Nice!! That means I get four system-wide upgrades (which I can use on flights to Europe), free domestic upgrades for life, two free bags to check for life, more miles per dollar spent for life and this nifty luggage tag. : )
I got to do This Week in Google with hosts Leo Laporte, Jeff Jarvis and Ant Pruitt where we illuminated, explored and shat upon the subjects of CAPTCHAs, Threads, Spotify, Podcating generally, Elon Musk matters, Canadian blunders, unpopular opinions, real estate tools, Meta money and so much more.
Watch the episode, join Club Twit and subscribe, for God's sake.
Two of the biggest unresolved questions in business this year are whether remote work is here to stay and how AI will affect jobs. We're starting to get some clues about the answers.
OpenAI today said its new web crawler, called GPTBot, can now be blocked using the old robots.txt file standard or by blocking its IP address. If website owners choose to use one of these methods, OpenAI won’t extract data from your site and bake it into ChatGPT.
Meanwhile, video conferencing giant Zoom quietly changed its Terms of Service in March saying that it reserves the right to use your data to train its AI. Zoom users agree to the Terms of Service or can’t use Zoom.
What these moves have in common is that, while they sound like protective benefits for the public, in fact they shift the burden of responsibility for data collection from the data grabber to the data owner.
So while employees, managers, executives, business owners, and others grapple with the soon-obsolete concept of in-office work vs. hybrid work vs. remote work, technology changes will virtualize the workplace completely.
ChatGPT is the first artificial intelligence (AI) brand to go mainstream and it was the fastest-growing tech product ever. The brand returns more than three million results on Google News Search. Late-night TV talk show hosts mention ChatGPT by name — and their audiences know what they’re talking about.
In business and tech circles, as among the general public, ChatGPT is synonymous with Large Language Model (LLM)-based chatbots. But it's time to stop obsessing over ChatGPT and start discovering the world of powerful alternatives in this new world.
Experts say we’re currently undergoing a new wave of fake extortion attempts — attackers pretending that they stole or encrypted data and demanding ransoms — and it’s likely to continue. Fake attacks have the advantage for scammers of being vastly faster and easier and therefore can be committed at a massive scale by scammers without skills. Because of the ease of this attack, cybersecurity experts expect it to exist indefinitely.
Here's how to spot these fake attacks without wasting time or money.
Simply by announcing Vision Pro, Apple is already changing the market. Google, for example, has reportedly canceled its Iris AR/VR product plans because (according to rumor) Apple’s product is just too good to compete with. That product was positioned in the press as a successor to Google Glass Enterprise Edition, which itself was recently canceled.
Meanwhile, other AR/VR glasses makers are getting a boost because Apple is making the market believe in the future of spacial computing.
But when the hardware gets real next year, and the software starts to emerge, that’s when the real change begins.
Our group of five decided to check out the Champs Élysées at around one in the morning.
Huge numbers of young people in their teens and twenties were just waiting for something to start, and riot police were everywhere. The tension was clear. So we decided to go one block away and try to make it back to the Metro in the other direction on a street mostly parallel with a Champs Élysées.
Suddenly, as we were crossing an intersection, a huge crowd of people was running away in our direction, followed by a huge rolling cloud of tear gas. It looked nasty to breathe, and we didn’t know what people are running from, exactly. So we ran a bit too, made it to the Metro station, but it had been closed.
Before running, I stopped to take a video, but my wife urged me to run instead. Later, I found a half second video shot accidentally showing nothing, really. This image above is from that video.
It’s on!
Apple yesterday released the first beta version of the software that powers its $3,499 Apple Vision Pro platform, called visionOS, plus their visionOS software development kit.
Apple also rolled out a simulator. So we’ll get to see pictures and videos of Vision Pro apps online well before the hardware ships. (Here’s what it’s like to use the simulator.)
Videos showing third-party apps are also emerging, including this visionOS game.
We also learned more about what Apple is thinking and planning.
In my travels, I've noticed something that I haven't seen anyone comment on before: Different people around the world love and emulate Native American "dream catchers."
I have a friend in Morocco, who's an artist, and 100% of his art is making "dream catchers" -- hoops that hold a kind of net, adorned with sacred items (like feathers or beads or other objects).
Dream catchers originated with Anishinaabe peoples (a broad group of Native American people who occupied the Great Lakes region of Canada and the United States, including the Ojibwe, Odawa, Potawatomi, Mississaugas, Nipissing and Algonquin peoples.
And now I'm seeing dream catchers all over the town of Carpentras, France (a big town in Provence), and I'm thinking about the global cultural influence of Native Americans, and feeling quite moved by it.
This looks to be an agricultural supply store from a bygone era. I can't make out all the words, but the sign looks to advertise fertilizer, grains or seeds, copper (presumably for vineyards), sulfur and insecticide.
GPS coordinates: 44.0594218, 5.0487891
MailChimp suffered a data breach last year after cyber attackers exploited an internal company tool to gain access to customer accounts. The criminals were able to look at around 300 accounts and exfiltrate data on 102 customers. They also accessed some customers’ AIP keys, which would have enabled them to send email campaigns posing as those customers.
Six months later, it happened again. As before, an intruder accessed internal tools to compromise data on 133 MailChimp accounts. The breach was made possible by a social engineering attack on employees and contractors to gain access to employee passwords.
The experience of getting attacked more than once in a similar manner as a previous attack isn’t rare. In fact, it’s very common. Here's why it happens.
DevSecOps integrates security into software development, improving cybersecurity, reducing costs, and enhancing efficiency. By auditing, scanning, and testing code for vulnerabilities from the start, DevSecOps ensures prompt issue resolution.
Tools like IBM Security QRadar Suite automate threat identification and remediation, streamlining the process.
Cultivating a DevSecOps culture requires collaboration and training. Embrace DevSecOps to build secure software foundations and stay ahead of evolving threats.
Security would be easy without users. That statement is as absurd as it is true. It’s also true that business wouldn’t be possible without users. It’s time to look at the big picture when it comes to cybersecurity.
In addition to dealing with every new risk, vulnerability and attack vector that comes along, cybersecurity pros need to understand their own fellow employees – how they think, how they learn and what they really want.
The human element — the individual and social factors that affect cybersecurity — are as important as technology in protecting against malicious cyberattacks. And yet, in general, most cybersecurity professionals are far more adept, knowledgeable and focused on the technology side.
However, “human failure” will be responsible for over half of all major cyber incidents over the next three years, according to a Gartner report.
And so we find ourselves heading into another season of growing cyberattacks with a gross mismatch between the focus of cybersecurity professionals and the factors that protect against it.
It’s time for a reset.
Cost a fortune. But you know what they say: location, location, location.
On a nice rainy morning.
Don't miss this week's TWiG hosted by Leo Laporte and Jeff Jarvis and guested by me and Chris Messina!
We yammer on about Twitter, Chris's invention of the hashtag, everything AI, bad writing, TikTok, Instagram, Meta, the Ron DeSantis DeSaster, Biden moves, the Supreme Court's punt on Section 230, Adobe and even Google!
Subscribe and join the club!
A 45-year-old coffee roasting company called Mr. Espresso will open its first-ever coffee shop in Oakland Monday called the Caffè. (Find it at 1120 Broadway).
The creators of this shop have incredibly good taste. I know this because they're getting their beautiful, elegant, custom-made ceramics from my super-talented daughter-in-law, Nadia, owner of Habibi Ceramics.
Eater has a nice article about the opening. (Pictures here courtesy of that article and credited to Hardy Wilson.)
Check it out, people! (I'd attend the opening, but I'm stuck in Italy where they don't have such stylish espresso cups...)
Tech philosophers have been waxing verbose lately about the culture-shifting power of generative artificial intelligence (AI).
“Artificial intelligence is transforming the world,” said the Brookings Institute. “Generative AI changes everything,” the Harvard Business Review proclaimed.
And that’s true. But the biggest tech-driven culture change at the moment — far bigger than AI — is the move to remote work.
Here are the five biggest ways remote work is changing American culture.
Cybersecurity has never been more challenging or vital. Every organization needs strong leadership on cybersecurity policy, procurement and execution — such as a CISO, or chief information security officer.
A CISO is a senior executive in charge of an organization’s information, cyber and technology security. CISOs need a complete understanding of cybersecurity as well as the business, the board, the C-suite and how to speak in the language of senior leadership.
It’s a changing role in a changing world. But do you really need one?
"Ombra" means "shade" or "shadow" in Venetian. Back in the day, there were wine sellers in Venice's Piazza San Marco. Locals would buy a glass of wine in the middle of the day, then find some shade with a friend to drink it. So even today, locals will tell a friend: "Let's go grab a shade" -- an "ombra." They visit bars called bàcaros, and also get a cicchetti, which is a kind of Venetian tapa. Because wine is so much better with a little food. Join us and I'll show you.
As you might have guessed, this is really good (just around the corner from our apartment, too).
I love Venice at night and in the rain. It's a whole other place.
Yes, I'm in Venice and I'm working! ("I'm not bad at taking a vacation. I'm just good at choosing an office!")
