Samsung has confirmed that its "smart TV" sets are listening to customers' every word, and the company is warning customers not to speak about personal information while near the TV sets.
The company revealed that the voice activation feature on its smart TVs will capture all nearby conversations. The TV sets can share the information, including sensitive data, with Samsung as well as third-party services.
The news comes after Shane Harris at The Daily Beast pointed out a troubling line in Samsung's privacy policy: "Please be aware that if your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party."
Samsung has now issued a new statement clarifying how the voice activation feature works. "If a consumer consents and uses the voice recognition feature, voice data is provided to a third party during a requested voice command search," Samsung said in a statement. "At that time, the voice data is sent to a server, which searches for the requested content then returns the desired content to the TV."
The company added that it does not retain or sell the voice data, but it didn't name the third party that translates users' speech.
Update, Feb. 10: Samsung has updated its policy and named the third party in question, Nuance Communications, Inc. Meghan DeMaria
A suicide bombing at a hospital in Quetta, Pakistan, on Monday has reportedly left at least 67 people dead and nearly 100 injured. Jamat-ul-Ahrar, which The Guardian described as an "offshoot of the Pakistani Taliban," has claimed responsibility for the attack, which seemingly targeted a group of prominent lawyers who had gathered at the state-run hospital after a high-profile colleague was shot and killed earlier that day. Bilal Kasi, the local president of the Bar Association, was assassinated earlier Monday in an incident also reportedly perpetrated by Jamat-ul-Ahrar.
Quetta, the capital city of Pakistan's poorest province, Balochistan, has faced increased violence in recent weeks as it grapples with a separatist insurgency. The attack on the Quetta hospital marks Pakistan's second deadliest this year, after the Easter Sunday attack in Lahore that killed 75 people. Jamat-ul-Ahrar vowed in an email Monday to "continue attacks in Pakistan till the establishment of the Islamic system in the country." Becca Stanek
Donald Trump was hardly a minute into his economic address Monday when the protests started. By the 20-minute mark, protesters had managed to interrupt Trump 10 times — and by the time his speech wrapped up, he'd spoken through 14 outbursts.
In a decidedly out of character move, Trump didn't take the protesters' bait. While there were rumors he threw a crying baby out of a rally last week, this week he just paused briefly for the interruptions before forging ahead with his planned address. He did manage to work in one snide remark, however, when he called the protesters low-energy. "I will say: The Bernie Sanders people had far more energy and spirit," Trump said.
Watch Trump try to talk through the protests, below. Becca Stanek
A Monmouth University poll released Monday shows Democrat Hillary Clinton leading Republican Donald Trump by double-digits, building greatly upon her two-point lead before party conventions last month. Clinton earned 50 percent support among likely voters to Trump's 37 percent — and notably, Clinton's ballooning lead over Trump comes in a four-way poll, as the Monmouth survey included Libertarian Gary Johnson and the Green Party's Jill Stein:
Just in: New @MonmouthPoll has Clinton at 50%, +13 (!) over Trump. pic.twitter.com/isY3c91VPX
— Alex Seitz-Wald (@aseitzwald) August 8, 2016
The poll further found Clinton to be leading Trump in 10 swing states with 42 percent support to his 34 percent. "The dust is starting to settle on the tag-team conventions, with the net advantage going to Clinton," said Patrick Murray, the director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute. See the rest of the poll's results here. Kimberly Alters
Donald Trump ignored 14 interruptions from protesters Monday to present "the biggest tax revolution since the Reagan Tax Reform." During his economic policy address in front of the Detroit Economic Club, Trump proposed greatly simplifying the tax code by cutting it down from seven brackets to the House Republicans' proposed three, and suggested an "across-the-board income tax reduction, especially for middle-income Americans."
Of his plan, Trump said, "It will present a night-and-day contrast to the job-killing, tax-raising, poverty-inducing Obama-Clinton agenda," highlighting how Hillary Clinton "short-circuited again" when she "accidentally told the truth and said she wanted to raise taxes on the middle class."
Trump also repeatedly emphasized the importance of keeping jobs and wealth in America by slashing over-regulation, focusing on "trade enforcement with China," and exiting the Trans-Pacific Partnership and possibly even NAFTA. "We are in a competition with the world," Trump said, "and I want America to win."
Trump has promised "more detail on all of these policies" in the "coming weeks." Becca Stanek
On Monday in Detroit, Donald Trump revealed he has radically changed his proposed tax brackets, putting his plan in line with what has been proposed by House Republicans. Trump had formerly proposed brackets of 0 percent, 10 percent, 20 percent, and 25 percent; as of his economic speech Monday, those proposed brackets are now 12 percent, 25 percent, and 33 percent.
Critics of Trump's old tax plan had said his personal and business tax cuts could increase U.S. debt by $10 trillion in just over a decade. In working with CNBC contributor Larry Kudlow, Trump's new tax plan would allegedly keep that number to less than $3 trillion.
To learn more about Trump's tax plan ... well, don't go to his website. Jeva Lange
Trump directs people to his website for his info on his policies.
He just deleted his tax plan from his website. pic.twitter.com/SaGQ6fLn7E— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) August 8, 2016
Winona Ryder is awkward, adorable, and brooding in all the right ways — it's what made her a Gen-X darling in Heathers, Beetlejuice, and Edward Scissorhands. But maybe all that so-called sensitivity isn't what makes her "weird" and "edgy," but simply, well, human?
Ryder opened up about our tendency to pathologize emotions — particularly female ones — at New York:
"I wish I could unknow this, but there is a perception of me that I'm supersensitive and fragile. And I am supersensitive, and I don't think that that's a bad thing. To do what I do, I have to remain open." She says that sensitive is so often used as a bad word — a euphemism for weak or crazy. "There's a line in the show where someone says [of her Stranger Things character], 'She's had anxiety problems in the past.' A lot of people have picked up on that, like, 'Oh, you know, she's crazy.' And I'm like, 'Okay, wait a second, she's struggling.' Two kids, deadbeat dad, working her ass off. Who wouldn't be anxious?
"Even that word, anxious. It's a bad word. [...] I remember I did Diane Sawyer, and I talked about my experiences with anxiety and depression when I was that age. And I think by doing that, maybe coupled with my physical size, there's this 'crazy' thing. And I've realized recently it's literally impossible to try to change that story." [New York]
"I'm so sick of people shaming women for being sensitive or vulnerable," Ryder added. "It's so bizarre to me." Read her entire interview at New York. Jeva Lange
Archaeologists have discovered an enormous and strange Mayan tomb in Belize, leading to both further puzzles and, perhaps, insight into the 1,300-year-old Snake Dynasty and its conquests.
The royal burial chamber was found approximately 16 to 26 feet below ground, and contained the remains of a 20- to 30-year-old male. Although work is still being done to understand the man's identity and cause of death, analysis so far indicates he was athletic and "quite muscular" when he died.
The body was discovered among jaguar and deer bones, jade beads, obsidian blades, and ceramic vessels. What is particularly odd, though, is the fact that the temple "was purposely erected for the primary purpose of enclosing the tomb," archaeologist Jamie Awe told The Guardian. "Except for a very few rare cases, this is not very typical in ancient Maya architecture."
The burial chamber is also one of the largest ever found in Mayan ruins, stretching approximately 15 feet by 8 feet. But perhaps even more exciting than the tomb is the discovery of hieroglyphic panels describing the history of the Snake Dynasty. The panels appear to detail Lord Kan II's conquests as well as the death of his mother; they also refer to a previously unknown ruler.
"This means that there were two contenders to the throne, both carrying the same dynastic title, which appears to have been read Kanu'l Ajaw, 'king of the place where snakes abound,'" said the team's epigrapher, Christophe Helmke. Learn more about what the panels say about this "tumultuous phase of the snake-head dynasty" at The Guardian. Jeva Lange
