Apple to stop listening to your voice commands, popular Android app has a deadly payload, social media impairs decision making?
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That’s all the tech news that’s trending today. It’s Thursday, August 29th, and I’m your host, Tom Li.
Remember when Apple and Amazon were caught letting humans analyze your voice commands? Well, Apple has promised to no do it again–lest you give it permission. Trending on Reddit, Apple is looking to revise its voice transcription policies. The company has temporarily suspended human transcriptions, and will let users to opt-out of the program. While only 0.2 per cent of Siri voice commands were ever sent, The Financial Post reports that Apple is currently facing a class-action lawsuit over the recording fiasco.
Trending on Reddit, another popular Android app has been found to have malware. The app CamScanner, which scans PDF documents using the phone’s camera, has had a trojan until its June 30 update. For a bit of a backgrounder, a trojan is a type of malware that disguises itself as a legitimate app. It can be as benign as loading ads at random times, to financially damaging by installing ransomware. Although the app has removed the malware, Google still removed the app from its Play Store. We urge all users to remove it from their device as well.
Social media can be addicting, but can it affect your decision-making skills? According to a research paper published by the University of Michigan, heavy social media users showed certain behaviors found in people addicted to cocaine. In a test called Iowa Gambling Task, self-reported heavy social media users made worse choices in maximizing their winning odds than their peers. There’s too much to cover in just a few sentences, so we’ve linked the full report in our transcript.
That’s all the tech news that’s trending right now. Hashtag Trending is a part of the ITWC Podcast network. Add us to your Alexa Flash Briefing or your Google Home daily briefing. I’m Tom Li, thanks for listening.