The German Koblenz Regional Court has banned the internet service provider 1&1 from marketing its fiber-to-the-curb service as fiber-optic DSL. The court found that the company misled customers because its network uses copper cables for the final stage of connections, sometimes extending up to a mile from the distribution box to subscribers' homes.

Customers who visited the ISP's website and checked connection availability received a notification stating that a "1&1 fiber optic DSL connection" was available, even though fiber optic cables terminate at street-level distribution boxes or building service rooms. The company pairs the copper lines with vectoring technology to boost DSL speeds to 100 megabits per second. The Federation of German Consumer Organizations filed the lawsuit. Ramona Pop, the organization's chairperson, said that anyone who promises fiber optics but delivers only DSL is deceiving customers.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: On Monday afternoon, Amazon confirmed that an outage affecting Amazon Web Services' cloud hosting, which had impacted millions across the Internet, had been resolved. Considered the worst outage since last year's CrowdStrike chaos, Amazon's outage caused "global turmoil," Reuters reported. AWS is the world's largest cloud provider and, therefore, the "backbone of much of the Internet," ZDNet noted. Ultimately, more than 28 AWS services were disrupted, causing perhaps billions in damages, one analyst estimated for CNN.

[...] Amazon's problems originated at a US site that is its "oldest and largest for web services" and often "the default region for many AWS services," Reuters noted. The same site has experienced two outages before in 2020 and 2021, but while the tech giant had confirmed that those prior issues had been "fully mitigated," apparently the fixes did not ensure stability into 2025. ZDNet noted that Amazon's first sign of the outage was "increased error rates and latency across numerous key services" tied to its cloud database technology. Although "engineers later identified a Domain Name System (DNS) resolution problem" as the root of these issues and quickly fixed it, "other AWS services began to fail in its wake, leaving the platform still impaired" as more than two dozen AWS services shut down. At the peak of the outage on Monday, Down Detector tracked more than 8 million reports globally from users panicked by the outage, ZDNet reported. Ken Birman, a computer science professor at Cornell University, told Reuters that "software developers need to build better fault tolerance."

"When people cut costs and cut corners to try to get an application up, and then forget that they skipped that last step and didn't really protect against an outage, those companies are the ones who really ought to be scrutinized later."

Google plans to let Pixel smartphone enthusiasts test out the company's next handset ahead of its public introduction. From a report: Google has invited members of its "Superfans" group to apply to test future Pixel hardware, asking entrants to profess their knowledge and passion for the brand in hopes of being able to beta test forthcoming products.

Consumer tech companies often let small groups of customers try out unreleased products under strict secrecy to gather feedback during development. But it's incredibly rare for a company of Google's size to do it with something as high-profile as the Pixel lineup.

The search giant will select 15 people from the pool of entrants, and winners must all sign a non-disclosure agreement to receive devices, according to official rules for the contest reviewed by Bloomberg News. "The Trusted Tester program is an opportunity to provide feedback and help shape a Pixel phone currently in development," the document reads.

Long-time Slashdot reader fjo3 shares an announcement from the U.S.-based nonprofit Consumer Reports: Protein powders still carry troubling levels of toxic heavy metals, according to a new Consumer Reports (CR) investigation. Our latest tests of 23 protein powders and ready-to-drink shakes from popular brands found that heavy metal contamination has become even more common among protein products, raising concerns that the risks are growing right alongside the industry itself. For more than two-thirds of the products we analyzed, a single serving contained more lead than CR's food safety experts say is safe to consume in a day — some by more than 10 times...

[I]n addition to the average level of lead being higher than what we found 15 years ago, there were also fewer products with undetectable amounts of it. The outliers also packed a heavier punch. Naked Nutrition's Vegan Mass Gainer powder, the product with the highest lead levels, had nearly twice as much lead per serving as the worst product we analyzed in 2010. Nearly all the plant-based products CR tested had elevated lead levels, but some were particularly concerning. Two had so much lead that CR's experts caution against using them at all... Dairy-based protein powders and shakes generally had the lowest amounts of lead, but half of the products we tested still had high enough levels of contamination that CR's experts advise against daily use...

Unlike prescription and over-the-counter drugs, the Food and Drug Administration doesn't review, approve, or test supplements like protein powders before they are sold. Federal regulations also don't generally require supplement makers to prove their products are safe, and there are no federal limits for the amount of heavy metals they can contain.
The article acknowledges that "Many of these powders are fine to have occasionally, and even those with the highest lead levels are far below the concentration needed to cause immediate harm. That said, because most people don't actually need protein supplements — nutrition experts say the average American already gets plenty — it makes sense to ask whether these products are worth the added exposure."

In two separate reports, Apple and Samsung are said to report underwhelming sales of their new ultra-thin smartphones. According to The Elec, Apple plans to cut production of the iPhone Air while Samsung has canceled its planned Galaxy S26 Edge smartphone after disappointing sales of the Galaxy S25 Edge, Korea's NewsPim claims. MacRumors reports: Samsung apparently halted work on the Galaxy S26 Edge this week, informing employees internally that the product line would be discontinued. Internal discussions in September shifted priorities toward the more conventional "Plus" form factor after confirming that consumer demand for ultra-slim flagships was weaker than expected. [...]

Samsung will apparently instead add a Galaxy S26 Plus model to its 2026 lineup, reverting to the company's traditional three-tier structure of base, Plus, and Ultra variants. Despite the cancellation, development of the Galaxy S26 Edge was already complete. Development of the S26 Plus is expected to begin before the end of the third quarter of 2025. The atmosphere inside the company is said to be "chaotic" and "embarrassed" following the sudden lineup revision. Samsung reportedly plans to sell through existing inventory of the Galaxy S25 Edge and cease further production once stock is depleted. As for Apple's iPhone Air, here's what MacRumors is reporting: The Japanese investment banking and securities firm claims that the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are seeing higher sales than their predecessors during the same period last year, while the standard iPhone 17 is a major success, performing significantly better than the iPhone 16.

The iPhone Air is apparently the outlier; Apple plans to reduce production by one million units this year. Meanwhile, Apple plans to increase production of all other models by two million units. The overall production forecast of the iPhone 17 series this year has also been increased from 88 million units to 94 million units for the start of 2026.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Heise: The European Commission has revised the Ecodesign requirements for external power supplies (EPS). The new rules aim to increase consumer convenience, resource efficiency, and energy efficiency. Manufacturers have three years to prepare for the changes. The new regulations apply to external power supplies that charge or power devices such as laptops, smartphones, Wi-Fi routers, and computer monitors. Starting in 2028, these products must meet higher energy efficiency standards and become more interoperable. Specifically, USB chargers on the EU market must have at least one USB Type-C port and function with detachable cables.

With the regulation, the EU is also establishing minimum requirements for the efficiency of power supplies with an output power of up to 240 watts that charge via USB Power Delivery (USB-PD), among other things, under other things, minimum requirements. Power supplies with an output power exceeding 10 watts will also have to meet minimum energy efficiency values in partial load operation (10 percent of rated power) in the future, which is intended to reduce unnecessary energy losses. The EU Commission says the new requirements are expected to save around 3% of energy consumption over the lifecycle of external chargers by 2035. Additionally, greenhouse gas emissions are expected to decrease by 9% and pollutant emissions by about 13%.

"The EU also calculates that consumer spending could decrease by around 100 million euros per year by 2035," reports Heise.

The California Broadband & Video Association has objected to legislation signed by Governor Gavin Newsom on October 15 that allows apartment tenants to opt out of mandatory bulk billing for internet service. The cable industry group called the measure "an anti-affordability bill masked as consumer protection."

The association said property owners would have to provide refunds to tenants who decline internet service provided through building contracts. The law "undermines the basis of the cost savings and will lead to bulk billing being phased out," the group said. Assembly member Rhodesia Ransom, who authored the bill, said lobby groups for internet providers and real estate companies worked hard to defeat it.

The association told the Sacramento Bee it was disappointed Newsom signed the legislation because it would be "an impediment to utilizing an effective tool" that helped middle-class Californians get discounted rates. The law takes effect January 1. Tenants who are denied the right to opt out can deduct subscription costs from their rent.

Microsoft is reshaping Windows around AI, introducing capabilities that let users control their computers through voice and allow Copilot to take autonomous actions on their behalf. The company is now rolling out a "Hey, Copilot!" wake word on Windows 11 machines, positioning voice as a "third input mechanism" to supplement the keyboard and mouse.

Copilot Vision, which streams what a user sees on their screen, is rolling out globally, enabling the system to troubleshoot PC problems, help with app usage, and provide task guidance. Microsoft is simultaneously testing Copilot Actions through a limited preview, allowing the AI to take autonomous actions on local machines like editing folders of photos. The company is also integrating Copilot into the Windows taskbar and launching advertisements promoting these features, coinciding with Windows 10's end-of-support earlier this week.

Yusuf Mehdi, Microsoft's consumer chief marketing officer, said the company wants users upgrading to Windows 11 to "experience what it means to have a PC that's not just a tool, but a true partner." Microsoft attempted to popularize Cortana, a voice assistant, on Windows 10 a decade ago. Last year, the company released Recall, a feature that automatically captured screenshots, drawing criticism over privacy.

Anthropic is projecting its annualized revenue run rate to soar from roughly $7 billion today to as much as $26 billion in 2026, driven by rapid enterprise adoption of its Claude AI models. Reuters reports: Anthropic debuted a new version of its cheapest AI model, Haiku, on Wednesday, as part of a broader effort to appeal to companies that are looking for capable AI systems that are dramatically cheaper than its more advanced models. The Haiku 4.5 model sells for about one-third the price of Sonnet 4, one of its medium-sized models.

The revenue projections underscore continued strong demand for generative AI tools among businesses and help explain investor enthusiasm, even as AI spending, especially in infrastructure buildout, comes under scrutiny. Some people worry the level of investment might be unsustainable. Fueling the expansion is the uptake of enterprise products, which are built for organizations. Anthropic has more than 300,000 business and enterprise customers, which account for about 80% of its revenue.

Walmart announced a new partnership with OpenAI that will let customers shop using ChatGPT. "For many years now, eCommerce shopping experiences have consisted of a search bar and a long list of item responses. That is about to change," Walmart CEO Doug McMillon said in a statement. NBC News reports: It was unclear Tuesday what the terms of the Walmart-AI partnership would be. The announcement also did not say when shoppers can expect to see ChatGPT integrated with their Walmart online shopping experiences, only that it's coming "soon." The OpenAI announcement is part of a broader push by Walmart, the biggest private employer in the U.S., to incorporate AI into its daily operations.

"We're excited to partner with Walmart to make everyday purchases a little simpler. It's just one way AI will help people every day under our work together," Sam Altman, the co-founder and CEO of OpenAI, said in a statement. The partnership could also serve OpenAI by introducing ChatGPT to a massive set of consumers who may not be as accustomed to using AI chats in their shopping as OpenAI's core user base. "There is a native AI experience coming that is multi-media, personalized and contextual," said Walmart's McMillon.

California's Privacy Protection Agency "issued a record fine earlier this month to Tractor Supply," according to an EFF Deeplinks blog post — for "apparently ducking its responsibilities under the California Consumer Privacy Act." Under that law, companies are required to respect California customers' and job applicants' rights to know, delete, and correct information that businesses collect about them, and to opt-out of some types of sharing and use. The law also requires companies to give notice of these rights, along with other information, to customers, job applicants, and others. The CPPA said that Tractor Supply failed several of these requirements. This is the first time the agency has enforced this data privacy law to protect job applicants...

Tractor Supply, which has 2,500 stores in 49 states, will pay for their actions to the tune of $1,350,000 — the largest fine the agency has issued to date. Specifically, the agency said, Tractor Supply violated the law by:

- Failing to maintain a privacy policy that notified consumers of their rights;

- Failing to notify California job applicants of their privacy rights and how to exercise them;

- Failing to provide consumers with an effective mechanism to opt-out of the selling and sharing of their personal information, including through opt-out preference signals such as Global Privacy Control; and

- Disclosing personal information to other companies without entering into contracts that contain privacy protections.


In addition to the fine, the company also must take an inventory of its digital properties and tracking technologies and will have to certify its compliance with the California privacy law for the next four years.
The agency's web site says it "continues to actively enforce California's cutting-edge privacy laws." It's recently issued decisions (and fines) against American Honda Motor Company and clothing retailer Todd Snyder. Other recent actions include:

• Securing a settlement agreement requiring data broker Background Alert — which promoted its ability to dig up "scary" amounts of information about people — to shut down or pay a steep fine.

• Launching the bipartisan Consortium of Privacy Regulators to collaborate with states across the country to implement and enforce privacy laws nationwide.

• Partnering with the data protection authorities in Korea, France, and the United Kingdom to share information and advance privacy protections for Californians.

• The agency has secured more than half a dozen successful enforcement actions against unregistered data brokers following an investigative sweep launched late last year to assess compliance with the Delete Act.

"California Governor Gavin Newsom signed the 'California Opt Me Out Act', which will require web browsers to include an easy, universal way for users to opt out of data collection and sales," reports the blog 9to5Mac: [The law] requires browsers to provide a clear, one-click mechanism for Californians to opt out of data sharing across websites. The bill reads: "A business shall not develop or maintain a browser that does not include functionality configurable by a consumer that enables the browser to send an opt-out preference signal to businesses with which the consumer interacts through the browser...." Californians will need patience, though, as the law doesn't take effect until January 1, 2027.
Americans in some states — including California, Texas, Colorado, New Jersey and Maryland — "have the option to make those opt-out demands automatic whenever they surf the web," reports the Washington Post. "But they can only do so if they use small browsers that voluntarily offer that option, such as DuckDuckGo, Firefox and Brave. What's new in California's law is that all browsers must give people the same option." That means soon in California, just using Google's Chrome, Apple's Safari and Microsoft's Edge can command companies not to sell your data or pass it along for ad targeting... It's an imperfect but potent and simple way to flex privacy rights — and becomes even more powerful with another simple privacy measure in California. Starting on January 1, California residents can fill out an online form once to completely and repeatedly wipe their data from hundreds of data brokers that package your personal information for sale.
But their article also suggests other ways readers can "try a one-click privacy option now."

• "[S]ome national companies respect one-click privacy opt-out requests from everyone... This happens automatically if you use DuckDuckGo and Brave. You need to change a setting with Firefox."

• "Download Privacy Badger: The software from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a consumer privacy advocacy group, works in the background to order websites not to sell information they're collecting about you."

• "Use Permission Slip from Consumer Reports. Give the app basic information, and it will help you do much of the legwork to tell companies not to sell your information or to delete it, if you have the right to do so."

"Nvidia is investing billions in and selling chips to OpenAI, which is also buying chips from and earning stock in AMD," writes SFGate. "AMD sells processors to Oracle, which is building data centers with OpenAI — which also gets data center work from CoreWeave. And that company is partially owned by, yes, Nvidia.

"Taken together, it's a doozy." There are other collaborations and rivalries and many other factors at play, but OpenAI is the many-tentacled octopus in the middle, spinning its achievement of ChatGPT into a blitz of speculative investments. "We are in a phase of the build-out where the entire industry's got to come together and everybody's going to do super well," OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told the Wall Street Journal on Monday. "You'll see this on chips. You'll see this on data centers. You'll see this lower down the supply chain...."

Some worry that the more closely companies intertwine, the more susceptible they are to creating a bubble, or a market not actually supported by real consumer demand. "You don't have to be a skeptic about AI technology's promise in general to see this announcement as a troubling signal about how self-referential the entire space has become," Bespoke Investment Group wrote in a note to clients, per CNBC. "If NVDA has to provide the capital that becomes its revenues in order to maintain growth, the whole ecosystem may be unsustainable..."

Also, even with Nvidia's investment, AMD's shares and OpenAI's repeated fundraises, the ChatGPT-maker doesn't have the cash to meet all of these vast commitments. And if OpenAI's soaring projections about demand for AI computing don't bear out, there will be a lot of committed money — and a large share of the stock market — that would see its foundations topple.
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader mspohr for sharing the news.

"Next time Amazon hypes its Prime Days savings, remember this: The prices during the sale aren't always better," writes a Washington Post technology columnist. "I've got the receipts to prove it." I would have saved, on average, almost nothing during Amazon's recent fall "Prime Big Deal Days" — and for some big-ticket purchases, I would have actually paid amore. For the sale that took place Oct. 7 and 8, my family went in prepared. We had a shopping list with prices we'd been tracking... A TV stand he'd been watching jumped 38 percent to $379, from $275 on Oct. 2. Same story for a few other big-ticket items on his list — another console went up from $219.99 to $299. Those products weren't listed as "big deals" on the site, but we certainly didn't expect their prices to spike during Prime Days.

And in other cases, Amazon marketed discounts that turned out to be the exact price it had charged in recent weeks. One example: an Oral-B electric toothbrush was listed as 39 percent off, but actually the same price as in August... Other consumer advocates have warned one common trick is for Amazon to feature artificially inflated "before" prices to make discounts appear larger than they are. Ahead of Amazon's 2017 Prime Day, the nonprofit Consumer Watchdog reported that 61 percent of reference prices on Amazon were higher than any price the company had charged for those items in the prior 90 days... I found products listed as Prime Day discounts that cost the same as I'd paid less than a month earlier. For example, a pack of coronavirus tests I bought on Sept. 12 was the same price on Oct. 8, but listed as "39 percent off." Amazon said I'd gotten a particularly good deal in September, and the Prime Big Deal Days price offers "meaningful savings compared to the typical price customers have paid on Amazon over the last 90 days...."

To actually get a good deal on Amazon, go in with a plan. I use a free website called CamelCamelCamel, which tracks Amazon's historical prices. You can see what's really a discount — and set alerts when prices drop to your target.
The reporter checked every non-grocery purchase they'd made on Amazon for six months. Purchasing the same products on Amazon's "Big Deal Days" would have brought savings of just 0.6%. "And that doesn't include the $139 annual fee to be a member of Amazon Prime."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from KrebsOnSecurity: The world's largest and most disruptive botnet is now drawing a majority of its firepower from compromised Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices hosted on U.S. Internet providers like AT&T, Comcast and Verizon, new evidence suggests. Experts say the heavy concentration of infected devices at U.S. providers is complicating efforts to limit collateral damage from the botnet's attacks, which shattered previous records this week with a brief traffic flood that clocked in at nearly 30 trillion bits of data per second.

Since its debut more than a year ago, the Aisuru botnet has steadily outcompeted virtually all other IoT-based botnets in the wild, with recent attacks siphoning Internet bandwidth from an estimated 300,000 compromised hosts worldwide. The hacked systems that get subsumed into the botnet are mostly consumer-grade routers, security cameras, digital video recorders and other devices operating with insecure and outdated firmware, and/or factory-default settings. Aisuru's owners are continuously scanning the Internet for these vulnerable devices and enslaving them for use in distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks that can overwhelm targeted servers with crippling amounts of junk traffic.

As Aisuru's size has mushroomed, so has its punch. In May 2025, KrebsOnSecurity was hit with a near-record 6.35 terabits per second (Tbps) attack from Aisuru, which was then the largest assault that Google's DDoS protection service Project Shield had ever mitigated. Days later, Aisuru shattered that record with a data blast in excess of 11 Tbps. By late September, Aisuru was publicly flexing DDoS capabilities topping 22 Tbps. Then on October 6, its operators heaved a whopping 29.6 terabits of junk data packets each second at a targeted host. Hardly anyone noticed because it appears to have been a brief test or demonstration of Aisuru's capabilities: The traffic flood lasted less only a few seconds and was pointed at an Internet server that was specifically designed to measure large-scale DDoS attacks.

Aisuru's overlords aren't just showing off. Their botnet is being blamed for a series of increasingly massive and disruptive attacks. Although recent assaults from Aisuru have targeted mostly ISPs that serve online gaming communities like Minecraft, those digital sieges often result in widespread collateral Internet disruption. For the past several weeks, ISPs hosting some of the Internet's top gaming destinations have been hit with a relentless volley of gargantuan attacks that experts say are well beyond the DDoS mitigation capabilities of most organizations connected to the Internet today.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: MEPs voted on Wednesday by 355 in favor to 247 against to reserve names such as "steak", "burger" and "sausage" exclusively for products derived from meat, a longstanding demand of farm unions. In order to come into effect, the idea would have to be approved by a majority of the EU's 27 member states, which is far from certain. The vote is a victory for the French centre-right MEP Celine Imart, who drafted the amendment to legislation intended to strengthen the position of farmers in the food supply chain.

Imart, who is also a cereals farmer in north-west France, said: "A steak, an escalope or a sausage are products from our livestock, not laboratory art nor plant products. There is a need for transparency and clarity for the consumer and recognition for the work of our farmers." She argues the proposal is in line with EU rules that already ban the use of terms such as "milk" and "yoghurt" for non-dairy products.

The European parliament rejected a ban on meaty names for plant-based products in 2020, but the 2024 elections shifted the parliament to the right, bringing in more lawmakers who seek close ties with farmers. Opposition was led by Green MEPs, who decried what they saw as a populist move to rename plant-based foods. "Veggie burgers, seitan schnitzel and tofu sausage do not confuse consumers, only rightwing politicians," Thomas Waitz, an Austrian Green MEP, said after the vote. "This tactic is a diversion and a pathetic smokescreen. No farmer will earn more money or secure their future with this ban."

U.S. GDP growth in the first half of 2025 was driven almost entirely by investment in data centers and information processing technology. The GDP growth would have been just 0.1% on an annualized basis without these technology-related categories, according to Harvard economist Jason Furman. Investment in information-processing equipment and software accounted for only 4% of U.S. GDP during this period but represented 92% of GDP growth.

Renaissance Macro Research estimated in August that the dollar value contributed to GDP growth by AI data-center buildout had surpassed U.S. consumer spending for the first time. Consumer spending makes up two-thirds of GDP. Tech giants including Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Meta and Nvidia poured tens of billions of dollars into building and upgrading data centers.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Pay-advance apps are marketed as a way to help workers living paycheck to paycheck pay for unexpected expenses, but workers are often using the apps to manage basic expenses like groceries, rent and other needs, a new report found. The tools, consumer advocates say, can carry costs akin to those of traditional payday loans.

An analysis of anonymous data found worrisome behavior among users of the apps, including quick increases in the number of advances, advances from multiple apps at the same time and more frequent bank overdraft fees. "These findings reveal persistent patterns of financial strain that raise serious concerns about the long-term effects of these loans," said the report from the Center for Responsible Lending, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group. The group analyzed data from SaverLife, a nonprofit that promotes saving and sound financial practices among people with low or moderate incomes. The analysis found that heavy users of the apps paid $421, on average, in total loan and overdraft fees over a year, or almost triple the average paid by moderate users.

Amazon will be adding facial recognition to its camera-equipped Ring doorbells for the first time in December, according to the Washington Post.

"While the feature will be optional for Ring device owners, privacy advocates say it's unfair that wherever the technology is in use, anyone within sight will have their faces scanned to determine who's a friend or stranger." The Ring feature is "invasive for anyone who walks within range of your Ring doorbell," said Calli Schroeder, senior counsel at the consumer advocacy and policy group Electronic Privacy Information Center. "They are not consenting to this." Ring spokeswoman Emma Daniels said that Ring's features empower device owners to be responsible users of facial recognition and to comply with relevant laws that "may require obtaining consent prior to identifying people..."

Other companies, including Google, already offer facial recognition for connected doorbells and cameras. You might use similar technology to unlock your iPhone or tag relatives in digital photo albums. But privacy watchdogs said that Ring's use of facial recognition poses added risks, because the company's products are embedded in our neighborhoods and have a history of raising social, privacy and legal questions... It's typically legal to film in public places, including your doorway. And in most of the United States, your permission is not legally required to collect or use your faceprint. Privacy experts said that Ring's use of the technology risks crossing ethical boundaries because of its potential for widespread use in residential areas without people's knowledge or consent.

You choose to unlock your iPhone by scanning your face. A food delivery courier, a child selling candy or someone walking by on the sidewalk is not consenting to have their face captured, stored and compared against Ring's database, said Adam Schwartz, privacy litigation director for the consumer advocacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation. "It's troubling that companies are making a product that by design is taking biometric information from people who are doing the innocent act of walking onto a porch," he said.
Ring's spokesperson said facial recognition won't be available some locations, according to the article, including Texas and Illinois, which passed laws fining companies for collecting face information without permission. But the Washington Post heard another possible worst-case scenario from Calli Schroeder, senior counsel at the consumer advocacy and policy group Electronic Privacy Information Center: databases of identified faces being stolen by cyberthieves, misused by Ring employees, or shared with outsiders such as law enforcement.

Amazon says they're "reuniting lost dogs through the power of AI," in their announcement this week, thanks to "an AI-powered community feature that enables your outdoor Ring cameras to help reunite lost dogs with their families... When a neighbor reports a lost dog in the Ring app, nearby outdoor Ring cameras automatically begin scanning for potential matches."

Amazon calls it an example of their vision for "tools that make it easier for neighbors to look out for each other, and create safer, more connected communities." They're also 10x zoom, enhanced low-light performance, 2K and 4K resolutions, and "advanced AI tuning" for video...

An anonymous reader writes: Landlords are using a service that logs into a potential renter's employer systems and scrapes their paystubs and other information en masse, potentially in violation of U.S. hacking laws, according to screenshots of the tool shared with 404 Media.

The screenshots highlight the intrusive methods some landlords use when screening potential tenants, taking information they may not need, or legally be entitled to, to assess a renter.

"This is a statewide consumer-finance abuse that forces renters to surrender payroll and bank logins or face homelessness," one renter who was forced to use the tool and who saw it taking more data than was necessary for their apartment application told 404 Media. 404 Media granted the person anonymity to protect them from retaliation from their landlord or the services used.

[...] "Argyle hijacked my live Workday session, stayed hidden from view, and downloaded every pay stub plus all W-4s back to 2024, each PDF seconds apart," they said. "Workday audit logs show dozens of 'Print' events from two IPs from a MAC which I do not use," they added, referring to a MAC address, a unique identifier assigned to each device on a network.