Sidewalk Labs wants to develop street signs that let people know what data is being collected from them

One of the big concerns with Sidewalk Labs’ “smart city” is the concern over the citizens’ privacy being invaded by the sensors and cameras that will be used for data collection. That and people wouldn’t exactly know how the data is being collected and for what purposes. It’s caused enough concern that a lawsuit against Sidewalk Labs has been brought to court.

One solution that this Alphabet firm has is the development of street signs that show the people what’s being collected. They hope this move makes the surveillance and monitoring effort more transparent. These would show up as hexagon-shaped signs (similar to other road signs) but it will highlight what type of data is being collected in an area and how that information is going to be used.

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Canadian group sues government over Google-backed smart neighbourhood in Toronto

Sidewalk Labs—a company owned by Google’s parent company Alphabet—has plans to build a smart neighbourhood in Toronto that would collect data from different sources in the area. And it seems a local association is not happy with this development. The Canadian Civil Liberties Association is suing three levels of government over this proposed plan. The association claims the project is “invalid and needs to be reset.” They are concerned about the increase in surveillance it entails and how the government seems to be outsourcing its responsibilities to a private corporation. The Sidewalk Labs project is run alongside the publicly funded Waterfront Toronto.

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Original ‘Burnout Paradise’ game will have its servers shut down by August 1st

After over a decade of being live, Criterion Games has confirmed that the original racing game Burnout Paradise will have its online servers shut down by August 1, 2019. Its offline game will remain playable, if you still want in on the action. Or you can opt to get the remastered version of the game, which launched last year. That version will still be up and running.

Source: PCGamer

Alexa owners in the US get access to free, ad-supported Amazon Music

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Amazon Music is coming to more users in the US, specifically those with Alexa devices. These device owners can listen to a limited number of top playlists and stations on Amazon Music for free. It is similar to what Amazon Prime subscribers get access to for free. They don’t need to be Amazon Prime subscribers. You can ask Alexa to play music by creating stations based on a song, era, genre, or artist. Or have the voice assistant queue popular global playlists on Amazon Music. If you want access to Amazon Music Unlimited, you’ll need to subscribe to the paid premium tier, which gives you access to over 50 million songs. Amazon is leveraging the popularity of its smart speakers to get more users to use its services—especially since it doesn’t come at an additional cost. This just might entice listeners away from third-party services that Amazon speakers support (like Spotify and Apple Music).

Source: Engadget