What are push notifications?

Unlike regular notifications that pop up when an app is open, push notifications are only sent when an app is closed. When an “event” — something the app wants to tell you about — happens, it sends data to Google and Apple’s servers, which then sends it to your phone to wake the app up.

Why are they a security issue?

It’s up to developers whether or not they encrypt push notification data, which is left behind on Google and Apple servers. Last week, U.S. Senator Ron Wyden said he got a tip that foreign governments had been pushing the companies to share that data, suggesting it was for surveillance purposes.

Threads might not be the first app you open in the morning, but Meta is still plugging away at its attempt at a Twitter replacement.

What happened: Threads had a busy week, which started by debuting its version of hashtags and kept rolling from there:

A building block of the global advertising industry is about to crumble.

What happened: Google set January 4th as the day it will turn off third-party cookies for 1% of Chrome users, or about 30 million people, with a full phase-out coming in the second half of next year.

As if renewing your real passport wasn’t a big enough pain, you may soon need an internet passport to get into your favourite Reddit thread. 

Driving the news: Per TechCrunch, Worldcoin — a crypto project co-founded by Sam Altman — has created integrations for World ID, its iris-scanning identity verification tool, for some major digital platforms, including Shopify, Reddit, Telegram, and Minecraft.

Governments often play catch-up on regulating new technologies, but when it comes to AI, they are beginning to make up some ground.

What happened: The EU passed its Artificial Intelligence Act, only the second set of AI laws passed by a governing body. China implemented rules for generative AI in August, but the EU’s rules are more far-reaching.

They say you can’t teach an old newspaper new tricks, but The Grey Lady wants to get with the times and dabble in AI. 

What happened: The New York Times hired an editorial director of AI initiatives to chart a path forward for using AI in its newsrooms as more media companies experiment with the technology — a slight change in pace given its approach to AI has been cautious so far. 

Would you be the face of a Russian disinformation campaign for $200? Well, that’s exactly the situation in which a handful of celebrities found themselves this week.  

Driving the news: Several famous faces like Elijah Wood and Priscilla Presley were tricked into making videos that were edited and used to attack Volodymyr Zelensky, the latest in a series of organized efforts by Russian trolls to warp perceptions around the war in Ukraine. 

What is end-to-end encryption?

A messaging system where only the users can participate. This means your internet provider, mobile provider, law enforcement and even the company that makes the app you are using can’t read your messages.

Anyone paying attention to Google’s big AI announcement on Wednesday may have been left with two main questions: how is it different from ChatGPT, and is it any good?