Tech News Roundup for August 25, 2022
Twitter finds itself in hot water, there’s a new Fitbit in town, and the PlayStation 5 is getting more expensive? That and a few other stories I’ve found interesting over the last couple days.
Twitter Whistleblower Accuses Company Of Willful Ignorance Around Cybersecurity
This is a big one that broke too late on Tuesday for me to really dig into. Pieter Zatko, a man known as a hacker who later turned into a cybersecurity expert, says that Twitter does not take user and data security seriously, and that he was fired earlier this year for what he says is a refusal to stay quiet about the company’s vulnerabilities.
Zatko alleges that up to 5,000 employees have access to user data on the platform, which is a staggering number. He says that there are also “thousands” of laptops with complete copies of Twitter’s source code on it. He also claims that the company lies to government regulators about protecting customer information. He also says the company lise about the number of bots on the platform, because active user count is a metric for executive bonuses.
Those are just some of the accusations made by Zatko, and even if only a few are true, paint a fairly damning picture of the company and its internal policies. This could have a severe material impact on the court case with Elon Musk over his desire to pull out of his purchase of the company, and could put the company in legal trouble for allegedly misleading the FTC over a previous 2010 settlement.
Zatko is now set to testify before a congressional committee in September. That should be ufn.
https://www.theverge.com/2022/8/23/23317857/twitter-whistleblower-zatko-security-spam-safety
Google Announces New Fitbit Versa 4, Sense 3, Inspire 3
The new Fitbits are here. The Fitbit Versa 4 and Sense 2 look very much like their predecessors, though they both bring back the physical back button instead of the capacitive touch one found in the Versa 3 and Sense. Otherwise, these are strangely iterative updates for the Fitbit products, especially since they are the first smartwatches released since Google bought Fitibit. They run the same Fitbit OS, and don’t even have services like Google Wallet and Google Maps at launch, with the company saying those are coming in the future. Otherwise, these have the same experience as the previous devices. There are more workouts to track, the health sensors are more robust (the blood oxygen sensor is able to work all the time now, instead of only during sleep, for example). Perhaps the biggest advantage to the Fitbit devices are that because their functionality is still slightly limited compared to a WearOS smartwatch, they can get up to 6 days of battery life. It goes without saying that that is a big advantage over a watch like the Galaxy Watch 5 which can get maybe 2 days. The trade is battery life or capability, and it looks like Fitbit branded devices will continue to favour battery life over a full smartwatch feature set. But for those with an iPhone that don’t want an Apple Watch, or those on Android who prefer the square design, these look fairly compelling.
The Fitbit Versa 4 starts at $300, and the Sense 2 starts at $400.
Sony Raises PlayStation 5 Price in Canada
Well, here’s something you don’t see every day. Usually the price of video game consoles go down over time as components become cheaper. But with the PlayStation 5, the price is going up in every region except the USA. In Canada the price of the all digital edition without the disc drive has gone from $500 to $520, while the more expensive version with the disc drive has gone from $600 to $650.
For what its worth, Microsoft confirmed later in the day that it does not plan on raising the price of the Xbox Series consoles.
Google Tells Users To Wait 15 Minutes Before Setting Up Google Assistant On The Galaxy Watch 5
This one is just amusing to me. Users who have gotten the Galaxy Watch 5 early have been reporting that they are unable to activate Google Assistant when first setting up the watch. Google’s official statement on the matter is to wait 15 minutes and try again. I’m sure it’s just a weird technical bug on needing time for the watch to register on a Google Account before Assistant will activate, and that 15 minutes lets it happen, but it is still quite amusing to me.
https://www.androidpolice.com/google-wants-wait-15-minutes-setting-up-assistant-galaxy-watch-5/
Twitter Is Turning Spaces Into a Podcast Platform For Some Reason
Twitter Spaces is an interesting way for people to broadcast live audio to their followers. It also allows the broadcaster to let listeners talk to them, turning into a two way conversation. The feature has been around for a while now, and now Twitter is morphing it into a full on podcast platform.
Twitter’s twist here is that the spaces tab will play curated playlists of various podcasts based on what it thinks your interests are. This looks to be an attempt to resolve the discoverability issue that podcasts and podcast platforms still grapple with to this day. Will this attempt work? The idea is sound but I’m not sure if Twitter is the place where someone is going to go to try to discover new podcasts.
https://www.theverge.com/2022/8/25/23321940/twitter-podcast-spaces-spotify-apple