The ad technology business is a “bloated industry that undermines brands’ value and remains at odds with consumer privacy and security,” Doc Searls accuses. Very shortly, however, the forthcoming General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will serve to correct these issues, the famed tech blogger suggests.  

TiVo is adding Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant to its DVR services. “The assistant will be able to do things like change the channel, skip commercials, jump back or forward, launch apps like Netflix, and more,” Gizmodo reports. “The company is not the only third-party DVR maker to have added support for Alexa.”

Around a dozen Google employees are reportedly resigning in protest over the search giant’s controversial military pilot program, dubbed Project Maven. “It’s been nearly three months since many Google employees -- and the public -- learned about the company’s decision to provide artificial intelligence to a controversial military pilot program,” Gizmodo writes.

Researchers have figured out how to send “secret audio instructions” through virtual assistants like Siri and Alexa, The New York Times reports. “Inside university labs, the researchers have been able to secretly activate the artificial intelligence systems on smartphones and smart speakers, making them dial phone numbers or open websites,” it writes. “In the wrong hands, the technology could be used to unlock doors, wire money or buy stuff online -- simply with music playing over the radio.”

In what appears to be a first, Carnegie Mellon plans to offer an AI-focused undergraduate degree. “The new undergrad offering will be part of Carnegie Mellon's School of Computer Science,” Engadget reports. “Students will still have to be admitted as part of the CS program and will only be able to choose whether to major in artificial intelligence in their second year.”

The once-influential social influence barometer Klout plans to shut down later this month. As Venture Beat reminds us: “The San Francisco-based startup, which had raised around $40 million in funding from some big-name investors, was acquired by social customer service company Lithium Technologies for a reported $200 million back in 2014.”

Amid fears that Google’s new Duplex voice assistant is smart enough to pass for a real human, the company is promising to build disclosures directly into the feature. “We are designing this feature with disclosure built in, and we'll make sure the system is appropriately identified,” a Google spokeswoman tells CNet.

People are freaking out over Google Duplex, the search giant’s new voice-based virtual assistant. “The company is placing robots in conversations with humans, without those people realizing,” Bloomberg writes. “The obvious question soon followed: Should AI software that’s smart enough to trick humans be forced to disclose itself.”

Medium will no longer let its publishing partners offer paid memberships. “About two dozen publishers are being affected by this change,” Nieman Lab reports, citing a Medium spokesperson. “Any publishers who asked for extra time before the shutdown got more time to deal with telling their paying members and try to move them elsewhere.”

Citing delays in the approval process, Apple just scrapped plans to build a $1 billion data center in Ireland. “Apple announced plans in February 2015 to build the facility in the rural western town of Athenry to take advantage of green energy sources nearby,” Reuters writes. “But a series of planning appeals, chiefly from two individuals, delayed its approval.”