The court, which hears arguments on Friday in a challenge to a law banning the app, has issued varying rulings when those two interests clashed.

A federal judge in San Francisco has ruled that a privacy lawsuit against Google, alleging the company improperly collected personal data from mobile devices, can proceed.Chief Judge Richard Seeborg dismissed Googles argument that it had sufficiently informed users about its Web & App Activity settings and obtained their consent for tracking, paving the way for a possible trial in August.The lawsuit accuses Google of intercepting and saving browsing histories without user consent, even after tracking settings were disabled.Judge Seeborg noted that reasonable users could view Googles data practices as highly offensive, given the ambiguity in its disclosures and internal employee concerns about how the settings were communicated.Internal Google communications also indicate that Google knew it was being intentionally vague about the technical distinction between data collected within a Google account and that which is collected outside of it because the truth could sound alarming to users, Seeborg wrote.The Judge noted that Google defended its practices by downplaying internal employee comments cited in the lawsuit, arguing they were focused on identifying technical improvements rather than raising privacy concerns. The company also said that some employees involved in these discussions lacked familiarity with the Web & App Activity (WAA) settings.The concerns raised by Google employees are relevant, however, at the very least for tending to show that the WAA disclosures are subject to multiple interpretations, Seeborg added. What is more, the remarks and Googles internal statements reflect a conscious decision to keep the WAA disclosures vague, which could suggest that Google acted in a highly offensive manner, thereby satisfying the intent element of the tort claim.Broader implications of the caseThe legal battle against Google could have far-reaching implications for enterprise data governance, particularly in how companies handle user consent and transparency.The case raises questions about whether current data collection practices align with user expectations and legal requirements, especially in an era where trust in technology firms is under heightened scrutiny.Enterprise data policies have typically assumed that vendors are not saving personal information unless there is some sort of opt-in policy, said Hyoun Park, CEO and chief analyst at Amalgam Insights. In particular, the argument that data capture doesnt hurt anyone is a red herring compared to the actual requirement for governance.However, while Googles defense focuses on its own practices, the outcome of the case could drive the industry toward better transparency and accountability.Google obviously has to defend its actions and perspective, but my hope is that this finding leads to greater transparency, Park added. Obviously, one of the challenges of any complex data service, such as Google or Microsoft or Amazon, is the complexity of governance and administration associated with the data environment and the complicity of tracking the data and activity associated with any sort of service.The rise of artificial intelligence is adding complexity to data governance and privacy issues.While the case focuses on the straightforward matter of capturing personal browsing data, the broader challenge lies in managing the tracking and governance of data-related activities, Park added.Googles legal woes continueGoogle faces mounting legal challenges as scrutiny over its data practices and market dominance intensifies.In August 2024, a US District Court ruled Google held a monopoly in online search, accusing the tech giant of using its market dominance to stifle competition.In September, the European Unions Data Protection Commission opened an inquiry into the companys use of personal data.However, analysts say Google may be able to limit reputational damage and bolster its standing with corporate clients with efforts to enhance privacy measures.This case underscores the growing scrutiny of Big Techs data practices and the increasing demand for transparency, said Thomas George, president of Cybermedia Research. How Google and other major tech companies respond to these expectations remains to be seen, as they strive to balance competitiveness with maintaining the trust of users and partners.Google has not responded to requests for comment.

Apple will be announcing the first-quarter results for 2025 on January 30. Here's what to expect from what should be a blockbuster financial release.Apple CEO Tim CookApple's Q1 2025 financial results will be released on Thursday, January 30, a short time ahead of the analyst and investor conference call at 5p.m. Eastern.The call will feature CEO Tim Cook explaining the financial details from the results, but he will have a new person on the call with him. Former CEO Luca Maestri bid farewell in October's earnings call, with Kevan Parekh set to take his seat in the quarterly call. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums

html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"The worlds two largest stock photo companies, Getty Images and Shutterstock, have announced plans to merge to create a company with an expected value of $3.7 billion.If approved by regulators, Gettys shareholders will own approximately 54.7% of the merged company, Getty Images Holdings, while Shutterstocks shareholders will own 45.3%.The companies whose holdings include 3D model library TurboSquid expect the merger to enable them to reduce costs, and increase investment in technologies like generative AI.Bringing together two of the key players in the stock asset marketThe deal brings together two of the biggest players in the stock asset market: Getty Images has over 80 million images available to license, although its full library is several times larger.The company also owns and operates the iStock and Unsplash photo libraries.Shutterstocks portfolio of stock content is even broader: the company owns the Pond5 video library, PremiumBeat audio library, TurboSquid 3D model library, and multi-format library Envato.As of September 2024, there were over 530 million assets on Shutterstock.com alone.Merger expected to lead to up to $200 million in cost savingsAnnouncing the merger, Getty Images and Shutterstock described their portfolios as complementary, and said that the more robust cash flow of the merged company would enable them to reduce borrowing costs and accelerate debt repayment.The firms expect to make $150-200 million in cost savings within three years of the merger.With the rapid rise in demand for compelling visual content across industries, there has never been a better time for [us] to come together, said Getty Images CEO Craig Peters.Getty Images to play controlling role in the merged companyPeters will serve as CEO of the merged company, due to be named Getty Images Holdings, Inc.Its board will be chaired by Getty Images co-founder Mark Getty and will have seven directors designated by Getty Images, with the remaining four designated by Shutterstock.Getty Images shareholders will own approximately 54.7% of the combined company and Shutterstock stockholders will own approximately 45.3%.Welcomed by investors, but less so by artistsNews of the merger has been welcomed by investors, with Associated Press reporting that shares in both companies jumped in value following the announcment.Reactions from artists have been less positive, with PetaPixel describing the merger as another step in the race to the bottom in an article citing the commission rates the companies pay to photographers, and the control a merged company would exert over the stock image market.Expected to lead to further growth of generative AI toolsAmong the proposed strategic and financial benefits of the merger, Getty Images and Shutterstock also list greater investment in [technologies like] generative AI.Both firms have already launched AI image-generation services trained on their content, while Shutterstock is also launching a text-to-3D service, currently available to developers in beta.Shutterstock also licenses its assets to OpenAI as training data, and has agreements with Amazon, Apple, Google and Meta, according to Reuters.Read Getty Images and Shutterstocks official statement announcing their proposed mergerHave your say on this story by following CG Channel on Facebook, Instagram and X (formerly Twitter). As well as being able to comment on stories, followers of our social media accounts can see videos we dont post on the site itself, including making-ofs for the latest VFX movies, animations, games cinematics and motion graphics projects.

Dont wait until you lose everything to appreciate what you havePublished inThe Medium BlogSent as aNewsletter3 min readJust now-- Hello againIssue #242: wildfire policy, vibe curators, and optimizing for understandingIm writing this one day before youll receive it (Wednesday morning), and I just woke up to photos and videos of the Pacific Palisades fire one of three fires burning in and around Los Angeles. At least 30,000 people were forced to evacuate so far. More than 1,000 homes and businesses were destroyed. Footage of the Santa Monica beach, featuring a few brave souls walking in the foreground, look unreal to me. But theyre real.A friend just texted me a photo of the sky above their Silver Lake home: Its eerily gray though the photo was taken at 8 a.m. Were writing a newsletter about this, I text back. Shes safely working from home and part of a group chat with native Angelinos. Theyre chronicling restaurants and schools lost to the fire. At least one of her friends homes burned down. Find something about losing everything, she replies.33 years ago, during the Oakland Firestorm of 1991, Roger Magoulas house burned down. He decided to rebuild instead of move. After decades spent processing that loss and the rebuilding effort, he took to Medium to explain how it changed him and what hed recommend to those in a similar position. Above all, he advises patience: The impulse to start over ASAP is so strong, but the decisions you make have a long shadow. You will make mistakes, thats inevitable, your goal is to avoid silly missteps.And heres a story by Skylar Whitney, who evacuated Jasper, Alberta, along with 25,000 others last August after two wildfires erupted in a national park. It became one of the most expensive natural disasters in Canadas history, and the rebuilding process will take years. Whitney takes the long view: This is the worst fire Jasper has seen in 100 years. But the regrowth that comes from it will be absolutely beautiful. [] if this has made me realize anything, its that Jasper is my home, and Im not going to abandon it.If youre in LA, be safe. Harris Sockel Also worth readingIn 2021, investor Gabe Kleinman (formerly of Obvious Corp., Mediums early parent company) argued that Californias megafires are solvable if (a) state legislators allocate more of their budgets to forest management, and (b) federal and state agencies become more diligent about reducing wildforest biomass via prescribed burns and strategic thinning.Hanif Abdurraqib poet, essayist, and music critic listened to 825 hours of new music last year and curated his top ~7.5%, featuring ~20 indie and lesser-known EPs and mixtapes worth bookmarking.Old songs are more popular than new ones. The top 10 highest-grossing films of 2024 are all remakes of existing intellectual property. Its easy to believe culture is stagnating, but maybe we just cant see the pockets of innovation? Internet archaeologist Katherine Dee writes: Creating mood boards on Pinterest or curating aesthetics on TikTok are evolving art forms, too. Constructing an atmosphere, or vibe, through images and sounds, is itself a form of storytelling, one thats been woefully misunderstood and even undermined as shallow. Your daily dose of practical wisdomIf youre consistently disagreeing with someone, its probably because your priorities are different. Youre optimizing for different things. When you understand what someone else is optimizing for, writes Radical Candor author Kim Scott, its easier to respect their perspective, even if you dont agree with it.

View of the Apple iTunes Music Store, which launched in April 2003, two years after the release of iTunes in January 2001 Photo by Apple Computer / Getty ImagesThroughout the 20th century, the dominant method of music distribution changed many times over, from live-only performances to records to cassette tapes to CDs to MP3 players. But the most drastic change to the industry came on this day in January 2001, when Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced the launch of iTunes.People had been burning CDs onto computers for some time, but the programs they used to store these digital song files posed problems for music lovers. RealJukebox, Windows Media Player and MusicMatch all restricted fast burning and high-quality playback to paying members.So Apple decided to release a simple, powerful and free digital music jukeboxa decision that changed music listening and the music industry forever.ITunes wasnt born at Apple. It was derived from a digital MP3 player, SoundJam, that was created in the late 1990s by two former Apple employees, Bill Kincaid and Jeff Robbin. After the player attracted the attention of Apple officials, they rehired Kincaid and Robbin, as well as their collaborator Dave Heller, to make similar software for its own computers. The result was iTunes, which Apple advertised as the worlds best and easiest to use jukebox software.History of iTunesWatch on Apple has done what Apple does bestmake complex applications easy, and make them even more powerful in the process, Jobs said in a January 9, 2001, press release. ITunes is miles ahead of every other jukebox application, and we hope its dramatically simpler user interface will bring even more people into the digital music revolution.ITunes users would be able to import and play unlimited MP3 tracks, organize their digital music collection, create custom CDs and, notably, watch a visual representation of the music being played, which is synched to the beat of the musicnot a music video, but rather an era-appropriate, pulsing computer graphic.Less than six months after iTunes was launched, Apple announced the programs companion: the iPod, a handheld device that could operate iTunes from inside ones pocket.With the program and device in place, Apple set up the third prong of its music market takeover: selling songs. On April 28, 2003, the company launched its iTunes Music Storean online music supermarket that let users legally purchase digital music for 99 cents a song. A first-generation iPod Blake Patterson via Wikimedia Commons under CC BY 2.0Before the iTunes Store, people had to buy entire albums or abbreviated singles at a physical shop. They couldnt buy individual digital tracksunless they stole them. And many did. Thanks to easily burnable CDs and the proliferation of shareable MP3s, record companies lost money to digital piracy in the early aughts. As one record executive of the era told the Guardian, file sharing was a crisis of momentous proportions for the industry.Jobs took advantage of the turmoil to create a pioneering collaboration, signing deals with five major record labels that allowed Apple to sell their music on iTunes. The move allowed record companies to begin making money through digital music, and it launched iTunes and the iPod into the stratosphere.Once available on Windows computers, the iTunes Storethe first legal digital marketplacebecame the most-used digital music manager in the world. In time, the store expanded its inventory to include episodes of TV shows and full-length movies, which customers watched on increasingly larger versions of the iPod. Songs eventually rose in price from 99 cents to $1.29.ITunes no longer rules the digital music market, and iPods have morphed into smartphones. Ultimately, the program proved a gateway to streamersmusic distribution services run on subscriptionsas Pandora and Spotify became its main competitors. In 2019, iTunes was absorbed into Apples own music streaming program, Apple Music. But the stores legacy remains in the current shape of digital music, and the iTunes Store is still there for those wanting to purchase their favorite music piece by digital piece.Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.

PTW appoints David Doran as CFODorans has over two decades of experience in financial leadershipImage credit: PTW News by Sophie McEvoy Staff Writer Published on Jan. 9, 2025 Games outsourcing firm PTW has appointed David Dorans as chief financial officer.Dorans will report to CEO Deborah Kirkham, and will oversee the company's global financial operations and support ongoing growth strategies.Dorans has over two decades of experience in financial leadership. His most recent role was CFO at Mirriad Advertising, and he also held key roles at Channel 4, BBC Studios, and UKTV."I'm thrilled to be joining PTW," said Dorans. "Having navigated a range of challenges and embraced various opportunities in my previous roles, I look forward to collaborating with the team to create initiatives that blend financial prudence with a passion for excellence.CEO Deborah Kirkham added: "David's strong foundation in financial governance is exactly what we need to support our strategic initiatives and drive sustainable growth across our global footprint in 2025 and beyond."

Squid Game: Unleashed reaches over 10m installsBattle royale multiplayer has become Netflix's fifth most downloaded gameImage credit: Netflix Games News by Sophie McEvoy Staff Writer Published on Jan. 9, 2025 Netflix's Squid Game: Unleashed has reached an estimated 10.7 million downloads, according to App Magic data.As reported by Pocket Gamer, the battle royale multiplayer has become Netflix's fifth most downloaded title. The game launched globally on December 17, 2024, ahead of Squid Game's second season.Most of Squid Game: Unleashed's downloads are from Apple's App Store at 7.4 million installs, with 3.3 million from Google Play.The United States was the top country for installs at 1.8 million, followed by Brazil with 1.1 million downloads.Unlike other Netflix games, Squid Game: Unleashed is currently free to download and access for a limited period.

Google is testing an experimental AI feature that creates a personalized podcast using your Search and Discover feed history. The Daily Listen feature in Googles Search Labs is rolling out to Android and iOS users in the US according to 9to5Google, and works similarly to the Audio Overviews feature for Googles NotebookLM project.Daily Listen references search data and Discover feed interactions to assess which news articles would be of most interest to the user, and then summarizes those stories and topics into a roughly five-minute audio overview. It provides a text transcript, alongside audio scrubber controls that allow users to play, pause, mute, rewind, or skip to the next story.Heres a few screengrabs of the Daily Listen UI, showing where the feature is located and how it presents related topics. Image: Google (Via 9to5Google)Search Labs users who opt-in to try this experiment will find Daily Listen in the personalized widget carousel underneath the Search bar at the top of the Google app. A Related stories tab will appear at the bottom of the audio player that corresponds to content within the overview that allows users to like or disapprove of each story with a thumbs up/down, and explore new topics.Theres currently no word on when/if this feature will be rolled out to the wider public. Googles AI Search Overviews were tested in a similar way via Search Labs before launching to a general audience last year, so its possible that Daily Listen may one day become a persistent feature hopefully one thats easier to opt out of than AI Overviews.

If you long for a time when men were men and those men were all hell-bent on killing each other, when indoor plumbing was nonexistent but whiskey was plentiful, youve probably been waiting for another frontier story to kick down your door. Enter: The new Netflix Western American Primeval, which comes in hot with characters facing down violence and adversity by the wagonload. This six-episode series doesnt build up its characters enough for its finale to really pay off, but its chronicle of an unforgiving land and even less merciful people will put some hair on your chest.In the Utah Territory circa 1857, U.S. troops face off against the Mormon militia, native tribes face off against invading frontiersmen, and theres plenty of crossfire to go around. Caught in the middle of it are mother-son pair Sara (Betty Gilpin, riveting) and Devin (Preston Mota), who are traveling from the northeast to meet up with Devins father. Along the way they connect with a young Mormon couple, a fort proprietor, a mute Shoshone girl, and a wild man named Isaac Reed (a beguiling Taylor Kitsch).American Primeval chases each of these characters stories and then some, taking on political intrigue after the Mormon militia attacks a party of travelers and tries to fudge their role in the crime, wrongly assuming that there are no surviving witnesses. And if you think that sounds like a lot to pack into six episodes, youre correct! Ambition is both the greatest asset and most notable flaw on display, with Friday Night Lights director Peter Berg and Twisters screenwriter Mark L. Smith tenaciously leading us up snowy mountains and into desert encampments. In the first episode, Sara and Devins experience of the Mormons massacre is choreographed and edited to look as though it was accomplished in one take no small feat for a sequence that involves a near-scalping, a stampeding ox, and flaming arrows firing from every direction.It helps that the cast is so capable. Gilpin commands attention as Sara, whose steadfast devotion to her son often tips over into pigheadedness, causing friction between her and Isaac. Standouts among the supporting cast include Saura Lightfoot-Leon as Abish, a fierce yet ambivalent Mormon wife, and Shea Whigham as the shrewd and sloppy landowner Jim Bridger. Dane Dehaan, as Abishs increasingly unhinged husband, Jacob, deserves props for acting through a torrent of fake blood for the majority of the show.American Primeval GalleryBut overzealous cinematography and choppy pacing get in the way of such a solid setup. Brilliant performances are hampered by shots where the camera is at odd angles or too close to give a broad sense of the action. (If you thought the TV version of Friday Night Lights had too much shaky cam, be grateful that its intimate, off-field drama didnt take place on horseback.) And there are either too many characters or too few episodes for this story to go deep an issue that becomes especially glaring in the finale, where a big emotional swing falls flat.American Primeval is no Game of Thrones, but its still not for the easily ruffled, particularly those sensitive to animal slaughter, rape, old-timey treatments for grisly injuries, or unflattering portrayals of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This isnt the kind of show you unwind with, but if you let it take you for a ride, youre apt to have an engaging if not earth-shattering time. Just remember to watch out for those Mormons.