Despite being overshadowed by security concerns and privacy issues since its debut two years ago, Apple‘s AirTag tracking device remains a topic of interest among tech enthusiasts. A major talking point is the potential development of its sequel, the AirTag 2, rumored for release as early as the end of 2024. However, this information is far from official and is largely based on the speculation of revered analyst, Ming-Chi Kuo.

The new Airtag 2 is expected to be designed around Apple’s newer products, like the Vision Pro

Kuo’s vague prediction of the AirTag 2’s production commencing in the fourth quarter of 2024 suggests uncertainty. Though his inside sources often provide reliable insights, the current information seems speculative, primarily hinging on the commercial success of the original AirTag, whose sales figures are not publicly disclosed.

Nevertheless, it’s apparent that Kuo sees the AirTag’s sales performance as robust enough to justify the production of a second-generation device. It’s difficult, however, to predict the exact capabilities, features, and upgrades the AirTag 2 might bring to the table due to the distant prospective release window. Whether it will hit the shelves during the last quarter of next year or in the first few months of 2025 remains a mystery.

Intriguingly, Kuo envisions a larger role for the AirTag 2, which he believes will be central to Apple’s spatial computing ecosystem. This setup is expected to revolve around the Vision Pro headset, another product under Apple’s umbrella. Although the specifics of this integration remain unclear, it hints at a potential shift in Apple’s product dynamics. It holds the promise of not only addressing the shortcomings of its predecessor but also laying down new paths in Apple’s future ecosystem.

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(Via)

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Amazon is offering quite an odd way to earn money. The company is offering people 2 US Dollars per month by letting them monitor some data on your phone. So here are all the details.

The e-commerce giant is offering the meager sum of 2 US Dollars to those that let’s their devices be tracked to verify ads. This move is being showcased on the Amazon’s Shipper Panel, which is exclusive and invite only. As of right now, the Amazon Shopper Panel offers its users around 10 US Dollars for submitting 10 receipts. Apart from this, it even gives out rewards to those that complete surveys for the brand.

According to the Shopper Panel, “The Amazon Shopper Panel is an opt-in, invitation-only program where participants can earn monthly rewards by sharing receipts from purchases made outside of Amazon.com, completing short surveys, and enabling ad verification for the ads they see from Amazon’s own advertising or third-party businesses that advertise through Amazon Ads.

The company has also stated that in the “Rewards” section that users can enable ad verification to let the company confirm ads that the users see from Amazon or other third party platforms that use Amazon ads. As per official notes, those that are “choosing to enable ad verification, panelists allow us to confirm which ads from Amazon they saw on their device.”

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Apple Watch has been featured in news several times and most of them are related to good instances, like the smartwatch saving the life of a man who fell into an icy river or saving the life of a British cyclist caught in a flooded river. This time, the wearable device has found an alternative use case.

The Apple Watch was allegedly used by a crew of seven people to track down and rob a suspected drug dealer of over $500,000. The Department of Justice in the United States claims that the wearable device was used by the leader of the seven-people crew to track down the victim.

It adds that the group stuck the device on the dealer’s bumper and tracked him to Hartford, Connecticut. As per the reports, Darren Lindsay, a 30-year-old leader of the crew registered an Apple Watch to his AT&T plan. On July 18th, 2020, he, along with two collaborators, tailed the car to a hotel parking lot in Hartford, broke the window, and looked for drug money.

After not finding anything, the team left and then returned for an overnight stake-out. Prosecutors claim that the following day, they shoved the victim in an SUV, and punched him in the face until he handed over his hotel key card. Then, Indigo Grant allegedly smuggled a bag containing about $500,000 from the room, and they dropped the victim in the nearby town of New Britain.

Darren Lindsay then uploaded a private image of a massive pile of cash to his iCloud account while Antoine Koen, another member of the group, took a similar photo which also displayed his face in the frame.

Several pieces of evidence related to the robbery were revealed through the group member’s iCloud account, including toll records, text threads discussing the watch passcode and the stake-out, updates on whether the news had reported the robbery, divvying up the cash, among others.

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Apple has finally launched its much-anticipated AirTag in the market which makes it easier for the users to keep track of their valuable things and objects. If you were wondering if the device can be used for tracking baggage, then you have come to the right place.

The simple answer to this is yes, the newly launched Apple AirTags can be used for the checked baggage, reports David Flynn of Executive Traveller. However, the tracking of bags won’t work in the airport conveyer belt system, despite the fact that there will be airport workers with iPhones working close to it.

This is because AirTag’s live here-I-am tracking isn’t intended for objects that are moving unless that happens at the most leisurely pace but the airport luggage belt is fast for the AirTags to work properly.

If you are concerned about the usage of rechargeable lithium-ion battery packs that have been banned by the airlines, then there’s nothing to worry about as this doesn’t apply to the tiny single-use lithium CR2023 cells.

In the future, Apple can expand the functionality of AirTag through a software update that would send a notification to the user’s iPhone once the device comes within the range of Bluetooth, such as when the bag lands on the carousel.

Currently, the scenario where AirTag can be useful for luggage tracking is when your bag has been unexpectedly directed to the oversized baggage office instead of coming out on the luggage belt or any similar situation where the bag is misplaced but is stationary.

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Amid the on-going protests in the United States, incidents related to looting and vandalism have also increased in the country. Some took advantage of the situation and looted products from the Apple Store.

The company warned the looters that they will be tracked down. Apple is also using software on demo products that basically makes the looted products useful and prevents it from being reset to factory settings.

So, the products are totally useless apart from being used as a paperweight. As someone recently tweeted the phone, the looted Apple iPhone shows a message that reads: “This device has been disabled and is being tracked. Local authorities will be alerted.”

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Nah son I swear to god I’d be heated pic.twitter.com/RoFxHV1lLm

— josh (apex male) (@onlyfanobtainer) May 31, 2020

This is the first time we are seeing Apple’s device tracking software for the demo devices in works. While Apple has clearly stated that it is tracking the device, it has not yet clarified if the company or the law enforcement plans to do anything with the collected data.

Amid all this, the company’s CEO Tim Cook has sent out a memo to the staff in these trying times. The memo reads: “I have heard from so many of you that you feel afraid – afraid in your communities, afraid in your daily lives, and, most cruelly of all, afraid in your own skin. We can have no society worth celebrating unless we can guarantee freedom from fear for every person who gives this country their love, labor, and life.”

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Google is now facing another issue regarding privacy as it received a data protection complaint. The complaint was filed by Max Shrems, an Austrian privacy activist, and accused the search giant of unlawfully monitoring users and passing on the “tracking ID’ to various advertisers.

Schrems filed the complaint through his activist group called, Noyb. It was filed with the Austrian data protection authority and mainly concerned Android users. According to their complaint, Google tracked its Android users’ phones through a unique ID, which “allows Google and countless third-parties to” track and monitor EU users. In the complaint, the group mentioned that people have to be asked for consent before being tracked.

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This is in line with the strict data protection rules the European Union has enforced since May 2018. Through these regulations, the data protection advisories have the power to impose fines that can amount up to 4 percent of a company’s global annual sales when concerning major breaches in conduct. Furthermore, the complaint accused Google of not collecting “valid ‘opt-in’ consent before generating the tracking ID, but seems to generate these IDs without user consent.”

According to Nyob, “Android does not allow deleting the tracking ID. It only allows users to generate a new tracking ID to replace the existing tracking ID. This neither deletes the data that was collected before, nor stops tracking going forward.” As of right now, Google has yet to make a public statement. Unfortunately, this also arrives during a period of crisis where various governments and private companies are working on tracing technology, which is another hassle regulatory bodies are dealing with.

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(Via)

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According to the latest report published by Forbes, Xiaomi smartphones are found that the company is recording data of what the user is doing with the devices and the data are then sent to remove servers hosted by Alibaba, which are ostensibly rented by Xiaomi.

It found that Xiaomi’s default browser records all the websites visited, including search queries even from privacy-focused search engines, and every item viewed on its news feed. It reports that the tracking happens even when the user is in the private mode.

Further, the report adds that the Xiaomi device records what folders users open and to which screens they swipes, including the status bar and the settings page. All of the data are then being packaged and sent to remote servers in Singapore and Russia, while the web domains they hosted were registered in Beijing.

The report from Forbes reveal that the company wasn’t just collected web browser data but also data about the phone, including unique numbers for identifying the specific device and Android version.

However, Xiaomi denies that there’s a problem with privacy. The company claims that data is encrypted when transferred to protect user privacy. But it just takes a few seconds to decode the base64 encryption and to change the garbled data into readable information.

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In its response, the Chinese smartphone maker says that “privacy and security is of top concern” for them and adds that it “strictly follows and is fully compliant with local laws and regulations on user data privacy matters.” The spokesperson for the company also confirms that it was collecting browsing data, claiming the information was anonymised so wasn’t tied to any identity.

Xiaomi’s spokesperson also denied that browsing data was being recorded under incognito mode. However, two security researcher found in their independent tests that their web habits were sent off to remote servers regardless of what mode the browser was set to. When Forbes sent a video proof of the claim to Xiaomi, the company continued denying it.

Upon further digging, Forbes found that to better understand its users’ behaviour, Xiaomi is using services of a behavioural analytics company called Sensors Analytics which has tools that help its clients in “exploring the hidden stories behind the indicators in exploring the key behaviors of different businesses.” Xiaomi’s spokesperson also confirmed the company’s relationship with Sensors Analytics.

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(Source)

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