Some news...

Apple to Scan Every Device for Child Abuse Content — But Experts Fear for Privacy

https://thehackernews.com/2021/08/apple-to-scan-every-device-for-child.html

"Apple on Thursday said it's introducing new child safety features in iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, and macOS as part of its efforts to limit the spread of Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) in the U.S."

"To that effect, the iPhone maker said it intends to begin client-side scanning of images shared via every Apple device for known child abuse content as they are being uploaded into iCloud Photos, in addition to leveraging on-device machine learning to vet all iMessage images sent or received by minor accounts (aged under 13) to warn parents of sexually explicit photos shared over the messaging platform."

"Furthermore, Apple also plans to update Siri and Search to stage an intervention when users try to perform searches for CSAM-related topics, alerting that the "interest in this topic is harmful and problematic.""

Now this is a huge privacy concern. It's one thing to scan messages and etc but on device scanning? That's a pretty big yikes. While Child Abuse is terrible, the implications of this is far reaching as you just know places like China will have a field day searching for whatever the heck they please when Apple rolls this out in those types of countries. Not a good move by Apple and this will have industry wide implications.

Valve is working with AMD to ensure Steam Deck is chill with Windows 11

https://www.pcgamer.com/steam-deck-windows-11-tpm-compatibility/

TPM users rejoice!

Linus has a longer video where he talks about the steam deck some more but this is their more casual stream

I do like his excitement and it does show he had quite the time limit. He still didn't discuss anymore performance but it does sound like it is still very powerful.

Samsung Odyssey Neo G9 Review - HOLY SH*T! (Mini LED | 240hz | 5K | 49")

The interesting thing about this is the Picture by Picture mode. So you could have say the left side of the screen displaying your PS5 and right side of the screen displaying your PC. Seeing that, it makes me intrigued. But at $2500 USD... Maybe slightly less so. Still, it these do eventually come down to their lower priced models so the future is bright.

I mean what could go wrong, Apple. Beacon of privacy lol. Always bundling their shit hiding behind a good cause. 

I never liked Apple due to their closed platform in the first place, but for a long time, I considered privacy one of their strong points (kind of). I don't anymore; the potential (i.e. eventual) implications of this range from bad to horrible.

I agree this is a problematic situation. I feel like almost everything has been said about this already, but I'll add that I feel the Mona Lisa comparison to be somewhat flawed. Mona Lisa still exists meaningfully even it's stricken, and it can be restored for the public at some point. Additionally, we're talking not about its creators but its owner, whereas with mods we're talking about creators themselves. It could lead to some interesting discussions, but it doesn't feel relevant to me, so I won't go further down that road.

There are a lot problems with Apple scanning for child abuse pictures, but one of the first ones that come to mind is: what are they going to do if they find them? I doubt they'll warn the authorities because, given that those pics/videos were obtained through an illegal search of a private property, no judge will accept them as valid evidence in a court case. So, again, what they'll do with it? Will they ban those users from using their services and lose customers?

And let's not forget about the cases where the algorithm may take a picture/vid for something it isn't.

It's not just the violation of your privacy that is a problem, but also what will Apple do with this information.

I also would have concern that this capability could be use to scan for other things especially in a country like china where let say a Winnie the Pooh film could get you thrown in jail.  No system full proof and this just seem way to easy for some one to figure out how to exploit and use for less noble goals as stopping child predator's.

That being said I think you wrong that apple could/would not give these report to out side sources.  I mean the picture they release (see Captain_Yuri post) shows they send the report to NCMEC (National Center for Missing & Exploited Children) where I assume it would be investigated by that organization.  Apple will just add it into the IOS 15 user agreement and then it be perfectly legal for them to search phone and give it to authorities.

As for the algorithm they already said each picture would be manually reviewed by a human before a report filed to NCMEC.  Worse job ever but it does resolve any issue with the algorithm being wrong.

I agree that, once introduced, it can be "easily" manipulated to search other things. And this is a very tempting prospect, and not just for governments.

I'm not sure updating the terms of service will be legally enough to make this legal because you own your phone, it's your property. And if that update is mandatory and not optional, you're not really giving your users the option to agree or not. For me, it's a grey area that lawyers and polititians will have to deal with sooner rather than later.

If Apple will have people reviewing the pics, they better start hiring lots of people. The police divisions that have the bad luck of dealing with this kind of crimes are the ones with more personal changes because everyone has a limit and, working there, that limit is reached very fast.

Reason why I used Mona Lisa is because it's creator has been dead for a very long time, and eventually the mod authors will pass in time, but their creations should be kept alive, just as we have preserved the painting. That's what I meant by it. 

It's fine, we don't have to go down that road and leave it as is. but at least we see the situation as problematic.

Hearing that Apple is going to scan every image on every phone is akin to opening Pandoras box. It's scary because not only does it give a sense of fear, that you are losing not only your privacy, but also opening a door that will likely lead to 1984 all over again. 

That door should never be opened, and Apple thinks it's fine to just kick it down.

Some more news

[DF] PS5 Firmware 2.0 Tested: M.2 SSD Storage Upgrade vs. PS5 Internal Drive Loading Time Tests!

980 Pro SSD is faster than PS5's Internal SSD during testing but it's not like it's worlds apart during game tests. The interesting part is how big of a difference there is in write speeds as the 980 Pro is crazy fast compared to writing on the Internal PS5's SSD.

But generally this isn't a big deal as games rely on read speeds than write speeds.

Valve is creating a Steam Deck API for devs to quickly optimize games

https://www.pcgamer.com/valve-steam-deck-api-optimisation/

We will see how many devs actually consider "optimizing" their games for it but I'd imagine if it's successful, many PC devs including AAA might think about scaling down to it or make a version that will work both with the Steam Deck and Switch 2. But we will see though.