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- Amazon Delivers in more ways While Safety and Personal Choice go out the window
Amazon Delivers in more ways While Safety and Personal Choice go out the window
Tech News Stories from the week of May 24th... part 2
Walter Wimberly
June 02, 2024
Welcome back my Tech Curious friend. I’m so glad you’re here. Below you can find information about the most recent tech news. So let’s get started.
Table of Contents
Amazon Drones for Even Faster Deliveries
US regulators have cleared Amazon to use drones beyond the line of sight of the operator. This will increase their use and capabilities.
Amazon is expecting to add this new capability into their deliveries later this year. Given that last mile shipping is sometimes the most costly, this might save Amazon a lot of money in the long run.
Amazon is seeking to deliver 500 million packages a year by drone by the end of the decade.
Updating Their Algorithm
Besides suing the US government, TikTok appears to be redesigning their algorithm for video recommendations for their 170 million US users.
While TikTok denies this is occurring, it has come from inside sources, says Reuters.
The new algorithm could allow ByteDance, the Chinese-based company which owns TikTok, to sell it to an outside resource. Previously Kevin O’Leary, best known for being on Shark Tank, has mentioned wanting to buy TikTok, but suggested it would have a much lower price than what it is valued at, because they would need to develop a new algorithm to make it work.
Google Updates AI Generated Results
News of Google updating as well as reducing the number of AI generated answers is making the rounds this week. This is in direct reflection of the errors that its AI engine was giving people, such as eating a small rock a day, or putting glue on pizza to keep the toppings from sliding off.
The good news is that Google is quick to find and fix errors such as these. The bad news is that they occur in the first place, and is why people always suggest you should “trust but verify” any AI answer, no matter which one gave it to you.
Safety Board… No More
You’ve heard me mention how OpenAI got rid of their Super Alignment team, and what that meant. You’ve also heard me mention other social media companies reducing their safety teams.
Well, Twitch has just been added to that list, it seems. Amazon created their Safety Advisory Council in 2020. It comprised nine industry experts, streamers, and moderators who consulted on trust and safety issues related to children on Twitch, nudity, banned users, and more. However, as of Friday, all of their contracts have been terminated.
Why? Are these issues no longer an issue for anyone? Has Amazon not been online?
Google Aims to Neuter Ad Blockers
Back when Google came out with Chrome, many were excited to have a new and updated browser. However, some were concerned about the company who provided most of the world’s search results, who has the biggest online ad engine, also controlling how you view the web through its browser.
Well, those fears are now coming to light. While no one enjoys online ads, they serve a purpose, especially if you want to avoid having to pay a subscription to every website you visit. After all, it costs money to run a website.
Well, Google is now looking to roll out a new extension platform. According to Google, the Manifest V3 is about “improving the security, privacy, performance, and trustworthiness of the extension ecosystem.”
However, Manifest V3 is putting serious limitations on “content filtering” AKA ad blocking… How does that affect the “improving the security, privacy, performance, and trustworthiness of the extension ecosystem”? Well, that’s easy. Google makes about 77% of it’s money off of ad revenue. It’s why they also were caught purposefully making search results worse.
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