Month: May 2023
Amazon To Pay $30 Million For Alexa, Ring Privacy Violations
Amazon and its subsidiary, Ring, have agreed to separate multi-million dollar settlements with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) over privacy violations involving children’s use of Alexa and homeowners’ use of Ring doorbell cameras. Amazon will pay $25 million for failing to delete Alexa recordings as requested by parents and for keeping them longer than necessary, while Ring will pay $5.8 million for mishandling customers’ videos. Reuters reports: “While we disagree with the FTC’s claims regarding both Alexa and Ring, and deny violating the law, these settlements put these matters behind us,” Amazon.com said in a statement. It also pledged to make some changes to its practices.
In its complaint against Amazon.com filed in Washington state, the FTC said that it violated rules protecting children’s privacy and rules against deceiving consumers who used Alexa. For example, the FTC complaint says that Amazon told users it would delete voice transcripts and location information upon request, but then failed to do so.
The FTC also said Ring gave employees unrestricted access to customers’ sensitive video data said “as a result of this dangerously overbroad access and lax attitude toward privacy and security, employees and third-party contractors were able to view, download, and transfer customers’ sensitive video data for their own purposes.” As part of the FTC agreement with Ring, which spans 20 years, Ring is required to disclose to customers how much access to their data the company and its contractors have.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Amazon and its subsidiary, Ring, have agreed to separate multi-million dollar settlements with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) over privacy violations involving children’s use of Alexa and homeowners’ use of Ring doorbell cameras. Amazon will pay $25 million for failing to delete Alexa recordings as requested by parents and for keeping them longer than necessary, while Ring will pay $5.8 million for mishandling customers’ videos. Reuters reports: “While we disagree with the FTC’s claims regarding both Alexa and Ring, and deny violating the law, these settlements put these matters behind us,” Amazon.com said in a statement. It also pledged to make some changes to its practices.
In its complaint against Amazon.com filed in Washington state, the FTC said that it violated rules protecting children’s privacy and rules against deceiving consumers who used Alexa. For example, the FTC complaint says that Amazon told users it would delete voice transcripts and location information upon request, but then failed to do so.
The FTC also said Ring gave employees unrestricted access to customers’ sensitive video data said “as a result of this dangerously overbroad access and lax attitude toward privacy and security, employees and third-party contractors were able to view, download, and transfer customers’ sensitive video data for their own purposes.” As part of the FTC agreement with Ring, which spans 20 years, Ring is required to disclose to customers how much access to their data the company and its contractors have.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Researchers tell owners to “assume compromise” of unpatched Zyxel firewalls
Poor patching hygiene is fueling a flurry of “downstream attacks” on other targets.
Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)
Firewalls made by Zyxel are being wrangled into a destructive botnet, which is taking control of them by exploiting a recently patched vulnerability with a severity rating of 9.8 out of a possible 10.
“At this stage if you have a vulnerable device exposed, assume compromise,” officials from Shadowserver, an organization that monitors Internet threats in real time, warned four days ago. The officials said the exploits are coming from a botnet that’s similar to Mirai, which harnesses the collective bandwidth of thousands of compromised Internet devices to knock sites offline with distributed denial-of-service attacks.
According to data from Shadowserver collected over the past 10 days, 25 of the top 62 Internet-connected devices waging “downstream attacks”—meaning attempting to hack other Internet-connected devices—were made by Zyxel as measured by IP addresses.
Americans Owe Nearly $1 Trillion in Credit Card Debt – CNET
The average credit card interest rate is now over 20%, the highest on record.
The average credit card interest rate is now over 20%, the highest on record.
‘Quordle’ today: Here are the answers and hints for June 1
If Quordle is a little too challenging today, you’ve come to the right place for hints. There aren’t just hints here, but the whole Quordle solution. Scroll to the bottom of this page, and there it is. But are you sure you need all four answers? Maybe you just need a strategy guide. Either way, scroll down, and you’ll get what you need.
What is Quordle?
Quordle is a five-letter word guessing game similar to Wordle, except each guess applies letters to four words at the same time. You get nine guesses instead of six to correctly guess all four words. It looks like playing four Wordle games at the same time, and that is essentially what it is. But it’s not nearly as intimidating as it sounds.
Is Quordle harder than Wordle?
Yes, though not diabolically so.
Where did Quordle come from?
Amid the Wordle boom of late 2021 and early 2022, when everyone was learning to love free, in-browser, once-a-day word guessing games, creator Freddie Meyer says he took inspiration from one of the first big Wordle variations, Dordle — the one where you essentially play two Wordles at once. He took things up a notch, and released Quordle on January 30. Meyer’s creation was covered in The Guardian six days later, and now, according to Meyer, it attracts millions of daily users. Today, Meyer earns modest revenue from Patreon, where dedicated Quordle fans can donate to keep their favorite puzzle game running.
How is Quordle pronounced?
“Kwordle.” It should rhyme with “Wordle,” and definitely should not be pronounced exactly like “curdle.”
Is Quordle strategy different from Wordle?
Yes and no.
Your starting strategy should be the same as with Wordle. In fact, if you have a favorite Wordle opening word, there’s no reason to change that here. We suggest something rich in vowels, featuring common letters like C, R, and N. But you do you.
After your first guess, however, you’ll notice things getting out of control if you play Quordle exactly like Wordle.
What should I do in Quordle that I don’t do in Wordle?
Solving a Wordle puzzle can famously come down to a series of single letter-change variations. If you’ve narrowed it down to “-IGHT,” you could guess “MIGHT” “NIGHT” “LIGHT” and “SIGHT” and one of those will probably be the solution — though this is also a famous way to end up losing in Wordle, particularly if you play on “hard mode.” In Quordle, however, this sort of single-letter winnowing is a deadly trap, and it hints at the important strategic difference between Wordle and Quordle: In Quordle, you can’t afford to waste guesses unless you’re eliminating as many letters as possible at all times.
Guessing a completely random word that you already know isn’t the solution, just to eliminate three or four possible letters you haven’t tried yet, is thought of as a desperate, latch-ditch move in Wordle. In Quordle, however, it’s a normal part of the player’s strategic toolset.
Is there a way to get the answer faster?
In my experience Quordle can be a slow game, sometimes dragging out longer than it would take to play Wordle four times. But a sort of blunt-force guessing approach can speed things up. The following strategy also works with Wordle if you only want the solution, and don’t care about having the fewest possible guesses:
Try starting with a series of words that puts all the vowels (including Y) on the board, along with some other common letters. We’ve had good luck with the three words: “NOTES,” “ACRID,” and “LUMPY.” YouTuber DougMansLand suggests four words: “CANOE,” “SKIRT,” “PLUMB,” and “FUDGY.”
Most of the alphabet is now eliminated, and you’ll only have the ability to make one or two wrong guesses if you use this strategy. But in most cases you’ll have all the information you need to guess the remaining words without any wrong guesses.
If strategy isn’t helping, and you’re still stumped, here are some hints:
Are there any double or triple letters in today’s Quordle words?
No.
Are any rare letters being used in today’s Quordle like Q or Z?
No.
What do today’s Quordle words start with?
E, A, B, and S.
What are the answers for today’s Quordle?
Are you sure you want to know?
There’s still time to turn back.
OK, you asked for it. The answers are:
ETHIC
ALIKE
BIRTH
SLAIN
If Quordle is a little too challenging today, you’ve come to the right place for hints. There aren’t just hints here, but the whole Quordle solution. Scroll to the bottom of this page, and there it is. But are you sure you need all four answers? Maybe you just need a strategy guide. Either way, scroll down, and you’ll get what you need.
What is Quordle?
Quordle is a five-letter word guessing game similar to Wordle, except each guess applies letters to four words at the same time. You get nine guesses instead of six to correctly guess all four words. It looks like playing four Wordle games at the same time, and that is essentially what it is. But it’s not nearly as intimidating as it sounds.
Is Quordle harder than Wordle?
Yes, though not diabolically so.
Where did Quordle come from?
Amid the Wordle boom of late 2021 and early 2022, when everyone was learning to love free, in-browser, once-a-day word guessing games, creator Freddie Meyer says he took inspiration from one of the first big Wordle variations, Dordle — the one where you essentially play two Wordles at once. He took things up a notch, and released Quordle on January 30. Meyer’s creation was covered in The Guardian six days later, and now, according to Meyer, it attracts millions of daily users. Today, Meyer earns modest revenue from Patreon, where dedicated Quordle fans can donate to keep their favorite puzzle game running.
How is Quordle pronounced?
“Kwordle.” It should rhyme with “Wordle,” and definitely should not be pronounced exactly like “curdle.”
Is Quordle strategy different from Wordle?
Yes and no.
Your starting strategy should be the same as with Wordle. In fact, if you have a favorite Wordle opening word, there’s no reason to change that here. We suggest something rich in vowels, featuring common letters like C, R, and N. But you do you.
After your first guess, however, you’ll notice things getting out of control if you play Quordle exactly like Wordle.
What should I do in Quordle that I don’t do in Wordle?
Solving a Wordle puzzle can famously come down to a series of single letter-change variations. If you’ve narrowed it down to “-IGHT,” you could guess “MIGHT” “NIGHT” “LIGHT” and “SIGHT” and one of those will probably be the solution — though this is also a famous way to end up losing in Wordle, particularly if you play on “hard mode.” In Quordle, however, this sort of single-letter winnowing is a deadly trap, and it hints at the important strategic difference between Wordle and Quordle: In Quordle, you can’t afford to waste guesses unless you’re eliminating as many letters as possible at all times.
Guessing a completely random word that you already know isn’t the solution, just to eliminate three or four possible letters you haven’t tried yet, is thought of as a desperate, latch-ditch move in Wordle. In Quordle, however, it’s a normal part of the player’s strategic toolset.
Is there a way to get the answer faster?
In my experience Quordle can be a slow game, sometimes dragging out longer than it would take to play Wordle four times. But a sort of blunt-force guessing approach can speed things up. The following strategy also works with Wordle if you only want the solution, and don’t care about having the fewest possible guesses:
Try starting with a series of words that puts all the vowels (including Y) on the board, along with some other common letters. We’ve had good luck with the three words: “NOTES,” “ACRID,” and “LUMPY.” YouTuber DougMansLand suggests four words: “CANOE,” “SKIRT,” “PLUMB,” and “FUDGY.”
Most of the alphabet is now eliminated, and you’ll only have the ability to make one or two wrong guesses if you use this strategy. But in most cases you’ll have all the information you need to guess the remaining words without any wrong guesses.
If strategy isn’t helping, and you’re still stumped, here are some hints:
Are there any double or triple letters in today’s Quordle words?
No.
Are any rare letters being used in today’s Quordle like Q or Z?
No.
What do today’s Quordle words start with?
E, A, B, and S.
What are the answers for today’s Quordle?
Are you sure you want to know?
There’s still time to turn back.
OK, you asked for it. The answers are:
ETHIC
ALIKE
BIRTH
SLAIN
AI-expanded album cover artworks go viral thanks to Photoshop’s Generative Fill
Generative Fill uses AI to dream up larger versions of famous artwork.
Enlarge / An AI-expanded version of a famous album cover involving four lads and a certain road created using Adobe Generative Fill. (credit: Capitol Records / Adobe / Dobrokotov)
Over the weekend, AI-powered makeovers of famous music album covers went viral on Twitter thanks to Adobe Photoshop’s Generative Fill, an image synthesis tool that debuted in a beta version of the image editor last week. Using Generative Fill, people have been expanding the size of famous works of art, revealing larger imaginary artworks beyond the borders of the original images.
This image-expanding feat, often called “outpainting” in AI circles (and introduced with OpenAI’s DALL-E 2 last year), is possible due to an image synthesis model called Adobe Firefly, which has been trained on millions of works of art from Adobe’s stock photo catalog. When given an existing image to work with, Firefly uses what it knows about other artworks to synthesize plausible continuations of the original artwork. And when guided with text prompts that describe a specific scenario, the synthesized results can go in wild places.
For example, an expansion of Michael Jackson’s famous Thriller album rendered the rest of Jackson’s body lying on a piano. That seems reasonable, based on the context. But depending on user guidance, Generative Fill can also create more fantastic interpretations: An expansion of Katy Perry’s Teenage Dream cover art (likely guided by a text suggestion from the user) revealed Perry lying on a gigantic fluffy pink cat.
Brave Releases Its Search API
Brave has launched its Brave Search API, allowing third parties to integrate its privacy-preserving and ad-free search results into their applications through a simple API call. Thurrott reports: Brave notes that its Search API is inexpensive and that it’s a great fit for Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Large Language Models developers in particular because it provides access to a collection of high-quality, Web-scale data including recent events. Brave claims that its standalone Brave Search offering now delivers over 8 billion annualized queries, which makes it the fastest-growing search engine since Microsoft Bing. And in sharp contrast to the market leaders, Brave Search is private and transparent. Plus, it’s fueled by opt-in users of the Brave browser’s Web Discovery Project, which adds millions of new web pages to the index every single day and keeps it current and fresh. The Brave web browser has over 60 million active users now, the company adds.
A free version of the Brave Search API provides one search query per second and up to 2,000 queries per month. Paid tiers start at $3 CPM (cost per one thousand) for 20 queries per second and up to 20 million queries per month, with access to web search, Goggles, news cluster, and videos cluster, plus added cost access to autosuggest and spellcheck at $5 per 10,000 requests. Higher-price tiers add more queries per second and per month, plus additional capabilities like schema-enriched web results, infobox, FAQ, discussions, locations, and more.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Brave has launched its Brave Search API, allowing third parties to integrate its privacy-preserving and ad-free search results into their applications through a simple API call. Thurrott reports: Brave notes that its Search API is inexpensive and that it’s a great fit for Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Large Language Models developers in particular because it provides access to a collection of high-quality, Web-scale data including recent events. Brave claims that its standalone Brave Search offering now delivers over 8 billion annualized queries, which makes it the fastest-growing search engine since Microsoft Bing. And in sharp contrast to the market leaders, Brave Search is private and transparent. Plus, it’s fueled by opt-in users of the Brave browser’s Web Discovery Project, which adds millions of new web pages to the index every single day and keeps it current and fresh. The Brave web browser has over 60 million active users now, the company adds.
A free version of the Brave Search API provides one search query per second and up to 2,000 queries per month. Paid tiers start at $3 CPM (cost per one thousand) for 20 queries per second and up to 20 million queries per month, with access to web search, Goggles, news cluster, and videos cluster, plus added cost access to autosuggest and spellcheck at $5 per 10,000 requests. Higher-price tiers add more queries per second and per month, plus additional capabilities like schema-enriched web results, infobox, FAQ, discussions, locations, and more.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Reddit’s API pricing results in shocking $20 million-a-year bill for Apollo
Apollo developer says pricing isn’t “remotely reasonable.”
Enlarge / The Reddit iOS app icon. (credit: Getty Images | Yuriko Nakao )
Reddit is an enormously popular website, but the official design has always needed some reworking. This is even more true of the mobile experience, which didn’t have a mobile app until 2016, and even then, not everyone’s a fan of it. The site’s popularity rose partly thanks to third-party developers filling in the gaps with pre-existing and better mobile apps. Last month, following in the footsteps of Twitter, Reddit suddenly announced it wanted to charge apps for API access, but how much? Would it pull a Twitter and price everything out of the market?
The most popular Reddit app is the iOS app Apollo, which has been running for eight years now and has millions of downloads. Apollo’s developer, Christian Selig, has been in meetings with Reddit regarding the cost of the API, and it sounds like the company is using a recent Twitter tactic. Selig says “50 million requests costs $12,000, a figure far more than I ever could have imagined.” Twitter, for the record, is charging $42,000 for 50 million tweets. Selig cites the photo site Imgur as a more reasonable pricing scheme, “I pay Imgur (a site similar to Reddit in user base and media) $166 for the same 50 million API calls.” Selig estimates it would cost $20 million a year to keep Apollo running.
Apollo and most other third-party apps use Reddit’s data but don’t show Reddit’s ads, so the proliferation of third-party apps costs Reddit money. It’s reasonable to expect some money to change hands here, but how much? Selig links to a CNBC report from 2019 that estimated Reddit earns 30 cents a year per user and says Reddit’s API pricing would work out to about $2.50 per user per month or $30 a year, which aligns with Imgur’s pricing.