Wednesday Newsbytes: Scammers Use AI Voice Cloning to Steal 30K from Couple; The End of The Web as We Know It; Is the Clock Ticking on TikTok?; Windows 11 Gets Ads… and more
Every day we scan the tech world for interesting news in the world of technology and sometimes from outside the world of technology. Every Wednesday, we feature news articles that grabbed our attention over the past week. We hope you find this week’s ‘Wednesday Newsbytes’ informative and interesting!
Pennsylvania couple loses over $30,000 to scammers pretending to be their child
Ultimately, the couple turned over roughly $34,000 to the scammers via so-called couriers who came right to their home.
Police in Bucks County are investigating after a couple was robbed of over $30,000 by scammers.
It happened Saturday at a home in the Hidden Ponds neighborhood of Warwick Township, Pennsylvania.
The husband and wife spoke with ABC Philadelphia affiliate WPVI, describing what happened, but asked not to be identified.
They say their goal is to potentially save someone else from becoming a victim.
“We never thought this could happen to us. We know better, we know better, we know better,” the woman said. “If we can save anyone from going through this, that’s why we decided to do this.”
The incident began with a frantic phone call from a sobbing woman claiming to be the couple’s daughter.
Officials say scammers are getting more sophisticated and manipulative.
“We’re parents, we know our child, we know the sound of her voice, we know her voice patterns, and we know her cry, and I swear to you that sobbing sounded just like my child,” the woman said…
It’s the End of the Web as We Know It
A great public resource is at risk of being destroyed.
The web has become so interwoven with everyday life that it is easy to forget what an extraordinary accomplishment and treasure it is. In just a few decades, much of human knowledge has been collectively written up and made available to anyone with an internet connection.
But all of this is coming to an end. The advent of AI threatens to destroy the complex online ecosystem that allows writers, artists, and other creators to reach human audiences.
To understand why, you must understand publishing. Its core task is to connect writers to an audience. Publishers work as gatekeepers, filtering candidates and then amplifying the chosen ones. Hoping to be selected, writers shape their work in various ways. This article might be written very differently in an academic publication, for example, and publishing it here entailed pitching an editor, revising multiple drafts for style and focus, and so on…
House votes in favor of bill that could ban TikTok, sending it onward to Senate
A revised version of the bill was sent to the House bundled into a foreign aid package.
The US House of Representatives passed a bill on Saturday that could either see TikTok banned in the country or force its sale. A revised version of the bill, which previously passed the House in March but later stalled in Senate, was roped in with a foreign aid package this time around, likely meaning it will now be treated as a higher priority item. The bill originally gave TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, six months to sell the app if it’s passed into law or TikTok would be banned from US app stores. Under the revised version, ByteDance would have up to a year to divest.
The bill passed with a vote of 360-58 in the House, according to AP. It’ll now move on to the Senate, which could vote on it in just a matter of days…
Windows 11 Start menu ads are now rolling out to everyone
Thankfully you can disable these app ‘recommendations’ very easily.
Microsoft is starting to enable ads inside the Start menu on Windows 11 for all users. After testing these briefly with Windows Insiders earlier this month, Microsoft has started to distribute update KB5036980 to Windows 11 users this week, which includes “recommendations” for apps from the Microsoft Store in the Start menu.
“The Recommended section of the Start menu will show some Microsoft Store apps,” says Microsoft in the update notes of its latest public Windows 11 release. “These apps come from a small set of curated developers.” The ads are designed to help Windows 11 users discover more apps, but will largely benefit the developers that Microsoft is trying to tempt into building more Windows apps.
Microsoft only started testing these ads two weeks ago, so it’s surprising to see this “feature” progress from the Beta Channel to release in such a short period of time…
6 Windows features that are going away in 2024
Windows is always getting new features, but it’s also losing them. Here are some that are going away in 2024.
Microsoft is constantly updating Windows 11, adding all sorts of new features, like Copilot and other AI tools. However, for every feature that’s added, there are also many times that features get deprecated or removed altogether, often leaving users and fans upset.
2024 is going to be a big year for Windows, with Windows 11 version 24H2 bringing big changes, but it’s also a bit of a bloodbath for existing Windows 11 features. Here are some of the tools and capabilities going away this year.
Thanks for reading this week’s Wednesday Newbytes. We hope these articles were informative, interesting, fun, and helpful. Darcy & TC
