Clothes-hook spy cameras on sale on Amazon, Barbie most Googled movie of 2023
Spy cameras disguised as clothes hooks are for sale on Amazon, despite the firm being sued over the gadgets. One clothes hook camera listing seen by the BBC features a picture of the device positioned in a bathroom. A US judge recently ruled the retail giant must face a case brought by a woman who alleges she was filmed in the bathroom using a clothes hook camera purchased on Amazon. A privacy expert has said the misuse of such devices may break British laws. Amazon declined to comment on the issue. BBC
Mobile and broadband customers must be told upfront about any mobile price rises when signing a new contract, under new consumer protection plans set out today by Ofcom. With most major phone, broadband and pay TV companies now including mid-contract price rises linked to uncertain future inflation, Ofcom is concerned that customers’ contracts do not provide sufficient certainty about the prices they will pay. Ofcom’s analysis of providers’ data shows that as of April 2023 four in ten (11 million) broadband customers and over half of mobile customers (36 million) were on contracts subject to inflation-linked price rises. Tech Digest
Epic Games, maker of Fortnite, has prevailed in an antitrust trial over Alphabet’s Google Play app marketplace, Epic’s chief executive said on Monday, hours after the federal jury took up the case. “Victory over Google! After 4 weeks of detailed court testimony, the California jury found against the Google Play monopoly on all counts. The Court’s work on remedies will start in January,” Tim Sweeney wrote in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter. Jurors found for Epic on all counts, a court filing showed. The court will begin work in January on what remedies to implement. Google said it would appeal. The Guardian
Late actor Matthew Perry, the hunt for the missing Titanic submersible, and summer blockbuster Barbie were among 2023’s most searched for topics, Google has revealed. The Friends star’s death in October, aged 54, was looked up more than any other celebrity who died this year. June’s hunt for the Titan sub, which sparked a five-day scramble after it disappeared on its journey to the famous ship’s wreckage, was only beaten by the Israel-Hamas war as the top news item. Barbie being the most searched for film should come as no surprise, given it’s 2023’s box office number one. Sky News
Google is reportedly developing an AI assistant that will analyze personal photos, files, as well as Search results with the goal of telling “your life story”. This news comes from CNBC which saw documents revealing that the tech giant recently held an “internal summit” where company execs and employees presented Project Ellman. According to the piece, the AI will offer a “bird’s–eye view” of someone’s life by grabbing files from your Google Account, and utilizing written biographies and adjacent content to understand context. Tech Radar
Chinese Tesla staff had access to the private data of over a hundred thousand of the carmaker’s employees, a whistleblower has warned regulators. Lukasz Krupski, a former employee, said information about current and former Tesla staff, including passport numbers, medical details and salaries, was available to staff worldwide on internal systems. He has written to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK’s privacy watchdog, warning that personnel in China or Russia could access the data, creating a “significant security risk”. Tesla is believed to have restricted access since. Telegraph
