Technology

• The Rise of "Little Tech": Small startups and SaaS vendors—often backed by Silicon Valley venture capital—are leading the charge in AI-powered workplace surveillance, embedding tracking tools into everyday HR and productivity software.
• Global Surge, Local Collapse: While countries like Brazil, Mexico, and India have privacy laws on paper, enforcement is weak, allowing both domestic and foreign vendors to deploy invasive technologies unchecked.
• Gig Workers as Guinea Pigs: Gig economy workers in sectors like delivery and rideshare are the frontline subjects of AI surveillance, subjected to real-time tracking, biometric scans, and even models that predict union activity.
• Surveillance Disguised as Care: AI surveillance is increasingly framed as a tool for safety, wellness, and productivity—masking coercive oversight in the language of health and efficiency.
• Privacy Theater: Many vendors offer copy-paste privacy notices while quietly retaining worker data indefinitely. In countries like Mexico and Colombia, some companies even conduct home visits and collect data on workers' families.
• Workers are Fighting Back: From sanitation workers in India to ride-hail drivers in Nigeria, workers are resisting algorithmic control—organizing protests, forming unions, and demanding AI transparency.

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The key reason is that we just don’t have enough people on the admin team to keep the place running. Most of the admin team has stepped down, mostly due to burnout, and finding replacements hasn’t worked out.

• Windows 10 End of Life is just four months away but installations of Windows 11 actually went backwards last month.
• Data from StatsCounter saw Windows 11 installations decline by 0.5 percent.
• This continues the trend seen since Windows 11 launched in which users are resistant to upgrading given the hardware requirements of the operating system.

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Approximately 6.5 terabytes of data from the interconnected companies Psyclone Media and Political Media in addition to client data such as The Post Millennial, acting as their "face to the political world". Political Media describes itself as a "right of center new media consulting firm" for political and public relations campaigns and is a co-owner of Psyclone Media and Psyclone Hosting. The companies provide website, email and marketing services, in addition to video production and SEO optimization through their "cooperative partners".

Psyclone Media and Political Media's clients have included political action committees (PACs) and Super PACs, congressional candidates and other political organizations including the Tea Party, as well as conservative media figures and outlets such as Parler, Tucker Carlson, and The Washington Times. Their formal campaigns have promoted use of raw milk and disputed the narrative around the 2012 Benghazi attack, in addition to the narratives promoted by their clients through the "Conservative Stack" service, a content management service catering to conservative users.

• Temp to Permanent: There’s periodic debate over the 120,000 foreigners annually awarded temporary H-1B visas, but almost no attention to the process by which many receive green cards.
• Filled, Then Verified: Foreign workers are eligible for permanent residency only when no U.S. citizens can do the job — but companies confirm that after foreigners have been employed as temps.
• Lost in Print: The law also requires that companies advertise these jobs in the classified ads of Sunday print newspapers, decreasing the chances that U.S. applicants see the listing.

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Police believe live facial recognition cameras may become “commonplace” in England and Wales, according to internal documents, with the number of faces scanned having doubled to nearly 5m in the last year.

• From April 11, 2025, in the US, you can no longer link your PayPal account directly to the Google Wallet app. PayPal accounts that are already linked to your app will continue to work. Learn what happens to your PayPal account.
• Starting June 13, 2025, if you have a PayPal account linked to your Google Wallet app, you will no longer be able to use it for payments. Linked PayPal accounts will be automatically deleted and no longer supported.

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Russian GRU Unit 29155 is best known for its long list of murder and sabotage ops, which include the Salisbury poisonings in England, arms depot explosions in Czechia, and an attempted coup d’etat in Montenegro. But its activities in cyberspace remained in the shadows — until now. After reviewing a trove of hidden data, The Insider can report that the Kremlin’s most notorious black ops squad also fielded a team of hackers — one that attempted to destabilize Ukraine in the months before Russia’s full-scale invasion.

• New WHO resolution aims to curb digital marketing of baby formula
• Scaling up breast feeding could prevent 823,000 infant deaths a year
• AI violations detector can help countries enforce marketing rules

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When hackers hit a school district, they can expose Social Security numbers, home addresses, and even disability and disciplinary records. Now, cybersecurity advocates warn that the Trump administration’s budget and personnel cuts, along with rule changes, are stripping away key defenses that schools need.