Skype Blurs Your Background
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| Skype Blurs Your Background | |
| Number | 745 |
| Broadcast Date | FEBRUARY 7, 2019 |
| Episode Length | 4:40 |
| Hosts | Tom Merritt |
Apps for iOS caught recording your screen without telling you, Skype wants to keep your whiteboard contents off your video calls, and Motorola has three good smartphones for less than $300.
Headlines
- Skype added an AI-driven feature that blurs the screen behind the caller in videos so you can't see whiteboards or messy rooms. The feature is similar to one added to Microsoft Teams last year. It's rolling out now although it's not supported on all devices. You can enable it in settings or from the video call button.
- TechCrunch reports that many iOS apps use services like Glassbox that record the screen when customers use the apps in order to replay them to observe interactions in order to improve the interface. Mobile expert the App Analyst recently discovered that Air Canada's iOS app wasn't properly masking these recordings, meaning personal info like passport and credit card numbers were being sent in the recordings. TechCrunch requested the App Analyst to look at other apps and found while most properly mask data, none indicated the recordings were being made. Theoretically this is because all this information is already being shared with the company through the app. Also, Apple warned that you'll get kicked out of the app store if you get caught doing this without permission.
- Germany's Federal Cartel Office has told Facebook it cannot combine information from Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook without getting voluntary consent from the user. Facebook must also get voluntary consent in order to combine information from third parties with Facebook data. A check box to agree to all terms would not be sufficient. Facebook believes this matter falls outside the FCO's purview and should be handled by data regulators under the GDPR. FCO says it can make the decision because Facebook abused its market dominance to implement these practices. Facebook has a month to challenge the ruling.
- Starting February 28, Facebook's drop-down which explains why users are seeing a particular advertisement will add which of your details were targeted and whether the brand paying for the ad uploaded your contact info in order to match the ad to you. It will also show when the contact info was uploaded and how the brand obtained it.
- Twitter reported a 24 percent rise in total revenue last quarter, driven by video ads. Earnings per share came in at 32 cents beating expectations of 25 cents. Monthly active users dropped on the year from 330 million to 321 million as expected due to continuing purges of fake accounts. That's the last quarter you can know that though, as Twitter will stop reporting monthly active users in favor of daily monetizable users. Twitter forecasts lower Q1 revenue and higher full-year operating costs than expected.
- Microsoft has joined Google, Facebook and Microsoft-owned GitHub as platinum members of the OpenChain Project. OpenChain provides specifications and policies to help companies manage their open-source license compliance. It's another step in Microsoft's continuing emphasis on open source.
- A multi-year study from Epicenter of network practices in 30 EU countries found that zero-rating, the practice of exempting certain types of data from bandwidth caps, increased costs of wireless data compared to countries without zero rating. EU countries with no zero-rating saw the price of wireless data drop by double digits after a year. Countries with zero rating saw price increases. A causative relationship was not determined.
- The Financial Times reports that earnings reports from AT&T, Comcast, Verizon and Charter all reduced capital expenditures in 2018, the first drop in investment in three years. Net neutrality rules stopped being enforced in June 2018 for the first time in about three years. Sprint spent more than $1 billion more on infrastructure last year but told the Financial Times the increase was not due to the change in rules. Uncertainty over the regulatory landscape may have made the change in rules irrelevant to investment decisions.
- Motorola announced its Moto G7, G7 Power and G7 Play phones all for less than $300. The most expensive, the G7 at $299 has a 6.2-inch LCD screen with 64 GB of storage, 4 GB of RAM and a 3,000mAh battery. The Moto G7 Power at $249 has the same size screen at slightly lower resolution with 3 GB of RAM and 32 GB of storage but with a 5000mAh battery. All three models come with Android 9 Pie and have headphone jacks. All three are available now in Brazil and Mexico, coming to Europe in mid-February and the US in the spring.
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| Preceded by: "The New York Times is Profitable thanks to the Web" |
Skype Blurs Your Background |
Followed by: "Fintech Firms Flock to Lithuania" |