Tech Digest daily roundup: Clearview AI fined £7.5m for facial recognition breach
Facial recognition company Clearview AI has been fined more than £7.5m by the UK’s privacy watchdog for collecting the facial images of people in Britain from the web and social media. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) said that globally the company illegally collected more than 20 billion images of people’s faces to create a global online database for facial recognition. It has issued an enforcement notice ordering the company to stop obtaining and using the personal data of UK residents and to delete the data on them that it has already collected. Sky News
If you’d asked me a couple of months ago what rumored Apple device I’m most looking forward to this year, I may have told you it’s the MacBook Air 2022, given my desire for a slim yet capable macOS machine. Or, as I’ve become rather enamored with the iPhone 13 Pro after moving from Android, I may have said the iPhone 14 Pro. That’s just changed. The device I’m now most excited about is the AirPods Pro 2. It’s a minor joke at Tom’s Guide that we’ve been waiting for them for the last couple of Apple events, and how the folks at Cupertino have seemingly forgotten about the AirPods Pro 2. Yet recent rumors now have them down for a September 13 launch. Tom’s Guide
If you missed the announcement, Apple’s self-repair service is a parts and tools storefront masquerading as a concession to the right to repair movement. Its manuals are technical, obtuse, and only make sense if you’re using Apple’s special tools — which are not user friendly and happen to arrive in two suitcase-sized pelican cases. The Verge’s Sean Hollister took the service for a test run this week and found that it’s even worse than it appears on paper. It has many problems, the most outrageous of which is the pricing: he paid $69 for a new battery for his iPhone Mini, the same price that the Apple Store charges for a battery and its installation. TechSpot
WhatsApp is launching a new service for businesses to communicate directly with their customers. The messaging system is one of several platforms where Meta has launched more shopping-focused features. Cloud-based software that enables apps to communicate with each other, will open up WhatsApp to more businesses and will be free for smaller firms. Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said the development would help companies customise their experience. “The best business experiences meet people where they are,” he said at the announcement of the new service. BBC
What phone would you guess Bill Gates uses? Here’s a hint: it’s not the Lumia 950 — that phone’s almost seven years old now. A Surface Duo is a more pertinent guess considering it launched late last year and would befit the Microsoft co-founder. But it’s hardly an option for a daily driver — in our review, we found the form factor clunky, the battery life weak, and the software buggy among other issues. You’d be better off with almost any other phone. And as Gates revealed recently, he is. In a Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything), he mentioned that he’s using a Samsung Galaxy Z Fold3. Android Police
