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Tag: Mobile phones

  • One Tech Tip: Here’s what you need to do before and after your phone is stolen or lost

    One Tech Tip: Here’s what you need to do before and after your phone is stolen or lost

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    LONDON (AP) — Phones hold so much of our digital lives — emails, social media and bank accounts, photos, chat messages and more — that if they ever get stolen or go missing, it can cause major disruption beyond just the loss of a device.

    In some places, phone thefts have surged so much it’s now an everyday problem, with thieves on electric bikes snatching them out of pedestrians’ hands, swiping them off restaurant tables or pickpocketing them on the subway.

    In Britain, where 200 phones are stolen every day in “snatch thefts,” the government has pledged to crack down on the crime and is meeting with tech companies and device makers to come up with solutions.

    Here are steps you can take before and after your phone goes missing:

    Basic protections

    There are things you can do to make it less painful if your phone is stolen. Because some of these features are more technical in nature, people often overlook them.

    Lock down as much as you can. At a minimum, require a password or biometric scan to unlock the device. You can also add similar requirements to important individual apps — like your banking account, WhatsApp or Signal — to protect your finance or chats from thieves.

    Also, activate the find my device feature, which is available for both iOS and Android. Samsung also offers its own service called SmartThings Find.

    You’ll probably have lots of precious photos saved on your camera roll. It’s a good idea to back them up, along with contacts, calendar items and other files. Google and Apple offer cloud-based backup services, although the free versions have limited storage space. You can also back up your files to an external hard drive, memory card or a laptop.

    Some police forces and phone companies advise turning off message previews, which prevents thieves trying to break into your accounts from seeing reset or login codes when the phone is locked. To do this on an iPhone, for example, go to the Notifications section of your settings menu and tap Show Previews. You can also scroll down the app list to turn previews off for individual apps but leave them on for less risky ones like news or weather.

    Turn on newer features

    Recent iOS and Android updates include a number of new functions designed to make thefts less attractive.

    IPhone users can turn on Stolen Device Protection, which makes it a lot harder for phone thieves to access key functions and settings. Many thieves will want to wipe the data off and reset so they can resell it, but with this feature on, they’ll need a face or fingerprint scan to do so. Apple also recently updated its “ activation lock ” feature to make it harder for thieves to sell parts from stolen phones.

    Android phones, meanwhile, can now use use artificial intelligence to detect motion indicating someone snatched it out of your hand and is racing away on foot or a bike, and then lock the screen immediately. And there’s a feature called Private Spaces that lets you hide sensitive files on your phone.

    Jot down your device number

    Take note of your phone’s serial number, also known as an IMEI number. It can link you to the phone if it does eventually get recovered. Call it up by typing (asterisk)#06# on your phone’s keypad. If you’ve already lost your phone you can also find it in other places like the box it came in.

    If it’s stolen

    If you’re unlucky enough to have your phone stolen, notify police. Call your insurance company if you have a policy that covers the device. Inform your phone company so they can freeze your number and issue a replacement SIM card or eSIM. Notify your bank so they can watch out for suspicious transactions.

    Tracking your device

    Try to locate your phone with the find my device feature. For iPhones, go to iCloud.com/find from a web browser while Android users should head to www.google.com/android/find. Samsung also has its own service for Galaxy phones.

    These services will show your phone’s current or last known location on a map, which is also handy if you’ve just lost track of it somewhere in the house. Apple says even if a phone can’t connect to the internet or has been turned off, it can use Bluetooth to ping any nearby Apple devices using the same network behind its AirTags tracking devices. Google says newer Pixel phones can be located “for several hours” after they’ve been turned off using similar technology.

    You can get the phone to play a sound, even if it’s on silent. You can also put the phone in lost mode, which locks it and displays a message and contact details on the screen for anyone who finds it. Lost mode on iOS also suspends any Apple Pay cards and passes.

    If the device shows up in an unfamiliar location on the map, and you suspect it has been stolen, experts say it’s better to notify police rather than trying to get it back yourself.

    Cybersecurity company Norton says, “Confronting a thief yourself is not recommended.”

    Final steps

    If you can’t find your phone, there are some final steps to take.

    Log yourself out of all your accounts that might be accessible on the phone, and then remove it from your list of trusted devices that you use to get multifactor authentication codes — but make sure you can get those codes somewhere else, such as email.

    Then, as a last resort, you can erase the phone remotely so that there’s no chance of any data falling into the wrong hands. However, take note: Apple says that if the iPhone is offline, the remote erase will only happen the next time it come back online. But if you find the phone before it gets erased, you can cancel the request.

    Google warns that SD memory cards plugged into Android phones might not be remotely erased. And after the phone has been wiped, it won’t show up with find my device.

    ___

    Is there a tech challenge you need help figuring out? Write to us at [email protected] with your questions.

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  • One Tech Tip: Here’s what you need to do before and after your phone is stolen or lost

    One Tech Tip: Here’s what you need to do before and after your phone is stolen or lost

    [ad_1]

    LONDON — Phones hold so much of our digital lives — emails, social media and bank accounts, photos, chat messages and more — that if they ever get stolen or go missing, it can cause major disruption beyond just the loss of a device.

    In some places, phone thefts have surged so much it’s now an everyday problem, with thieves on electric bikes snatching them out of pedestrians’ hands, swiping them off restaurant tables or pickpocketing them on the subway.

    In Britain, where 200 phones are stolen every day in “snatch thefts,” the government has pledged to crack down on the crime and is meeting with tech companies and device makers to come up with solutions.

    Here are steps you can take before and after your phone goes missing:

    There are things you can do to make it less painful if your phone is stolen. Because some of these features are more technical in nature, people often overlook them.

    Lock down as much as you can. At a minimum, require a password or biometric scan to unlock the device. You can also add similar requirements to important individual apps — like your banking account, WhatsApp or Signal — to protect your finance or chats from thieves.

    Also, activate the find my device feature, which is available for both iOS and Android. Samsung also offers its own service called SmartThings Find.

    You’ll probably have lots of precious photos saved on your camera roll. It’s a good idea to back them up, along with contacts, calendar items and other files. Google and Apple offer cloud-based backup services, although the free versions have limited storage space. You can also back up your files to an external hard drive, memory card or a laptop.

    Some police forces and phone companies advise turning off message previews, which prevents thieves trying to break into your accounts from seeing reset or login codes when the phone is locked. To do this on an iPhone, for example, go to the Notifications section of your settings menu and tap Show Previews. You can also scroll down the app list to turn previews off for individual apps but leave them on for less risky ones like news or weather.

    Recent iOS and Android updates include a number of new functions designed to make thefts less attractive.

    IPhone users can turn on Stolen Device Protection, which makes it a lot harder for phone thieves to access key functions and settings. Many thieves will want to wipe the data off and reset so they can resell it, but with this feature on, they’ll need a face or fingerprint scan to do so. Apple also recently updated its “ activation lock ” feature to make it harder for thieves to sell parts from stolen phones.

    Android phones, meanwhile, can now use use artificial intelligence to detect motion indicating someone snatched it out of your hand and is racing away on foot or a bike, and then lock the screen immediately. And there’s a feature called Private Spaces that lets you hide sensitive files on your phone.

    Take note of your phone’s serial number, also known as an IMEI number. It can link you to the phone if it does eventually get recovered. Call it up by typing (asterisk)#06# on your phone’s keypad. If you’ve already lost your phone you can also find it in other places like the box it came in.

    If you’re unlucky enough to have your phone stolen, notify police. Call your insurance company if you have a policy that covers the device. Inform your phone company so they can freeze your number and issue a replacement SIM card or eSIM. Notify your bank so they can watch out for suspicious transactions.

    Try to locate your phone with the find my device feature. For iPhones, go to iCloud.com/find from a web browser while Android users should head to www.google.com/android/find. Samsung also has its own service for Galaxy phones.

    These services will show your phone’s current or last known location on a map, which is also handy if you’ve just lost track of it somewhere in the house. Apple says even if a phone can’t connect to the internet or has been turned off, it can use Bluetooth to ping any nearby Apple devices using the same network behind its AirTags tracking devices. Google says newer Pixel phones can be located “for several hours” after they’ve been turned off using similar technology.

    You can get the phone to play a sound, even if it’s on silent. You can also put the phone in lost mode, which locks it and displays a message and contact details on the screen for anyone who finds it. Lost mode on iOS also suspends any Apple Pay cards and passes.

    If the device shows up in an unfamiliar location on the map, and you suspect it has been stolen, experts say it’s better to notify police rather than trying to get it back yourself.

    Cybersecurity company Norton says, “Confronting a thief yourself is not recommended.”

    If you can’t find your phone, there are some final steps to take.

    Log yourself out of all your accounts that might be accessible on the phone, and then remove it from your list of trusted devices that you use to get multifactor authentication codes — but make sure you can get those codes somewhere else, such as email.

    Then, as a last resort, you can erase the phone remotely so that there’s no chance of any data falling into the wrong hands. However, take note: Apple says that if the iPhone is offline, the remote erase will only happen the next time it come back online. But if you find the phone before it gets erased, you can cancel the request.

    Google warns that SD memory cards plugged into Android phones might not be remotely erased. And after the phone has been wiped, it won’t show up with find my device.

    ___

    Is there a tech challenge you need help figuring out? Write to us at onetechtip@ap.org with your questions.

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  • Exploding Hezbollah pagers in apparent Israeli attack made by Hungarian company, Taiwanese firm says

    Exploding Hezbollah pagers in apparent Israeli attack made by Hungarian company, Taiwanese firm says

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    TAIPEI, Taiwan — A company based in Hungary was responsible for manufacturing the pagers that exploded in Lebanon and Syria in an apparent Israeli operation targeting Hezbollah’s communications network, another firm whose brand was used on the devices said Wednesday.

    Pagers used by the militant group Hezbollah exploded near-simultaneously a day earlier in Lebanon and Syria, killing at least 12 people, including two children, and wounding nearly 3,000. Hezbollah and the Lebanese government blamed Israel for what appeared to be a sophisticated remote attack.

    An American official said Israel briefed the United States on Tuesday after the attack, in which small amounts of explosive hidden in the pagers were detonated. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the information publicly.

    Hezbollah and Israeli forces have exchanged fire nearly daily since Oct. 8, the day after a deadly Hamas-led attack in southern Israel triggered a massive Israeli counteroffensive and the ongoing war in Gaza. Since then, hundreds have been killed in the strikes in Lebanon and dozens in Israel, while tens of thousands on each side of the border have been displaced.

    Tuesday’s attack — and the fact that Hezbollah blamed Israel — renewed fears that the two foes could lead to all-out war. Despite periodic cycles of escalation, the two have carefully avoided that so far, but Israeli leaders have issued a series of warnings in recent weeks that they might escalate operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon.

    The AR-924 pagers used the attack were manufactured by BAC Consulting KFT, based in the Hungarian capital of Budapest, according to a statement released by Gold Apollo, a Taiwanese firm that authorized the use of its brand on the pagers.

    BAC appeared to be a shell company.

    “According to the cooperation agreement, we authorize BAC to use our brand trademark for product sales in designated regions, but the design and manufacturing of the products are solely the responsibility of BAC,” Gold Apollo said in a statement.

    The company’s chair, Hsu Ching-kuang, told journalists Wednesday that the firm has had a licensing agreement with BAC for the past three years.

    BAC Consulting Kft., a limited liability company, was registered in May 2022, according to company records. It has 7,840 euros in standing capital, the records showed, and had revenue of $725,768 in 2022 and $593,972 in 2023.

    At the headquarters in a building in a residential neighborhood of Budapest, Associated Press journalists saw the names of multiple companies, including BAC Consulting, posted on pieces of paper on a window.

    A woman who emerged from the building and declined to give her name, said the site provides headquarter addresses to various companies.

    BAC is registered to Cristiana Rosaria Bársony-Arcidiacono, who on her LinkedIn page describes herself as a strategic advisor and business developer. Among other positions, Bársony-Arcidiacono says on the page that she has served on the board of directors of the Earth Child Institute, a sustainability group. The group does not list Bársony-Arcidiacono as among its board members on its website.

    The AP has attempted to reach Bársony-Arcidiacono via her LinkedIn page and has been unable to establish a connection between her or BAC and the exploding pagers.

    The attack in Lebanon started Tuesday afternoon, when pagers in their owners’ hands or pockets started heating up and then exploding — leaving blood-splattered scenes and panicking bystanders.

    It appeared that most of those hit were members or linked to members of Hezbollah — whether fighters or civilians — but it was not immediately clear if people with no ties to Hezbollah were also hit.

    The Health Ministry said health care workers and two children were among those killed. In the village of Nadi Sheet in the Bekaa Valley, dozens gathered to mourn the death of one of the children, 9-year-old Fatima Abdullah. The Health Ministry had previously given her age as 8.

    Her mother, wearing black and donning a yellow Hezbollah scarf, wept alongside other women and children as they gathered around the little girl’s coffin before her burial.

    Hezbollah said in a statement Wednesday morning that it would continue its normal strikes against Israel as part of what it describes as a support front for its ally, Hamas, and Palestinians in Gaza.

    “This path is continuous and separate from the difficult reckoning that the criminal enemy must await for its massacre on Tuesday,” it said. “This is another reckoning that will come, God willing.”

    At hospitals in Beirut on Wednesday, the chaos of the night before had largely subsided, but relatives of the wounded continued to wait.

    Lebanon Health Minister Firas Abiad told journalists during a tour on hospitals Wednesday morning that many of the wounded had severe injuries to the eyes, and others had limbs amputated. Journalists were not allowed to enter hospital rooms or film patients.

    Abiad said that the wounded had been sent to various area hospitals to avoid any single facility being overloaded and added that Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Syria and Egypt offered to help treat the patients.

    Earlier Wednesday, an Iraqi military plane landed in Beirut carrying 15 tons of medicine and medical equipment, he said.

    Experts believe explosive material was put into the pagers prior to their delivery.

    The AR-924 pager, advertised as being “rugged,” contains a rechargeable lithium battery, according to specifications advertised on Gold Apollo’s website before they were removed after the attack.

    It claimed to have up to 85 days of battery life. That would be crucial in Lebanon, where electricity outages have been common after years of economic collapse. Pagers also run on a different wireless network than mobile phones, making them more resilient in emergencies — one of the reasons why many hospitals worldwide still rely on them.

    For Hezbollah, the pagers also provided a means to sidestep what’s believed to be intensive Israeli electronic surveillance on mobile phone networks in Lebanon.

    “The phone that we have in our hands — I do not have a phone in my hand — is a listening device,” warned Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah in a February speech.

    Taiwan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs said from the beginning of 2022 until August 2024, Gold Apollo has exported 260,000 sets of pagers, including more than 40,000 sets between January and August of this year. The ministry said that it had no records of direct exports of Gold Apollo pagers to Lebanon.

    ___

    This story has been updated to correct the age of one of the children killed. She was 9, not 8.

    ___

    Spike reported from Budapest and Mroue reported from Beirut. Associated Press journalists Abby Sewell in Beirut; Zeke Miller in Washington; and Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report.

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  • Exploding pagers used in apparent Israeli attack on Hezbollah made in Hungary, accused firm says

    Exploding pagers used in apparent Israeli attack on Hezbollah made in Hungary, accused firm says

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    TAIPEI, Taiwan — Taiwanese company Gold Apollo said Wednesday that it authorized its brand on the pagers that exploded in Lebanon and Syria in an apparent Israeli operation targeting Hezbollah’s communications network but that another company based in Budapest manufactured them.

    Pagers used by the militant group Hezbollah exploded near-simultaneously Tuesday in Lebanon and Syria, killing at least nine people, including an 8-year-old girl, and wounding nearly 3,000.

    Hezbollah and the Lebanese government blamed Israel for what appeared to be a sophisticated remote attack.

    An American official said Israel briefed the United States on Tuesday after the conclusion of the operation, in which small amounts of explosive secreted in the pagers were detonated. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the information publicly.

    The AR-924 pagers were manufactured by BAC Consulting KFT, based in Hungary’s capital, according to a statement released Wednesday by Gold Apollo.

    “According to the cooperation agreement, we authorize BAC to use our brand trademark for product sales in designated regions, but the design and manufacturing of the products are solely the responsibility of BAC,” the statement read.

    Gold Apollo chair Hsu Ching-kuang told journalists Wednesday that his company has had a licensing agreement with BAC for the past three years, but did not provide evidence of the contract.

    At about 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, as people shopped for groceries, sat in cafes or drove cars and motorcycles, the pagers in their hands or pockets started heating up and then exploding — leaving blood-splattered scenes and panicking bystanders.

    It appeared that many of those hit were members of Hezbollah, but it was not immediately clear if non-Hezbollah members also carried any of the exploding pagers.

    The blasts were mainly in areas where the group has a strong presence, particularly a southern Beirut suburb and in the Beqaa region of eastern Lebanon, as well as in Damascus, according to Lebanese security officials and a Hezbollah official. The Hezbollah official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

    Hezbollah, which has pointed the blame at Israel, said in a statement Wednesday morning that it would continue its normal strikes against Israel “as in all the past days” as part of what it describes as a support front for its ally, Hamas, and Palestinians in Gaza.

    “This path is continuous and separate from the difficult reckoning that the criminal enemy must await for its massacre on Tuesday that it committed against our people, our families and our fighters in Lebanon,” it said. “This is another reckoning that will come, God willing.”

    Hezbollah began firing rockets over the border into Israel on Oct. 8, the day after a deadly Hamas-led attack in southern Israel triggered a massive Israeli counteroffensive and the ongoing war in Gaza. Since then, Hezbollah and Israeli forces have exchanged strikes near-daily, killing hundreds in Lebanon and dozens in Israel and displacing tens of thousands on each side of the border.

    At hospitals in Beirut on Wednesday, the chaos of the night before had largely subsided, but relatives of the wounded continued to wait.

    Lebanon Health Minister Firas Abiad told journalists during a tour on hospitals Wednesday morning that many of the wounded had severe injuries to the eyes, and others had limbs amputated. Journalists were not allowed to enter hospital rooms or film patients.

    The health minister said that the wounded had been distributed among all the area hospitals to avoid any single facility being overloaded and added that Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Syria and Egypt offered to help in treating the patients.

    Earlier Wednesday, an Iraqi military plane landed in Beirut carrying medical equipment, airport officials said. Abiad said the plane was carrying 15 tons of medicine and medical equipment.

    Experts believe explosive material was put into the pagers prior to their delivery and use in a sophisticated supply chain infiltration.

    The AR-924 pager, advertised as being “rugged,” contains a rechargeable lithium battery, according to specifications once advertised on Gold Apollo’s website before it was apparently taken down Tuesday after the sabotage attack. It could receive texts of up to 100 characters.

    It also claimed to have up to 85 days of battery life. That would be crucial in Lebanon, where electricity outages have been common after years of economic collapse. Pagers also run on a different wireless network than mobile phones, making them more resilient in emergencies — one of the reasons why many hospitals worldwide still rely on them.

    Taiwan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs said from the beginning of 2022 until August 2024, Gold Apollo has exported 260,000 sets of pagers, including more than 40,000 sets between January and August of this year. The ministry said the pagers were exported mainly to European and American countries and that it had no records of direct exports of Gold Apollo pagers to Lebanon.

    For Hezbollah, the militants also looked at the pagers as a means to sidestep what’s believed to be intensive Israeli electronic surveillance on mobile phone networks in Lebanon.

    “The phone that we have in our hands — I do not have a phone in my hand — is a listening device,” warned Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah in a February speech.

    He later added: “I tell you that the phone in your hands, in your wife’s hands, and in your children’s hands is the agent. It is a deadly agent, not a simple one. It is a deadly agent that provides specific and accurate information. Therefore, this requires great seriousness when confronting it.”

    ___

    Associated Press journalists Bassem Mroue and Abby Sewell in Beirut; Zeke Miller in Washington; and Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report.

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  • Georgia school shooting highlights fears about classroom cellphone bans

    Georgia school shooting highlights fears about classroom cellphone bans

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    Huddling for safety in classrooms as gunfire rang out, students at Apalachee High School texted or called their parents to let them know what was happening and send what they thought could be their final messages. One student texted her mother to say she loved her, adding, “I’m sorry I’m not the best daughter.”

    The Georgia school shooting that left four dead and nine injured last week was every parent’s worst nightmare, and one that highlights potential downsides to efforts among states, school districts and federal lawmakers to ban or restrict access to cellphones in classrooms.

    The moves to restrict phone use in schools have been driven by concerns about the impact screentime has on children’s mental health and complaints from teachers that cellphones have become a constant distraction in the classroom. But those opposed to the bans say they cut off a lifeline parents have to make sure their children are safe during school shootings or other emergencies.

    “The fact of the matter is parents and families cannot rely on schools to effectively communicate with us in times of emergency, and this has happened time and again,” said Keri Rodrigues, president of the National Parents Union, an education advocacy group. “There’s a whole host of reasons why parents are deeply concerned about whether or not they’re going to get timely information about whether or not their kids are safe.”

    Nationally, 77% of U.S. schools say they prohibit cellphones at school for non-academic use, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. But that number is misleading. It does not mean students are following those bans or all those schools are enforcing them.

    The restrictions have been trumpeted by both Republican and Democratic governors who rarely agree on other issues.

    In Arkansas, GOP Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders launched a program for school districts to apply for grants to purchase pouches for students to keep their phones in during the school day. In California, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom has urged school districts to restrict cellphone use and is weighing whether to sign legislation that would require schools to enact restrictions.

    “I’d hate to see another school shooting be the reason that we bring TVs into the classroom and then disrupt our children’s education,” Newsom said Friday. “Because, in essence, that’s what a cellphone is equivalent to — bringing a TV into the classroom and disrupting the ability to get quality academic time.”

    But for many students caught in the Apalachee shooting, having access to their phones was the only way they could communicate with loved ones during moments they feared could be their last.

    “I love you. I love you so much. Ma I love you,” Junior Julie Sandoval texted her mother. “I’m sorry I’m not the best daughter. I love you.”

    Nearby, Sandoval said, another student was on the phone telling their mother, “They’re shooting up the school! They’re shooting up the school!”

    But advocates of school phone restrictions warn that allowing access to phones during shootings or other emergencies could put students in even more danger.

    “What’s even more important to me is their safety,” said Kim Whitman, co-founder of the Phone-Free Schools Movement, a group that advocates for schools to adopt policies keeping cellphones off and away from students. “If my child was on the phone with me and they missed guidance from the teacher because they were distracted by their phone and they weren’t safe, that’s a worse scenario in my mind.”

    Whitman said she understands the concerns about keeping parents informed and that’s why a key part for any phone-free school is being proactive in communicating about emergencies.

    Balancing safety and parents’ concerns guided a cellphone ban at Grand Island Senior High, the largest high school in Nebraska, which rolled out a new policy in January that requires students to keep phones out of sight and in their bags or pockets, silenced or off during school hours.

    “One of the essential questions that parents asked us was, ‘What if Sally or Johnny doesn’t have their phone if, God forbid, an active shooting happens or there is some sort of crisis in the building?’” said Jeff Gilbertson, the school’s then-principal who now runs leadership training at the state Board of Education.

    But the school does lockdown training to remind students of the dangers that phones can cause during emergencies.

    “We coach our kids to keep phones silenced. You don’t want to be talking on the phone when we’re in lockdown, because that would reveal your location to an active shooter,” he said.

    Students in other school shootings have used cellphones to alert authorities or their parents. During the 2022 school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, that killed 21 people, a fourth-grader begged for help in a series of 911 calls. Students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, sent parents and posted chilling videos during the 2018 shooting that killed 17 people.

    The Apalachee school shooting was a painful reminder for Brandi Scire of why she got a cellphone for her daughter, now a high school sophomore in Broward County, Florida. Both her children went to schools nearby Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School during that mass shooting.

    Scire’s son’s school was on lockdown and thought it was a drill until she texted him on his phone. Scire purchased a cellphone for her daughter the following year because of that.

    Broward County schools now require students to keep their phones stored away and in airplane mode, but Scire has told her daughter to keep her phone on and with her.

    “It’s not about me texting my daughter during regular school or anything like that,” Scire said. “It’s a safety measure and I’m sorry, I cannot let that go.”

    ___

    This story was updated to correct that the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, happened in 2022, not 2020.

    ___

    Associated Press writers Jeff Amy in Winder, Georgia, Sophie Austin in Sacramento, California, and Jocelyn Gecker in San Francisco contributed to this report.

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  • San Francisco goes after websites that make AI deepfake nudes of women and girls

    San Francisco goes after websites that make AI deepfake nudes of women and girls

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    Nearly a year after AI-generated nude images of high school girls upended a community in southern Spain, a juvenile court this summer sentenced 15 of their classmates to a year of probation.

    But the artificial intelligence tool used to create the harmful deepfakes is still easily accessible on the internet, promising to “undress any photo” uploaded to the website within seconds.

    Now a new effort to shut down the app and others like it is being pursued in California, where San Francisco this week filed a first-of-its-kind lawsuit that experts say could set a precedent but will also face many hurdles.

    “The proliferation of these images has exploited a shocking number of women and girls across the globe,” said David Chiu, the elected city attorney of San Francisco who brought the case against a group of widely visited websites based in Estonia, Serbia, the United Kingdom and elsewhere.

    “These images are used to bully, humiliate and threaten women and girls,” he said in an interview with The Associated Press. “And the impact on the victims has been devastating on their reputation, mental health, loss of autonomy, and in some instances, causing some to become suicidal.”

    The lawsuit brought on behalf of the people of California alleges that the services broke numerous state laws against fraudulent business practices, nonconsensual pornography and the sexual abuse of children. But it can be hard to determine who runs the apps, which are unavailable in phone app stores but still easily found on the internet.

    Contacted late last year by the AP, one service claimed by email that its “CEO is based and moves throughout the USA” but declined to provide any evidence or answer other questions. The AP is not naming the specific apps being sued in order to not promote them.

    “There are a number of sites where we don’t know at this moment exactly who these operators are and where they’re operating from, but we have investigative tools and subpoena authority to dig into that,” Chiu said. “And we will certainly utilize our powers in the course of this litigation.”

    Many of the tools are being used to create realistic fakes that “nudify” photos of clothed adult women, including celebrities, without their consent. But they’ve also popped up in schools around the world, from Australia to Beverly Hills in California, typically with boys creating the images of female classmates that then circulate widely through social media.

    In one of the first widely publicized cases last September in Almendralejo, Spain, a physician whose daughter was among a group of girls victimized last year and helped bring it to the public’s attention said she’s satisfied by the severity of the sentence their classmates are facing after a court decision earlier this summer.

    But it is “not only the responsibility of society, of education, of parents and schools, but also the responsibility of the digital giants that profit from all this garbage,” Dr. Miriam al Adib Mendiri said in an interview Friday.

    She applauded San Francisco’s action but said more efforts are needed, including from bigger companies like California-based Meta Platforms and its subsidiary WhatsApp, which was used to circulate the images in Spain.

    While schools and law enforcement agencies have sought to punish those who make and share the deepfakes, authorities have struggled with what to do about the tools themselves.

    In January, the executive branch of the European Union explained in a letter to a Spanish member of the European Parliament that the app used in Almendralejo “does not appear” to fall under the bloc’s sweeping new rules for bolstering online safety because it’s not a big enough platform.

    Organizations that have been tracking the growth of AI-generated child sexual abuse material will be closely following the San Francisco case.

    The lawsuit “has the potential to set legal precedent in this area,” said Emily Slifer, the director of policy at Thorn, an organization that works to combat the sexual exploitation of children.

    A researcher at Stanford University said that because so many of the defendants are based outside the U.S., it will be harder to bring them to justice.

    Chiu “has an uphill battle with this case, but may be able to get some of the sites taken offline if the defendants running them ignore the lawsuit,” said Stanford’s Riana Pfefferkorn.

    She said that could happen if the city wins by default in their absence and obtains orders affecting domain-name registrars, web hosts and payment processors “that would effectively shutter those sites even if their owners never appear in the litigation.”

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  • Google rolls out Pixel 9 phones earlier than usual as AI race with Apple heats up

    Google rolls out Pixel 9 phones earlier than usual as AI race with Apple heats up

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    MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (AP) — Google on Tuesday unveiled its next generation of Pixel phones, providing the maker of Android software a head start on the next iPhone in the race to bring more artificial-intelligence services to devices that have become people’s constant companions.

    The showcase held near Google’s Mountain View, California, headquarters took place two months earlier than when the company typically rolls out the next models in its Pixel phone line-up, which made its debut eight years ago.

    Although Pixel phones still represent a sliver of worldwide smartphone sales, they are still closely watched because they serve as Google’s platform for demonstrating the latest advances in the Android operating system that powers virtually every phone not made by Apple.

    And Google left little doubt that the Pixel 9 phones are meant to be a vessel for the AI technology that is expected to reshape the way people live and work, just as smartphones in general have done over the past 15 years.

    “We are obsessed with the idea that AI can make life easier and more productive for people,” Rick Osterloh, a Google senior vice president who oversees the Pixel phones, said Tuesday.

    That’s similar to the theme Apple is accentuating as it prepares to make AI a centerpiece of the iPhone.

    That moment is expect to arrive shortly after Labor Day when Apple traditionally takes the wraps off its next iPhone. The next model, the iPhone 16, is expected to be a big attraction because it will be equipped with the special chip needed to run a suite of AI features. Those features are designed to make Apple’s virtual assistant Siri smarter and perform a wide variety of other tasks that the company is promising will bring more joy to people’s lives, while still protecting their privacy.

    But Apple’s plans for AI remain hazier than Google’s vision, and Google is also rolling it out more broadly, including on Samsung phones powered by Android, said Emarketer analyst Grace Harmon. That may increase the pressure on Apple next month when it unveils the next iPhone.

    Not surprisingly, the Pixel 9 lineup is also packed with AI technology, a shift that the Google began last October when it released that year’s model. This generation of phones will be the first centered around the Gemini technology that’s become the focal point of its push into AI.

    Just as Apple is aiming to do with Siri, Google has designed its Gemini assistant to be more conversational, providing it with a range of 10 different human-like voices. It’s able to handle even more tasks, especially if users are willing to give it access to email and other documents.

    In another move mirroring Apple, Google is equipping the Pixel 9 lineup with a special chip enabling many AI-powered services to be handled on the device instead of remote data centers, with the aim of boosting personal privacy and security.

    In on-stage demonstrations Tuesday, the Gemini assistant speaking in a voice called “Ursa” was able to come up with helpful ideas for a fun way to use invisible ink when asked to come up with creative ideas.

    But the Gemini assistant also stumbled when shown a picture of a poster for singer Sabrina Carpenter, and when asked to let the questioner know when she was performing a concert in the area. After coming up blank on the first two requests, the Gemini assistant provided the requested information.

    The Pixel 9 phones also will feature “Magic Editor,” AI technology capable of completely transforming pictures by quickly and seamlessly adding a person who wasn’t in the original photo, or by altering the photo’s landscape or background.

    The more advanced Gemini Assistant will require a $20 monthly subscription that will be free for one year for all buyers of the next Pixel 9 phones, which will begin shipping Aug. 22 before becoming more widely available next month. The $240 benefit that Google is offering with a free one-year subscription to its Gemini Advanced service makes it more likely Apple won’t be able to charge for its suite of AI services, Emarketer’s Harmon said.

    The standard Pixel 9 will sell for $800, a $100 increase from last year, while the Pixel 9 Pro will sell for $1,000 or $1,100, depending on the size. The next generation of a foldable Pixel phone that Google introduced last year will sell for $1,800.

    The event also signaled that Google intends to conduct business as usual even as its internet empire is being threatened by a judge’s recent decision declaring its dominant search engine to be an illegal monopoly.

    The landmark ruling will trigger another round of court hearings to determine the measures that Google must take to create a more competitive market – a process that could result in Google being banned from engaging in some deals or, in the drastic scenario, being ordered to spin off its Android software or relinquish other key pillars bolstering the nearly $2 trillion market value of its corporate parent, Alphabet Inc.

    Besides its latest phones, Google also took aim at several other popular Apple products with its next Pixel Watch and wireless earbuds.

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  • California Gov. Gavin Newsom nudges school districts to restrict student cellphone use

    California Gov. Gavin Newsom nudges school districts to restrict student cellphone use

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    SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California Gov. Gavin Newsom sent letters Tuesday to school districts, urging them to restrict students’ use of smartphones on campus — a move that comes amid an ongoing nationwide debate about the mental health impacts of social media on teens and young children.

    In South Carolina, the State Board of Education took up guidelines to tell local districts to ban cellphone use during class time, but postponed a final vote until next month to take more time to craft the proposal.

    The efforts mark a broader push by officials in Utah, Florida, Louisiana and elsewhere to try to limit cellphone use in schools in order to reduce distractions in the classroom.

    But progress can be challenging. Cellphone bans are already in place at many schools. But they aren’t always enforced, and students often find ways to bend the rules, like hiding phones on their laps. Some parents have expressed concerns that bans could cut them off from their kids if there is an emergency.

    Districts should “act now” to help students focus at school by restricting their smartphone use, Newsom said in the letter. He also cited risks to the well-being of young people, a subject which garnered renewed attention in June after U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy called on Congress to require warning labels on social media platforms.

    “Every classroom should be a place of focus, learning, and growth,” Newsom, a Democrat, said in his letter. “Working together, educators, administrators, and parents can create an environment where students are fully engaged in their education, free from the distractions on the phones and pressures of social media.”

    Newsom said earlier this summer that he was planning to address student smartphone use, and his letter says he is working on it with the state Legislature. Tuesday’s announcement is not a mandate but nudges districts to act.

    Newsom signed a law in 2019 granting districts the authority to regulate student smartphone access during school hours.

    The debate over banning cellphones in schools to improve academic outcomes is not new. But officials often resort to bans as a solution rather than find ways to integrate digital devices as tools for learning, said Antero Garcia, a professor at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Education.

    “What I’m struck by is society’s inability to kind of move forward and find other kinds of solutions other than perpetually going back to this ‘Should we ban devices?’ conversation as the primary solution to something that hasn’t worked,” Garcia said.

    “Suggesting curtailing cellphone use in schools is a great thing to say,” he added. “What that means for the middle school teacher come next week when many schools start is a very different picture.”

    But some parents say banning cellphones would help their kids focus during class. Jessica French, a parent of a 16-year old and a 12-year-old living in the Northern California town of Palo Cedro, said her son has played games on a classmate’s phone while at school, further distracting him from learning. There should be a statewide ban on phones in class, she said.

    Nathalie Hrizi, a parent and teacher in San Francisco, said phone bans can help minimize distractions in class and that parents would still be able to get in touch with their children if needed by calling the school.

    Some schools and districts in California have already taken action. Los Angeles Unified, the second-largest school district in the nation with more than 500,000 students, recently passed a ban on student cellphone use during school hours that is set to take effect in January. District staff are working out how to implement the policy, but the goal is to avoid the onus of enforcing it to fall on teachers, school board Member Nick Melvoin said in a statement.

    Troy Flint, a spokesperson for the California School Boards Association, said decisions about student device access “are very specific to certain schools and certain communities” and should “be made at a local level.”

    It’s important to limit distractions in class, but cellphone bans that don’t have parameters could burden some students who are learning English as a second language, said Laurie Miles, a spokesperson for the California Association for Bilingual Education. For example, some teachers allow phones in class for help with translation, she said.

    South Carolina lawmakers this summer passed a one-year rule in the state budget requiring schools to ban student cellphone use or lose state funding. The schools have until the start of 2025 to get their specific rules and punishments for breaking them in place. Lawmakers will either have to make the cellphone-free requirement permanent or pass another proposal forcing school districts to keep the rule to continue getting state money.

    The state school board rushed to get the proposal together so districts would have time to tailor their own rules around the state guidelines.

    But Chairman David O’Shields said Tuesday there was no need to rush and give the districts “runny eggs” when a little more time could be spent working on the rules, getting more input from teachers, parents and administrators.

    “Let’s get these eggs right. I want a good omelet,” O’Shields said. He added that he didn’t want the rules to cause a situation where students “might take a suspended day” as punishment for not following the policy “when they need to be in the classroom.”

    There are questions about whether to ban cellphones during bus rides or field trips or only during class time.

    A brief survey of South Carolina teachers in May showed 92% supported limiting cellphone access in classrooms and 55% wanted a total ban. The survey from Education Superintendent Ellen Weaver also found 83% of teachers think cellphones are a daily distraction to learning, the Education Department wrote in a memo to the board.

    ___

    Associated Press writer Jeffrey Collins contributed to this report from West Columbia, South Carolina, and video journalist Terry Chea contributed from San Francisco. Austin is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow Austin on X: @sophieadanna

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  • Google rolls out Pixel 9 phones earlier than usual as AI race with Apple heats up

    Google rolls out Pixel 9 phones earlier than usual as AI race with Apple heats up

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    MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Google on Tuesday unveiled its next generation of Pixel phones, providing the maker of Android software a head start on the next iPhone in the race to bring more artificial-intelligence services to devices that have become people’s constant companions.

    The showcase held near Google’s Mountain View, California, headquarters took place two months earlier than when the company typically rolls out the next models in its Pixel phone line-up, which made its debut eight years ago.

    Although Pixel phones still represent a sliver of worldwide smartphone sides, they are still closely watched because they serve as Google’s platform for demonstrating the latest advances in the Android operating system that powers virtually every phone not made by Apple.

    And Google left little doubt that the Pixel 9 phones are meant to be a vessel for the AI technology that is expected to reshape the way people live and work, just as smartphones in general have done over the past 15 years.

    “We are obsessed with the idea that AI can make life easier and more productive for people,” Rick Osterloh, a Google senior vice president who oversees the Pixel phones, said Tuesday.

    That’s similar to the theme Apple is accentuating as it prepares to make AI a centerpiece of the iPhone.

    That moment is expect to arrive shortly after Labor Day when Apple traditionally takes the wraps off its next iPhone. The next model, the iPhone 16, is expected to be a big attraction because it will be equipped with the special chip needed to run a suite of AI features. Those features are designed to make Apple’s virtual assistant Siri smarter and perform a wide variety of other tasks that the company is promising will make people’s lives easier, while still protecting their privacy.

    Not surprisingly, the Pixel 9 lineup is also packed with AI technology, a shift that the Google began last October when it released that year’s model. This generation of phones will be the first centered around the Gemini technology that’s become the focal point of its push into AI.

    Just as Apple is aiming to do with Siri, Google has designed its Gemini assistant to be more conversational, providing it with a range of 10 different human-like voices. It’s able to handle even more tasks, especially if users are willing to give it access to email and other documents.

    In another move mirroring Apple, Google is equipping the Pixel 9 lineup with a special chip enabling many AI-powered services to be handled on the device instead of remote data centers, with the aim of boosting personal privacy and security.

    In on-stage demonstrations Tuesday, the Gemini assistant speaking in a voice called “Ursa” was able to come up with helpful ideas for a fun way to use invisible ink when asked to come up with creative ideas.

    But the Gemini assistant also stumbled when shown a picture of a poster for singer Sabrina Carpenter, and when asked to let the questioner know when she was performing a concert in the area. After coming up blank on the first two requests, the Gemini assistant provided the requested information.

    The Pixel 9 phones also will feature “Magic Editor,” AI technology capable of completely transforming pictures by quickly and seamlessly adding a person who wasn’t in the original photo, or by altering the photo’s landscape or background.

    The more advanced Gemini Assistant will require a monthly subscription that will be free for one year for all buyers of the next Pixel 9 phones, which will begin shipping Aug. 22 before becoming more widely available next month.

    The standard Pixel 9 will sell for $800, a $100 increase from last year, while the Pixel 9 Pro will sell for $1,000 or $1,100, depending on the size. The next generation of a foldable Pixel phone that Google introduced last year will sell for $1,800.

    The event also signaled that Google intends to conduct business as usual even as its internet empire is being threatened by a judge’s recent decision declaring its dominant search engine to be an illegal monopoly.

    The landmark ruling will trigger another round of court hearings to determine the measures that Google must take to create a more competitive market – a process that could result in Google being banned from engaging in some deals or, in the drastic scenario, being ordered to spin off its Android software or relinquish other key pillars bolstering the nearly $2 trillion market value of its corporate parent, Alphabet Inc.

    Besides its latest phones, Google also took aim at several other popular Apple products with its next Pixel Watch and wireless earbuds.

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  • California Gov. Gavin Newsom nudges school districts to restrict student cellphone use

    California Gov. Gavin Newsom nudges school districts to restrict student cellphone use

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    SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California and South Carolina could become the next states to limit cellphone use in schools, with state officials planning to take up the issue Tuesday.

    California Gov. Gavin Newsom is sending letters to school districts, urging them to restrict students’ use of smartphones on campus. And the South Carolina State Board of Education is expected to approve guidelines Tuesday on limiting student phone access.

    The efforts mark a broader push by officials in Utah, Florida, Louisiana and elsewhere to try to limit cellphone use in schools in order to reduce distractions in the classroom — and address the impacts of social media on the mental health of children and teens.

    But progress can be challenging. Cellphone bans are already in place at many schools, but they aren’t always enforced.

    Districts should “act now” to help students focus at school by restricting their smartphone use, Newsom said in the letter. He also cited risks to the well-being of young people, a subject which garnered renewed attention in June after U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy called on Congress to require warning labels on social media platforms.

    “Every classroom should be a place of focus, learning, and growth,” the Democrat said in his letter. “Working together, educators, administrators, and parents can create an environment where students are fully engaged in their education, free from the distractions on the phones and pressures of social media.”

    Newsom said earlier this summer that he was planning to address student smartphone use, and his letter says he is working on it with the state Legislature. Tuesday’s announcement is not a mandate but nudges districts to act.

    Newsom signed a law in 2019 granting districts the authority to regulate student smartphone access during school hours.

    The debate over banning cellphones in schools to improve academic outcomes is not new. But officials often resort to bans as a solution rather than find ways to integrate digital devices as tools for learning, said Antero Garcia, a professor at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Education.

    “What I’m struck by is society’s inability to kind of move forward and find other kinds of solutions other than perpetually going back to this ‘Should we ban devices?’ conversation as the primary solution to something that hasn’t worked,” Garcia said.

    “Suggesting curtailing cellphone use in schools is a great thing to say,” he added. “What that means for the middle school teacher come next week when many schools start is a very different picture.”

    Some schools and districts in California have already taken action. The Santa Barbara Unified and Los Angeles Unified school districts passed bans on student cellphone use in recent years.

    But some school board advocates say the state should not go further by passing a blanket ban on cellphone use. That decision should be left up to districts, said Troy Flint, spokesperson for the California School Boards Association.

    “Cellphone usage and social media usage on campus is certainly a serious issue and one that deserves a close examination,” Flint said. “But those decisions are very specific to certain schools and certain communities, and they need to be made at a local level.”

    There is no cure-all for protecting students from the risks posed by smartphones, but the state is “opening up a conversation” on how districts could act, said David Goldberg, president of the California Teachers Association.

    “It makes sense for us as adults to be looking and trying to take care of students and allow them to have safe spaces to learn,” he said. “How we do it is also very important — that we make sure that we bring students into these conversations and educators into these conversations.”

    ___

    Austin is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow Austin on X: @sophieadanna

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  • Amazon Prime Day deals are almost here. Should you take advantage of them?

    Amazon Prime Day deals are almost here. Should you take advantage of them?

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    NEW YORK — It’s summertime, and the bargains seem easy at a time when many consumer prices are high.

    July sales events have become a seasonal revenue driver for the retail industry since Amazon launched its first Prime Day back in 2015. While consumers may be enticed by the advertised can’t-miss savings on some products, personal finance experts say shoppers should be careful not to fall for potentially misleading marketing or give in to impulse buys.

    Amazon has drummed up expectations in recent weeks for its 10th Prime Day event, which will be held on Tuesday and Wednesday and is open only to customers who pay $14.99 per month, or $139 per year, to receive free shipping and other perks as Prime members.

    Rival retailers tried in the past to capture some of the Prime Day excitement by offering their own discounts during the two-day event. This year, Walmart, Target, Kohl’s, and newcomers TikTok Shop and Temu launched summer promotions ahead of Amazon, hoping to siphon off some of the e-commerce giant’s savings-hungry shoppers. Meanwhile, Macy’s will be rolling out what it calls its “best summer deals” during an eight-day discount event that begins on Tuesday.

    July sales help retailers attract customers who are looking to get a head start on back-to-school shopping, which is the industry’s second-most important shopping season behind the winter holiday period. The markdowns also pull in some discretionary spending from shoppers who’ve had their eyes on gadgets, household products and seasonal items, such as a bikini or a new summer dress.

    Discounts can help retailers combat “a summer lull in retail spending” as consumers shift their spending to summer vacations and services, like going out to eat at restaurants, according to John Mercer, the head of global research at Coresight Research.

    “It drives a bit of excitement in that mid-year period,” when retailers may otherwise struggle to generate more revenue, Mercer said. Companies also have relied on discounts to drive consumer spending during the recent period of inflation and high interest rates, he said.

    Amazon doesn’t disclose how much revenue it pulls in from Prime Day, but it has given some indications of its success. The company said last year’s event resulted in the “single largest sales day” in the company’s history, with customers purchasing more than 375 million items.

    An estimate from market research firm Emarketer indicated Amazon’s global sales on Prime Day went up to $12.5 billion in 2023. The firm forecasts sales to jump roughly 7% this year.

    It depends on who you ask.

    Retailers hype up their promotions to pull people in. But the New York Times-owned product review website Wirecutter published an article this month saying most of Amazon’s early deals this year so far “stink.”

    Santa Clara University business professor Kirthi Kalyanam, who is writing a book about Amazon, said Prime Day offers have been good, historically. That’s because the company was able to source discounts from well-known brands such as Apple and to incentivize third-party sellers to lower their prices by promising to feature them prominently on the Amandon website, according to Halyanam.

    But Prime Day discounts may matter less these days because customers are getting accustomed to the ultra-cheap products sold by Amazon competitors Shein and Temu, which were both founded in China.

    “Many of (the) deals may not be as competitive compared to Temu and Shien,” Kalyanam said.

    At the same time, he noted rival retailers will most likely be looking at Amazon’s prices and trying to match them overnight. Last week, he said he saw Best Buy discount two products after Amazon revealed some of its early deals.

    Consumer data company Numerator reported that a majority of the roughly 5,000 Prime Day shoppers it surveyed after last year’s event saw product discounts of up to 40%. Survey respondents said they saw a quarter of items selling at a discount of 60% or more.

    Some shopping experts have said that some past Prime discounts were not as big as they appeared.

    If you’re watching your budget, personal finance experts say you should exercise caution before you buy.

    “Avoid the false sense of urgency of manufactured holidays,” advises Mark Elliot, chief customer officer at financial services company LendingClub. “The idea that ‘The more you spend, the more you save’ — that’s just definitionally not true.”

    Dan Egan, a vice president at financial advising and investment company Betterment, says shoppers should make a list of what they need before the sales begin to be intentional about purchases. He also encourages consumers to avoid shopping late at night or out of boredom.

    “Once you have a list, it’s less likely you’ll get distracted by things you don’t need,” Egan said. “If that list contains almost nothing, I would say to delete the (retailers’) apps off your phone for the next week or two. Or you’re going to get lots of notifications.”

    Any shopper already carrying a credit card balance should keep in mind that the interest paid on that balance could end up cancelling out any perceived savings from a summer sale purchase, he added.

    “A deal is not a deal if you have to pay interest on it,” Egan said.

    While it may make sense for shoppers to try out free or temporary memberships to qualify for the best deals during the summer sales, those programs typically charge a fee to the customer’s credit card on file after a short period of time, noted Erin Witte, the Consumer Federation of America’s director of consumer protection.

    “Set a calendar reminder to cancel if you don’t want to go through with that subscription,” Witte said. “Think about it right at the beginning. And remember that these companies design this product to make it easy to sign up, but more difficult to cancel.”

    Consumer Reports also offers a few tips: Download Amazon’s app, sign-up for invite-only deals available for a select group of shoppers, and join the waitlist on limited-time offers that are already sold out.

    Filling up an online Amazon cart is tempting for Prime members since they are paying for access to Prime Day deals. But it’s always a smart idea to compare prices across multiple websites before completing a purchase.

    Unlike Prime Day offers, Walmart’s discount event this month was open to everyone. However, the company sweetened the deal for its Walmart+ members by offering them early access.

    Target only offered discounts to shoppers enrolled in its Target Circle loyalty program and used the weeklong event to promote a new membership program that aims to rejuvenate sales and traffic.

    TikTok Shop, the e-commerce arm of the popular video-sharing app, opened its summer sales event to everyone. The event started on July 9 and runs until Wednesday.

    _______

    The Associated Press receives support from Charles Schwab Foundation for educational and explanatory reporting to improve financial literacy. The independent foundation is separate from Charles Schwab and Co. Inc. The AP is solely responsible for its journalism.

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  • Germany to bar Chinese companies’ components from core parts of its 5G networks

    Germany to bar Chinese companies’ components from core parts of its 5G networks

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    BERLIN — Germany will bar the use of critical components made by Chinese companies Huawei and ZTE in core parts of the country’s 5G networks in two steps starting in 2026, the nation’s top security official said Thursday.

    Germany, which has Europe’s biggest economy, has long mulled what to do about components made by Chinese suppliers in its new-generation cellphone networks.

    Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said critical components from Huawei and ZTE will be barred from 5G core networks by the end of 2026, while “critical management systems” from the two manufacturers in 5G access and transport networks must be replaced by the end of 2029.

    The decision follows negotiations in recent weeks with Deutsche Telekom, Vodafone and Telefonica, which operate Germany’s 5G networks, and agreements will be signed with all three companies, the Interior Ministry said.

    “We have examined the risks from critical components manufactured by Huawei and ZTE in German 5G cellphone networks very carefully,” Faeser said as she announced the “clear and strict agreement” with German operators.

    “With this, we are protecting the central nervous systems of Germany as a business location — and we are protecting the communication of citizens, companies and the state,” she said. “We must reduce security risks and, unlike in the past, avoid one-sided dependencies.”

    Today’s threats underline the significance of secure telecommunications infrastructure, particularly “with a view to dangers from sabotage and espionage,” Faeser said.

    “There is no specific evidence or scenario that Huawei’s technology has cyber security risks,” the company said late Thursday in a statement, adding that it “will continue to promote the improvement and progress of cyber security, and promote the construction of mobile networks and digitalization in Germany.”

    The United States in recent years successfully pushed European allies including Britain and Sweden to ban or restrict Huawei equipment in their phone networks over fears Beijing could use it for cybersnooping or sabotaging critical communications infrastructure — allegations Huawei has denied repeatedly. Japan, Australia, New Zealand and Canada have taken similar action.

    German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government last year drew up a strategy for relations with China that refers to a “systemic rivalry” with the Asian power and a need to reduce risks of economic dependency, but highlights Berlin’s desire to work with Beijing on challenges such as climate change and maintain trade ties. The strategy drew criticism from Beijing.

    Scholz visited China in April on his second trip to the country since he took office at the end of 2021.

    Asked about Thursday’s expected announcement at a daily briefing in Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said that Huawei and other Chinese companies have been building high-quality infrastructure for Europe and creating many jobs, and “there is no evidence that they endanger the national security of European countries.”

    “Politicizing economic, trade, and sci-tech issues will only undermine normal technical exchanges and cooperation and is not in the interest of any party,” he said.

    Mutual suspicion between Western countries and China has mounted since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022.

    On Wednesday, NATO allies including Germany called China a “decisive enabler” of Russia’s war and expressed concerns over Beijing’s nuclear arsenal and its capabilities in space. Beijing responded by accusing NATO of seeking security at the expense of others and told the alliance not to bring the same “chaos” to Asia.

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  • State passes bill encouraging school districts to ban students’ phone use during day

    State passes bill encouraging school districts to ban students’ phone use during day

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    HARRISBURG, Pa. — Pennsylvania’s Senate on Wednesday approved a bill to encourage school districts to start a pilot program that effectively bans students’ use of cellphones during the school day in an effort to improve their mental health and academic performance.

    The bill, which passed 45-5, would authorize grants to school districts to buy locking bags after the district creates a policy requiring students to leave their phones in such bags for the whole school day. It now goes to the state House for consideration.

    The bill’s sponsor, Republican state Sen. Ryan Aument of Lancaster, said he hopes that limits on phone use will result in improvements in students’ mental health and academic performance.

    “Kids spend so much time on social media and using their smartphones that it’s taking a toll on them mentally, emotionally and academically. Smartphone restrictions have proved successful in reversing these trends,” Aument said.

    Under the bill, the policy must provide exemptions for students who have a documented medical condition that requires them to use a cellphone. Participating school districts must track changes over two school years in student mental health, bullying, violence and academic performance.

    Grants would be awarded by the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency, and separate legislation would be required to set grant amounts and devote money to the purpose.

    Most schools already have rules regulating student phone use. But a growing number of state officials have begun endorsing school cellphone bans, and such legislation is emerging in other states.

    Last year, Florida became the first state to crack down, passing a law requiring public schools to ban student cellphone use during class time and block access to social media on district Wi-Fi networks. Some districts went further and banned phones for the entire school day.

    California allows school districts to limit or ban the use of smartphones by students while at school, and the Los Angeles Unified School District board voted last month for the district to develop such a policy.

    The Pennsylvania bill’s passage in the state Senate comes two weeks after U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy called on Congress to require warning labels on social media platforms and their effects on young people.

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  • One Tech Tip: Too many passwords to remember? Try using a password manager

    One Tech Tip: Too many passwords to remember? Try using a password manager

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    LONDON — Everyone has too many passwords. The credentials we need to remember to navigate online life keep multiplying, not just for frequently used email, banking, social media, Netflix and Spotify logins, but also, say, the little-known e-commerce site you’re not sure you’ll buy from again.

    According to some unscientific studies, the average person has hundreds of passwords. That’s a lot to keep track of. You might be tempted to recycle them, but it’s one of the bad password habits that cybersecurity experts warn against.

    Instead, use a password manager. They’ve been around for a while and can be useful tools to keep on top of your credentials. But they can also be intimidating for those who aren’t tech-savvy.

    Here’s a guide on how to use them:

    Many people just use the same password for all their online accounts, mainly because it’s the most convenient thing to do.

    Don’t!

    If your credentials are caught in a cyber breach, the hackers could try using the stolen passwords to get into other services.

    Other no-nos: Using easily guessed information like birthdays, names of family members, favorite sports teams, or simple phrases like abc123.

    The best strategy, experts say, is to use a different password for each account, the longer and more complex the better, backed up by two-factor authentication where possible.

    But it’s impossible to remember all those various codes. So let a password manager do the job.

    The basic concept is simple: Your passwords are stored securely in a digital vault. When you need to access an online service, it auto-fills the login and password fields. The only thing you’ll need to remember is a single password to open the password manager.

    Most password managers have a smartphone app that works with mobile browsers and other apps and can be opened with a thumbprint or facial ID scan. If you’re using a computer, you can also log in to your password vault through a browser plug-in or by going to a website.

    A good password manager should also be able to generate complex passwords with letters, numbers and symbols, for whenever you’re setting up a new account. And it should also recognize that you’re signing into an online service for the first time and ask if you want to save the credentials you’ve entered.

    Password managers can also help you avoid falling prey to phishing scams. Those deceptive emails from fraudsters trying to trick you into clicking a link to a phony website designed to harvest login details? A password manager won’t automatically fill in the details if the web address doesn’t match the one linked to the saved password.

    They don’t just store passwords. You can save bank and credit card PINs, for example. Many also support passkeys, a new technology that companies like Google have been rolling out as a safer alternative to passwords.

    There are dozens of password managers on the market, so it can be hard to figure out what’s best for you.

    Better-known platforms include 1Password, Bitwarden, Dashlane, Bitdefender, Nordpass, Keeper and Keepass.

    Check out the many tech review websites that have conducted in-depth testing and compiled rankings of the most popular services. If you want to nerd out, users on Reddit have drawn up spreadsheets with side-by-side comparisons. Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre has a buyer’s guide.

    Most services have free and paid versions. The paid options typically cost a few dollars a month while the free offerings tend to have restrictions like allowing only one device to be logged in at a time or limiting the number of passwords you can store.

    If cost is a factor, Bitwarden’s free service gets top marks from reviewers, though it’s less polished and not as immediately intuitive to use.

    A good password manager will work across different devices and platforms, with apps for Windows and Mac computers and iOs and Android devices, and plugins for browsers like Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Edge, Brave and Opera

    There are also basic browser-based password managers as well as Apple’s iCloud Keychain for Macs and iOS devices. The iPhone maker is aiming more directly at the market with a new Passwords app that will roll out in the fall.

    Cybersecurity worries around password managers flared up after one service, Lastpass, reported a security breach, leading experts to recommend avoiding it.

    Don’t let that put you off. For one thing, experts advise that saving credentials in a password manager is much safer than letting, for example, e-commerce sites do it.

    Good password managers use strong encryption that prevents anyone else from seeing your data.

    Many services use AES-256 encryption, which is considered the most secure type “and impossible to be brute-forced by today’s technology,” said Pieter Arntz, senior malware intelligence researcher at cybersecurity company Malwarebytes.

    Strong encryption “ensures that even if your computer or your password manager is compromised, the attacker cannot simply read all your passwords, because they are stored encoded and the attacker will need the master password to decode them,” Arntz said.

    A good password manager should also hold regular security audits and inform users quickly if there’s a breach.

    Many services store data in the cloud. If you’re worried about that, some let you store them only on your local device, but it can be a complicated process.

    ___

    Is there a tech challenge you need help figuring out? Write to us at onetechtip@ap.org with your questions.

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  • Do You Know The Marijuana Emoji

    Do You Know The Marijuana Emoji

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    It is the modern version of hieroglyphics and they have taken over written communication, but do you know what is used as a sub for marijuana?

    Humans have used images to represent thoughts, feelings, actions and more since almost the beginning of mankind. From the French cave drawings to the Egyptian hieroglyphics, history is littered with picture codes. After having fallen out for centuries, it has come roaring back with emojis. And just to be clear, they only entered the world in 1999. If you are 25, you have always lived in a world with emojis. But do you know the marijuana emoji? It is a bit of a secret for those in the know.

    RELATED: People Who Use Weed Also Do More Of Another Fun Thing

    Almost immediately, users begin coming up with a secret language using the clear emojis to mean other things. The peach, eggplant, raindrops, truck, and hammer all quickly were swept into a private language which has become mainstream.  Coupling emojis together reads like an ancient tablet, and can be quite a story if you know what it means.

    Since there is no marijuana emoji and Apple seems not to be premiering one soon. This despite having a glass of bourbon, a martini, champagne glasses, wine, a champagne bottle in more…and little gummy or plant is not on the timeline. While there are a few contenders, the broccoli emoji is the winner. The herb, the potted plant and the leaf fluttering in the wind are among the others, but broccoli is the most commonly used.

    When it comes to most used in general, love overcomes weed. Smiling Face with Heart Eyes is the second most popular (behind the favorite Face with Tears of Joy), followed by Face Blowing a Kiss, with a simple heart emoji the fourth most-popular.

    RELATED: 7 Ways To Enjoy Cannabis If You Don’t Want to Smoke

    Roughly  95% of Internet users have used an emoji and over 10 billion emojis are sent daily. While the gun is no longer an option,here are over 3,019 official emojis. The Unicode Consortium approves the new emojis and are responsible for your selection.

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  • Keep Business Private with a Second Phone Number for $20 | Entrepreneur

    Keep Business Private with a Second Phone Number for $20 | Entrepreneur

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    Disclosure: Our goal is to feature products and services that we think you’ll find interesting and useful. If you purchase them, Entrepreneur may get a small share of the revenue from the sale from our commerce partners.

    Busy entrepreneurs and business leaders interact with a wide range of people through meetings, work trips, social engagements, and more. Not every connection is well suited for access to your personal or even business messages and phone lines. To help keep your business and personal interests separate in a way that best suits you, consider a virtual phone number.

    During a special Memorial Day price drop that runs through 11:59 p.m. PT on May 31, you can get a Lifetime Virtual Number Subscription to a Hushed Private Phone Line for $19.99 (reg. $150). This included plan features a combination of 6,000 SMS or 1,000 phone minutes per year. And you can upgrade from there.

    When setting up a Hushed Private phone number, you can choose from any of hundreds of area codes available across the United States and Canada. It enables you to manage all communication made with that number through the app, and you can customize it with things like your own voicemail, call-forwarding settings, and more. Best, Hushed can be used on Wi-Fi, so you can manage or even have a phone number without ever using any data or getting your own mobile data plan.

    Hushed has an impressive rating of 4.6/5 stars on the App Store, while Tech Crunch called it “a viable, more lightweight alternative to something like Google Voice.”

    Before it’s too late, get your Lifetime Virtual Number Subscription to a Hushed Private Phone Line for $19.99 (reg. $150) with code ENJOY 20 at checkout through 11:59 p.m. PT on May 31

    StackSocial prices subject to change.

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  • Companies are trying to attract more smartphone users across Africa. But there are risks

    Companies are trying to attract more smartphone users across Africa. But there are risks

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    ACCRA, Ghana — Anita Akpeere prepared fried rice in her kitchen in Ghana’s capital as a flurry of notifications for restaurant orders lit up apps on her phone. “I don’t think I could work without a phone in my line of business,” she said, as requests came in for her signature dish, a traditional fermented dumpling.

    Internet-enabled phones have transformed many lives, but they can play a unique role in sub-Saharan Africa, where infrastructure and public services are among the world’s least developed, said Jenny Aker, a professor who studies the issue at Tufts University. At times, technology in Africa has leapfrogged gaps, including providing access to mobile money for people without bank accounts.

    Despite growing mobile internet coverage on the continent of 1.3 billion people, just 25% of adults in sub-Saharan Africa have access to it, according to Claire Sibthorpe, head of digital inclusion at the U.K.-based mobile phone lobbying group GSMA. Expense is the main barrier. The cheapest smartphone costs up to 95% of the monthly salary for the poorest 20% of the region’s population, Sibthorpe said.

    Literacy rates that are below the global average, and lack of services in many African languages — some 2,000 are spoken across the continent, according to The African Language Program at Harvard University — are other reasons why a smartphone isn’t a compelling investment for some.

    “If you buy a car, it’s because you can drive it,” said Alain Capo-Chichi, chief executive of CERCO Group, a company that has developed a smartphone that functions through voice command and is available in 50 African languages such as Yoruba, Swahili and Wolof.

    Even in Ghana, where the lingua franca is English, knowing how to use smartphones and apps can be a challenge for newcomers.

    One new company in Ghana is trying to close the digital gap. Uniti Networks offers financing to help make smartphones more affordable and coaches users to navigate its platform of apps.

    For Cyril Fianyo, a 64-year-old farmer in Ghana’s eastern Volta region, the phone has expanded his activities beyond calls and texts. Using his identity card, he registered with Uniti, putting down a deposit worth 340 Ghanaian Cedis ($25) for a smartphone and will pay the remaining 910 Cedis ($66) in installments.

    He was shown how to navigate apps that interested him, including a third-party farming app called Cocoa Link that offers videos of planting techniques, weather information and details about the challenges of climate change that have affected cocoa and other crops.

    Fianyo, who previously planted according to his intuition and rarely interacts with farming advisors, was optimistic that the technology would increase his yields.

    “I will know the exact time to plant because of the weather forecast,” he said.

    Kami Dar, chief executive of Uniti Networks, said the mobile internet could help address other challenges including accessing health care. The company has launched in five communities across Ghana with 650 participants and wants to reach 100,000 users within five years.

    Aker, the scholar, noted that the potential impact of mobile phones across Africa is immense but said there is limited evidence that paid health or agriculture apps are benefiting people there. She asserted that the only beneficial impacts are reminders to take medicine or get vaccinated.

    Having studied agricultural apps and their impact, she said it doesn’t seem that farmers are getting better prices or improving their income.

    Capo-Chichi from CERCO Group said a dearth of useful apps and content is another reason why more people in Africa aren’t buying smartphones.

    Dar said Uniti Networks learns from mistakes. In a pilot in northern Ghana designed to help cocoa farmers contribute to their pensions, there was high engagement but farmers didn’t find the app user-friendly and needed extra coaching. After the feedback, the pension provider changed the interface to improve navigation.

    Others are finding benefit with Uniti’s platform. Mawufemor Vitor, a church secretary in Hohoe, said one health app has assisted her to track her menstruation to help prevent pregnancy. And Fianyo, the farmer, has used the platform to find information on herbal medicine.

    But mobile phones are no substitute for investment in public services and infrastructure, Aker said.

    She also expressed concerns about the privacy of data in the hands of private technology providers and governments. With digital IDs in development in African nations such as Kenya and South Africa, this could pave the way for further abuses, Aker said.

    Uniti Networks is a for-profit business, paid for each customer that signs up for paying apps. Dar asserted that he was not targeting vulnerable populations to sell them unnecessary services and said Uniti only features apps that align with its idea of impact, with a focus on health, education, finance and agriculture.

    Dar said Uniti has rejected lucrative approaches from many companies including gambling firms. “Tech can be used for awful things,” he said.

    He acknowledged that Uniti tracks users on the platform to provide incentives, in the form of free data, and to provide feedback to app developers. He acknowledged that users’ health and financial data could be at threat from outside attack but said Uniti has decentralized data storage in an attempt to lessen the risk.

    Still, the potential to provide solutions can outweigh the risks, Aker said, noting two areas where the technology could be transformative: education and insurance.

    She said mobile phones could help overcome the illiteracy that still affects 773 million people worldwide according to UNESCO. Increased access to insurance, still not widely used in parts of Africa, could provide protection to millions who face shocks on the front lines of climate change and conflict.

    Back in Fianyo’s fields, his new smartphone has attracted curiosity. “This is something I would like to be part of,” said neighboring farmer Godsway Kwamigah.

    ___

    Thompson reported from Dakar, Senegal.

    ___

    The Associated Press receives financial support for global health and development coverage in Africa from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

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  • Companies are trying to attract more smartphone users across Africa. But there are risks

    Companies are trying to attract more smartphone users across Africa. But there are risks

    [ad_1]

    ACCRA, Ghana — Anita Akpeere prepared fried rice in her kitchen in Ghana’s capital as a flurry of notifications for restaurant orders lit up apps on her phone. “I don’t think I could work without a phone in my line of business,” she said, as requests came in for her signature dish, a traditional fermented dumpling.

    Internet-enabled phones have transformed many lives, but they can play a unique role in sub-Saharan Africa, where infrastructure and public services are among the world’s least developed, said Jenny Aker, a professor who studies the issue at Tufts University. At times, technology in Africa has leapfrogged gaps, including providing access to mobile money for people without bank accounts.

    Despite growing mobile internet coverage on the continent of 1.3 billion people, just 25% of adults in sub-Saharan Africa have access to it, according to Claire Sibthorpe, head of digital inclusion at the U.K.-based mobile phone lobbying group GSMA. Expense is the main barrier. The cheapest smartphone costs up to 95% of the monthly salary for the poorest 20% of the region’s population, Sibthorpe said.

    Literacy rates that are below the global average, and lack of services in many African languages — some 2,000 are spoken across the continent, according to The African Language Program at Harvard University — are other reasons why a smartphone isn’t a compelling investment for some.

    “If you buy a car, it’s because you can drive it,” said Alain Capo-Chichi, chief executive of CERCO Group, a company that has developed a smartphone that functions through voice command and is available in 50 African languages such as Yoruba, Swahili and Wolof.

    Even in Ghana, where the lingua franca is English, knowing how to use smartphones and apps can be a challenge for newcomers.

    One new company in Ghana is trying to close the digital gap. Uniti Networks offers financing to help make smartphones more affordable and coaches users to navigate its platform of apps.

    For Cyril Fianyo, a 64-year-old farmer in Ghana’s eastern Volta region, the phone has expanded his activities beyond calls and texts. Using his identity card, he registered with Uniti, putting down a deposit worth 340 Ghanaian Cedis ($25) for a smartphone and will pay the remaining 910 Cedis ($66) in installments.

    He was shown how to navigate apps that interested him, including a third-party farming app called Cocoa Link that offers videos of planting techniques, weather information and details about the challenges of climate change that have affected cocoa and other crops.

    Fianyo, who previously planted according to his intuition and rarely interacts with farming advisors, was optimistic that the technology would increase his yields.

    “I will know the exact time to plant because of the weather forecast,” he said.

    Kami Dar, chief executive of Uniti Networks, said the mobile internet could help address other challenges including accessing health care. The company has launched in five communities across Ghana with 650 participants and wants to reach 100,000 users within five years.

    Aker, the scholar, noted that the potential impact of mobile phones across Africa is immense but said there is limited evidence that paid health or agriculture apps are benefiting people there. She asserted that the only beneficial impacts are reminders to take medicine or get vaccinated.

    Having studied agricultural apps and their impact, she said it doesn’t seem that farmers are getting better prices or improving their income.

    Capo-Chichi from CERCO Group said a dearth of useful apps and content is another reason why more people in Africa aren’t buying smartphones.

    Dar said Uniti Networks learns from mistakes. In a pilot in northern Ghana designed to help cocoa farmers contribute to their pensions, there was high engagement but farmers didn’t find the app user-friendly and needed extra coaching. After the feedback, the pension provider changed the interface to improve navigation.

    Others are finding benefit with Uniti’s platform. Mawufemor Vitor, a church secretary in Hohoe, said one health app has assisted her to track her menstruation to help prevent pregnancy. And Fianyo, the farmer, has used the platform to find information on herbal medicine.

    But mobile phones are no substitute for investment in public services and infrastructure, Aker said.

    She also expressed concerns about the privacy of data in the hands of private technology providers and governments. With digital IDs in development in African nations such as Kenya and South Africa, this could pave the way for further abuses, Aker said.

    Uniti Networks is a for-profit business, paid for each customer that signs up for paying apps. Dar asserted that he was not targeting vulnerable populations to sell them unnecessary services and said Uniti only features apps that align with its idea of impact, with a focus on health, education, finance and agriculture.

    Dar said Uniti has rejected lucrative approaches from many companies including gambling firms. “Tech can be used for awful things,” he said.

    He acknowledged that Uniti tracks users on the platform to provide incentives, in the form of free data, and to provide feedback to app developers. He acknowledged that users’ health and financial data could be at threat from outside attack but said Uniti has decentralized data storage in an attempt to lessen the risk.

    Still, the potential to provide solutions can outweigh the risks, Aker said, noting two areas where the technology could be transformative: education and insurance.

    She said mobile phones could help overcome the illiteracy that still affects 773 million people worldwide according to UNESCO. Increased access to insurance, still not widely used in parts of Africa, could provide protection to millions who face shocks on the front lines of climate change and conflict.

    Back in Fianyo’s fields, his new smartphone has attracted curiosity. “This is something I would like to be part of,” said neighboring farmer Godsway Kwamigah.

    ___

    Thompson reported from Dakar, Senegal.

    ___

    The Associated Press receives financial support for global health and development coverage in Africa from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

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  • Illness took away her voice. AI created a replica she carries in her phone

    Illness took away her voice. AI created a replica she carries in her phone

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    PROVIDENCE, R.I. — The voice Alexis “Lexi” Bogan had before last summer was exuberant.

    She loved to belt out Taylor Swift and Zach Bryan ballads in the car. She laughed all the time — even while corralling misbehaving preschoolers or debating politics with friends over a backyard fire pit. In high school, she was a soprano in the chorus.

    Then that voice was gone.

    Doctors in August removed a life-threatening tumor lodged near the back of her brain. When the breathing tube came out a month later, Bogan had trouble swallowing and strained to say “hi” to her parents. Months of rehabilitation aided her recovery, but her speech is still impaired. Friends, strangers and her own family members struggle to understand what she is trying to tell them.

    In April, the 21-year-old got her old voice back. Not the real one, but a voice clone generated by artificial intelligence that she can summon from a phone app. Trained on a 15-second time capsule of her teenage voice — sourced from a cooking demonstration video she recorded for a high school project — her synthetic but remarkably real-sounding AI voice can now say almost anything she wants.

    She types a few words or sentences into her phone and the app instantly reads it aloud.

    “Hi, can I please get a grande iced brown sugar oat milk shaken espresso,” said Bogan’s AI voice as she held the phone out her car’s window at a Starbucks drive-thru.

    Experts have warned that rapidly improving AI voice-cloning technology can amplify phone scams, disrupt democratic elections and violate the dignity of people — living or dead — who never consented to having their voice recreated to say things they never spoke.

    It’s been used to produce deepfake robocalls to New Hampshire voters mimicking President Joe Biden. In Maryland, authorities recently charged a high school athletic director with using AI to generate a fake audio clip of the school’s principal making racist remarks.

    But Bogan and a team of doctors at Rhode Island’s Lifespan hospital group believe they’ve found a use that justifies the risks. Bogan is one of the first people — the only one with her condition — who have been able to recreate a lost voice with OpenAI’s new Voice Engine. Some other AI providers, such as the startup ElevenLabs, have tested similar technology for people with speech impediments and loss — including a lawyer who now uses her voice clone in the courtroom.

    “We’re hoping Lexi’s a trailblazer as the technology develops,” said Dr. Rohaid Ali, a neurosurgery resident at Brown University’s medical school and Rhode Island Hospital. Millions of people with debilitating strokes, throat cancer or neurogenerative diseases could benefit, he said.

    “We should be conscious of the risks, but we can’t forget about the patient and the social good,” said Dr. Fatima Mirza, another resident working on the pilot. “We’re able to help give Lexi back her true voice and she’s able to speak in terms that are the most true to herself.”

    Mirza and Ali, who are married, caught the attention of ChatGPT-maker OpenAI because of their previous research project at Lifespan using the AI chatbot to simplify medical consent forms for patients. The San Francisco company reached out while on the hunt earlier this year for promising medical applications for its new AI voice generator.

    Bogan was still slowly recovering from surgery. The illness started last summer with headaches, blurry vision and a droopy face, alarming doctors at Hasbro Children’s Hospital in Providence. They discovered a vascular tumor the size of a golf ball pressing on her brain stem and entangled in blood vessels and cranial nerves.

    “It was a battle to get control of the bleeding and get the tumor out,” said pediatric neurosurgeon Dr. Konstantina Svokos.

    The 10-hour length of the surgery coupled with the tumor’s location and severity damaged Bogan’s tongue muscles and vocal cords, impeding her ability to eat and talk, Svokos said.

    “It’s almost like a part of my identity was taken when I lost my voice,” Bogan said.

    The feeding tube came out this year. Speech therapy continues, enabling her to speak intelligibly in a quiet room but with no sign she will recover the full lucidity of her natural voice.

    “At some point, I was starting to forget what I sounded like,” Bogan said. “I’ve been getting so used to how I sound now.”

    Whenever the phone rang at the family’s home in the Providence suburb of North Smithfield, she would push it over to her mother to take her calls. She felt she was burdening her friends whenever they went to a noisy restaurant. Her dad, who has hearing loss, struggled to understand her.

    Back at the hospital, doctors were looking for a pilot patient to experiment with OpenAI’s technology.

    “The first person that came to Dr. Svokos’ mind was Lexi,” Ali said. “We reached out to Lexi to see if she would be interested, not knowing what her response would be. She was game to try it out and see how it would work.”

    Bogan had to go back a few years to find a suitable recording of her voice to “train” the AI system on how she spoke. It was a video in which she explained how to make a pasta salad.

    Her doctors intentionally fed the AI system just a 15-second clip. Cooking sounds make other parts of the video imperfect. It was also all that OpenAI needed — an improvement over previous technology requiring much lengthier samples.

    They also knew that getting something useful out of 15 seconds could be vital for any future patients who have no trace of their voice on the internet. A brief voicemail left for a relative might have to suffice.

    When they tested it for the first time, everyone was stunned by the quality of the voice clone. Occasional glitches — a mispronounced word, a missing intonation — were mostly imperceptible. In April, doctors equipped Bogan with a custom-built phone app that only she can use.

    “I get so emotional every time I hear her voice,” said her mother, Pamela Bogan, tears in her eyes.

    “I think it’s awesome that I can have that sound again,” added Lexi Bogan, saying it helped “boost my confidence to somewhat where it was before all this happened.”

    She now uses the app about 40 times a day and sends feedback she hopes will help future patients. One of her first experiments was to speak to the kids at the preschool where she works as a teaching assistant. She typed in “ha ha ha ha” expecting a robotic response. To her surprise, it sounded like her old laugh.

    She’s used it at Target and Marshall’s to ask where to find items. It’s helped her reconnect with her dad. And it’s made it easier for her to order fast food.

    Bogan’s doctors have started cloning the voices of other willing Rhode Island patients and hope to bring the technology to hospitals around the world. OpenAI said it is treading cautiously in expanding the use of Voice Engine, which is not yet publicly available.

    A number of smaller AI startups already sell voice-cloning services to entertainment studios or make them more widely available. Most voice-generation vendors say they prohibit impersonation or abuse, but they vary in how they enforce their terms of use.

    “We want to make sure that everyone whose voice is used in the service is consenting on an ongoing basis,” said Jeff Harris, OpenAI’s lead on the product. “We want to make sure that it’s not used in political contexts. So we’ve taken an approach of being very limited in who we’re giving the technology to.”

    Harris said OpenAI’s next step involves developing a secure “voice authentication” tool so that users can replicate only their own voice. That might be “limiting for a patient like Lexi, who had sudden loss of her speech capabilities,” he said. “So we do think that we’ll need to have high-trust relationships, especially with medical providers, to give a little bit more unfettered access to the technology.”

    Bogan has impressed her doctors with her focus on thinking about how the technology could help others with similar or more severe speech impediments.

    “Part of what she has done throughout this entire process is think about ways to tweak and change this,” Mirza said. “She’s been a great inspiration for us.”

    While for now she must fiddle with her phone to get the voice engine to talk, Bogan imagines an AI voice engine that improves upon older remedies for speech recovery — such as the robotic-sounding electrolarynx or a voice prosthesis — in melding with the human body or translating words in real time.

    She’s less sure about what will happen as she grows older and her AI voice continues to sound like she did as a teenager. Maybe the technology could “age” her AI voice, she said.

    For now, “even though I don’t have my voice fully back, I have something that helps me find my voice again,” she said.

    ___

    The Associated Press and OpenAI have a licensing and technology agreement that allows OpenAI access to part of AP’s text archives.

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  • Global smartphone shipments climb nearly 8% in 1st quarter as Samsung retakes the lead

    Global smartphone shipments climb nearly 8% in 1st quarter as Samsung retakes the lead

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    FILE – Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 Phones displayed in Seoul, South Korea, July 26, 2023. Global smartphone shipments rose nearly 8% in the first quarter, according to preliminary data from International Data Corp. It’s the third straight quarter of shipment growth and marks the return of Samsung to No. 1. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon, file)

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