This week: your phone wasn't listening, but your TV is
Also: what a breach number actually counts, Ring's new encryption default, and the Snipping Tool button you have never pressed.
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You already use the Snipping Tool. Look at what it does now.
Two keys, drag a box, and the picture is on your clipboard. That part hasn't changed. What's new is everything sitting behind the buttons across the top, and most people have never pressed any of them.
Your smart TV can track what you watch.
Your TV can recognize what is on its own screen, including whatever comes in over HDMI. What the setting is called on each brand, and where to find it.
Also this week: a false antivirus warning, an FTC lawsuit over Amazon's ad prices, and 19 browser add-ons gone bad
A Windows pop-up is wrong about your antivirus. The FTC says Amazon padded its ad prices. Nineteen browser add-ons turned on their users. Android 17 shuts a door scammers use.
Cox Media Group told advertisers it was listening to you. The FTC says it never was.
The FTC fined Cox Media Group and two partners $930,000 over Active Listening, a service they said could pick up conversations from phones, TVs and smart speakers. It never collected a second of audio, and the tracking that really explains those eerie ads is duller and harder to escape.
Who is ShinyHunters, and why is that name in every breach letter?
A hacking group said it took millions of customer records. Somebody opened the file and counted. The first big number in a breach story is a count of rows, not people.
This week: a price built just for you
Also: laptop specs, slow Wi-Fi, GTA VI malware, plus Google watching Search for your address.
Ring is throwing away its key to your videos
Ring's next encryption default destroys its copy of your video keys after 24 hours. That closes a door Ring left open for years. It stops at the moment an owner shares a clip.
Does technology make us lonely?
Loneliness gets compared to smoking fifteen cigarettes a day. The researcher behind that number keeps a page on her own website correcting how people quote it. Here is where it came from, who is loneliest, and what the evidence says about your phone.
Google will tell you when your address shows up in its search results
Google's Results about you tool watches Search for your address, your phone number, and since February your driver's license and Social Security numbers. Here is what it pulls down and what it will not touch.
Are you paying a different price than your neighbor?
Congress never gave the FTC the power to ban personalized pricing. What it can do is make stores admit to it, and it is taking comments until September 18.
Also this week: pricier Amazon devices, a $17 billion Meta settlement, and a check from Disney
Amazon raised the list price on its own devices. Meta settled the teen social media case for $17 billion. Disney owes streaming subscribers a check by September 8. And a gas alarm sold under 18 names on Amazon can stay silent.
News
The GTA VI leak. How big leaks become bait.
Take-Two is pulling the CyberLeek clips as fast as they go up. The "archives" filling the gap are malware, and the pattern is older than this game.
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Who is behind your child's GPS watch?
Consumer Reports found kids GPS trackers that skip the second login step, and the cheapest watches run on shared platforms the buyer cannot name. Here is how to check the one on your child's wrist.
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The post office already photographs your mail. It will send you the pictures.
USPS will email you a photo of the letters coming to your house that day, for free. Most eligible addresses have never turned it on.
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Can you stop AI companies from training on what you write?
The opt-out settings are real, they only work going forward, and they only bind companies that choose to honor them. What each one actually does, and the one place you have real power.
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Also this week: an Apple alert, a Comcast deadline, and a teen account nobody asked for
Apple warned the people it thinks are spyware targets and shipped an update the rest of us should install, the Comcast breach claim deadline moved to September 14, ChatGPT started sorting its own users by age, and four states put Meta on trial in Oakland.
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What is a CPSC product safety warning?
A second kind of safety notice has grown to a fifth of the total, and it comes with no refund. Here is what to check before you buy a charger, a power strip, or a power bank.
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What you own when your printer is on a subscription
Cancel the subscription and the cartridge stops working, ink and all. HP writes it down, and so do Brother, Canon and Epson. What the contracts say, and how to leave without a dead printer.
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Google is paying $68 million over Assistant recordings. Claims close 8/27.
The $18 to $56 estimate assumes almost nobody files. What the claim form actually asks for, which class needs a receipt, and why your Nest speaker is fine.
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Do you need antivirus on a Mac?
macOS already runs three layers of protection for free. What XProtect and Gatekeeper cover, the one rule that does more than any scanner, and who should still install something.
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Your library card is a subscription you already pay for
Free audiobooks, ebooks, and magazines on the phone already in your pocket. No card? You can probably fix that today without leaving home.
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Before you price hearing aids, take the test that came with your earbuds
AirPods Pro carry an FDA-authorized over-the-counter hearing aid for mild to moderate hearing loss, plus a free hearing test. What it does, what it does not do, and what Medicare covers.
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Also this week: a photo backup that quit, an FTC refund check, and new limits on license plate cameras
Google Drive stopped pushing your pictures into Google Photos on Monday, the FTC is sending $23.8 million in Grubhub refunds, Flock is tightening the rules on its license plate cameras, and Toyota is recalling half a million Camrys over a dashboard that goes blank.