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Google Workspace users are getting a new feature to prevent colleagues from messing with their documents. Users will now have the ability to lock their Google Drive files, which should help reduce unwanted commentary and changes when sharing with multiple team members. While this isn’t the most revolutionary feature, it could certainly come in handy — especially for companies that use and share a lot of publicly viewable documents.

Locking a document puts it in read-only mode, meaning viewers can’t edit, comment or leave suggestions on it. The document will remain in this read-only mode until unlocked by its owner. In a blog post, Google stated that this new feature will “streamline the process of restricting files in Drive.”

Previously, you could lock down a document or file when sharing it, or through a Google Drive API call. The new lock feature simplifies things: Right-click on the file you’d like to lock, scroll to file information from the popup menu, and select lock.

The file-locking feature has already been rolled out to some Rapid Release domains and will continue over the next 15 days. Folks on Scheduled Release domains can expect to start seeing the feature on September 20th, with a similar 15-day rollout period.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/google-workspaces-file-lock-stops-colleagues-messing-with-your-documents-194625235.html?src=rss 

The non-profit Mozilla Foundation deemed cars the “worst product category” ever reviewed for data privacy, according to research released Wednesday. Its Privacy Not Included Research division reviews everything from smart home devices to health and wellness apps. But of the 25 car brands the research team studied, not a single one passed the reviews, with top brands like Tesla, Nissan and Hyundai landing at the top of the worst-of-the-worst list. 

Tesla earned a mark against it for untrustworthy use of AI, making it the second product reviewed by Mozilla to fail every privacy test conducted. That’s because its AI-powered autopilot feature caused several deaths and hundreds of crashes. Meanwhile, companies like Nissan and Kia say they can collect information about your sexual activity and sex life, and Hyundai promises to comply with “lawful requests, whether formal or informal” to share your information with government and law enforcement. 

That left Renault, Dacia and BMW as the “least creepy” car options. Researchers couldn’t confirm whether Renault, which also owns Dacia, encrypts the data it collects, and it doesn’t go much beyond what’s required by data privacy law, but compared to others it’s not the worst. The reason for BMW landing higher on the list was also marginal, as researchers based it on the fact that the car maker doesn’t explicitly say they sell data to third parties for advertising purposes, while other manufacturers explicitly claim to do so. “From our reading of BMW’s privacy policy, they might not do this. But we’re also not 100% sure they don’t,” the researchers wrote. 

Still, every brand of car collected too much personal data, and most of them share or sell that information to a third party. The researchers spent 600 hours analyzing privacy policies, investigating app features and working directly with the car companies themselves to determine privacy rankings, but still concluded it was one of the more confusing categories they’ve tested. 

“Sorting through the large and confusing ecosystem of privacy policies for cars, car apps, car connected services, and more isn’t something most people have the time or experience to do,” members of Mozilla’s Privacy Not Included team wrote in a blog post. That leaves little for car buyers to do if they’re looking for an option that takes data privacy seriously because, at least according to Mozilla, they really are all that bad. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/tesla-tops-mozillas-list-of-creepiest-carmakers-but-25-brands-failed-basic-data-privacy-tests-202017058.html?src=rss 

The person behind an AI-generated song that went viral earlier this year has submitted the track for Grammy Awards consideration. The Recording Academy has stated that such works aren’t eligible for certain gongs. However, Ghostwriter, the pseudonymous person behind “Heart on My Sleeve,” has submitted the track in the best rap song and song of the year categories, according to Variety. Both of those are songwriting honors. The Academy has suggested it’s open to rewarding tracks that are mostly written by a human, even if the actual recording is largely AI-generated.

Ghostwriter composed the song’s lyrics rather than leaving them up to, say, ChatGPT. But rather than sing or rap those words, they employed a generative AI model to mimic the vocals of Drake and The Weeknd, which helped the song to pick up buzz. The artists’ label Universal Music Group wasn’t happy about that and it filed copyright claims to remove “Heart on My Sleeve” from streaming services. Before that, though, the track racked up hundreds of thousands of listens on Spotify and more than 15 million on TikTok.

Over the last few months, Ghostwriter and their team have been making overtures to industry bigwigs such as Academy higher ups, according to The New York Times. As it turns out, Ghostwriter may actually have a shot at picking up a Grammy. “As far as the creative side, it’s absolutely eligible because it was written by a human,” Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr. told the Times.

It seems there’s one major roadblock as things stand, though. For a song to be eligible for a Grammy, it needs to have “general distribution” across the US through the likes of brick-and-mortar stores, online retailers and streaming services. Ghostwriter is reportedly aware of this restriction, but it’s unclear how they plan to address that.

In any case, this may well be a canary in the coal mine for rewarding the use of generative AI in art. Many creatives are concerned over the issue. Some have accused the operators of generative AI systems of using copyrighted work to train their language learning models, while a major sticking point in the ongoing actors’ strike is whether performers will be compensated fairly for the use of their digital likenesses. Whether the output of generative AI models can be considered truly original work is a contentious topic as well.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-grammys-will-consider-that-viral-song-with-drake-and-the-weeknd-ai-vocals-for-awards-after-all-181211888.html?src=rss 

Roku looks to be seriously tightening its pursestrings. The company’s laying off a full ten percent of its workforce, over 300 employees, in addition to a conducting a number of other cost-cutting measures, as reported by Variety. These job cuts are just the beginning, as Roku’s also removing streaming content, consolidating office space and reducing outside service expenses. The goal here is a major reduction in the year-over-year operating expense growth rate.

The company hasn’t announced which content it would be removing from its various streaming platforms and whether or not these cuts would be culled from third-party providers or from in-house projects like the recently-released Weird Al biopic. Roku’s so serious about these cuts that it’s willing to pony up $65 million for impairment charges after deleting this content, according to an SEC filing. Additionally, the company’s planning on forking over $45 million to $65 million to supply outgoing employees with severance benefits and up to $200 million for abandoning office space. 

The stock market, as usual, loved the layoffs and related austerity measures, with Roku’s stock rising nine percent in the wake of this news, before settling down to a more modest increase of around four percent. As of this writing, the stock price is still fluctuating.

This is Roku’s third round of job cuts in less than a year. Back in November, it laid off 200 staffers, with 200 more let go in March of this year. That’s a grand total of 700 pink slips, representing around 25 percent of the total workforce. As expected, the company also announced that it’s holding off on new hires for the time being.

After this round of restructuring and affiliated impairment charges, Roku hopes for an increase in Q3 net revenue to $835 to $875 million, with adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) in the negative $20 million range, up from negative $40 million. However, even Roku admits these figures are uncertain, noting in a Q2 letter to shareholders that the “macro environment continued to create uncertainty,” given the ongoing WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/roku-lays-off-300-workers-and-removes-streaming-content-to-save-money-183715207.html?src=rss