Topic: User Control
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Spotify's AI Playlists Now Let You Control Your Algorithm
Spotify is launching a beta "Prompted Playlists" feature that uses AI to create custom playlists based on detailed user text prompts and listening history, starting in New Zealand. This tool offers more granular user control than existing features like Discover Weekly by allowing listeners to dir...
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Spotify's Shuffle Just Got Smarter for Your Playlists
Spotify has introduced a smarter shuffle feature that enhances playlist variety and reduces repetition, along with tools like the Snooze function for a more personalized listening experience. Premium and free users can now select any song during shuffle mode to play next without disrupting the qu...
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Instagram Tests Feature to Control Your Feed
Instagram is testing a feature that lets users add or remove topics to customize their Reels and Explore content for a more personalized feed. The update, announced by Adam Mosseri, aims to give users greater control over their experience and may extend to Threads in the future. This initiative i...
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Google Updates Search Ad Labels for Clarity
Google has updated its search results with a unified "Sponsored results" label and a new option to hide these ads, enhancing user clarity and control without changing ad-serving mechanics. The update groups all text and shopping ads under persistent labels, making the sponsored section distinct a...
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Your $2,000 Samsung Smart Fridge Will Soon Show Ads
Samsung will introduce advertisements on the screens of its premium Family Hub smart refrigerators in the U.S., starting with a widget on select themes from November 3rd, following a software update. The ads will appear in a rotating widget alongside news, weather, and calendar panels, but users ...
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Google Workspace AI Features Enabled by Default
Google has enabled AI-driven smart features by default for many Workspace users without direct consent, raising privacy concerns and questions about user control over data from services like Gmail and Drive. These features are not activated by default in regions with stricter data protection laws...
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YouTube's New Feature Will Finally Organize Your Home Feed
YouTube is testing "Your Custom Feed," a feature that gives users more control over their viewing experience by addressing issues with the platform's algorithm. Users can type specific prompts to guide the algorithm, allowing them to actively shape their feed based on interests like cooking tutor...
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Microsoft reveals Windows 11's evolution into an agentic OS
Microsoft is transforming Windows 11 into an agentic OS, introducing AI-native environments where computers can independently manage tasks for users through features like agent workspaces. Agent workspaces are secure, contained spaces where AI agents operate under separate accounts, performing ba...
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Firefox's AI Feature Sparks User Backlash
Mozilla is facing significant user backlash for introducing an AI-powered browsing feature in Firefox, with critics arguing it distracts from core browser improvements and reflects a misalignment with user preferences. Despite community demands for easy opt-out options and concerns about AI integ...
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Ditch Your Chromecast: The Raspberry Pi TV Upgrade
Google's Chromecast has shifted toward pricier models, making a Raspberry Pi an attractive, flexible alternative for budget-conscious users seeking to upgrade older televisions. Unlike Chromecast's locked-down operating system, the Raspberry Pi allows installation of various media-focused OSes, o...
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Pinterest's New 'Tuner' Lets You Limit AI Content
Pinterest has launched a "tuner" feature that allows users to control the amount of AI-generated content in their feeds, specifically for categories like beauty, art, fashion, and home decor. The tuner is accessible in the settings under "refine your recommendations" and is currently available on...
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Meta forces targeted ads from your AI chats
Meta will soon use conversations with its AI assistant to personalize content and ads across its platforms, with this mandatory feature starting on December 16th and no option for users to disable it. Users will be notified of the change on October 7th, but the initial alert may not clearly menti...
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OpenAI's ChatGPT Browser Sparks Privacy Concerns
OpenAI's Atlas browser integrates ChatGPT to redefine web navigation, initially launching exclusively on Apple computers to challenge established browsers like Google Chrome. The browser features an "agentic mode" that autonomously performs tasks such as shopping and reservations, acting as a per...
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Take Control of Your Threads Replies
Threads has introduced a reply approval system, allowing users to manually screen and approve or ignore each reply before it becomes public, offering greater control over conversations. New filtering options in the Activity tab enable users to view replies only from people they follow or those th...
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Copilot Gains 'Real Talk' Mode and Group Chats
Microsoft's Copilot update introduces group chat capabilities for up to 32 participants, initially launching in the U.S. consumer version to facilitate collective planning and collaboration among smaller groups. A new "real talk" mode makes interactions more dynamic by adapting to user tone and o...
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Google Search Now Lets You Hide Sponsored Results
Google has introduced a new feature that groups all paid search results into a clearly marked "Sponsored" section, making it easier to distinguish ads from organic results. Users can now hide the entire sponsored section with a single button, removing ads to view only organic search results and A...
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Nous Research Launches Hermes 4 AI, Outperforming ChatGPT Without Restrictions
Hermes 4 is a family of open-source large language models that challenges proprietary AI systems by offering comparable performance with fewer content restrictions and greater user control. It introduces a hybrid reasoning feature for transparency in problem-solving and achieves top-tier results,...
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WhatsApp Now Offers AI-Powered Message Summaries
WhatsApp launched an AI-powered message summary feature, using Meta AI to generate concise bullet-point summaries of unread chats, accessible via the unread messages button. The feature is currently available in English for U.S. users, with plans to expand, and ensures privacy through Private Pro...
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Windows 11's New AI Agent Raises Security Concerns Over Personal Data
Microsoft is testing "Agent Workspace" in Windows 11, allowing AI agents to access user directories like Desktop and Pictures, which raises privacy and security concerns. The feature operates in a separate session with its own user profile and permissions, enabling AI agents to perform tasks auto...
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AI Browsers: Are the Security Risks Worth It?
AI browsers integrate powerful language models to automate tasks like shopping and summarization, but they introduce significant security and privacy risks that users must weigh. Key threats include prompt injection attacks that can bypass safety protocols and allow unauthorized data access, with...
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Google's Preferred Sources Tool Flooded With Spam
Google's Preferred Sources tool is malfunctioning, prioritizing spammy and low-quality websites over legitimate news outlets in users' personalized Top Stories feeds. The issue involves copycat domains and parked sites that use deceptive tactics like alternative TLDs to imitate reputable sources,...
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Google Now Lets You Hide Sponsored Search Results
Google is testing a feature that groups all paid search results under a single, collapsible label at the top of the page, allowing users to hide them after scrolling past. This update aims to simplify navigation and give users more control over sponsored content, though ads must be viewed before ...
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OpenAI's Sora Video Model & iOS App Now Available
OpenAI has launched the Sora iOS app in an invite-only rollout for the U.S. and Canada, marking its first consumer app beyond ChatGPT and featuring the Sora 2 model for generating videos with synchronized audio. The app emphasizes creation over passive consumption, offering collaborative tools li...
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TrackTik Adds AI to Automate Incident Reporting
TrackTik has launched ReportPro AI, a new module integrated into its security management platform to automate and enhance incident reporting workflows for security personnel. The AI tool provides real-time report enhancement, instant executive summaries for supervisors, and maintains audit logs t...
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Microsoft's AI CEO Reveals the Browser's Future
The competitive landscape for AI-powered browsers is intensifying, with Microsoft outlining its strategic vision to evolve Edge into an active "agentic browser" using its Copilot AI. Microsoft's strategy involves deeply integrating Copilot into the existing Edge browser to automate tasks like nav...
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![[Quick Read] Ethical AI and Coding: Navigating the Future](https://digitrendz.blog/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/AI-Ethics-And-Responsible-AI--390x220.jpg)
[Quick Read] Ethical AI and Coding: Navigating the Future
This article is part of the 'AI in the Code Realm' quick reads series, exploring how AI is reshaping the landscape of software development. Discussion on AI Ethics in Coding…
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Android 17's New Contacts Picker Protects Your Privacy
Android 17 introduces a system-level Contacts Picker that allows users to share specific contacts with apps instead of granting full access to their entire address book, addressing a long-standing privacy weakness. This new feature provides granular control, letting users select multiple contacts...
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Ring Doorbells Now Use AI Facial Recognition
Amazon's Ring has launched a "Familiar Faces" AI feature in the U.S., allowing users to label and receive customized alerts for up to fifty recognized individuals like family or delivery drivers. The feature has sparked significant privacy and security concerns from advocates and lawmakers, citin...
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Shop Smarter with Google's New AI Shopping Features
Google has launched AI-powered shopping tools in the U.S. to streamline product discovery and purchasing, integrating features like conversational search and tailored results from billions of product listings. New features include "Let Google Call," an agentic AI that contacts stores for product ...
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Bing Tests "Sponsored Results" Grouping Like Google
Microsoft is testing a new Bing ad format that groups multiple paid listings under a single "Sponsored results" header, with a "Hide" button for user control, making ads blend more seamlessly with organic results. This redesign closely mirrors a recent Google update, which has led to reports of i...
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Windows Recall: What It Is and Why You Should Enable It
Windows Recall is a new feature for Copilot+ PCs that captures periodic screenshots of user activity, enabling users to search through their digital history to find past documents, applications, or web pages. The feature utilizes Microsoft's Copilot AI to understand and intelligently search the c...
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AT&T's AI Screens Calls Using Your History to Block Spam
AT&T is piloting a network-based AI call screener that acts as a digital receptionist, using call patterns and user settings to filter out spam and robocalls. The AI assistant answers unknown calls to verify legitimacy, can connect urgent calls or take messages, and allows users to monitor intera...
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Adobe's Breakthrough Solves Generative AI's Legal Risks
Adobe has launched AI Foundry, a service that helps businesses create custom generative AI models trained on their own intellectual property to ensure brand alignment and commercial safety. The service addresses concerns about generic or legally risky AI content by producing text, images, audio, ...
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Discover Who's Calling: Your iPhone Can Screen Calls for You
The "Ask Reason for Calling" feature in iOS 26 screens unknown callers by requesting their purpose and providing a live transcription, allowing you to decide whether to answer. This method improves upon simply silencing unknown numbers by letting legitimate callers identify themselves while deter...
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Signal Launches First Paid Feature: Encrypted Backups
Signal has launched its first paid service, offering encrypted backups for media older than 45 days and full text message history at $1.99 per month, aligning with its nonprofit, ad-free model. The subscription helps cover infrastructure costs for data storage, while a free tier allows limited ba...
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Sora 2 Resurrects Dead Celebrities in AI Videos
OpenAI's Sora 2 video generator blocks depictions of living public figures by default but allows the creation of AI-generated videos featuring deceased celebrities, leading to their use in bizarre scenarios. Despite a moving watermark to identify AI content, the practice has drawn criticism from ...
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iOS 26's Best Feature? Pixel Phones Already Had It for Years
Apple's iOS 26 introduces a native call screening feature that allows users to screen unknown numbers by having a synthesized voice ask callers to state their name and purpose before the phone rings. This feature helps users avoid spam and unwanted calls by providing a preview of the caller's int...
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Facebook's AI Can Now Edit Your Phone Photos
Facebook is introducing an optional AI feature in the U.S. and Canada that analyzes private photos to suggest creative edits, requiring user permission for cloud processing to enable these enhancements. Meta states that photos are not used for advertising or AI training unless edited or shared, b...
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Microsoft Edge Adds Copilot Mode for Multi-Tab AI Analysis
Microsoft Edge's new **Copilot Mode** uses AI to assist with tasks like summarizing content across tabs and offering suggestions while prioritizing user privacy. The feature includes **multi-tab context awareness**, a unified input interface, and voice commands, with future updates planned for au...
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