The two teams with the clearest need at QB are no longer in position to just sit and draft one. Plus, the Vikings’ plans, Brock Purdy’s extension situation, Aaron Rodgers’ future and more.
January 2025
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Christian and Alexis break down Barcelona’s current registration issues with Dani Olmo and why it may result in him leaving the club. Then, Christian and Alexis recap all the MLS offseason news including two head coach hirings and some big transfer news. Later, Christian and Alexis bring back Rápido Reactions to give us some potential January transfers for struggling club across Europe.
EDDC excited for big things coming to downtown Erie this year, beyond
Apple Might Owe You Money for Letting Siri Spy on You
If you use Apple devices—specifically, Siri-enabled devices—you might have some money coming your way. That’s because Apple just agreed to a $95 million settlement to resolve a class action lawsuit. The dispute? That Apple’s infamous smart assistant, Siri, violated user privacy.
Wait, what did Siri do?
Back in 2019, we learned that Siri was inadvertently spying on many of us. It has to do with how Apple was training and improving its assistant. As you likely know, to trigger Siri, you say “Hey Siri,” (these days, you can simply say “Siri”) and the assistant wakes up and answers (or attempts to answer) your query or request. This is known as the “wake word.” The problem is, sometimes the assistant mishears something said, and, believing it to be the wake word, turns on, resulting in those times you hear, “I’m sorry, I didn’t get that” when you, in fact, never asked for Siri’s help in the first place.
In order to improve Siri, Apple would occasionally send snippets of audio recordings from Siri-enabled devices to third-party contractors, in part, to rate whether or not a Siri trigger was warranted in that specific case. Apple said it would send fewer than 1% of recordings to contractors, and that none of the recordings were tied to the Apple IDs of the users they came from, but that wasn’t enough to preserve their privacy. As a result of this training policy, contractors were privy to, “private discussions between doctors and patients, business deals, seemingly criminal dealings, sexual encounters, and so on.” And while the user’s Apple ID might not have accompanied the recording, contractors did have access to the user’s location, contact details, and app data.
Apple created a situation where if your iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Mac, HomePod, iPod touch, or Apple TV thought you said “Hey Siri,” there was a small chance whatever you were doing at that time would be shared with some third-party contractor somewhere in the world. Apple isn’t unique here, however: Both Google and Amazon have been accused of the same, and Google is currently engaged in a similar lawsuit. Shortly after these reports, Apple made it possible to opt-out of sharing Siri recordings, and later stopped storing the recordings altogether.
There might be a slice of $95 million waiting for you
The lawsuit Apple just settled ranges between Sept. 17, 2014 and Dec. 31, 2024, the period of time “Hey Siri” has been an option on Apple devices. If you can attest that your Apple device accidentally triggered Siri during a private conversation, you qualify for a payout. That’s $20 per Siri-enabled device, with a limit of five devices. In theory, you could walk away with $100 from this lawsuit, but if too many class members come forward, that initial $20 could drop.
To be clear, Apple has denied wrongdoing in this case, though the company did apologize for the Siri debacle years ago. In addition, this settlement still needs approval from U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White. Until then, the payouts are not official.
As Reuters points out, $95 million is roughly nine hours of profit for Apple. Justice.
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Telegram Has a New Verification Strategy to Cut Down on Scams
Misinformation and scams are an unfortunate reality of the internet in 2024. That “news” account might really be pushing falsehoods and lies, while that outreach from “Google” likely isn’t from the company at all. You really need to be on guard at all times when processing the information that passes through your social feeds, which is why it helps when apps and platforms take action to protect users from untrustworthy sources.
Telegram has a new verification system
That seems to be the motivation behind recent updates from Telegram. The messaging platform has an existing verification system built into the service, where companies and public figures can register themselves with Telegram and receive a blue badge of honor. That way, when you see content from a notable person or an organization, you can rest assured those words being share are actually from that source. Many platforms (but not all) offer this type of service, of course. Even Google is thinking about rolling out badges for search.
But Telegram has a new addition to how it conducts verification: Once an organization is verified, it can then apply to become a “third-party verifier,” which lets them verify other accounts and chats it deems official, too. These verification badges will differ from the blue checkmarks, and will instead look like blue emojis or icons. Any account or chat verified in this way will have a banner in its profile that explains which third party verified it and why.
I’m all for this type of verification process, and hope it catches on. It puts trust in accounts that already have proven their authority to Telegram, and, over time, will help users quickly parse which accounts and chats are legit, and which might be best to avoid. In the future, you might see a post from an account or chat, and since it doesn’t have that badge, think twice about the message it’s trying to get out.
Other new Telegram features
Credit: Telegram
In addition to third-party verification, Telegram announced a series of other features and changes coming to the platform:
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Message search filters: When searching, you’ll now see an option in the “Chats” tab to sort your messages by “All Chats,” “Private Chats,” “Group Chats,” or “Channels,” to help you find the messages you’re looking for.
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Folder names gets custom emojis: If you subscribe to Premium, you can add custom emoji to the names of your chat folders. You can even replace the text that would normally appear here with whatever emoji you want.
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In-app QR code scanner: When using the in-app camera on either iOS or Android, you’ll also be able to scan QR codes.
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Collectible gifts: Telegram “gifts” are small tokens of artwork you can share with friends and display on your profile. Now, you can upgrade a gift to make it a “collectible.” This will add a new look made by a Telegram artist, as well as a unique background, icon, and number. You can share collectibles with other users, or, if you’re so inclined, auction it as an NFT. Right now, 20 gifts can be upgraded to collectibles, with over 1,400 unique appearances.
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Service message reactions: Service messages are those alerts you get whenever someone joins a group, begins a video call, or sends you a gift. Telegram now lets you react to these alerts, which adds a fun layer to these previously informative-only messages.