Yelp and Gofundme decided to automatically create Gofundme campaigns for businesses and promote them on Yelp. Then, they decided to make it opt-in only after backlash from business owners.

Maybe their heart was in the right place. However, Yelp should have resisted the idea of soliciting donations on behalf of a business without the business owner’s knowledge or permission.

This reminds me a bit of Grubhub’s actions recently. While it is a very different situation, it is still a tech company doing things that might affect a business, without the business owner’s consent or knowledge.

via Slashdot

Heather Zheng and Ben Zhao, computer science professors at the University of Chicago created a wearable that jams microphones. I immediately thought of Alexa/Echo/Google Home type things, but their demo video reminded me that we may be surrounded by devices that are listening to everything all the time.

This is a just a proof of concept, but with a smaller form factor, I could see people using this. I wonder if it might be more fashionable as a necklace or hat, so long as it doesn’t reduce its ability to jam microphones.

It reminds me a of the infrared privacy glasses that we saw a few years ago. I could see these used together to help insure some privacy in our increasingly surveilled world.

via Slashdot