAM, the Air is a better choice.

But those limited computing resources are still enough to run Windows on your Mac using the Parallels Desktop virtualization software—so says Parallels itself, which after some testing and benchmarking has declared the Neo suitable for “lightweight computing and everyday productivity, document editing, and web-based apps” while running Windows 11.

Parallels says the MacBook Neo’s respectable single-core CPU performance keeps the Neo feeling “quick and responsive” when running multiple Windows-only software packages, including QuickBooks Desktop and other accounting apps, Microsoft Office, “light engineering and data tools” including AutoCAD LT and MATLAB, and “Windows-only courseware and education software” with “no Mac equivalent.” In Parallels’ testing, the Neo’s single-core CPU performance in Windows was still roughly 20 percent faster compared to a Core Ultra 5 235U chip in a Dell Pro 14 laptop.

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The Switch 2 ports keep on coming. This time it’s Kena: Bridge of Spirits, the award-winning 2021 title from Ember Lab. Previously announced for spring 2026, the visually striking title now has an official release date of March 26.

Kena: Bridge of Spirits won Best Independent Game and Best Debut Indie Game at The Game Awards 2021. It’s already available for PS5 / PS4, PC (Steam and Epic) and Xbox Series X/S and One.

You play as Kena, a young spirit guide on a quest to a sacred mountain shrine. Gameplay has a Zelda-like flair. (That could make it a solid next play after Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom.) Like in Link’s adventures, you’ll find plenty of exploration, puzzles and fast-paced combat. That encompasses whacking bad guys with Kena’s staff, firing arrows and flinging bombs.

Kena: Bridge of Spirits launches for Switch 2 on March 26 in North America, Europe and Asia. Meanwhile, folks in Thailand can get it a day earlier, on March 25. Details about Taiwan will be announced “soon.” You can preorder the game today in North America and Europe and get a taste of its Pixar-esque art style in the trailer below.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/nintendo/kena-bridge-of-spirits-launches-for-switch-2-on-march-26-163540229.html?src=rss