Places and Things

The Lastpass hack was worse than the company first reported After being hacked for the second time in as many years this August, password manager app Lastpass announced on Thursday the most recent intrusion was much more damaging than initially reported with the attackers having made off with users' password vaults in some cases. Continue Reading . . . https://www.engadget.com/the-lastpass-hack-was-worse-than-the-company-first-reported-000501559.html

YouTube’s NFL Sunday Ticket deal is a brilliant move for its subscription future The “pick me! pick me!” bidding war for NFL Sunday Ticket has finally come to an end, and YouTube won big. The company announced a “multi-year” deal that will see it carry Sunday Ticket both standalone (as a YouTube Primetime Channel) and through YouTube TV. Continue Reading . . . https://www.theverge.com/2022/12/22/23522535/youtube-nfl-sunday-ticket-bundle-subscriptions

Google is making its internal video-blurring privacy tool open source Google has announced that two of its latest privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs), including one that blurs objects in a video, will be provided to anyone for free via open source. Continue Reading . . . https://www.engadget.com/google-is-making-its-internal-video-blurring-privacy-tool-open-source-150052840.html

Hate speech is soaring on Twitter under Elon Musk, report finds Elon Musk claimed last week that “hate speech impressions” on Twitter were down by one-third since he took over the company. But the total amount of hate speech on the platform has risen during that same time period, according to research by the Center for Countering Digital Hate. Continue Reading . . . https://www.theverge.com/2022/12/2/23489808/elon-musk-twitter-hate-speech-increase-content-moderation

Tax filing websites have been sending users’ financial information to Facebook Major tax filing services such as H&R Block, TaxAct, and TaxSlayer have been quietly transmitting sensitive financial information to Facebook when Americans file their taxes online, The Markup has learned. Continue Reading . . . https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/22/23471842/facebook-hr-block-taxact-taxslayer-info-sharing

Apple changed how reading books works in iOS 16, and I may never be happy again Apple Books has been my main reading app for years for one very specific reason: its page-turning animation is far and away the best in the business. Continue Reading . . . https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/21/23471306/apple-books-ios-16-page-flip-animation-sucks

Time’s up: the Leap Second is being scrapped A global panel of scientists and government representatives have voted to scrap leap seconds by 2035. The ad-hoc time adjustment is occasionally inserted to account for the gradual slowdown of the Earth’s rotation, and has caused headaches for numerous tech companies over the years. Continue Reading . . . https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/21/23470759/leap-second-scrapped-2035-time-computer-chaos