Take a look back at your year online. What you find might surprise you.
This cracked me up. Also shows how much of a cultural phenomenon the Spotify Wrapped feature is.
Author: Daniel Andrews
Former Away employees describe a toxic work environment at the luggage company
How do I protect my online privacy from ‘surveillance capitalism’?
A great overview of what you should be worried about on the web when it comes to your data and what folks can do with it. If you really want to dive in on this, the linked article from the EFF really expands on the ideas. As the author states above, I’m also not opposed to advertising in principle. What I’m opposed to is the massive amount of personalized data companies gather about me to deliver mediocre ads that are not any better than those you might get in a non-targeted way.
How Ring Went From ‘Shark Tank’ Reject to America’s Scariest Surveillance Company
Source: How Ring Went From ‘Shark Tank’ Reject to America’s Scariest Surveillance Company – VICE
Amazon’s Ring started from humble roots as a smart doorbell company called “DoorBot.” Now it’s surveilling the suburbs and partnering with police.
I’m definitely more interested in what HomeKit Secure Video will look like …. from iMore:
When you have security cameras in your home, the footage captured by these cameras will be highly personal and sensitive. You wouldn’t want these recordings to fall into the wrong hands. With HomeKit Secure Video enabled, all of your security camera footage gets end-to-end encryption before it is securely uploaded and stored in iCloud.
Facebook Gives Workers a Chatbot to Appease That Prying Uncle
From Facebook Gives Workers a Chatbot to Appease That Prying Uncle:
What if Mom or Dad accused the social network of destroying democracy? Or what if they said Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, was collecting their online data at the expense of privacy?
If you’re having to create a chatbot to handle this sort of thing, you might need to look at the underlying cause, not creating a PR answer bot.
Engineering Mangement Lessons
I became an engineering manager a few years ago now and have since moved into a role where I’m responsible for both direct ICs who report to me but also for other managers and the direction of an entire department. Titles are always funny as they’re so dependent on where you work – but one […]
Continue reading →My favorite 2019 tech things
As we head into the holiday season, I thought I’d throw my hat in the “best of the year post” ring with a list of a few of my favorite personal tech items of the year. Some of these are bigger than others, but I wanted to list out some things I’m thankful for this […]
Continue reading →Google’s smart home ecosystem is a complete mess
From CNET:
While Google might argue its new system will be good for users in the long run, the fact remains that customers spent money on a product, and Google is taking that product out of customers' hands and replacing it with something different. In effect, Google just unplugged many of its users' smart homes, all while asking them to kindly move into a new, Google Assistant-branded tenement. In the long run, Google assures us, things will get better. Its track record with killing products doesn't inspire confidence.
I found myself nodding my head a ton while reading this article. I’m moving to Alexa/Sonos over the next few months.
Hey, Siri (and minimum wage contractors) …
From: Siri records fights, doctor’s appointments, and sex (and contractors hear it) | Ars Technica
These cases bring up a series of questions. What can Apple and its colleagues do to better protect user privacy as they develop their voice systems? Should users be notified when their recordings are reviewed? What can be done to reduce or eliminate the accidental activations? How should the companies handle the accidental information that its contractors overhear? Who is responsible when dangerous or illegal activity is recorded and discovered, all by accident?
Now it looks like your Siri voice recordings can be heard by contractors roughly 1% of the time.
I think my issue with all of this is that it’s not opt-in other than the “by using this software you agree to …” BS all tech companies shove down our throat. I think one solution to this problem would be to allow users to opt-in to have humans review your recordings as long as they are properly anonymized. There’s still a chance an accidental wake word could trigger some of the scenarios mentioned in the article but at least give folks the ability to make decisions about how much they want to contribute to making these voice assistants better.
I’ve turned off the “raise to talk to Siri” on my watch long ago but we do have Google Home devices in our house and “Hey Siri” is still activated on my phone. I could shut off the wake word functionality on my phone but I’m not even sure you can do that with the Google Homes. I’ll be honest, I’m starting to lean toward yanking most of the voice assistant stuff out of my house in favor of dumb speakers hooked up to Chromecasts or maybe just going full Sonos (although that has it’s own privacy issues).
Update: Looks like Apple is halting the program for now and will be adding a way to disable this in the future. Good for them.
Revisiting the iconography of Apple Maps – Mercury Intermedia – Medium
I just got done reading Revisiting the iconography of Apple Maps and it scratched every design nerd itch I could ask for. For example, here’s a breakdown of the color grouping changes over time in the app’s icons:
There’s a ton more like this and it’s really worth checking out. I’m not an Apple Maps user all the time but I do think it’s the best looking and cleanest solution out there.