Apple·
Tim Cook says heavy Siri AI users may buy more compute on iCloud+. The plan isn't finished
On his final earnings call, Tim Cook said Apple will offer Siri AI upgrades through iCloud+ for heavy users. No price and no tier have been announced.
#privacy
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Policy·
Around 3% of people want tracking. EU governments dropped the plan to end cookie banners.
A civil-society coalition wants EU browsers to send a machine-readable privacy signal instead of showing consent pop-ups. The Council deleted the provision on June 18.
Security·
The DOJ charged a US citizen over a GrapheneOS duress password that wiped his phone at the border
Samuel Tunick's Pixel erased itself during a CBP inspection at Atlanta's airport. Prosecutors call that destroying property to prevent its seizure.
Apple·
Apple considered camera-free smart glasses ahead of a planned WWDC 2027 debut
Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports Apple is aiming for a WWDC 2027 reveal of its first smart glasses, with privacy features and even a camera-free build under discussion.
Android·
Android 17 ships with floating app bubbles and on-screen reaction recording
Android 17 is rolling out to Pixel first. Here's what actually shipped, from Bubbles and Screen Reactions to tighter location privacy, and which features are still coming.
Policy·
The web wants your ID now. Most age checks leak the data they collect.
Mandatory age-verification laws are turning the open internet into a checkpoint. Here's what the UK, EU, and US states actually require, and why the methods leak.
Policy·
An Illinois police chief tracked a woman's ex 140 times on Flock, with no warrant required
A McHenry County police chief faces felony charges for using Flock's plate-reader network to track people he knew. The case is fueling a push for warrants.
Security·
Volkswagen blocked GrapheneOS from its app. Privacy-focused Android keeps getting locked out
Volkswagen's app stopped working on GrapheneOS, the hardened Android fork. The leading explanation is a Play Integrity attestation check that flags non-Google builds.
Web·
Brave's browser got bloated with crypto and AI. Origin strips it back for $60
Brave released Origin, a paid version of its browser that compiles out Leo AI, the crypto wallet, Rewards, Tor, and the VPN. A one-time $59.99 buys it, and Linux is free.
Web·
A browser SSD timing trick can fingerprint your browsing, and cookies won't stop it
Graz researchers built FROST, a browser side-channel that times SSD activity to guess which sites and apps you're running. Here's how it works and what helps.
Security·
Your car logs every hard brake, and the FTC just banned GM from selling it for five years
Connected cars collect location, driving behavior, in-cabin audio, and synced contacts, then route it to automaker clouds, brokers, and insurers. Here's how to stop it.
Policy·
Adversaries are tracking US troops with the same phone-location data advertisers buy
A Wired investigation and a CENTCOM letter to Senator Wyden confirm enemies are tracking US troops through commercial phone location data. Here's how the broker pipeline works.
Web·
Google said people love AI search. DuckDuckGo's installs jumped 30% the next week.
DuckDuckGo's US downloads climbed about 30% and its no-AI search page saw 28% more visits the week after Google's I/O push. The backlash is now measurable.
Apple·
iOS 26.5 brings encrypted texting between iPhone and Android. Group chats and metadata still leak.
Apple and Google began rolling out end-to-end encrypted RCS on May 11. The MLS-based encryption rides on GSMA Universal Profile 3.0, but EFF says the rollout leaves real gaps.
Policy·
Palantir contractors are getting 'unlimited access' to NHS patient data before it's anonymized
NHS England created an admin role giving Palantir staff access to identifiable patient data. The £330M contract's break clause arrives in March 2027.
Policy·
The EU called VPNs 'a loophole that needs closing.' Proton's UK signups rose 1,800%.
An EU Parliament briefing and Executive VP Henna Virkkunen both flagged VPN circumvention of age verification. The UK's attempt to solve it backfired into record VPN adoption.
Security·
380,000 vibe-coded apps are sitting on the open web. 5,000 of them are leaking real data.
RedAccess found that AI coding tools like Lovable, Base44, and Replit default to public hosting, leaving medical records, bank internals, and corporate secrets indexed by Google.
Policy·
Meta pulled encryption from Instagram DMs today. WhatsApp and Messenger keep theirs.
End-to-end encryption is gone from Instagram DMs as of May 8. Meta cited low adoption for a feature it never turned on by default.