Alexa lost its voice… for real this time

Has Alexa been giving you the cold shoulder recently? You’re far from the only one. Outages in Amazon’s cloud services muted the voice assistant for many people on March 2nd, producing error messages when you spoke commands to Echo speakers and other Alexa-equipped devices. The issue didn’t affect everyone (we successfully spoke to Alexa in Canada during the outage, for instance) and could sometimes be overcome by using the Alexa app, but you certainly didn’t want to depend on the AI helper for anything important.

Amazon’s issue also affected us, we’d add — it prevented us from updating the site properly for a few hours. Sorry about that.

We’ve asked Amazon for comment and will let you know when it can share more details. Whatever it says, the incident is a not-so-subtle reminder of the risks involved in making a device heavily dependent on the internet, even for local tasks. It’s great when it works, but it can be maddening when everything goes south. And there’s a certain irony to this when Amazon just ran a Super Bowl ad where Alexa lost her voice — it clearly wasn’t expecting that to happen in real life.

Via: TechCrunch

YouTube is being sued for ‘reverse discrimination’

YouTube is being sued by one of its former employees, who claims that the company stopped hiring white and Asian men for technical positions. The Wall Street Journal reports that the reasons behind this decision was efforts to increase diversity in the company’s employee pool.

Arne Wilberg, a white man who was a recruiter at YouTube for four years, claims that the company sets diversity quotas for hiring. Wilberg says that he was instructed to toss applications that weren’t from women and underrepresented minorities (black and Hispanic), as well as cancel interviews with people who didn’t meet these criteria. Others familiar with YouTube’s hiring practices were able to corroborate some of these accusations, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Recruiters at YouTube tracked the hiring of underrepresented minorities with a “diversity tracker.” The team set yearly goals for hiring, and tracked progress on these documents. Wilberg refused to cooperate with these hiring goals and claims his performance reviews suffered as a result.

It’s clear that Alphabet will defend itself against Wilberg’s charges. “We have a clear policy to hire candidates based on their merit, not their identity,” a Google spokesperson said in a statement to The Wall Street Journal. “At the same time, we unapologetically try to find a diverse pool of qualified candidates for open roles, as this helps us hire the best people, improve our culture, and build better products.”

Wilberg isn’t the first Google employee to sue for “reverse discrimination.” James Damore, the now-infamous man who was fired for his anti-diversity memo, and David Gudeman, another Google ex-employee, claimed they were “ostracized, belittled and punished for their heterodox political views, and for the added sin of their birth circumstances of being Caucasians and/or males.” In its 2017 diversity report, Caucasians made up 56 percent of Google’s workforce in 2017 and the company was 69 percent male, so it seems like white men are doing okay at Google.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

The best baby monitor

By Harry Sawyers, Sarah Kovac, Winnie Yang

This post was done in partnership with Wirecutter. When readers choose to buy Wirecutter’s independently chosen editorial picks, it may earn affiliate commissions that support its work. Read the full article here.

Who should get this

Not everyone needs a baby monitor. If you live in a smaller house or apartment, keep your infant in close proximity, or just generally don’t feel the need to monitor your baby as they’re sleeping (the infant cry is hard to miss!), you may find that a monitor is unnecessary.

But, for many parents, a baby monitor is a part of daily life. A baby monitor gives you a camera and/or microphone near the crib, and a separate rechargeable parent unit (aka, a monitor) that connects wirelessly and can travel with you throughout the house, either working while plugged in or running off its battery. It’s nice to see your children in bed, dreaming happily, sleeping in adorable new positions, cuddling with animals, and generally doing okay.

How we picked and tested

Photo: Kyle Fitzgerald

We began by making a long list of best sellers at Amazon, Walmart, and other websites, and read through customer reviews and editorial reviews from other publications. Based on what we read and our own years of monitor use, we looked for monitors with the following qualities:

• Uses RF (radio frequency) to transmit video, rather than Wi-Fi
• Rated for at least 700 feet of range
• A battery that can last at least eight hours, and is easily rechargeable
• Priced around $100 for video monitors, and well under $100 for audio-only monitors
• Decent audio and image quality
• Easy and intuitive controls
• Durable enough to withstand being knocked off a nightstand or messed with by a toddler
• Ability to pan and tilt the camera from the parent unit
• Ability to support multiple baby units from one monitor

We took these criteria into consideration, factored in user feedback and reviews from across the Web, and eventually narrowed the list to eight cameras for testing. We used each camera for several months, taking notes on the interface and any difficulties we ran into. We connected each model to multiple routers, and used each from various distances and through walls to test range. We also ran each monitor from a full charge down to zero to check battery life. Finally, we evaluated each monitor’s night vision in dark environments. Read more about our tests in our full guide to baby monitors.

Our pick: Infant Optics DXR-8

Photo: Kyle Fitzgerald

The Infant Optics DXR-8 has a superior battery life to any of the other video monitors we tested, as well as a simpler monitor interface that’s more intuitive and easier to navigate than those found on competitors. The range, image quality, price, and many other features are comparable with those of the best competitors. Other good qualities include a basic but secure RF connection, an ability to pair multiple cameras, and simple tactile buttons.

It may surprise you to hear that simply being able to last through the night, unplugged, with the display off, qualifies as exceptional battery life for a baby monitor. The Infant Optics was one of the only monitors in our testing that could easily do that, and then last a while longer the next day. That alone puts it head-and-shoulders above many other monitors we tested.

Runner-up: Samsung SEW-3043W BrightView HD

Photo: Kyle Fitzgerald

The Samsung SEW-3043W BrightView HD’s primary advantages over our pick are a larger, crisper display and a sleeker-looking package overall. But it is not our pick because its main disadvantage—a slow and unresponsive touchscreen—is such an annoying flaw that we’re sure you’d prefer our pick’s reliable tactile controls. The Samsung also falls short of our pick on battery life and because of other long-term battery and charging issues. On many other measures, the two monitors came out more or less even.

The Samsung’s display, at 5 inches, is among the largest and crispest you’ll find on a baby monitor. However, the touchscreen response is sluggish, which makes it difficult to smoothly pan or tilt the camera. And when you pull up the menu, you lose the video and the audio output—that’s a weakness compared with our pick, which continues to display video and play sound while navigating menu functions.

Budget Pick: VTech DM221

Photo: Kyle Fitzgerald

We wanted to recommend a less expensive video monitor, but at any price notably lower than our pick, every product we tried had such serious problems—usually, poor video quality and ongoing connection issues—that we feel a higher-end audio-only monitor offers a much better value for a limited budget.

The VTech DM221 audio monitor is the best choice in the category—it’s consistently a best seller at multiple retailers, with thousands of positive customer reviews. Losing video is a major sacrifice, of course, but we could see this monitor being a good choice for parents of toddlers who are considering replacing a failing monitor, or people who want a monitor only so they can hear their kid crying out from a distant bedroom.

As you’d expect, the talk-back functionality and audio quality on the VTech are great—easily better than the rudimentary talk-back features on our video monitor picks. With the battery lasting about 19 hours on a full charge, this monitor has the strongest battery life of any in our test. Rated to a range of 1,000 feet, it exceeds the range of our pick (700 feet) both as advertised and in practice during tests.

This guide may have been updated by Wirecutter. To see the current recommendation, please go here.

Note from Wirecutter: When readers choose to buy our independently chosen editorial picks, we may earn affiliate commissions that support our work.

The UK is getting an all-game show streaming service

There are quite a few subscription video on demand services out there these days and there’s about to be one more. A trio of media execs have come together to form InQuisiTiVe Media and will soon launch a subscription service all about British quiz shows. IQTV is scheduled to launch in the UK this July and will offer over 100 quiz show titles including Mastermind, Celebrity Mastermind, The Weakest Link, Countdown and Only Connect. Deals with BBC Worldwide, Banijay and Channel 4 will allow it to have an ongoing stream of new episodes. InQuisiTiVe Media was launched by former Zodiak Media CEO Marc-Antoine d’Halluin, former Lovefilm exec Nick James and Rod Henwood former head of the Harry Potter digital platform Pottermore.

A streaming service dedicated to game shows seems rather niche, but that’s what IQTV’s founders are going for. “Intelligent quiz shows represent an attractive, untapped genre for a niche SVOD service,” Henwood told Variety. “They have significant and very loyal audiences, their brands are enduring, their hosts are highly recognizable with a strong social media following.” He also told Deadline that IQTV is meant to appeal to a “post-millennial” and “upmarket” audience.

The service will be limited to the UK at launch, but the team hopes to expand it internationally with France and Northern Europe offering attractive markets going forward. While IQTV will host already established titles initially, in the future, there may be interest in developing original shows for the platform, Henwood told Deadline. The service will cost ￡3.49 (approximately $4.80) and will also launch with an app that will allow viewers to play along with the shows.

Via: Variety

Facebook orders Kim Kardashian West’s celebrity pranking show

Facebook has ordered a series by Kim Kardashian-West where kids prank their famous celebrity parents. But given that it’s a live, unscripted show, those watching it on the social media platform might be chosen to lend their pranking expertise. Plus, show producers (and the kids themselves) will crowdsource ideas from the Facebook community.

“Inspired by Kardashian West’s own fun family antics, You Kiddin’ Me is a comedic prank series where the kids are in charge and celebrities must do everything their own children say,” reads the press release. But it’s the community interaction that has the most promise for a Facebook-only show. Likewise, ESPN is bringing its First Take: Your Take show to the social platform and inviting the community to participate — something which could make or break either series.

Via: Variety

Source: PR Newswire

How ‘sex trafficking’ just opened the censorship floodgates

In a 388 to 25 vote Tuesday, the House of Representatives passed legislation that makes websites criminally responsible if they can be seen as facilitating sex work. It still needs to get through the Senate, but with his daughter’s endorsement, Trump is anticipated to sign it. Along with its maddening misconceptions about preventing sex trafficking and helping victims, FOSTA-SESTA incorrectly defines sex work and sex trafficking as one thing.

It’s all about policing content. Just not racist or extremist content. Only the content Morality in Media (now known as National Center on Sexual Exploitation, a key proponent of FOSTA-SESTA) doesn’t like.

Now, you’d think that in a time when YouTube is plastered with extremist videos and Instagram gives murderers room to express themselves, some legislation would come along to encourage website owners to tackle those problems. But you’d be wrong. Instead, conservative groups have rushed in to force changes to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Currently, 230 shields online intermediaries from liability for user-generated speech. Yet it also allows for prosecution of those intermediaries under federal criminal law (such as federal anti-trafficking statutes that are already in place).

The proposed changes to Section 230 are specifically designed to sweep nasty, awful sex people off the internet — along with the very sex trafficking victims they claim to be helping.

According to critics, FOSTA-SESTA (two bills Frankenstein-stitched together) is the worst thing to happen to the internet since the death of net neutrality. If this passes, “Risk-averse platforms will likely block too much content to avoid criminal liability and civil claims,” the Center for Democracy & Technology explains.

This will inhibit everyone’s ability to speak freely and to access information. If platforms are compelled to use content filters to screen out potentially trafficking-related material, this effect will be amplified because automated filtering is notoriously overbroad.

Small platforms, such as specialized message boards and online communities that serve niche interests, will find it particularly difficult to survive under [FOSTA-SESTA]’s increased liability risk. [FOSTA-SESTA] would have the unintended consequence of reducing diversity of viewpoints and forums for speech online.

FOSTA-SESTA’s opponents include the National Organization for Women, the ACLU, EFF, the Center for Democracy & Technology, national sex work right orgs, sex workers of all stripes, AIDS United, sex trafficking victims’ rights groups, a variety of tech groups, and more — including the Department of Justice.

In the trenches of sex trafficking, and its unwilling cellmate, sex work, there’s no doubt this is going to make everything much worse. Those who spoke with In Justice Today said that “the legislation stands to do more harm than good by failing to distinguish between trafficking victims and sex workers, eliminating sex workers’ source of income, and hampering anti-trafficking investigations.”

“Allowing Internet platforms on which sexual services are brokered to thrive may be key to apprehending traffickers and recovering victims,” wrote legal scholar Ariel Levy in a 2017 paper on sex commerce online. The paper concludes recommending against censoring and shuttering sex commerce spaces, finding that laws and algorithms which do so only push the activity underground, where it’s difficult for law enforcement to monitor.

The Department of Justice agrees. The DoJ sent a last-minute letter to lawmakers early this week saying FOSTA-SESTA is probably unconstitutional and will make finding and prosecuting sex traffickers more difficult.

Doing something that so plainly drives the problem they’re trying to solve underground — further out of reach — is a logic so convoluted it’s nauseating. The House passed it anyway.

That’s because its backers and proponents are waging an effective disinformation campaign. They’re saying it will help sex trafficking victims when it plainly won’t. They have literally combined sex work and sex trafficking under a single, catch-all umbrella. And that includes all the at-risk populations represented by sex workers across the divides of race, gender, orientation, and social class.

At the heart of this kind of thinking, of course, is sexist, classist belief that “prostitution is bad” (even though it’s not universally illegal in the US). And an underlying fundamental belief that women are unable to make their own decisions about their bodies and their sexualities. Mind you, all genders and orientations do sex work, but you don’t have to squint to see that this boils down to telling women what they can and can’t do with their bodies. Again.

The bill’s proponents are using scare tactics, like pushing histrionic child rape anecdotes such as “It’s a sad and tragic fact: ordering a child for sex online can be as easy as ordering a pizza.” Its pushers are also harnessing the influence of Trump’s daughter, conservative politicians, gullible celebrities, and a few greedy internet corporations.

FOSTA-SESTA has been hastened along by a government that is in such a hurry to combine church and state — their church, their state. Its proponents include Ted Cruz, John McCain, Marco Rubio, Ivanka Trump, the Faith & Freedom Coalition, the aforementioned Morality in Media/NCSE, and politically conservative anti-sex work groups.

Puzzlingly, it’s also supported by the Internet Association — a consortium that represents the largest (but not the smaller) internet companies. Open web pundits believe that the Internet Association’s backing of FOSTA-SESTA is both a tactical error, and an example of the organization caving to the interests of that big internet money. Namely, companies like Facebook and Google who stand to gain from what the legislation will do to financially cripple smaller companies.

Also, it’s a lot easier to foster propaganda bubbles, strip privacy, and sell users to advertisers when you systematically remove art, culture, worldviews about gender, human sexuality, sexual health, and bodily autonomy under the rubric of anti-sex algorithms “keeping communities safe.”

Since the advent of the popular internet, corporations and lawmakers have tried to shove all manner of disastrous laws down our throats by hiding their true motives behind “child pornography” or “sex trafficking.”

Case in point: the “great firewall of Britain” which is the worst in-the-name-of-porn internet censorship enacted on a free population in the Western world. On top of the filters, their anti-porn laws plan to hand identity management to a corporate porn site with no accountability. Like over here, it’s all in the name of protecting the children (and treating consenting adults like children, too).

I guarantee you that if any UK decision makers — lawmakers — had asked sex workers and performers what they need, and talked to kids and parents about navigating the open web, things would be different. The solution would not have been overbroad and illegal blanket censorship, making an exploitative corporation into porn’s gatekeeper, and what will surely be a spectacular privacy and security flamout. I mean, it’s three weeks before the UK’s porn ID system goes into effect, and still no one knows how it’s happening.

But they didn’t ask anyone — except anti-porn people who still insist that sex work is sex trafficking. A successful, decade-plus anti-porn movement, spearheaded by anti-porn feminists, backed up by sexist, out of step anti-porn press outlets brought the UK to this damning impasse of wrongheaded solutions. Their desires have always been clear: Censor things they simply don’t like.

Once again, it’s sex workers are who are the most abused, ignored, and left behind by the failed promises of the open internet.

Images: AFP/Getty Images (Donald and Ivanka Trump)

MacRumors Giveaway: Win a Rhake Laptop Backpack From Mission Workshop

For this week’s giveaway, we’ve teamed up with Mission Workshop to give MacRumors readers a chance to win a rugged, slick looking laptop backpack called The Rhake.

The Rhake, like all of the backpacks from Mission Workshop, is made from weatherproof Cordura and built using a two-layer construction that’s designed to keep everything inside safe and dry even in rainy, snowy conditions. Priced at $365, it comes in black, gray, and olive, with a black camo that has special Cobra buckles option available for $455.

Inside, the Rhake has a ton of pockets to carry your laptop and all of your accessories. There’s a padded pocket that fits all modern Apple MacBooks and leaves them accessible from the exterior of the pack for quick access, a 10-inch tablet pocket to hold your iPad, and a 22-liter roll-top main compartment that you can roll up or unfurl based on what you need to haul.

A hidden water bottle pocket holds a water bottle or similarly shaped item and zips away when you’re not using it, an exterior accessory pocket holds chargers and other small miscellaneous items, an interior zip pocket holds documents, and two interior zippered organizational pockets can house notebooks, business cards, pens, and other accessories.

In addition to all of these pockets, there are horizontal exterior straps across the Rhake with quick release buckles to store coats, hats, and more on the outside of the backpack. Several add-on accessories can be used with the Rhake, including quick-release Cobra buckles ($60), a Roll Tool ($24), and a smartphone pocket ($36).

A foam back panel means the Rhake is always comfortable even when it’s packed full of gear, and a luggage handle pass-through option means you can use it with roller luggage when traveling.

We have one Rhake backpack to give away to a MacRumors reader. To enter to win, use the Rafflecopter widget below and enter an email address. Email addresses will be used solely for contact purposes to reach winners and send prizes. You can earn additional entries by subscribing to our weekly newsletter, subscribing to our YouTube channel, following us on Twitter, or visiting the MacRumors Facebook page.

Due to the complexities of international laws regarding giveaways, only U.S. residents who are 18 years or older and Canadian residents (excluding Quebec) who have reached the age of majority in their province or territory are eligible to enter. To offer feedback or get more information on the giveaway restrictions, please refer to our Site Feedback section, as that is where discussion of the rules will be redirected.

a Rafflecopter giveawayThe contest will run from today (March 2) at 11:00 a.m. Pacific Time through 11:00 a.m. Pacific Time on March 9. The winner will be chosen randomly on March 9 and will be contacted by email. The winner will have 48 hours to respond and provide a shipping address before a new winner is chosen.

Tag: giveaway
Discuss this article in our forums

Quick Takes: Apple Hires a Latin TV Head, New Owner of Reserve Strap Plans to Sue Apple, and More

In addition to our standalone articles covering the latest Apple news and rumors at MacRumors, this Quick Takes column provides a bite-sized recap of other headlines about Apple and its competitors on weekdays.

Friday, March 2

Apple announces hiring of Sony TV’s Angélica Guerra as Head of Latin American Programming: Guerra oversaw Sony Picture Television’s production business across Latin America, including Colombia, Mexico, and Brazil. She will report to Morgan Wandell, Apple’s head of international creative development.

Commentary: Apple has poached several Sony executives, including Jamie Erlicht and Zack Van Amburg, who run the company’s new Worldwide Video Programming division. Apple has already placed orders for over 10 original series with well-known actors and producers such as Jennifer Aniston and Steven Spielberg.

Apple hasn’t revealed how it plans to distribute its original content, but it will soon. The company could launch a streaming service like Netflix, or it could release the series through its TV app or iTunes. In the past, episodes of Apple’s “Carpool Karaoke: The Series” and “Planet of the Apps” were exclusive to Apple Music.

Microsoft releases Soundscape: The app for iPhone uses 3D audio technology to enhance a person’s surroundings, helping people with blindness or low vision to explore unfamiliar areas. An audio beacon can be placed on a point of interest, which users hear as they move around.

Soundscape provides information about your surroundings with synthesized binaural audio, creating the effect of 3D sound. It can run in the background in conjunction with navigation or other applications to provide you with additional context about the environment. Your phone, in hand or in pocket, tracks movement using location and activity sensors, and lets you move toward a self-set audio beacon.

Commentary: This is a great example of how technology can improve accessibility. Microsoft still encourages users with vision loss to continue to place their basic awareness of their surroundings and mobility skills as a priority.

California Highway Patrol to use decoy buses in hopes of catching Apple and Google shuttle attackers: A $10,000 reward is also being offered for information leading to the arrest of the person or people responsible.

Photo Credit: Teamsters Joint Council 7
Commentary: Unmarked coach buses have been attacked by pellet guns at least 20 times recently while transporting Apple and Google employees along the Interstate 280, between San Francisco and the South Bay, where each company is headquartered. Hopefully these efforts will help catch the perpetrators.

Apple has stopped signing iOS 11.2.5: It is no longer possible to downgrade an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch to software versions older than the latest iOS 11.2.6 update, which fixed a system crashing bug related to a Telugu character.

WiseWear plans to sue Apple over illegal restraint of trade: The technology startup filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Wednesday. The company blames part of its demise on Apple, which made changes that prevented the Reserve Strap charging band from working with the Apple Watch’s diagnostic port.

Commentary: WiseWear acquired the original company behind the Reserve Strap last year, well after orders were suspended due to the changes in watchOS, so it’s hard to see them having a strong case should they proceed.

For more Apple news and rumors coverage, visit our Front Page, Mac Blog, and iOS Blog. Also visit our forums to join in the discussion.

Related Roundups: Apple TV, Apple Watch, watchOS 4Tags: Microsoft, Reserve Strap, Apple’s Hollywood ambitions, Quick TakesBuyer’s Guide: Apple TV (Buy Now), Apple Watch (Neutral)
Discuss this article in our forums