Wednesday Newsbytes: Google Tracks Users in Incognito Mode; Looks Like Windows 12 Won’t Happen: Microsoft Drops Bing Brand from AI Tools; Another Exploit – Update Chrome Now… and more!
Every day we scan the tech world for interesting news in the world of technology and sometimes from outside the world of technology. Every Wednesday, we feature news articles that grabbed our attention over the past week. We hope you find this week’s ‘Wednesday Newsbytes’ informative and interesting!
Chrome updates Incognito warning to admit Google tracks users in “private” mode
Warning added to Chrome Canary as Google settles Incognito class-action suit.
Google is updating the warning on Chrome’s Incognito mode to make it clear that Google and websites run by other companies can still collect your data in the web browser’s semi-private mode.
The change is being made as Google prepares to settle a class-action lawsuit that accuses the firm of privacy violations related to Chrome’s Incognito mode. The expanded warning was recently added to Chrome Canary, a nightly build for developers. The warning appears to directly address one of the lawsuit’s complaints, that the Incognito mode’s warning doesn’t make it clear that Google collects data from users of the private mode.
Many tech-savvy people already know that while private modes in web browsers prevent some data from being stored on your device, they don’t prevent tracking by websites or Internet service providers. But many other people may not understand exactly what Incognito mode does…
Microsoft is wary of fragmenting the Windows user base too much, apparently
Windows 12 may not be happening after all, or at least that seems to be the way the rumor mill is suddenly tilting – and Microsoft is also changing how it’ll update its desktop OS in the future, we’re told.
This fresh info comes from Zac Bowden of Windows Central, a well-known leaker on all things Microsoft.
Bowden tells us that the next version of Windows (codenamed Hudson Valley) will be highly AI-focused (quelle surprise) and Microsoft is planning to launch it in September or October 2024 – but the final name is a marketing decision that hasn’t yet been made.
However, the leaker claims that sources inside Microsoft are doubtful as to whether it’ll be Windows 12. The reason? Microsoft is apparently wary of fragmenting the user base further with another release that has a different name – and we totally get where that line of thought is coming from (we’ll return to discuss that shortly).
This doesn’t rule out Windows 12, of course…
Microsoft makes another name change as Bing Image Creator is now Image Creator from Designer
A few months ago, Microsoft announced that it would no longer refer to its AI chatbot as Bing Chat. Instead, it would simply be named Copilot. Now, Microsoft has quietly rebranded another AI-based service,ditching the Bing name once again.
Buried in Microsoft’s blog announcements about the new Copilot Pro, the company mentions that the $20 a month subscription service includes faster and more detailed “AI image creation with Image Creator from Designer (formerly Bing Image Creator).”
This is now the second time Microsoft has decided to move away from using the Bing branding for its AI services. The new Image Creator from Designer refers to Microsoft Designer, which was first announced in 2022 and went into public preview in April 2023…
Zero-Day Alert: Update Chrome Now to Fix New Actively Exploited Vulnerability
Google on Tuesday released updates to fix four security issues in its Chrome browser, including an actively exploited zero-day flaw.
The issue, tracked as CVE-2024-0519, concerns an out-of-bounds memory access in the V8 JavaScript and WebAssembly engine, which can be weaponized by threat actors to trigger a crash.
“By reading out-of-bounds memory, an attacker might be able to get secret values, such as memory addresses, which can be bypass protection mechanisms such as ASLR in order to improve the reliability and likelihood of exploiting a separate weakness to achieve code execution instead of just denial of service,” according to MITRE’s Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE).
Additional details about the nature of the attacks and the threat actors that may be exploiting them have withheld…
YouTube isn’t to blame this time, it seems
In recent days, YouTube has been accused of throttling the performance of its own platform as the latest tactic in its war against ad blockers. But YouTube says this categorically isn’t the case. Instead, it looks like the reason for the slowdown lies with the ad blockers themselves – and a fix is on the way.
First, let’s get you up to speed. YouTube doesn’t like people using ad blockers on its site and it’s tried a few different methods to get them to stop. This includes a three-strike video policy and annoying five-second delays on videos. So when people noticed that watching YouTube videos while using an ad blocker was causing their PC’s CPU usage to spike – and subsequently make older rigs have performance problems – they reasonably assumed this was yet another ad blocker countermeasure.
In response to the criticism YouTube has released a statement (via PCGamer) saying categorically that any loading delays ad blocker users are experiencing “are not caused by our ad blocker detection efforts.”
Okay, so what gives? Taking YouTube at its word, does that mean some people are just imagining things…
Thanks for reading this week’s Wednesday Newbytes. We hope these articles were informative, interesting, fun, and helpful. Darcy & TC
