Topic: user safety
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6 Harbor Freight Tools That Replace an Angle Grinder
While powerful, an angle grinder can be dangerous and less precise; dedicated alternatives often offer superior control and safety for specific tasks. Harbor Freight provides affordable substitutes like die grinders for detail work, cut-off tools for stable metal cutting, and oscillating multi-to...
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Google Phone and Messages Add 'Urgent' and 'Unknown' Alerts
Google is adding a "Call Reason" feature to its Phone app, allowing callers to mark calls as urgent, which displays a prominent alert for recipients to indicate time-sensitive situations. The Messages app is introducing protections for unexpected group chat invites, alerting users when added by a...
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Meta Ad Insider Exposes Its Inner Workings
A former Meta executive testified that the company's internal culture, driven by a "move fast and break things" philosophy, prioritized user growth, engagement, and profit over proactively addressing user safety concerns. He stated that aggressive goals for growth were clearly communicated, with ...
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Virtuware's Vision: The Future of Immersive Tech
Virtuware is a UK-based technology studio that creates accessible virtual, augmented, and mixed reality experiences, focusing on human-centered design to foster meaningful interaction. The company evolved from consulting to developing its own product, StageTime, a social VR app designed to be saf...
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OpenAI's ChatGPT Health Now Integrates Medical Records
OpenAI has launched ChatGPT Health, a dedicated space for health-related queries that operates separately from the main chatbot, encouraging users to connect personal wellness apps and medical records for tailored responses. The feature is explicitly not for diagnosis or treatment, but aims to pr...
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21 Everyday Design Fails That Defy Human Logic
A common two-handed safety mechanism on hydraulic log splitters, intended to keep hands away from the wedge, forces operators into an awkward, bent-over position. This design places the user's head and face dangerously close to the violent splitting action, potentially trading hand safety for fac...
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Google Relaxes Android Sideloading Restrictions
Google is introducing an "advanced flow" to give experienced Android users more control over sideloading apps, balancing safety and freedom with clear, repeated warnings about risks. The company is requiring developer verification for apps distributed outside the Play Store to combat security thr...
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Knicks' Miles McBride Launches Friendship App to Rival Snap Map
Miles "Deuce" McBride created Mmotion, a friendship app that helps users find people with shared interests and local social spots, moving beyond superficial social media interactions through location awareness and community building. The app uses geofencing and state tracking to connect nearby us...
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OpenAI's ChatGPT Defense: Why Safety Isn't Guaranteed
OpenAI acknowledges that complete security for its AI-powered Atlas browser may be impossible, highlighting a core tension where the tools' useful capabilities also create significant new cyberattack risks. To proactively find vulnerabilities, OpenAI uses an AI-based automated attacker that simul...
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Cerca Reveals How Gen Z Actually Dates at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025
Cerca is a dating app designed by Gen Z to foster meaningful connections by leveraging mutual friends and social networks, reducing the anxiety of meeting strangers online. The app limits users to four anonymous swipes per day to combat swiping fatigue and encourages thoughtful decisions, with pr...
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AI Companionship Faces a Regulatory Crackdown
Regulatory scrutiny of AI companionship is intensifying in the U.S., with lawmakers focusing on safety and ethical concerns, especially for vulnerable users like minors. California has passed a pioneering bill requiring AI developers to notify minors of AI interactions, handle crisis conversation...
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Stop TikTok From Tracking You - Even Without the App
TikTok tracks users' online activity across third-party websites using hidden pixels and code, collecting sensitive data like health and financial information even from non-users. Privacy concerns have intensified due to corporate changes and the platform's potential for expansive data collection...
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OpenAI Launches Sora: A TikTok Rival with New AI Model
OpenAI has launched Sora 2, an advanced AI model for generating audio and video, and a social media app that allows users to create and share personalized videos in a feed similar to short-form video services. Sora 2 improves upon previous models by simulating accurate physics to produce more rea...
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Google to Allow Sideloading for Experienced Android Users
Google is modifying its Android developer verification policy to create a special process for experienced users, allowing them to install apps from unverified sources while maintaining security through advanced warnings and safeguards. The company is introducing a new category of developer accoun...
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TikTok Adds Voice Notes and Image Sharing to DMs
TikTok is introducing voice notes and expanded media sharing to enhance user interaction and transform the platform into a more versatile communication hub. Users can send voice messages up to 60 seconds and share up to nine images or videos per message, with safety measures like restrictions on ...
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AI Cybercrime & Secure Assistants: The Download
AI tools are lowering the barrier to cybercrime, amplifying the scale and speed of online scams by enabling less skilled criminals to launch sophisticated attacks. Deepfake technology and AI agents with access to real-world tools present immediate security risks, enhancing existing fraud and crea...
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Warning: This Porn Site Installs Malware On Your Device
A deceptive cyberattack called "JackFix" tricks users by mimicking adult websites like xHamster and PornHub, hijacking screens with fake Windows update prompts to install malware. The attack exploits users' psychological states by creating urgency or embarrassment, making them more likely to foll...
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Google AI Overviews Scams: How to Protect Yourself
Google's new AI Overviews feature is being exploited by scammers, who use it to display fraudulent phone numbers in synthesized search summaries, lending the scams false credibility. The scam works by directing users who call these AI-provided numbers to criminals impersonating companies, who the...
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Epic and Google Settle Lawsuit, Reshaping Android's Future
Google and Epic Games have reached a settlement that will globally reduce Google's service fees to 20% or 9% and establish a "Registered App Store" program, allowing alternative app stores to integrate more easily on Android. The agreement mandates that alternative payment options be displayed al...
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Apple's Walled Garden: How It Shields ICE
Apple's legal victory preserving its exclusive App Store control has created a single point for government influence over app availability, making the company accountable for content decisions. The removal of apps like ICEBlock under political pressure demonstrates how corporate control over dist...
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Unity Uncovers Major 2017 Security Flaw in Dev Tool
Unity has identified a significant security flaw in its development platform since 2017, allowing attackers to execute unauthorized code and steal data across Android, Windows, Linux, and macOS systems. The company has released comprehensive fixes for all affected Unity Editor versions and a bina...
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Malware Service Plants Phishing Extensions on Chrome Web Store
A new malware-as-a-service platform called 'Stanley' sells malicious Chrome extensions designed to bypass official store reviews and deploy deceptive phishing pages that leave the legitimate URL visible in the address bar. The service provides attackers with a control panel to manage hijacking ru...
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Sam Altman Slams Elon Musk in Fiery X Posts
The public dispute between OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Elon Musk has escalated, with Altman posting pointed allegations on X about Musk's company providing few records in their ongoing legal discovery process. The core legal conflict centers on OpenAI's shift to a capped-profit model, which Musk ar...
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Roblox Adds Age Verification for Chat Feature
Roblox has rolled out a mandatory age verification system for its chat features globally, aiming to create safer, age-appropriate social interactions by grouping users based on verified age brackets. The platform uses facial scan technology for initial age estimation, with options to appeal via I...
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OpenAI Warns AI Browsers Face Permanent Prompt Injection Risk
OpenAI identifies prompt injection attacks, where hidden malicious instructions manipulate AI agents, as a fundamental and likely unsolvable long-term security challenge for AI-powered web browsers. To combat this, OpenAI employs an automated LLM-based attacker that uses reinforcement learning to...
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AI Browsers: The Looming Cybersecurity Threat
The rapid integration of AI into web browsers introduces serious cybersecurity vulnerabilities, including data breaches and privacy invasions, as these tools collect and retain more personal data than traditional browsers. Security researchers have identified flaws in early AI browsers, such as p...
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Pentiment, Other Games Pulled From Steam Amid Unity Security Flaw
A security flaw in Unity game engine versions from 2017.1 onward has led to the temporary removal of several popular games from Steam, affecting multiple platforms but with no current evidence of exploitation. The vulnerability, reported responsibly by a researcher, could allow unsafe file loadin...
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Tech Giants Sued Over Social Media Addiction and Mental Health
Landmark lawsuits against major social media companies are proceeding to trial, accusing platforms of harming teenage mental health and potentially forcing executives like Mark Zuckerberg to testify. The cases focus on product design, alleging platforms deliberately engineered addictive features ...
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Supreme Court Lets Epic's Antitrust Case Against Google Proceed
The US Supreme Court declined to intervene, allowing a lower court's injunction to stand, which requires Google to make significant changes to its Google Play Store policies by a court-imposed deadline. Google must now allow developers to use alternative payment systems, inform users about paymen...
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Tile Trackers' Security Flaw Exposes Users to Stalking Risk
A security flaw in Tile tracking devices allows malicious actors to exploit vulnerabilities for stalking, enabling unauthorized tracking through unencrypted data broadcasts and static MAC addresses. Unlike competitors that rotate both unique IDs and MAC addresses, Tile only changes the unique ID,...
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Amazon Music Canada Launches Social Streaming and Chat
Amazon Music has launched a beta feature called Fan Groups in Canada, allowing users to create and join communities based on music genres and artists for social streaming and chat within the app. The feature enables members to post messages, share and save songs, and stream shared music directly ...
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Google Maps India: Gemini AI & Safety Alerts Boost Navigation
Google Maps has introduced Gemini AI integration and enhanced safety alerts in India, offering hands-free assistance and contextual information during navigation, adapted specifically for local usage patterns and languages. The update includes India-specific safety features such as visual and aud...
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ChatGPT's Adult Mode Launching Early 2026
OpenAI has announced that ChatGPT's adult mode is now scheduled for launch in the first quarter of 2026, pending the development of a robust age prediction system. The company is currently testing a sophisticated age verification model designed to accurately distinguish between adult and under-18...
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