NewsBytes Briefing: Google keeps firing its ethics researchers
Google's former pride and joy, its Ethical AI research team, is turning out to be a PR campaign gone awry. The search giant had hired scientists promising them freedom, but the honeymoon period ended when they began publishing papers critical of Google's own products. Setting up an ethics oversight department is perhaps a bad idea for an organization that seems to have none.
Valve gets dragged into the Apple v/s Epic Games brawl
In between Apple's greed and Epic Games steadfast refusal to pay the App Store fees, poor Valve has now been dragged to the courts. Apple had subpoenaed Valve to furnish sales data governing 30,000 games spanning a decade. Apple has now got that list down to 436 games spanning six years. But we all know that's impossible because Valve can't count past two.
At least 30,000 Macs infected by malware that's stumped everyone
Epic Games isn't Apple's only problem. At least 30,000 Macs have been infected with a malware that has a self-destruct mechanism, but no discernible payload. That means two things. First being that the malware is waiting for an unknown signal or condition to be met before doing something terrible. Secondly, that something is so terrible that it needs self-destruct capability. Apple should be worried.
Scientists get one step close to 'Inception'
Speaking of malware that acts like sleeper cells, a number of lucky folks were paid to sleep as a part of research into dreams. Researchers achieved two-way communication with test subjects in a state of lucid dreaming. While this might remind most of Inception, we are more worried about Big Tech serving ads and reporting you to the authorities for having the wrong dreams.
Android 12 will deliver us from sins of smartphone manufacturers
Advancement in technology usually shrinks electronics, but smartphones engineers didn't get the memo. The average phone is so large these days that it is difficult to operate with one hand. Thankfully, the software engineers are here to deliver us from the sins of their hardware counterparts. Android 12 will soon allow you to shrink the active display area enough to make one-handed use feasible.
