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Amazon will pay $5.8 million to settle a recently announced privacy lawsuit raised by the Federal Trade Commission. According to the federal complaint, Ring had allowed employees and third-party contractors full access to customer video content. This unfettered access was abused by some employees and contractors and was used to violate the privacy of both Ring customers and other workers.

The lawsuit highlights several cases where hacked cameras were used to sexually harass and spy on women, stalk female co-workers who used Ring products, utter racial slurs toward children and more. The FTC alleges that Amazon failed to address these issues after buying the company in 2018, noting that security issues persisted from 2016 through 2020.

Amazon has previously fired employees for inappropriate use of customer data, telling US Senators in 2020 that at least four employees had been terminated for accessing or attempting to access data that “exceeded what was necessary for their job functions.”

This isn’t the first time Ring Doorbells have contended with privacy complaints, either. The company faced scrutiny last year for giving police footage from Ring products without user consent. In 2020, hackers used illicit access to Ring cameras to use in livestream swattings.

Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/amazon-settles-lawsuit-with-ftc-over-ring-doorbell-privacy-concerns-191257621.html?src=rss 

GM announced today that it’s making five active safety features standard on all its 2023 and newer EVs. In addition, the automaker says it will surpass its commitment to add Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB) to 95 percent of its vehicles; the feature is included in 98 percent of GM’s 2023 models — including all its EVs. The disclosure follows the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) stating today that all new passenger cars and light trucks will be required to include AEB within three years.

In addition to AEB, GM says four other safety features will be standard in most of its 2023 model-year vehicles. These include Forward Collision Alert (warns you if a front-facing crash is likely), Front Pedestrian Braking (alerts you to oncoming pedestrians, automatically braking if needed), Lane Keep Assist with Lane Departure Warning (lets you know if you’re drifting out of your lane) and IntelliBeam (automatic high-beam headlight controls). “As we look ahead toward a future vision of zero crashes, zero emissions and zero congestion, these technologies are significant building blocks with proven benefits for reducing common crashes,” said John Capp, GM’s director of Vehicle Safety Technology, Strategy and Regulations.

The automaker touts its adherence to safety research data to inform the decision, citing a 2023 study at the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI) that showed AEB combined with Forward Collision Alert reduced rear-end crashes by 42 percent. The same research found that Front Pedestrian Braking cut head-on pedestrian collisions by 23 percent, while Lane Keep Assist with Lane Departure Warning lowered roadway departure accidents (crashes stemming from a car veering off-road or into other lanes) by 15 percent. Finally, the automaker sourced a separate 2022 UMTRI study demonstrating that IntelliBeam cut nighttime crashes involving pedestrians, bicyclists and animals by 22 percent.

GM is also upgrading the front sensors in the Cadillac Lyriq, 2023 Chevy Colorado and GMC Canyon. The enhanced sensors, with a wider field of vision, extend AEB operation to speeds of up to 80 mph while adding Bicyclist Automatic Emergency Braking to Front Pedestrian Braking — a welcome feature in cities with cyclists zipping in and out of traffic. In addition, the sensors enable smoother Lane Keep Assist engagement and Blind Zone Steering Assist (a short / sharp turn to avoid lane-change crashes). The automaker says the upgraded sensors and corresponding features will expand to other models in coming years.

The company emphasized that its safety features aren’t only for the wealthy and will also cover some of its cheapest gas-powered vehicles. For example, the 2024 Chevrolet Trax ($21,495 and up) will include all five of the safety features now standard in its more expensive EVs. “With this commitment, customers across all price points and trim levels will benefit from this set of proven safety technologies,” the company said.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gms-auto-emergency-braking-feature-is-now-standard-on-its-latest-evs-192035030.html?src=rss 

Amazon isn’t just settling over Ring doorbell privacy concerns. The online retailer has agreed to pay a $25 million settlement over Federal Trade Commission (FTC) allegations it violated child privacy through Alexa. The company allegedly fell afoul of both the FTC Act and the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) through its handling of kids’ voice data.

While the company said it limited access to voice data and promised to delete info on request, it kept children’s recordings and transcripts indefinitely by default until September 2019, according to the FTC. The Commission also says Amazon failed to delete transcripts for a “significant period of time,” and was still holding on to voice info and geolocation data.

In response, Amazon has issued a statement that it ‘disagrees’ with the FTC’s claims and is settling to put the matter “behind us.” It maintains that Amazon Kids was designed with COPPA in mind, and that parents have easy ways to delete recordings and transcripts on the web. The company also says it will delete child profiles that haven’t been used for at least 18 months, addressing an FTC concern that data could linger for years.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/amazon-will-pay-25-million-to-settle-ftc-lawsuit-over-alexa-privacy-for-kids-193330840.html?src=rss 

Sony has revealed the PlayStation Plus monthly games lineup for June. These are the three titles that folks on the Essential, Extra and Premium tiers can all claim and retain access to as long as they continue to subscribe. The headliner for June is NBA 2K23. The most recent edition of the long-running series features the return of the Jordan Challenge, in which you can play through 15 key moments from Michael Jordan’s legendary career.

Also in the lineup is Jurassic World Evolution 2, a construction and management sim in which you’ll build your own Jurassic World theme park. Perhaps you’ll have better luck at keeping the dinosaurs in their enclosures than the characters from the movies.

The third game PS Plus subscribers will able to snag next month is Trek to Yomi. It’s an Akira Kurosawa-inspired action-adventure set in the Edo period of Japan. You play as a young samurai who seeks revenge against those who attacked his village. I enjoyed Trek to Yomi quite a bit. It’s more style than substance, but goodness is that style gorgeous — I’ve used a screenshot as my desktop background for the last year.

You can add these games to your library at no extra cost starting on June 6th. PS4 and PS5 versions of all three will be available. In the meantime, you still have a chance to claim May’s games: Grid Legends, Chivalry 2 and Descenders.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-playstation-plus-monthly-games-for-june-include-nba-2k23-175506332.html?src=rss 

Streaming services often upload a pilot on YouTube to lure in new subscribers, but never an entire season. Paramount+ did just that, however, throwing up the entire first season of the critically-acclaimed Star Trek: Strange New Worlds on YouTube for all to see. That’s ten hours of free Star Trek goodness, for those keeping score.

It’s no coincidence that this move comes hot on the heels of season two of the sci-fi property, which premieres June 15th and promises more space-based tomfoolery and an anticipated crossover event with sibling show Star Trek: Lower Decks. The upcoming season also promises more Kirk and more Klingons, if classic franchise iconography is your bag.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is a prequel to the original series that follows the adventures of Enterprise captain Christopher Pike, his science officer Spock, a fresh-faced comms officer named Nyota Uhura and the rest of the crew. The show’s been praised for its “back to basics” formula, eschewing extensive serialization in favor of standalone episodes.

This promotion isn’t just for Trek fans, as Paramount+ also dropped full seasons of iCarly, Joe Pickett and Queen of the Universe. It goes without saying that this is a limited time promo offer, so open up those YouTube links and get binging.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/you-can-watch-the-entire-first-season-of-star-trek-strange-new-worlds-for-free-on-youtube-183553558.html?src=rss 

The pro League of Legends scene has been upended after players voted “overwhelmingly” in favor of a walkout to protest changes Riot has made to the minor leagues. Now, the publisher has threatened to cancel the summer season of the League Championship Series (LCS), which would prevent North American teams from qualifying for the LoL World Championship, if an agreement can’t be reached.

Players approved the action only a few days before the Summer Split of the LCS, the top level of LoL esports in North America, was set to start. Riot has delayed the season by two weeks in an attempt to resolve issues with players and the LCS Players Association (LCSPA), the association that represents them.

“Hopefully, this two-week window will give us time for productive dialogue between the LSCPA, teams and the league and then resume LCS competition this summer,” Naz Aletaha, Riot’s global head of LoL esports, wrote in a blog post, which was published after a meeting with the LCSPA. “The LCS will not be penalizing the teams for not fielding their rosters during this two-week period to allow everyone space to focus on constructive dialogue. We are doing our best to ensure LCS employees, contractors and others supporting the LCS are not negatively impacted by the delay.”

The company said although it needs “an LCS that is thrilling to watch and showcases the highest levels of League of Legends play,” it wouldn’t be able to delay the Summer Split any further. Aletaha said doing so “would make it nearly impossible to run a legitimate competition,” and as such Riot would be prepared to nix the season entirely. “That is not an outcome we’d want, but it’s unfortunately the reality of ensuring we run a fair, competitive global system,” Aletaha added.

The LCSPA claimed on Monday there had been “attempts to require teams to field scab players at the start of the season.” The LCSPA urged potential replacements to refuse to play for an LCS team because “crossing the line puts all players’ futures at risk” and “undermines player negotiating power.”

On Sunday, a majority of the 50 LCS players voted in favor of the walkout, resulting in one of the first major instances of collective action in esports. They are protesting a decision Riot announced earlier this month to no longer require LCS teams to field a team in an official farm system. The company agreed to a request from the teams in order to “support the continued, long-term success of the teams and the professional esports ecosystem in North America.”

Most LCS teams swiftly said they’d be dropping their North American Challengers League (NACL) rosters. The LCSPA said the move would result in “as many as 70 players, coaches and managers” losing their jobs and that most of the current LCS players came through the official farm system. The LCSPA claimed the average salary cost of an NACL roster “accounts for less than 17 percent of an average LCS organization’s League-based salary costs in a year.” It claimed that although farm systems in other regions were working well, “North America now has a developmental product with no viewership, no institutional support, no paying jobs and no future.”

The LCSPA urged Riot to agree to several conditions, including a promotion and relegation format between the LCS and NACL. It also wanted the publisher to “commit to a revenue pool for player salaries of $300,000 per NACL team per year.”

Aletaha addressed each of the LCSPA’s five requests in the blog post. In terms of the revenue pool, “this ask is for multiple millions in subsidies for the NACL. That simply isn’t sustainable — and to be brutally honest, it shouldn’t be necessary. We have other Tier 2 leagues around the world which thrive on their own, and we believe the NACL can get to that place too.” Aletaha noted that Riot is giving the organization that operates the NACL a one-time payment of $300,000 to “jump-start” the season and provide support to teams.

“Without players, there is no league, and there is no esport,” the LCSPA said in response. The association planned to today start discussions “that result in meaningful collaborative action to get our players back where they want to be: competing for fans on the LCS stage.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/riot-threatens-to-cancel-a-league-of-legends-esports-season-after-a-player-revolt-165429365.html?src=rss 

The National Eating Disorder Association (NEDA) was forced to take down its Tessa chatbot after it “may have given information that was harmful and unrelated to the program”, according to an official social media post. Simply put, the AI chatbot was intended to help people dealing with emotional distress, but instead just made things worse by offering dieting advice and urging users to weigh and measure themselves.

Multiple users and experts in the field of eating disorders have experienced the issues first hand, claiming that the bot didn’t respond to simple prompts like “I hate my body” and that it constantly emphasized the importance of dieting and increased physical activity, as reported by Gizmodo. Again, this is a helpline for those with an eating disorder, not a weight loss support group.

The organization says this is a temporary shutdown until it fixes whatever “bugs” and “triggers” led to the chatbot dispensing dangerous information like an appointment with Dr. Oz. You’d think with such an extreme outcome, they’d be thinking about trashing the project entirely, but there’s more to the story.

The whole reason NEDA was relying on the chatbot in the first place is because it allegedly fired human staffers after they tried to unionize, as originally reported by Vice. The long-running phone helpline was manned by both paid staffers and volunteers, and former staff claim the mass firing was a direct consequence of the pro-union effort.

“NEDA claims this was a long-anticipated change and that AI can better serve those with eating disorders. But do not be fooled—this isn’t really about a chatbot. This is about union busting, plain and simple,” former helpline associate Abbie Harper wrote in a blog post on Labor Notes.

Even with this recent snafu, the helpline’s still set to vanish tomorrow. Before this issue came to the public’s attention, NEDA had been transitioning unpaid volunteers away from one-on-one conversations with sufferers and toward training the chatbot. We’ll see if that changes. In the meantime, union-busters gonna bust, am I right?

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/eating-disorder-helpline-takes-down-chatbot-after-it-dispenses-dangerous-advice-173424523.html?src=rss