Online Magazine
Tech News Amuse
April 2022
In April, money poured into the tech world in particularly large amounts – whether it was for toy shopping sprees, military defence or fines, the vast sums made the headlines. Our monthly review, including a satirical classification.
by Tabea Ulla Thor
Sometimes, even in the tech world, it's all about one thing: money! Millions and billions spent on data, purchases, technologies, and if on one of the past April days, there wasn't much money spent, then millions worth of data was stolen. And yet other things cost nothing at all! Of course, this makes for a bunch of headlines that need to be analysed astutely and commented on sharply.
Our tech news overview of the past few weeks:
Amazon bans words from employee chats
According to a report, Amazon is working on an internal chat app for employees that will filter words like "raise", "union", "freedom" and "petition".
For the sake of transparency, we are publishing here a full list of words that are automatically censored on Binary Dreams:
- **********
- ************
- *******
- *********
Musk buys Twitter for approximately 44 billion US dollars
Both contractual partners have unanimously announced that the multi-billionaire will take over the company completely at a price of 54.20 dollars per share. After the takeover, Musk wants above all to strengthen freedom of expression on the platform.
To clarify:
This is freedom of expression:
Quelle
This is NOT freedom of expression:
Number of unemployed computer scientists in Switzerland decreased
At last count, 1825 computer scientists were registered with the RAVs. However, the statistics do not include thousands of other programmers who merely copy the work of others from Stackoverflow.
Amazon reserves rocket launch sites
The company wants to use this to build a competing internet satellite network to Starlink. Former US Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, however, warns of the risks of an earth-spanning satellite internet system.
Free EU roaming extended for 10 years
The EU has decided on an extension, thanks to which mobile phone customers can continue to surf the net, make phone calls and send short messages across borders at no extra cost. Fortunately, we Swiss can still afford the charges of all these poor countries easily.
Swiss prefer to use "forgot password" function rather than password manager
Only 25 % of respondents in a study use corresponding tools to manage their passwords, while a majority prefer to remember passwords and fall back on recovery options in case of doubt.
Furthermore, 15 % stated that they only use the "forgotten password" function of their password manager.
Google removes spy apps from Play Store
So far, apps like "QR & Barcode Scanner", "WiFi Mouse" or "Simple weather & clock widget" have been removed because they collected data like email addresses, address book entries, phone numbers and GPS positions.
So it is only a matter of time before "Youtube", "Gmail", "Google Search" and "Google Maps" will also be removed from the store.
EU decides on uniform charging cables
In future, electrical devices within the EU should all be able chargeable with standardised cables. This is supposed to help reduce electrical waste, as you won't need a new cable every time you buy, for example, a new smartphone which magically breaks shortly after the warranty expires.
Federal Council provides CHF 2.4 billion for cyber army
This army is supposed to protect against espionage, disinformation or manipulation. It is also the only army that is allowed to sit in front of the computer with Coke and crisps during its deployment.
New AI automatically rejects cookies
The AI is being developed by researchers from Google and the University of Wisconsin-Madison and is intended to make it easier for internet users to protect their personal data.
In the meantime, it is supposed to reject advertising and tracking cookies very reliably, but it has had inexplicable difficulties with AdSense cookies so far. An option that is to be developed especially for Switzerland will allow it to be neutral towards all cookies.
Google must change its cookie banner after being fined
EU data protection rules require that it is as easy to refuse all cookies as it is to accept them. The company is now considering making the process of accepting all cookies more difficult.
T-Mobile wanted to buy back customer data from hackers
After a major data theft, T-Mobile is said to have tried to buy back about 30 million stolen customer data from criminal hackers. However, they did not delete the customer data afterwards as agreed, but sold it to other interested parties. How sad that you can't even trust criminal hackers any more.
Website offers office sounds for people in the home office
If you continue to work from home but miss the office atmosphere, soundofcolleagues.com offers the possibility to play the typical soundscape of the workplace at home. We look forward to the successor with screaming children, whining cats and lawn-mowing neighbours for all those who now have to return to the office after two years.
Did someone say home office?
Researchers develop computer chips made from honey
They see this development as an alternative to the currently scarce silicon chips. Great, finally we have a sensible reason to save the bees. Data centres are already working on protective measures against hungry bears.
CNN discontinues streaming service just one month after launch
The broadcaster had only launched the payment service in the USA on 29 March. Allegedly, customers were annoyed by the fact that there was only ever bad news.
NFTs worth millions of dollars stolen
Hackers have stolen NFTs worth 2.7 million dollars via the Instagram account of the NFT project "Bored Ape Yacht Club" via phishing attempts. The police are still trying to find out what exactly was actually stolen.
70 % of online purchases are broken off
That's the result of a study by Uniserv among the 100 online retailers with the highest turnover. To prevent this from happening in the future, large online retailers want to learn from brick-and-mortar retailers: if you want to leave the site without buying something, you will be looked at sceptically by a service employee connected via webcam.
The Format
*Our "Feuill-IT-on" format is created in collaboration with the two freelance writers Tobias Lauterbach und Daniel Al-Kabbani who occasionally contribute to the satire platform "Der Postillon". Under the pseudonyms Strigalt von Entf, and Tabea Ulla Thor they report on current events from the world of technology – always with a wink! ;-)
