• chevron_right

      Airbnb bans creepy surveillance cameras inside rentals starting April 30

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Monday, 11 March - 20:43

    camera hidden in flower pot indoors

    Enlarge (credit: Liudmila Chernetska/Getty )

    Airbnb, like hotels and rival vacation rental site Vrbo , will no longer allow hosts to record guests while they're inside the property. Airbnb previously allowed hosts to have disclosed cameras outside the property and in "common areas" inside, but Airbnb's enforcement of the policy and the rules' lack of specificity made camera use troubling for renters.

    Airbnb announced today that as of April 30, it's "banning the use of indoor security cameras in listings globally as part of efforts to simplify our policy on security cameras and other devices" and to prioritize privacy.

    Cameras that are turned off but inside the property will also be banned, as are indoor recording devices. Airbnb's updated policy defines cameras and recording devices as "any device that records or transmits video, images, or audio, such as a baby monitor, doorbell camera, or other camera."

    Read 11 remaining paragraphs | Comments

    • chevron_right

      “So violated”: Wyze cameras leak footage to strangers for 2nd time in 5 months

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Monday, 19 February - 21:03

    Wyze's Cam V3 Pro indoor/outdoor smart camera mounted outside

    Enlarge / Wyze's Cam V3 Pro indoor/outdoor smart camera. (credit: Wyze )

    Wyze cameras experienced a glitch on Friday that gave 13,000 customers access to images and, in some cases, video, from Wyze cameras that didn't belong to them. The company claims 99.75 percent of accounts weren't affected, but for some, that revelation doesn't eradicate feelings of "disgust" and concern.

    Wyze claims that an outage on Friday left customers unable to view camera footage for hours. Wyze has blamed the outage on a problem with an undisclosed Amazon Web Services (AWS) partner but hasn't provided details.

    Monday morning, Wyze sent emails to customers, including those Wyze says weren't affected, informing them that the outage led to 13,000 people being able to access data from strangers' cameras, as reported by The Verge .

    Read 11 remaining paragraphs | Comments

    • chevron_right

      Novel camera system lets us see the world through eyes of birds and bees

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Tuesday, 23 January - 19:00 · 1 minute

    A new camera system and software package allows researchers and filmmakers to capture animal-view videos. Credit: Vasas et al., 2024.

    Who among us hasn't wondered about how animals perceive the world, which is often different from how humans do so? There are various methods by which scientists, photographers, filmmakers, and others attempt to reconstruct, say, the colors that a bee sees as it hunts for a flower ripe for pollinating. Now an interdisciplinary team has developed an innovative camera system that is faster and more flexible in terms of lighting conditions than existing systems, allowing it to capture moving images of animals in their natural setting, according to a new paper published in the journal PLoS Biology.

    “We’ve long been fascinated by how animals see the world. Modern techniques in sensory ecology allow us to infer how static scenes might appear to an animal," said co-author Daniel Hanley , a biologist at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. "However, animals often make crucial decisions on moving targets (e.g., detecting food items, evaluating a potential mate’s display, etc.). Here, we introduce hardware and software tools for ecologists and filmmakers that can capture and display animal-perceived colors in motion.”

    Per Hanley and his co-authors, different animal species possess unique sets of photoreceptors that are sensitive to a wide range of wavelengths, from ultraviolet to the infrared, dependent on each animal's specific ecological needs. Some animals can even detect polarized light. So every species will perceive color a bit differently. Honeybees and birds, for instance, are sensitive to UV light, which isn't visible to human eyes. "As neither our eyes nor commercial cameras capture such variations in light, wide swaths of visual domains remain unexplored," the authors wrote. "This makes false color imagery of animal vision powerful and compelling."

    Read 11 remaining paragraphs | Comments

    • chevron_right

      Leica camera has built-in defense against misleading AI, costs $9,125

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Friday, 27 October - 13:58

    Leica M11-P

    Enlarge / A photo shot with the M11-P. (credit: CAI )

    On Thursday, Leica Camera released the first camera that can take pictures with automatically encrypted metadata and provide features such as an editing history. The company believes this system, called Content Credentials , will help photojournalists protect their work and prove authenticity in a world riddled with AI-manipulated content.

    Leica's M11-P can store each captured image with Content Credentials, which is based on the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity's ( C2PA's ) open standard and is being pushed by the Content Authenticity Initiative ( CAI ). Content Credentials, announced in October, includes encrypted metadata detailing where and when the photo was taken and with what camera and model. It also keeps track of edits and tools used for edits.

    When a photographer opts to use the feature, they'll see a Content Credentials logo in the camera's display, and images will be signed through the use of an algorithm.

    Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments

    • Th chevron_right

      With Meta’s Quest 3, Mixed Reality Is Here. So Now What?

      news.movim.eu / TheNewYorkTimes · Wednesday, 27 September, 2023 - 18:25


    The new $500 headset lets people see the outside world while immersed in virtual reality. The benefits are to be determined.
    • Th chevron_right

      With Meta’s Quest 3, Mixed Reality Is Here. So Now What?

      news.movim.eu / TheNewYorkTimes · Wednesday, 27 September, 2023 - 18:25


    The new $500 headset lets people see the outside world while immersed in virtual reality. The benefits are to be determined.