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What other names did Amazon consider for its Alexa virtual assistant: Athena, Eve, Finch or Samantha?
The answer: All of the above. Before settling on Alexa, Amazon was considering Athena, Eve, Finch, Friday and Samantha. I was kinda bummed Kim wasn’t on the list.
Tags: Amazon, Amazon Alexa, Kim, list, virtual, virtual assistant
Last year, a Hawaii couple was convicted of living for decades under the identities of dead babies. Stories like this always disgust me, but after this long in tech, they don’t surprise me.
Crooks have no shame, folks: 2% of identity theft cases reported to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) last year involved the personal info of Americans age 19 or younger. Many more go unreported, partly because they aren’t discovered until the victim attempts to apply for their first loan or credit card.
YouTube’s getting more ads: The Google video ad whiz team has figured out how to show us ads when a video is paused. There will be a “dismiss” button to kill the ads. No official launch date, but when you see it, remember you heard it here first.
No beating the Bezos: The FTC is going after Amazon for a price-fixing scheme that generated more than $1 billion in profits. But a lot of the evidence is gone. Shocker, Amazon’s top brass (including Jeff Bezos) used the messaging app Signal to make their texts automatically disappear — forever.
Soon, airlines will have to refund you in cash or directly to your original payment method if they cancel or delay your flight. Same goes for if you paid for checked bags or in-flight Wi-Fi. These rules will roll out over the next six to 12 months.
Am I a robot? CAPTCHA tests are getting tougher. Gone are the good ol’ days of scrambled letters and clicking crosswalks. Now, companies are outsmarting bots by making you move a puzzle piece or pick out the “nonaquatic animal.” Bots can’t do that, yet.
🚨 Heads-up: Hackers are using Google ads for “Facebook.com” to steal login details. Click one of the ads, and you’ll be redirected to a dodgy site filled with malicious pop-ups. Remember, anyone can buy Google ads. Don’t search to get to a site; if you know the URL (and we all know Facebook’s URL), just type it in.
Net neutrality’s back: The FCC voted to restore net neutrality, saying ISPs can’t speed up, slow down or block access to specific sites or services. The FCC also wants to stop ISPs from selling customers’ personal info or using this info to train AI models. Now, the pros and cons of net neutrality are a 20-minute lecture starting with: Do we really want to open the door to government interference and regulation of private enterprise? Drop me a note here if you want to talk about net neutrality or another burning tech topic.
🐱 Anything is paw-sible: A Utah couple accidentally shipped their cat, Galena, to an Amazon warehouse in California. The kitty slipped into a return box when nobody was looking. Galena went six days without food or water before making it home safely, thanks to her microchip. Or, as I like to call them, the original AirTags.
🏎️ May the best algo win: The first-ever autonomous car race kicks off in Abu Dhabi this weekend. No F1 pros, just eight engineering teams duking it out for $2.25 million in prize money. They’re even racing the exact same car — the Dallara Super Formula SF23. Car racing is about the driver’s abilities, not just a car. Dumb.
Phone(y) bills: If you use Verizon, watch out for phony invoice emails from “33mail.com.” They link you to a fake Office 365 sign-in page that could allow them to hack your account. Don’t click that link. If you get an email that looks “phishy” or has mismatched sender names and addresses, mark it as spam ASAP.
