Trying to avoid antitrust suits, Google systematically told employees to destroy messages, avoid certain words and copy the lawyers as often as possible.

MacworldWhen they already have the best phone on the planet, what do you buy an iPhone user? Were here to help you select the best iPhone gifts availableperfect gifts for Christmas, birthdays, Fathers Day, Mothers Day, anniversaries, and when you are just feeling generous.If not a brand new iPhone (check out our iPhone Buying Guide if your budget stretches that far), then how about one of the many available iPhone accessories? Throughout the year we have tested and reviewed the best iPhone accessories from Apple and trusted companies, and we can recommend the best ones for the people on your list. Wed be delighted to receive any of these iPhone accessories as a gift.If you want to splash out on another Apple product, take a look at our guides for best Apple Watch, best iPad and best Mac. Here we recommend some of our favorite iPhone cases, power banks, chargers, cables and tech organizers, plus a roundup of some super stocking stuffers for the iPhone user in your thoughts.iPhone Gift Guide: CasesIf your loved one doesnt own a case for their iPhone then this may be the best gift you can get them as it will share a bit of personality while protecting their precious phone from knocks, drops, and everyday scrapes. If they already have a case, then buy them a new or better one. Just slipping on a new case can transform an old iPhone into something that feels brand new again. Its even more satisfying than an iOS update!We have tested the best cases for iPhone 15 and best cases for iPhone 16 and most of these are available for older models from the iPhone 11 up. Run through those lists to see the widest range of cases you can select as a gift, and get one for yourself while youre at it. If youre shopping for someone who has an iPhone 12 or later, look for a MagSafe-compatible case as it wont interfere with wireless charging.1. Casely iPhone Classic and Bold Cases Colorful and arty cases for all iPhonesProsOptional protection levelsDesign optionsBest Prices Today: $25 at CaselyCasely has an enormous range of designer and colorful iPhone cases available for the iPhone XR, 11, and laterright up to the iPhone 16 family. Most are available in either a flexible glossy Classic version or a more rigid and protective Bold version. Art lovers will appreciate the range of impressionist paintings that can now adorn their iPhone. There is even a range of festive winter and Christmas cases available.Shipping for direct domestic orders under $30 is a flat rate of $5 and international orders below $100 will be charged a flat rate of $10 USD (Canada) and $15 USD (everywhere else). Or follow our Amazon links for possible free shipping.2. Casetify iPhone Cases Wide design choice range of iPhone casesProsOptional protection levelsDesign optionsBest Prices Today: $56 at CasetifyCasetify is another maker of colorful iPhone cases and these can be customized with personalized text, colors, designs, and protection levels. There are hundreds of case designs to choose from, and you can choose the level of protection that suits you best. The camera case is very retro, and you can buy non-slip cases with physical ripples that make your phone grip firmer.3. OtterBox iPhone cases Wide choice of colors and protectionProsUnique edge-to-edge designsThe super-slimFigura Case(above) for iPhone 16 from OtterBox features psychedelic patterns that are hydro-dipped by hand. The graphics envelop the case from edge to edge. The material is flexible with a soft touch. OtterBox has a wide range of cases for many older iPhone versions, tooincluding its robust Defender range.4. ESR iPhone CasesProsHigh protection levelBuilt-in kickstandUnlike most macho protective cases, the ESR Cyber Tough cases are available in a range of colors depending on the model of iPhone, including one in a fetching pink. ESR has a huge range of iPhone cases, many with hidden ring stands and other features.Leather iPhone cases: If you fancy a premium leather iPhone case look at the selection at Dutch design firm Mujjo and Woolnut for iPhone 11 and later.Wallet iPhone cases: Check out the Vena and Decoded ranges of iPhone cases with built-in and detachable wallets.Wood/pearl/fabric-effect iPhone cases: Seek out the range at Mous for iPhone 14 and later.iPhone Gift Guide: iPhone power banksHands up if your iPhone has never run out of juice during the day when you are far from a convenient power socket. Yeah, right.Apple used to make a special Smart Battery Case for the iPhone but stopped selling these when it added MagSafe magnetic wireless charging to the iPhone 12 and later. It then sold its own MagSafe Battery Case but stopped making these when it launched the iPhone 15. But fear not, as there are some great MagSafe power banks out there that clamp onto the back of your iPhone (12/13/14/15) and can recharge the phone for long enough that you can reach a power source.Of course, Macworld has tested many of them and picked the best MagSafe power banks, but here are a few of our favorites.1. Anker Zolo and MagGo Power BanksProsHuge 10000mAh battery capacityBuilt-in USB-C cable7.5W wireless or 30W wired chargingPrice When Reviewed:49,99 EuroThe Anker Zolo Magnetic Power Bank is available in four colorsblack,blue,pinkorwhiteand uses MagSafe to magnetically stick to the back of your iPhone when you need a power boost. In our tests, it recharged an iPhone twice over with its 10000mAh battery capacity. Better still, it features its own built-in USB-C cable for charging up the battery pack or wired-charging the iPhone 15 and 16 families that have a USB-C port rather than Lightning. Using the cable rather than MagSafe will charge an iPhone 15/16 at an impressive 30W. MagSafe wireless charging is slower at 7.5W but it will still rescue a fading iPhone 12 or lateror you can supply your own Lightning cable (or USB-C for iPhone 15 users) and connect with a wire. It also features a handy kickstand.AnkerIf you have an older (pre-15) iPhone, then you need a Lightning cable but the non-magnetic Anker Zolo Power Bank has both, meaning it will still be relevant when you upgrade to a USB-C iPhone. And of course you can use the USB-C cable to charge the power bank itself. If you have a family with both USB-C (15 and 16) and Lightning (14 and earlier) iPhones this will suit all models. Theres a handy digital battery-level display, too. This version of the Zolo doesnt feature wireless charging.AnkerWith no built-in cable but a fast 15W Qi2 magnetic wireless charging pad, a third option is the Anker MagGo 10K Slim Power Bank (above), which is the slimmest 10K high-capacity wireless power bank we have testedperfect for carrying with you in a bag for emergencies when your iPhone starts to fade and you are miles from a power socket or have forgotten your charger and cable.Read our full Anker Zolo 10K Magnetic Power Bank review 2. Belkin BoostCharge Magnetische kabellose Powerbank 5K mit StnderProsSlimBuilt-in standPrice When Reviewed:55,99Best Prices Today: 59,95 at Apple59,99 at BelkinIf you are willing to sacrifice some recharging power for pocketable portability consider a 5K magnetic power bank like the Belkin BoostCharge. Its dinky and boasts a kickstand, and will get you to your next charging point if its just a few hours of constant phone use away as in our tests it charged our nearly drained iPhone to close on a full extra power refill.3. OneAdaptr OneGo 3-in-1 travel charger and power bankProsCompact iPhone, Watch, AirPods charging stand10K power bankFoldable for travelPrice When Reviewed:83,95Best Prices Today: 83,95 at OneAdaptrThis compact OneGo power bank has it all: it can charge four devices at the same timeincluding iPhone, Apple Watch and AirPods, plus another via its side USB-C portand then folding up into a lightweight form that can slip into your pocket or overnight bag.iPhone Gift Guide: USB-C iPhone chargersA simple charger sounds like a boring present but we think any iPhone users would be delighted to receive one of these beauties now that Apple no longer includes one in the box with new iPhones. And which iPhone users couldnt do with at least one more spare charger at home or in the officeor a special one for travel?An iPhone charger should be rated at least 20W, and wed recommend 30W or better as newer iPhones can accept higher wattages than even Apple admits. A 30W charger can handle an iPad Pro and has just enough to power up even a 13-inch MacBook Air.For more details and options, read our Best Picks roundup of the best iPhone chargers. Further down we recommend some multi-device chargers that might make more of an impact come unwrapping day.1. Ugreen Nexode RG 30W USB C GaN Charger cute robot-shaped chargerProsCute robot-shaped chargerTwo color optionsThe latest GaN (Gallium Nitride) chargers are tiny so were used them them being labeled cute but this small phone charger really is cute, shaped like a friendly robot. Take off its boots and youll find the plug prongs that connect straight into a wall power socket. The boots are even magnetic. Why? We dont know but you can store the plug protector on most metal surfaces when the charger is in use. When plugged in, the LED screen shows different expressions that refer to the charging states. Its 30W power is enough to fast charge even the biggest iPhone. Youll need a USB-C to USB-C cable to charge an iPhone 15 and USB-C to Lightning cable for older iPhones. Its even powerful enough to keep a small MacBook charged.2. Anker 30W Nano Charger tiny and powerful chargerProsSmallest, lightest 30W chargerFoldable plugMultiple color optionsMeasuring just 1.12 1.12 1.39 inches (U.S. model), the 30W Anker USB-C Nano Charger is the smallest 30W USB-C charger weve had in our labs for testing, and it weighs just 1.3oz (36g). The U.K. model is larger but also features foldable prongs and is equally incredibly light. Its available in a range of pastel colors, including Misty Blue, Lilac Purple, Phantom Black, Aurora White, and Natural Green.3. Ugreen Nexode 45W USB-C Wall Charger Charge two devices at the same timeProsSmall, light 45W charger2 portsFoldable plugPrice When Reviewed:35,99Best Prices Today: 35,99 at UgreenThis two-port wall charger from Ugreen is great if your household or office has two phonesone doesnt even need to be an iPhone! Indeed you could charge your iPhone plus Apple Watch or AirPods, too. Each USB-C port is rated at 45W so one could charge a mid-sized laptop. Using both ports, one will give 25W and the other 20Wenough for a reasonably fast charge. Its a great compact choice for homes with a couple of devices in need of a power boost.4. Casetify 33W Fast ChargerProsSmallTwo portsInternational plug headsPrice When Reviewed:41,99Best Prices Today: 41,99 at CasetifyA cuter option as an iPhone gift is the Casetify 33W Fast Charger, available in a fetching pink and blue combination. It features a USB-C port for fast charging and an old-school USB-A port for older charging cables. Take it on your travels as it has interchangeable prongs for U.S., U.K., and E.U power sockets.iPhone Gift Guide: MagSafe chargersWhile charging using a USB-C cable (USB-C to Lightning for older iPhones, and USB-C to USB-C for the iPhone 15 family) from your charger is the fastest way to charge an iPhone, more convenient is wireless charging. Since the iPhone 12, wireless charging has become more efficient and therefore faster with Apples MagSafe technology that magnetically clamps the iPhone more securely to the wireless charger.You can buy a simple USB-C to MagSafe charging pad, like Apples $39/39 MagSafe Charger or a third-party alternative, or a multi-device charger that includes a MagSafe charger for iPhone plus a charger for AirPods or Apple Watch.For more details and options, read our Best Picks roundup of the best MagSafe wireless chargers.1. Satechi 3-in-1 Foldable Qi2 Wireless Charging Stand Superb travel or desk-bound wireless MagSafe chargerPros3-in-1 chargingFast 15W for iPhoneFolds for travelPrice When Reviewed:139,99 EuroBest Prices Today: 0.01 at idealo$129.99 at Satechi139.99 at ComputeruniverseWe love that once static MagSafe chargers are now folding up into highly portable devices, and thats certainly true of the Satechi 3-in-1 Foldable Charging Stand. It uses Qi2 magnetic wireless charging tech so can power an attached iPhone at 15W. The 5W Apple Watch Charger is all set for Watch fast charging, and you can place your AirPods case at he front for three-at-a-time charging.2. Twelve South HiRise 3 Deluxe 3-in-1 wireless MagSafe chargerPros3-in-1 charging15W (MagSafe)Fast charge WatchPrice When Reviewed:169,99Best Prices Today: 169,99 at Twelve SouthIf the person you are buying for owns an iPhone, Apple Watch and AirPods, then a 3-in-1 charging station will tidy a desk or bedside table of cable clutter and keep everything nicely in place. The Twelve South HiRise 3 Deluxe is the best of the static desk chargers, with a small footprint, certified fast iPhone and Watch charging plus a Qi charger for AirPods. The MagSafe charging pad is adjustable unlike most of its rivals.Read our full Twelve South HiRise 3 Deluxe review 3. Anker PowerWave Magnetic 2-in-1 Stand Simple and affordable 2-in-1 wireless chargerProsCharges iPhone and AirPodsAdjustable charging padPrice When Reviewed:37,99This is a great budget option for a stand that will charge both your iPhone and AirPods. At 7.5W, Ankers stand is not quite as fast at charging as the 15W models reviewed above, but it will be fast enough for most of us. If speed is your only priority, charge using a cable! Like those pricier charger options, this charger features an adjustable charging pad, so can be angled to your own requirements.4. Twelve South ButterFly SE 2-in-1 Qi2 Charger Super-compact iPhone & Watch chargerProsCharges Watch and iPhone (swap Watch for AirPods)15W Qi2 for iPhoneCompact and portablePrice When Reviewed:109,95Best Prices Today: 109,95 at Twelve SouthThe ButterFly charger from Twelve South is a beautiful piece of design and works exactly as it should. You can charge your iPhone and Apple Watch at the same time, or switch the iPhone for your AirPods case if that is your greater need. Its a great travel charging companion that easily slips into a pocket. Theres the original metal MagSafe ButterFly model or the more affordable ButterFly SE that uses Qi2 but matches MagSafe for 15W iPhone charging speed. The ButterFly comes in five different color options, two exclusive to Twelve South.Read our full Twelve South ButterFly SE 2-in-1 Qi2 Charger review 5. Native Union Voyage 2-in-1 Magnetic Wireless Charger Super-compact iPhone & Watch chargerProsCharges Watch and iPhone (swap Watch for AirPods)15W Qi2 for iPhoneCompact and portablePrice When Reviewed:99,99 EuroBest Prices Today: 99,99 at Native UnionA similar option to the ButterFly is Native Unions cool and compact Voyage 2-in-1 Magnetic Wireless Charger for iPhone and Apple Watch. It comes with a color-matching USB-C cable and pouch to protect the charger when you travel with it.iPhone Gift Guide: Lightning and USB-C cablesIf you thought that chargers might be a boring gift, I hope weve persuaded you otherwise. But how would you feel unwrapping a charging cable? Me? Id be delighted as you cant own enough charging cables, can you? They are always handy. Sure, its not a pony or a new TV but its easier to wrap.Older iPhones will need a USB-C to Lightning cable; check out our roundup of the best Lightning cables. Pair one of these with a USB-C charger, see above, for the fastest charging. An older USB-A to Lightning cable doesnt support iPhone fast charging.The iPhone 15 and 16 families now has a USB-C rather than Lightning port so you can use the same cable as you have for your MacBook. We have tested the best USB-C cables for iPhones and can recommend these as great little gifts.1. Casetify PowerThru USB-C to USB-C Cable Fun USB-C cableProsColor optionsRobust braided design with rounded headPrice When Reviewed:50Best Prices Today: $28 at CasetifyNo wrapping paper is going to look as good as this gift when unwrapped. Its cute, its tough, and it is available in a range of super colors. The PowerThru by Casetify can charge up to 60W, which is more than enough for iPhone charging so could also be used for your USB-C iPad or MacBook.2. Baseus Free2Draw Mini Retractable USB-C Cable 100W neat USB-C cableProsTidily retractableTakes up little spaceNo knotsCables are by definition awkward things to carry around. They get tied up in knots all by themselves, are a unsightly nuisance, and are tricky to store. This thin 3.3-foot (1m) or 5.5ft (2m) USB-C cable is retractable so will slip into a drawer or pocket without dangling around getting in the way. You can buy it in black, white, purple or blue and is rated to support 100W so it can be used to charge your MacBook, too.An affordable alternative is the Cable Matters Short Retractable USB C Cable available in a two-pack. Its 60W rating is more than enough for an iPhone or iPad (but not a newer MacBook Pro).3. Anker 643 USB-C to USB-C Cable Colorful USB-C cablesProsColor optionsTough but flexible siliconeAnother range of colorful USB-C cables is available from Anker. These are also tough and ready to charge anything from an iPhone 15 to a MacBook Pro.iPhone Gift Guide: Stocking stuffersAside from the gift ideas listed above, there are some great stocking stuffers available for smaller budgetsand products we couldnt squeeze into any of the groups above.1. MOFT Snap Phone Tripod Wallet MOVAS Brilliant foldable iPhone standProsFlexible iPhone standFolds away to tiny formPrice When Reviewed:54.99Best Prices Today: 48,95 at MOFTHow often do you carry a tripod around with you in case you need to take a group shot or selfie from a distance further than your arm? Or you simply want to flip your phone into a more comfortable viewing position? Inspired by origami, the Moft Snap Wallet Tripod could be several solutions you are looking for. It folds up into a credit-card-sized device thats just 0.36 inches thick and weighs 4.7oz, so you hardly notice in your pocket even though unfolded it can raise your iPhone by up to 8 inches. Its clever and youll be surprised just how useful it can be. It uses Apples MagSafe tech to firmly grasp the iPhone, and then its up to you to decide which of the three shapesfloating, stand or vloggingyou want to fold it into. Plus you can store two credit or travel cards in it even when its connected to you phone.2. inChargeXS 4-in-1 Keyring Charger Never be without the right cable againProsUSB-C, USB-A and Lightning cablesDevice to device chargingPrice When Reviewed:29,90 EuroBest Prices Today: 29,90 at Rolling SqaureDespite the increasing ubiquity of USB-C as the cable connector for all devices, you are sure to have a Lightning device among your Apple goodiessay your AirPods case or Magic Mouseor something that requires the older rectangular USB-A. The keyring-sized inCharge XS includes swappable connectors that will solve all your charging challenges. It can handle USB-C to USB-C, USB-A to USB-C, plus USB-C to Lightning and USB-A to Lightning options. It supports charging up to 240W so can be used for your laptop, and will also handle data transfers. It also includes a clever proprietary chip that allows for charging laptops, tablets, and Bluetooth speakers using a USB-C device as a power source when you are away from a power socket, so you could take power from one device to another. A tied protective cap keeps the cables protected when not is use.3. Elevation Lab GoStand Einstellbarer Stnder fr das iPhoneProsMultiple anglesFoldablePrice When Reviewed:24,95 EuroBest Prices Today: 24,95 at AppleYou could you this nifty stand for anythingvideo watching, gaming, travel and video calls to name a few activities enhanced by a phone standbut Apple would like you to take it with your yoga mat to ensure you are hands-free when exercising to its Fitness+ service. The GoStand is built with a composite and silicone construction and steel hinge and features precision indexable back support adjusts with a low-profile button.4. Pureport Multi-Tool Phone Cleaning KitProsCleans fluff from iPhone charging portCleans cable connectorsPrice When Reviewed:45If your iPhone stops charging via its cable, its understandable to think its old and broken and youll have to rely on wireless charging or just buy a new one. What is more likely the reason that your wired charging isnt working is a dirty charging port or duff cable (see above). Stick your iPhone in your pocket and it inevitably attracts dust, fluff, and lint. Clear out the port (very gently!) and cable-based wired charging should return. This iPhone cleaning kit has more than you need to keep your iPhone and cables clean, and is available for iPhones with Lightning ports (any iPhone before the 15) and for iPhones (from 15) and iPads with a USB-C port.Quick tip: if you need to clear out the accumulated fluff from your iPhones port you can use a small wooden cocktail stick with utmost gentleness. But a cocktail stick does not make much of a gift, does it? And this cleaning kit offers a whole lot more.5. Belkin AirPods Cleaning KitProsRemoves dirt and earwaxPrice When Reviewed:14,99Best Prices Today: 14,99 at BelkinBelkins AirPods Cleaning Kit is a safer way to clean your AirPods than soap and a cotton bud. Theres no nice way of saying it but AirPods can get messythat is yellow and waxy after spending time in your ears for a few hours. Follow the gentle cleaning process to safely remove dirt and earwax from your AirPods.6. Apple AirTag Bluetooth trackerProsEasy to set up and track with Find My.Replaceable batteryApples AirTag is a great Bluetooth tracker that is easy to use and syncs wonderfully with the iPhones Find My app. You can buy just one or a pack of four. You can add it to a keyring or other accessory: check our Best AirTag Accessories roundup, so there are lots more gift ideas there too. If you want a tracker for your wallet or something that requires a flatter tracker, we like the Chipolo Card Spot.Read our full Apple AirTag review 7. Joby GorillaPod 1K GripTight Mount PRO KitProsKeeps iPhone stable for photos and videosHold it or wrap itPrice When Reviewed:59,95As good as image stabilization gets, you cant beat resting your camera in a stable place for taking the best photos and videos. The GorillaPod phone tripods articulated legs wrap around to bars, rails, branches and many static objects. It rotates to portrait or landscape for photos or vertical video and with 90 of rotation and 150 of tilt.Alternatives include the more traditional $50 IK Multimedia iKlip Grip Pro Smartphone Stand tripod, which includes an integrated/detachable Bluetooth shutter controller.8. Ultimate Ears Wonderboom 4 Bluetooth speaker with great sound and cool looks ProsPowerful, well-rounded soundOutdoor and Podcast modesIP67 dust and waterproofLong battery lifeColor optionsPrice When Reviewed:99,99Best Prices Today: 0.01 at idealo99,99 at Ultimate Ears101.14 at JACOBThe Wonderboom 4 is an excellent budget-friendly speaker thats extremely portable, easy to use, fully waterproof (it even floats!), sounds great and lasts a long time. That might be enough for most people but it is also built with eco-friendly materials, which is always welcome in our book.iPhone Gift Guide: Tech organizer bagsWhere do you keep all these accessories when not in use? Over at sister site Tech Advisor, we have tested the best tech organizer bags and there should be one thats a perfect gift, whether as a desk tidy or for travels.1. Tripped Tech TravelerProsMultiple compartmentsColor choicesAvailable in a range of colors, the Tripped Tech Traveller is a premium, medium-sized tech bag thats as happy next to your desk or in your tent as it is in your suitcase or backpack. It boasts multiple compartments and is tough enough for travelmade from tough 900D Polyester with weatherproof YKK zippers, soft protective padding, and a leather handle and zipper pulls. There are two internal pockets (one mesh so you can see whats inside) for extra security for your most valuable kit, such as SD cards or a mini SSD. One external side pocket is big enough for your phone or whatever else you need fast access to. In the center, there are nine different-sized, divided, tight pockets for cables and small devices.2. Bellroy Tech KitProsColor choicesTough shellPrice When Reviewed:65We also love this Bellroy tech case that is very well organized and will open flat so you can easily see all your cables and gadgets at a glance. If you know a friend who carries a lot of gear with their iPhone, theres no better gift.

MacworldThe Apple Watch Series 10 is Apples newest wearable and we havent seen much in the way of sales on it. But now that Black Friday is just a week away, Amazon is finally cutting the price: The Apple Watch Series 10 is on sale today for $349 (42mm) or $379 (46mm), a savings of $50 on either size and the best price weve seen so far.In our review of the Apple Watch Series 10, we gave it a 4.5-star rating and our Editors Choice award, with our expert appreciating the larger display, the fast charging capability, and the beautiful design, as well as the many other improvements Apple has delivered this time around. This year, theres a water temperature and depth gauge, along with the somewhat-improved speaker, larger display, and faster charging, we noted about the extra features were getting this year.Whether you just want to stay in touch with all notifications from your phone without actually getting it out of your pocket, reply to messages, answer calls, or get Siris help, this smartwatch can do all that with ease. But it can also keep track of your heart rate and take periodic ECGs, track your sleep patterns, and breathing rate, as well as your workouts, even if your preferred activity is swimming.At $349, the Apple Watch 10 is the best smartwatch you can get right now, especially if you havent ugraded in a few years. So skip the Black Friday rush and go save right now.The Apple Watch Series 10 down to its best priceBuy it now at Amazon

A newresearch study indicates that Open AIs chatbot Chat GPT-4 is better at diagnosing diseases than human doctors,according to The New York Times.Fifty doctors, a mix of attending physicians and residents, participated in the study; diagnoses were based on evaluations of medical patient cases. All in all, Chat GPT-4 got a 90% score for the diagnoses it delivered; the doctors on their own got average scores of 74%.The doctors also reportedly performed worse than the chatbot when they were allowed to use Chat GPT-4 in their work. Physicians who used the tool performed only marginally better getting scores of 76% than physicians who did not use a chatbot at all.The reason for that, the study said, was that the doctors rarely allowed themselves to be convinced by the chatbot if it noticed something that did not agree with the doctors own diagnosis. Many doctors also didnt know how to use the chatbots skills to their full potential.

Apples main manufacturing partner, Foxconn, has announced it is working with Nvidia to build digital twins that it says will reshape the future of manufacturing and supply chain management.Nvidia and Foxconnlast year announcedplans to use Nvidias Omniverse platform to create 3D digital twin tech with which to plan and simulate automated production lines. The scheme was first put into effect at Foxconns Hsinchu factory in Taiwan and will be scaled out to Foxconn factories worldwide.What happens in HsinchuApples connection with the Hsinchu facility isnt particularly overt, but it certainly exists. Theres anApple Storecurrently hiring in the city, and Apple also has an R&D facility there. In 2020, Apple confirmed plans to build a new plant in Hsinchu Science Park to supplement the operations it already had in place.As far as we know, Apples Hsinchu-based R&D teams are working on next-generation monitor technologies such as low-temperature polysilicon displays and metal-oxide-semiconductor screens, along with quantum film image sensors,according to earlier reports. (Who knows, its not impossible that new tech used in the latestMacBook Pro displaysmight have been developed there.)While a bit of a long shot, some of Applesserver development teammight also be based there, given the company is developing its own servers to support itsPrivate Cloud Compute systems for Apple Intelligence. It was recently reported that Apple has asked Foxconn to make AI servers based on Apple Silicon in Taiwan, and given the proximity of the Hsinchu digital twins project, it is hard to ignore the overt opportunity for additional cooperation between the firms.When it comes to manufacturing, Apple has a pressing challenge to scale up the capacity to build iPhones at factories outside China. Some of this work is already taking place in India where the company israpidly ramping up production, but it is possible Apple wants some manufacturing taking place elsewhere, such as in Mexico.Foxconns move to build heavily automated production facilities could help Apple with those efforts.Industry 4.0 and the Apple supply chainI see the latest news with Nvidia as part of a continuum. Foxconn has already built a growing network of eight Industry 4.0lights-out factoriesin Taiwan, China, and Mexico. In China, the steady move toward additional automation means Foxconn has been able to reduce its workforce by more than a third while maintaining production levels.Foxconns entire Shenzhen, China, Guanlan factory operates without lighting as it is automated and controlled by a cloud-based AI. The vision of that latter project is that it will become possible to simply tell the cloud AI what products need to be made and how they are to be manufactured, and the system will adjust itself to automatically churn those products out.Theres a ways to go before that becomes possible, but it sounds like Foxconn will use Nvidias tools to track existing manufacturing processes so they can be more easily replicated at factories situated elsewhere.Through this technology, Foxconn can replicate and establish production lines across diverse geographical locations with unprecedented speed and precision,the company said. This capability enables Foxconn to swiftly deploy high-quality production facilities with unified standards in strategic markets worldwide, significantly enhancing the companys competitiveness and adaptability in the global landscape.Digital twin tech is also very good at identifying bottlenecks and inefficiencies in existing production processes, while the ability to more easily take manufacturing lines to new nations also help build resilience into manufacturing systems. When facing supply chain disruptions or sudden market demands, Foxconn can quickly simulate manufacturing process changes and adjust production strategies to flexibly allocate resources across different regions for itself and its clients, ensuring production continuity and stability, Foxconn says.Resilience and flexibilityTo some extent, the writing has always been on the wall. Supply chains globally buckled during the height of the CoVID-19 pandemic, and Apples decision to widen its manufacturing base to new nations was a direct response to this. Apple and quite clearly, Foxconn now understand the need to build resilience into the supply chain, and one way to do that is to turn to using heavily automated manufacturing systems that can be easily set up and made productive in new locations. This seems to be the game in play here, particularly in the wake of Applespurchase of Darwin AI earlier this year.The other part of that game reflects the challenge of staffing manufacturing operations at the scale Apple demands. Hundreds of thousands of people globally are now involved in building Apple hardware, and the job is skilled enough that recruiting all those workers can pose problems for the company. This is likely why in June it was revealed that Apple intendsto replace 50% of iPhone related assembly line workersin the next few years. That ambition logically requires the kind of productivity enhancements Foxconn and Nvidia are working on now, so logically it makes sense that Apples production processes are part of the plan.Designed by Apple, built by robotsAchieving this is not going to be easy. But where Apple goes, others inevitably follow, which itself means that future employment is going to becomeeven further deindustrialized at about the same time as AI itself leads to mass scale changes in working practices elsewhere. Its hard to see where this is going, but the other side of that story is thatiPhone manufacturing will itself become a movable feast.Designed by Apple, built by robots,some might say.You can follow me on social media! Join me onBlueSky, LinkedIn,Mastodon, andMeWe.

If youve ever been through a large US airport, youre probably at least vaguely aware of Clear. Maybe your interest (or irritation) has been piqued by the pods before the security checkpoints, the attendants in navy blue vests who usher clients to the front of the security line (perhaps just ahead of you), and the sometimes pushy sales pitches to sign up and skip ahead yourself. After all, is there anything people dislike more than waiting in line?Its position in airports has made Clear Secure, with its roughly $3.75 billion market cap, the most visible biometric identity company in the United States. Over the past two decades, Clear has put more than 100 lanes in 58 airports across the US, and in the past decade it has entered 17 sports arenas and stadiums, from San Jose to Denver to Atlanta. Now you can also use its identity verification platform to rent tools at Home Depot, put your profile in front of recruiters on LinkedIn, and, as of this month, verify your identity as a rider on Uber.And soon enough, if Clear has its way, it may also be in your favorite retailer, bank, and even doctors officeor anywhere else that you currently have to pull out a wallet (or, of course, wait in line). The company that has helped millions of vetted members skip airport security lines is now working to expand its frictionless, face-first line-cutting service from the airport to just about everywhere, online and off, by promising to verify that you are who you say you are and you are where you are supposed to be. In doing so, CEO Caryn Seidman Becker told investors in an earnings call earlier this year, it has designs on being no less than the identity layer of the internet, as well as the universal identity platform of the physical world.All you have to do is show upand show your face.This is enabled by biometric technology, but Clear is far more than just a biometrics company. As Seidman Becker has told investors, biometrics arent the product they are a feature. Or, as she put it in a 2022 podcast interview, Clear is ultimately a platform company no different than Amazon or Applewith dreams, she added, of making experiences safer and easier, of giving people back their time, of giving people control, of using technology for frictionless experiences. (Clear did not make Seidman Becker available for an interview.)While the company has been building toward this sweeping vision for years, it now seems the time has finally come. A confluence of factors is currently accelerating the adoption ofeven necessity foridentity verification technologies: increasingly sophisticated fraud, supercharged by artificial intelligence that is making it harder to distinguish who or what is real; data breaches that seem to occur on a near daily basis; consumers who are more concerned about data privacy and security; and the lingering effects of the pandemics push toward contactless experiences.All of this is creating a new urgency around ways to verify information, especially our identitiesand, in turn, generating a massive opportunity for Clear. For years, Seidman Becker has been predicting that biometrics will go mainstream.But now that biometrics have, arguably, gone mainstream, whatand whobears the cost? Because convenience, even if chosen by only some of us, leaves all of us wrestling with the effects. Some critics warn that not everyone will benefit from a world where identity is routed through Clearmaybe because its too expensive, maybe because biometric technologies are often less effective at identifying people of color, people with disabilities, or those whose gender identity may not match what official documents say. Whats more, says Kaliya Young, an identity expert who has advised the US government, having a single private company disintermediating our biometric dataespecially facial datais the wrong architecture to manage identity. It seems they are trying to create a system like login with Google, but for everything in real life, Young warns. While the single sign-on option that Google (or Facebook or Apple) provides for websites and apps may make life easy, it also poses greater security and privacy risks by putting both our personal data and the keys to it in the hands of a single profit-driven entity: Were basically selling our identity soul to a private company, whos then going to be the gatekeeper everywhere one goes.Though Clear remains far less well known than Google, more than 27 million people have already helped it become that very gatekeeperand one of the largest private repositories of identities on the planet, as Nicholas Peddy, Clears chief technology officer, put it in an interview with MIT Technology Review this summer.With Clear well on the way to realizing its plan for a frictionless future, its time to try to understand both how we got here and what we have (been) signed up for.A new frontier in identity managementImagine this: On a Friday morning in the near future, you are rushing to get through your to-do list before a weekend trip to New York.In the morning, you apply for a new job on LinkedIn. During lunch, assured that recruiters are seeing your professional profile because its been verified by Clear, you pop out to Home Depot, confirm your identity with a selfie, and rent a power drill for a quick bathroom repair. Then, in the midafternoon, you drive to your doctors office; having already verified your identityprompted by a text message sent a few days earlieryou confirm your arrival with a selfie at a Clear kiosk.Before you go to bed, you plan your morning trip to the airport and set an alarmbut not too early, because you know that with Clear, you can quickly drop your bags and breeze through security. Once youre in New York, you head to Barclays Center, where youll be seeing your favorite singer; you skip the long queue out front to hop in the fast-track Clear line. Its late when the show is over, so you grab an Uber home and barely need to wait for a driver, who feels more comfortable thanks to your verified rider profile.At no point did you pull out your drivers license or fill out repetitive paperwork. All that was already on file. Everything was easy; everything was frictionless.More than 27 million people have already helped Clear become one of the largest private repositories of identities on the planet.This, at least, is the world that Clear is actively building toward.Part of Clears power, Seidman Becker often says, is that it can wholly replace our wallets: our credit cards, drivers licenses, health insurance cards, perhaps even building key fobs. But you cant just suddenly be all the cards you carry. For Clear to link your digital identity to your real-world self, you must first give up a bit of personal dataspecifically, your biometric data.Biometrics refers to the unique physical and behavioral characteristicsfaces, fingerprints, irises, voices, and gaits, among othersthat identify each of us as individuals. For better or worse, they typically remain stable during our lifetimes.Relying on biometrics for identification can be convenient, since people are apt to misplace a wallet or forget the answer to a security question. But on the other hand, if someone manages to compromise a database of biometric information, that convenience can become dangerous: We cannot easily change our face or fingerprint to secure our data again, the way we could change a compromised password.On a practical level, there are generally two ways that biometrics are used to identify individuals. The first, generally referred to one-to-many or one-to-n matching, compares one persons biometric identifier with a database full of them. This is sometimes associated with a stereotypical idea of dystopian surveillance in which real-time facial recognition from live video could allow authorities to identify anyone walking down the street. The other, one-to-one matching, is the basis for Clear; it compares a biometric identifier (like the face of a live person standing before an airport agent) with a previously recorded biometric template (such as a passport photo) to verify that they match. This is usually done with the individuals knowledge and consent, and it arguably poses a lower privacy risk. Often, one-to-one matching includes a layer of document verification, like checking that your passport is legitimate and matches a photograph you used to register with the system.The US Congress urgently saw the need for better identity management following the September 11 terrorist attacks; 18 of the 19 hijackers used fake identity documents to board their flights. In the aftermath, the newly created Transportation Security Administration (TSA) implemented security processes that slowed down air travel significantly. Part of the problem was that everybody was just treated the same at airports, recalls the serial media entrepreneur Steven Brillincluding, famously, former vice president Al Gore. It sounded awfully democratic but in terms of basic risk management and allocation of resources, it just didnt make any sense.Congress agreed, authorizing the TSA to create a program that would allow people who passed background checks to be recognized as trusted travelers and skip some of the scrutiny at the airport.In 2007, San Franciscos then-mayor, Gavin Newsom, had his irises scanned by Clear at the San Francisco International Airport.DAVID PAUL MORRIS/GETTYIn 2003, Brill teamed up with Ajay Amlani, a technology entrepreneur and former adviser to the Department of Homeland Security, and founded a company called Verified Identity Pass (VIP) to provide biometric identity verification in the TSAs new program. The vision, says Amlani, was a unified fast lanesimilar to a toll lane.It appeared to be a win-win solution. The TSA had a private-sector partner for its registered-traveler program; VIP had a revenue stream from user fees; airports got a cut of the fees in exchange for leasing VIP space; and initial memberstypically frequent business travelerswere happy to cut down on airport wait times.By 2005, VIP had launched in its first airport, Orlando International in Florida. Membersinitially paying $80received Clear cards that contained a cryptographic representation of their fingerprint, iris scans, and a photo of their face taken at enrollment. They could use those cards at the airport to be escorted to the front of the security lines.The defense contracting giant Lockheed Martin, which already provided biometric capabilities to the US Department of Defense and the FBI, was responsible for deploying and providing technology for VIPs system, with additional technical expertise from Oracle and others. This left VIP to focus on marketing, pricing, branding, customer service, and consumer privacy policies, as the president of Lockheed Transportation and Security Solutions, Don Antonucci, said at the time.By 2009, nearly 200,000 people had joined. The company had received $116 million in investments and signed contracts with about 20 airports. It all seemed so promisingif VIP had not already inadvertently revealed the risks inherent in a system built on sensitive personal data.A lost laptop and a big opportunityFrom the beginning, there were concerns about the implications of VIPs Clear card for privacy, civil liberty, and equity, as well as questions about its effectiveness at actually stopping future terrorist attacks. Advocacy groups like the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) warned that the biometrics-based system would result in a surveillance infrastructure built on sensitive personal information, but data from the Pew Research Center shows that a majority of the public at the time felt that it was generally necessary to sacrifice some civil liberties in the name of safety.Then a security lapse sent the whole operation crumbling.In the summer of 2008, VIP reported that an unencrypted company laptop containing addresses, birthdays, and drivers license and passport numbers of 33,000 applicants had gone missing from an office at San Francisco International Airport (SFO)even though TSAs security protocol required it to encrypt all laptops holding personal data.NEIL WEBBThe laptop was found about two weeks later and the company said no data was compromised. But it was still a mess for VIP. Months later, investors pushed Brill out, and associated costs led the company to declare bankruptcy and close the following year.Disgruntled users filed a class action lawsuit against VIP to recoup membership fees and punitive damages. Some users were upset they had recently renewed their subscriptions, and others worried about what would happen to their personal information. A judge temporarily prevented the company from selling user data, but the decision didnt hold.Seidman Becker and her longtime business partner Ken Cornick, both hedge fund managers, saw an opportunity. In 2010, they bought VIPand its user datain a bankruptcy sale for just under $6 million and registered a new company called Alclear. I was a big believer in biometrics, Seidman Becker told the tech journalists Kara Swisher and Lauren Goode in 2017. I wanted to build something that made the world a better place, and Clear was that platform.Initially, the new Clear followed closely in the footsteps of its predecessor: Lockheed Martin transferred the members information to the new company, which had acquired VIPs hardware and continued to use Clear cards to hold members biometrics.After the relaunch, Clear also started building partnerships with other companies in the travel industryincluding American Express, United Airlines, Alaska Airlines, Delta Airlines, and Hertz Rental Carsto bundle its service for free or at a discount. (Clear declined to specify how many of its users have such discounts, but in earnings calls the company has stressed its efforts to reduce the number of members paying reduced rates.)By 2014, improvements in internet latency and biometric processing speeds allowed Clear to eliminate the cards and migrate to a server-based systemwithout compromising data security, the company says. Clear emphasizes that it meets industry standards for keeping data secure, with methods including encryption, firewalls, and regular penetration testing by both internal and external teams. The company says it also maintains locked boxes around data relating to air travelers.Still, the reality is that every database of this kind is ultimately a target, and almost every day theres a massive breach or hack, says Chris Gilliard, a privacy and surveillance researcher who was recently named co-director of the Critical Internet Studies Institute. Over the years, even apparently well-protected biometric information has been compromised. Last year, for instance, a data breach at the genetic testing company 23andMe exposed sensitive informationincluding geographic locations, birth years, family trees, and user-uploaded photosfrom nearly 7 million customers.This is what Young, who helped facilitate the creation of the open-source identity management standards Open ID Connect and OAuth, means when she says that Clear has the wrong architecture for managing digital identity; its too much of a risk to keep our digital identities in a central database, cryptographically protected or not. She and many other identity and privacy experts believe that the most privacy-protecting way to manage digital identity is to use credentials, like a mobile drivers license, stored on peoples devices in digital wallets, she says. These digital credentials can have biometrics, but the biometrics in a central database are not being pinged for day to day use. But its not just data thats potentially vulnerable. In 2022 and 2023, Clear faced three high-profile security incidents in airports, including one in which a passenger successfully got through the companys checks using a boarding pass found in the trash. In another, a traveler in Alabama used someone elses ID to register for Clear and, later, to successfully pass initial security checks; he was discovered only when he tried to bring ammunition through a subsequent checkpoint.This spurred an investigation by the TSA, which turned up more alarming information: Nearly 50,000 photos used by Clear to enroll customers were flagged as non-matches by the companys facial recognition software. Some photos didnt even contain full faces, according to Bloomberg. (In a press release after the incident, the company refuted the reporting, describing it as a single human errorhaving nothing to do with our technology and stating that the images in question were not relied upon during the secure, multi-layered enrollment process.)How do you get to be the one?When I spoke to Brill this spring, he told me hed always envisioned that Clear would expand far beyond the airport. The idea I had was that once you had a trusted identity, you would potentially be able to use it for a lot of different things, he said, but the trick is to get something that is universally accepted. And thats the battle that Clear and anybody else has to fight, which is: How do you get to be the one?Goode Intelligence, a market research firm that focuses on the booming identity space, estimates that by 2029, there will be 1.5 billion digital identity wallets around the worldwith use for travel leading the way and generating an estimated $4.6 billion in revenue. Clear is just one player, and certainly not the biggest. ID.me, for instance, provides similar face-based identity verification and has over 130 million users, dwarfing Clears roughly 27 million. Its also already in use by numerous US federal and state agencies, including the IRS.The reality is that every database of this kind is ultimately a target, and almost every day theres a massive breach or hack.But as Goode Intelligence CEO Alan Goode tells me, Clears early-mover advantage, particularly in the US, puts it in a good space within North America [to] be more pervasiveor to become what Brill called the one that is most closely stitched into peoples daily lives.Clear began growing beyond travel in 2015, when it started offering biometric fast-pass access to what was then AT&T Park in San Francisco. Stadiums across California, Colorado, and Washington, and in major cities in other states, soon followed. Fans can simply download the free Clear app and scan the QR code to bypass normal lines in favor of designated Clear lanes. For a time, Clear also promoted its biometric payment systems at some venues, including two in Seattle, which could include built-in age verification. It even partnered with Budweiser for a Bud Now machine that used your fingerprint to verify your identity, age, and payment. (These payment programs, which a Clear representative called pilots in an email, have since ended; representatives for the Seattle Mariners and Seahawks did not respond to multiple requests for comment on why.) Clears programs for expedited event access have been popular enough to drive greater user growth than its paid airport service, according to numbers provided by the company.Then came the pandemic, hitting Clear (and the entire travel industry) hard. But the crisis for Clears primary business actually accelerated its move into new spaces with Health Pass, which allowed organizations to confirm the health status of employees, residents, students, and visitors who sought access to a physical space. Users could upload vaccination cards to the Health Pass section in the Clear mobile app; the program was adopted by nearly 70 partners in 110 unique locations, including NFL stadiums, the Mariners T-Mobile Park, and the 9/11 Memorial Museum.Demand for vaccine verification eventually slowed, and Health Pass shut down in March 2024. But as Jason Sherwin, Clears senior director of health-care business development, said in a podcast interview earlier this year, it was the companys first foray into health carethe business line that currently represents its primary focus across everything were doing outside of the airport. Today, Clear kiosks for patient sign-ins are being piloted at Georgias Wellstar Health Systems, in conjunction with one of the largest providers of electronic health records in the United States: Epic (which is unrelated to the privacy nonprofit).Whats more, Health Pass enabled Clear to expand at a time when the survival of travel-focused businesses wasnt guaranteed. In November 2020, Clear had roughly 5 million members; today, that number has grown fivefold. The company went public in 2021 and has experienced double-digit revenue growth annually.These doctors office sign-ins, in which the system verifies patient identity via a selfie, rely on whats called Clear Verified, a platform the company has rolled out over the past several years that allows partners (health-care systems, as well as brick-and-mortar retailers, hotels, and online platforms) to integrate Clears identity checks into their own user-verification processes. It again seems like a win-win situation: Clear gets more users and a fee from companies using the platform, while companies confirm customers identity and information, and customers, in theory, get that valuable frictionless experience. One high-profile partnership, with LinkedIn, was announced last year: We know authenticity matters and we want the people, companies and jobs you engage with everyday to be real and trusted, Oscar Rodriguez, LinkedIns head of trust and privacy, said in a press release.All this comes together to create the foundation for what is Clears biggest advantage today: its network. The companys executives often speak about its embedded users across various services and platforms, as well as its ecosystem, meaning the venues where it is used. As Peddy explains, the value proposition for Clear today is not necessarily any particular technology or biometric algorithm, but how it all comes togetherand can work universally. Clear would be wherever our consumers need us to be, he saysit would sort of just be this ubiquitous thing that everybody has.Clear CEO Caryn Seidman Becker (left) rings the bell at the New York Stock Exchange in 2021.NYSE VIA TWITTERA prospectus to investors from the companys IPO makes the pitch simple: We believe Clear enables our partners to capture not just a greater share of their customers wallet, but a greater share of their overall lives.The more Clear is able to reach into customers lives, the more valuable customer data it can collect. All user interactions and experiences can be tracked, the companys privacy policy explains. While the policy states that Clear will not sell data and will never share biometric or health information without express consent, it also lays out the non-health and non-biometric data that it collects and can use for consumer research and marketing. This includes members demographic details, a record of every use of Clears various products, and even digital images and videos of the user. Documents obtained by OneZero offer some further detail into what Clear has at least considered doing with customer data: David Gershgorn writes about a 2015 presentation to representatives from Los Angeles International Airport, titled Identity DashboardValuable Marketing Data, which showed off what the company had collected, including the number of sports games users had attended and with whom, which credit cards they had, their favorite airlines and top destinations, and how often they flew first class or economy.Clear representatives emphasized to MIT Technology Review that the company does not share or sell information without consent, though they had nothing to add in response to a question about whether Clear can or does aggregate data to derive its own marketing insights, a business model popularized by Facebook. At Clear, privacy and security are job one, spokesperson Ricardo Quinto wrote in an email. We are opt-in. We never sell or share our members information and utilize a multilayered, best-in-class infosec system that meets the highest standards and compliance requirements.Nevertheless, this influx of customer data is not just good for business; its risky for customers. It creates another attack surface, Gilliard warns. This makes us less safe, not more, as a consistent identifier across your entire public and private life is the dream of every hacker, bad actor, and authoritarian.A face-based future for someToday, Clear is in the middle of another major change: replacing its use of iris scans and fingerprints with facial verification in airportspart of a TSA-required upgrade in identity verification, a TSA spokesperson wrote in an email to MIT Technology Review.For a long time, facial recognition technology for the highest security purposes was not ready for prime time, Seidman Becker told Swisher and Goode back in 2017. It wasnt operating with five nines, she addedthat is, 99.999% from a matching and an accuracy perspective. But today, facial recognition has significantly improved and the company has invested in enhancing image quality through improved capture, focus, and illumination, according to Quinto.Clear says switching to facial images in airports will also further decrease friction, enabling travelers to verify their identity so effortlessly its almost like you dont really break stride, Peddy says. You walk up, you scan your face. You walk straight to the TSA.The move is part of a broader shift toward facial recognition technology in US travel, bringing the country in line with practices at many international airports. The TSA began expanding facial identification from a few pilot programs this year, while airlines including Delta and United are also introducing face-based boarding, baggage drops, and even lounge access. And the International Air Transport Association, a trade group for the airline industry, is rolling out a contactless travel process that will allow passengers to check in, drop off their bags, and board their flightsall without showing either passports or tickets, just their faces.NEIL WEBBPrivacy experts worry that relying on faces for identity verification is even riskier than other biometric methods. After all, its a lot easier to scan peoples faces passively than it is to scan irises or takefingerprints, Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon, an outspoken critic of government surveillance and of the TSAs plans to employ facial verification at airports, said in an email. The point is that once a database of faces is built, it is potentially far more useful for surveillance purposes than, say, fingerprints. Everyone who values privacy, freedom, and civil rights should be concerned about the increasing, unchecked use of facial recognition technology by corporations and the federal government, Merkley wrote.Even if Clear is not in the business of surveillance today, it could, theoretically, pivot or go bankrupt and (again) sell off its parts, including user data. Jeramie Scott, senior counsel and director of the Project on Surveillance Oversight at EPIC, says that ultimately, the lack of federal [privacy] regulation means that were just taking the promises of companies like Clear at face value: Whatever they say about how they implement facial recognition today does not mean that thats how theyll be implementing facial recognition tomorrow.Making this particular scenario potentially more concerning is that the images stored by this private company are generally going to be much higher quality than those collected by scraping the internetwhich Albert Fox Cahn, the executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (STOP), says would make its data far more useful for surveillance than that held by more controversial facial recognition companies like Clearview AI.Even a far less pessimistic read of Clears data collection reveals the challenges of using facial identification systems, whichas a 2019 report from the National Institute for Standards and Technology revealedhave been shown to work less effectively in certain populations, particularly people of African and East Asian descent, women, and elderly and very young people. NIST has also not tested identification accuracy for individuals who are transgender, but Gilliard says he expects the algorithms would fall short.More recent testing shows that some algorithms have improved, NIST spokesperson Chad Boutin tells MIT Technology Reviewthough accuracy is still short of the five nines that Seidman Becker once said Clear was aiming for. (Quinto, the Clear representative, maintains that Clears recent upgrades, combined with the fact that the companys testing involves comparing member photos to smaller galleries, rather than the millions used in NIST scenarios, means its technology remains accurate and suitable for secure environments like airports.)Even a very small error rate in a system that is deployed hundreds of thousands of times a day could still leave a lot of people at risk of misidentification, explains Hannah Quay-de La Vallee, a technologist at the Center for Democracy & Technology, a nonprofit based in Washington, DC. All this could make Clears services inaccessible to someeven if they can afford it, which is less likely given the recent increase in the subscription fee for travelers to $199 a year.The free Clear Verified Platform is already giving rise to access problems in at least one partnership, with LinkedIn. The professional networking site encourages users to verify their identities either with an employer email address or with Clear, which marketing materials say will yield more engagement. But some LinkedIn users have expressed concerns, claiming that even after uploading a selfie, they were unable to verify their identities with Clear if they were subscribed to a smaller phone company or if they had simply not had their phone number for enough time. As one Reddit user emphasized, Getting verified is a huge deal when getting a job. LinkedIn said it does not enable recruiters to filter, rank, or sort by whether a candidate has a verification badge, but also said that verified information does help people make more informed decisions as they build their network or apply for a job. Clear only said it works with our partners to provide them with the level of identity assurance that they require for their customers and referred us back to LinkedIn.An opt-in future that may not really be optionalMaybe whats worse than waiting in line, or even being cut in front of, is finding yourself stuck in what turns out to be the wrong lineperhaps one that you never want to be in.That may be how it feels if you dont use Clear and similar biometric technologies. When I look at companies stuffing these technologies into vending machines, fast-food restaurants, schools, hospitals, and stadiums, what I see is resignation rather than acceptancepeople often dont have a choice, says Gilliard, the privacy and surveillance scholar. The life cycle of these things is that even when it is optional, oftentimes it is difficult to opt out.And while the stakes may seem relatively lowClear is, after all, a voluntary membership programthey will likely grow as the system is deployed more widely. As Seidman Becker said on Clears latest earnings call in early November, The lines between physical and digital interactions continue to blur. A verified identity isnt just a check mark. Its the foundation for everything we do in a high-stakes digital world. Consider a job ad posted by Clear earlier this year, seeking to hire a vice president for business development; it noted that the company has its eye on a number of additional sectors, including financial services, e-commerce, P2P networking, online trust, gaming, government, and more.Increasingly, companies and the government are making the submission of your biometrics a barrier to participation in society, Gilliard says.This will be particularly true at the airport, with the increasing ubiquity of facial recognition across all security checks and boarding processes, and where time-crunched travelers could be particularly vulnerable to Clears sales pitch. Airports have even privately expressed concerns about these scenarios to Clear. Correspondence from early 2022 between the company and staff at SFO, released in response to a public records request, reveals that the airport received a number of complaints about Clear staff improperly and deceitfully soliciting approaching passengers in the security checkpoint lanes outside of its premises, with an airport employee calling it completely unacceptable and aggressive and deceptive behavior.Of course, this isnt to say everyone with a Clear membership was coerced into signing up. Many people love it; the company told MIT Technology Review that it had a nearly 84% retention rate earlier this year. Still, for some experts, its worrisome to think that what Clear users are comfortable with ends up setting the ground rules for the rest of us.Were going to normalize potentially a bunch of biometric stuff but not have a sophisticated conversation about where and how were normalizing what, says Young. She worries this will empower actors who want to move toward a creepy surveillance state, or corporate surveillance capitalism on steroids.Without understanding what were building or how or where the guardrails are, she adds, I also worry that there could be major public backlash, and then legitimate uses [of biometric technology] are not understood and supported.But in the meantime, even superfans are grumbling about an uptick in wait times in the airports Clear lines. After all, if everyone decides to cut to the front of the line, that just creates a new long line of line-cutters.

This story is from The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get it in your inbox first,sign up here.It can be tricky for reporters to get past certain doors, and the door to the International Association of Chiefs of Police conference is one thats almost perpetually shut to the media. Thus, I was pleasantly surprised when I was able to attend for a day in Boston last month.It bills itself as the largest gathering of police chiefs in the United States, where leaders from many of the countrys 18,000 police departments and even some from abroad convene for product demos, discussions, parties, and awards.I went along to see how artificial intelligence was being discussed, and the message to police chiefs seemed crystal clear: If your department is slow to adopt AI, fix that now. The future of policing will rely on it in all its forms.In the events expo hall, the vendors (of which there were more than 600) offered a glimpse into the ballooning industry of police-tech suppliers. Some had little to do with AIbooths showcased body armor, rifles, and prototypes of police-branded Cybertrucks, and others displayed new types of gloves promising to protect officers from needles during searches. But one needed only to look to where the largest crowds gathered to understand that AI was the major draw.The hype focused on three uses of AI in policing.The flashiest was virtual reality, exemplified by the booth from V-Armed, which sells VR systems for officer training. On the expo floor, V-Armed built an arena complete with VR goggles, cameras, and sensors, not unlike the one the company recently installed at the headquarters of the Los Angeles Police Department. Attendees could don goggles and go through training exercises on responding to active shooter situations. Many competitors of V-Armed were also at the expo, selling systems they said were cheaper, more effective, or simpler to maintain.The pitch on VR training is that in the long run, it can be cheaper and more engaging to use than training with actors or in a classroom. If youre enjoying what youre doing, youre more focused and you remember more than when looking at a PDF and nodding your head, V-Armed CEO Ezra Kraus told me.The effectiveness of VR training systems has yet to be fully studied, and they cant completely replicate the nuanced interactions police have in the real world. AI is not yet great at the soft skills required for interactions with the public. At a different companys booth, I tried out a VR system focused on deescalation training, in which officers were tasked with calming down an AI character in distress. It suffered from lag and was generally quite awkwardthe characters answers felt overly scripted and programmatic.The second focus was on the changing way police departments are collecting and interpreting data.Rather than buying a gunshot detection tool from one company and a license plate reader or drone from another, police departments are increasingly using expanding suites of sensors, cameras, and so on from a handful of leading companies that promise to integrate the data collected and make it useful.Police chiefs attended classes on how to build these systems, like one taught by Microsoft and the NYPD about the Domain Awareness System, a web of license plate readers, cameras, and other data sources used to track and monitor crime in New York City. Crowds gathered at massive, high-tech booths from Axon and Flock, both sponsors of the conference. Flock sells a suite of cameras, license plate readers, and drones, offering AI to analyze the data coming in and trigger alerts. These sorts of tools have come in for heavy criticism from civil liberties groups, which see themas an assault on privacythat does little to help the public.Finally, as in other industries, AI is also coming for the drudgery of administrative tasks and reporting.Many companies at the expo, including Axon, offer generative AI products to help police officers write their reports. Axons offering, called Draft One, ingests footage from body cameras, transcribes it, and creates a first draft of a report for officers.Weve got this thing on an officers body, and its recording all sorts of great stuff about the incident, Bryan Wheeler, a senior vice president at Axon, told me at the expo. Can we use it to give the officer a head start?On the surface, its a writing task well suited for AI, which can quickly summarize information and write in a formulaic way. It could also save lots of time officers currently spend on writing reports.But given that AI is prone to hallucination, theres an unavoidable truth: Even if officers are the final authors of their reports, departments adopting these sorts of tools risk injecting errors into some of the most critical documents in the justice system.Police reports are sometimes the only memorialized account of an incident, wrote Andrew Ferguson, a professor of law at American University, in July in the firstlaw review articleabout the serious challenges posed by police reports written with AI. Because criminal cases can take months or years to get to trial, the accuracy of these reports are critically important. Whether certain details were included or left out can affect the outcomes of everything from bail amounts to verdicts.By showing an officer a generated version of a police report, the tools also expose officers to details from their body camera recordingsbeforethey complete their report, a document intended to capture the officers memory of the incident. That poses a problem.The police certainly would never show video to a bystander eyewitness before they ask the eyewitness about what took place, as that would just be investigatory malpractice, says Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst with the ACLU Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, who will soon publish work on the subject.A spokesperson for Axon says this concern isnt reflective of how the tool is intended to work, and that Draft One has robust features to make sure officers read the reports closely, add their own information, and edit the reports for accuracy before submitting them.My biggest takeaway from the conference was simply that the way US police are adopting AI is inherently chaotic.There is no one agency governing how they use the technology, and the roughly 18,000 police departments in the United Statesthe precise figure is not even knownhave remarkably high levels of autonomy to decide which AI tools theyll buy and deploy. The police-tech companies that serve them will build the tools police departments find attractive, and its unclear if anyone will draw proper boundaries for ethics, privacy, and accuracy.That will only be made more apparent in an upcoming Trump administration. In a policingagendareleased last year during his campaign, Trump encouraged more aggressive tactics like stop and frisk, deeper cooperation with immigration agencies, and increased liability protection for officers accused of wrongdoing. The Biden administration is nowreportedlyattempting to lock in some of its proposed policing reforms before January.Without federal regulation on how police departments can and cannot use AI, the lines will be drawn by departments and police-tech companies themselves.Ultimately, these are for-profit companies, and their customers are law enforcement, says Stanley. They do what their customers want, in the absence of some very large countervailing threat to their business model.Now read the rest of The AlgorithmDeeper LearningThe AI lab waging a guerrilla war over exploitative AIWhen generative AI tools landed on the scene, artists were immediately concerned, seeing them as a new kind of theft. Computer security researcher Ben Zhao jumped into action in response, and his lab at the University of Chicago started building tools like Nightshade and Glaze to help artists keep their work from being scraped up by AI models. My colleague Melissa Heikkil spent time with Zhao and his team to look at the ongoing effort to make these tools strong enough to stop AIs relentless hunger for more images, art, and data to train on.Why this matters: The current paradigm in AI is to build bigger and bigger models, and these require vast data sets to train on. Tech companies argue that anything on the public internet is fair game, while artists demand compensation or the right to refuse. Settling this fight in the courts or through regulation could take years, so tools like Nightshade and Glaze are what artists have for now. If the tools disrupt AI companies efforts to make better models, that could push them to the negotiating table to bargain over licensing and fair compensation. But its a big if.Read more from Melissa Heikkil.Bits and BytesTech elites are lobbying Elon Musk for jobs in Trumps administrationElon Musk is the tech leader who most has Trumps ear. As such, hes reportedly the conduit through which AI and tech insiders are pushing to have an influence in the incoming administration. (The New York Times)OpenAI is getting closer to launching an AI agent to automate your tasksAI agentsmodels that can do tasks for you on your behalfare all the rage. OpenAI is reportedly closer to releasing one, news that comes a few weeks after Anthropicannouncedits own. (Bloomberg)How this grassroots effort could make AI voices more diverseA massive volunteer-led effort to collect training data in more languages, from people of more ages and genders, could help make the next generation of voice AI more inclusive and less exploitative. (MIT Technology Review)Google DeepMind has a new way to look inside an AIs mindAutoencoders let us peer into the black box of artificial intelligence. They could help us create AI that is better understood and more easily controlled. (MIT Technology Review)Musk has expanded his legal assault on OpenAI to target MicrosoftMusk has expanded his federal lawsuit against OpenAI, which alleges that the company has abandoned its nonprofit roots and obligations. Hes now going after Microsoft too, accusing it of antitrust violations in its work with OpenAI. (The Washington Post)

IN BRIEF Our report on Leadership Fitness described four key underlying capacities that are necessary for leaders to thrive in todays leadership environment. And in our 2024 Global Leadership Development Study, we outlined a process for building leadership capacityan approach that goes deeper than traditional management development sessions commonly used to impart new skills and capabilities to leaders. In previous posts, we described the challenge of helping leaders grow beyond just building their skills.This post is the fifth in a series on our findings. Change at a Deeper Level As weve seen, great ideas and fresh thinking alone []The post Transforming Leadership Development: Building Leadership Capacity to Manage Polarities and Paradoxes appeared first on Harvard Business Publishing.

Update to Apple's latest iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and visionOS to patch known security vulnerabilities that may have been exploited on Intel-based Macs.iPad Air 2024The iOS 18.1.1, iPadOS 18.1.1, macOS Sequoia 15.1.1, and visionOS 2.1.1 updates fix two major security issues in the software that runs websites and apps. Hackers could use these flaws to take control of your device or steal information through malicious web content.Apple has also confirmed that these vulnerabilities "may have been actively exploited on Intel-based Mac systems." Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums

Action adventure game "Control Ultimate Edition" will be landing on macOS early next year, with the release set for February 12, 2025.Control - Image credit: RemedyRemedy Entertainment's Control Ultimate Edition is one of the major games that has repeatedly been referenced as part of Apples push for gaming on Mac. In Remedy's Capital Markets Day presentation on Tuesday, it revealed when it will ship.The presentation to investors and analysts mentioned that Control Ultimate Edition will be released on Mac on February 12th, 2025. The news was also part of a summary on the developer's Bluesky account. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums