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New rules established by the Department of Transportation (DOT) assert that airlines will soon need to instantly refund passengers upon flight cancelations, delays, or making significant changes; regardless of the reasons.

 

The refund, DOT states, will be required to be done in the form of cash or the original form of payment, and not vouchers. Passengers could also be offered alternatives such as travel credit, other transportation options, or another flight offered by the airline.

 

DOT highlights “significant changes” as some specific situations, in which cases passengers will be expected to be refunded. These scenarios can be, for instance, changes in the flight’s arrival or departure time by three or more hours for domestic flights and six hours for international flights, or a change in the departure or arrival airport.

DOT Announces New Refund Policies for Airlines that Ensure Full Refund for Cancelled and Delayed Flights



Meta’s RayBan smart glasses are getting new updates including support for video calling and Apple Music, a new cat-eye frame style, and an official beta roll out of the multimodal AI assistant.

 


In addition to these, there are some new minor updates for the existing Wayfarer and Headliner models. Besides both the models getting new colors, the Headliner will also have a new low-bridge fit for people who struggle with their glasses slipping down their face.

Meta is Bringing Video Call Support and Other Features to its RayBan Smart Glasses



As its latest major move in the world of AI, tech giant Meta has added its AI chatbot on all of its platforms: Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger (minus Threads). The chatbot is available on each of these apps as a dedicated search bar.

 

Meta’s AI chatbot is powered by the company’s Llama 3 model – Meta’s most powerful AI model yet (even better than ChatGPT), and which it claims to be “the most intelligent AI assistant” that can be used for free. This should automatically make Meta’s integrated AI chatbot one of the best AI assistants out there too.

 

Meta’s Advanced AI Assistant Makes its Way to Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger



As a result of the agreement between Apple and the EU Digital Markets Act (DMA), the third-party iOS app store marketplace AltStore PAL is now live in the EU. The store has been developed by Riley Testut and Shane Gill to accommodate apps that can be self-hosted by developers on their own servers.

 

To install the app store, an annual subscription fee of €1.50 (plus tax) must be paid, which covers Apple’s Core Technology Fee (CTF). During the installation process, Apple confirms with the user multiple times if they wish to proceed with installing a third-party app, before it finally lets them get through.

 

AltStore PAL is bringing with it two apps, both developed by Testut himself: the Delta game emulator and a clipboard manager app ‘Clip’. The Delta app is simultaneously also making way to the App Store outside of the EU. According to Testut, AltStore PAL is also open to submissions from third-party developers.

 

Third-Party App Store for iPhone ‘AltStore PAL’ Goes Live in the EU along with Two Apps



Amidst its ongoing financial struggles, Tesla is reducing the subscription fee for its Full Self-Driving (FSD) driver-assist software. The fee has been cut down from $199 a month to $99 a month.

 

The FSD is Tesla’s level 2 driver-assist system, that the company describes as FSD (Supervised), emphasizing that the drivers are required to pay attention to the road and stand ready to take control of the vehicle. This is because Tesla has been criticized for not incorporating proper driver monitoring and other safety measures to counter overreliance on the system.

 

While the FSD was available as a $99 monthly subscription to owners who already have Autopilot, Tesla now offers Autopilot as standard on all new car purchases, which cancels the need for the price variance. The company has recently also started to promote a one-month free trial of FSD, as a way of attracting more customers to the subscription.

Tesla Announces Reduction in Subscription Fee of its FSD Driver-Assist Software



Game emulators that have long been banned from iOS can finally bring their titles to the App Store, thanks to a latest update by Apple. According to Apple, the company is making its App Store restrictions more flexible and letting in retro game emulators.

 

Game emulators can now join the App Store globally where they can offer downloadable games. Apple, however, made it clear that the games must comply with all of its applicable laws, which means that games providing pirated titles will eventually be banned. This new update will also reduce the hassle for iPhone users for the search of alternate ways to access the games, like relying on third-party app stores.

Apple Announces New Rules for Retro Game Emulators and Music Streaming Apps



A 2020 lawsuit put forth by Google account holders resulted in filing of a proposed class action settlement on Monday in a California federal court. The lawsuit accused Google of illegal tracking of users’ activity in Incognito mode. In the filed settlement, Google has therefore declared that it will destroy all the billions of records of web browsing data of its users collected from its private browser.

 

In addition to this, the proposed settlement requires Google to provide greater transparency regarding its data collection processes in Incognito mode and how the company will be putting limits on these processes in the future. Google will also need to de-identify any data that is not entirely deleted. Lastly, Google has also agreed to let users block third-party cookies by default in Incognito mode, so as to prevent tracking on outside websites as they browse privately.

Google Agrees to Destroy User Data Collected in Incognito Mode in a Proposed Settlement



AT&T confirmed news of a data leak reported by various sources online. The breach affected sensitive information belonging to both current and former customers; 7.6 million and 65 million of them, respectively.

 

According to AT&T itself, the leaked data may have contained a user’s full name, email address, mailing address, phone number, social security number, date of birth, AT&T account number and passcode. The company also added that the data set seems to be from 2019 or before and does not contain personal financial information or call history.

AT&T Confirms Data Breach Affecting Millions of Customers’ Private Information was Real



OpenAI is making its voice cloning AI model, called Voice Engine, available to a limited number of companies and developers.

 

Voice Engine has been in the making since 2022 and is designed to generate voice clones based on 15-second long reference clips. According to OpenAI, the model was trained on “a mix of licensed and publicly available data.” It can read out text prompts on command both in the speaker’s language as well as other languages. It also provides the foundation for preset voices for the text-to-speech API as well as ChatGPT’s Read Aloud feature.

 

Companies from a wide range of sectors are included among those with early access to Voice Engine – from education tech and storytelling to AI communication, health, and more.

OpenAI is Offering Limited Access of its Voice Cloning AI Model ‘Voice Engine’



The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has introduced new and stricter standards for greenhouse gas emissions in the US from heavy-duty vehicles of model year 2027-2032.

 

In the US, transportation makes up the largest portion of the country’s carbon footprint. Heavy duty vehicles like big rigs and buses are considered a major source of pollution and contribute to a quarter of the US’ transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions – hence greatly impacting the climate.

US Environmental Protection Agency Announces New Standards for Greenhouse Emissions from Heavy-Duty Vehicles



GLAAD, the largest advocacy organization for LGBTQ+ , accuses Meta in its new report of allowing hate against the trans community to a dangerous extent on its platform.

 

In the report, GLAAD provides evidence that shows how Meta’s moderation system has enabled a large number of violent and hateful posts against trans people, that are potentially responsible for propaganda campaigns and offline violence. The evidence cited exhibits posts with anti-trans content posted to Facebook, Instagram, and Threads from June 2023 to March 2024 by anti-trans extremists.

 

The posts appear to consist of hateful language and slur, which GLAAD has reported to Meta via its standard reporting systems. However, the organization asserts that Meta’s systems either failed to recognize the reported content as problematic or refused to take it down, even though it clearly violated the company’s policy against hate speech. This in turn poses real-life harm to the LGBTQ+ community.

LGBTQ+ Advocacy Group GLAAD Expresses Angst against Meta for Enabling Anti-Trans Content



Israeli company Corsight, based in Tel-Aviv, has developed a facial recognition tool in the Gaza Strip for the purpose of identifying Hamas members. However, the tool has not only been found inaccurate in its function, but also scans Palestinians and creates their database with neither their knowledge nor consent.

 

Israel first developed its facial recognition program after the October 7 attacks, with the help of technology from Google Photos and Corsight’s custom tool. Following the attacks on October 7, Israeli officers from the IDF’s main intelligence unit attempted to identify potential Hamas members from security camera footage and photos and videos uploaded on social media by Hamas. They also forced Palestinian prisoners into identifying people from their communities that were associated with Hamas. 

Israel’s Facial Recognition Program in Gaza is Mistaking Palestinian Civilians for Hamas Members

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