LAPD Bans Commercial Facial Recognition Technology

The Los Angeles police department has banned the use of commercial facial recognition like Clearview AI by its officers.

The LAPD, the third-largest police department in the United States, issued a moratorium on the use of third-party facial recognition software on Nov. 13, after it was told that documents seen by BuzzFeed News showed more than 25 LAPD employees had performed nearly 475 searches using Clearview AI as of earlier this year. Department officials have made conflicting statements in the past about their use of facial recognition technology, including claims that they deploy it sparingly.

1Password 7.7 Supports Apple Watch Unlock, macOS Big Sur

1Password version 7.7 introduces support for macOS Big Sur and features like Apple Watch Unlock.

One of our most highly requested features, Apple Watch can now unlock 1Password on any Mac with a Secure Enclave. If you’re using macOS 10.15 or later and using the latest devices, you’ll now see an option in 1Password preferences to turn on Unlock with Apple Watch alongside the Touch ID option.

How Walk-in Closets Helped Get Ted Lasso on Apple TV+

COVID-19 restrictions have impacted huge swathes of the entertainment industry, and Apple TV+ is no different. In a fascinating interview with The Wrap, Ted Lasso supervising sound editor Brent Findley how he recorded Automated Dialogue Replacement (ADR) remotely.

Findley shipped professional recording equipment to members of the cast, and then from his home in Los Angeles, was taken on tours inside the residences of the mostly London-based cast, sleuthing for the best place to record.  “In doing ADR with actors normally, it’s only a voice relationship,” he said. “I’m in a studio and they’re in a studio. So this was actually a nice consolation prize amid the pandemic. Everybody got to wave and say hello to each other. And we all got comfortable with it pretty quickly because we were all stuck at home. It became, as it did for a lot of people, an outlet to socialize.” Over the spring and summer, Findley recorded the dialogue of 42 different actors. Across the spectrum, one thing proved to be universally true about the experience: There is one room in the home most rewarding as a mock studio. “A walk-in closet is the best homemade vocal booth that exists,” he said pointedly.

Keep All Your Mac Apps Updated With ‘MacUpdater’

MacUpdater is an app that automatically tracks the latest updates of all applications installed on your Mac. You can quickly see which apps are out of date and update them with a click. When you launch the app you’ll see a list of all your apps and the ones with updates will be highlighted in red. Its database has information about the newest versions of over 40,000 apps. MacUpdater’s privacy policy says you don’t need an account to use it, and it doesn’t collect or sell your data.

Update Google Chrome ASAP to Patch Two Zero Days

Two zero days in Chrome, CVE-2020-16013 and CVE-2020-16017, are “high severity” in nature and users should update the browser as soon as possible. The The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) says the security flaws are actively being exploited in the wild.

I can confirm that CVE-2020-16013 relates to the V8 JavaScript engine for Chrome and involves an incorrectly handled security check. Exploitation would most likely require an attacker to direct the victim to a malicious web page.

CVE-2020-16017, on the other hand, would appear to be a memory corruption vulnerability within the Chrome website sandboxing feature known as Site Isolation.

Postdoctoral Research Fellow Dr. Jessica Hebert - BGM Interview

Dr. Jessica Hebert is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine at the Oregon Health & Science University. She earned a Ph.D. in Biology from Portland State in 2018. When not sciencing, Dr. Hebert is an international, award-winning public science communicator and an Science Communication Fellow at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry.

Jessica got turned onto science watching Star Trek: Voyager with her father — along with reading the works of scifi author Robert Heinlein. While she pondered becoming a physician, she quickly realized her passion is biomedical research. We chatted about her Ph.D. work on the human placenta, and it was fascinating. She also shared some important details of preeclampsia. Jessica does science communication at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry and is a member of the folk band, The PDX Broadsides. This is a wide-ranging, energetic, exciting interview.

MacFamily Tree 9 Introduces macOS Big Sur Support

Briefly shown off during Apple’s M1 Mac event, Synium Software announced the immediate availability of MacFamilyTree for macOS Big Sur and Apple’s just announced Macs with M1 chip. MacFamilyTree is a modern and sophisticated genealogy application for macOS and an easy way of recording cornerstones in your family history. Get an overview of where you hail from and maybe enthuse your relatives about exploring your family’s past at your upcoming family reunion. 

Synium Software announces the immediate availability of MacFamilyTree for macOS Big Sur and Apple’s just announced Macs with M1 chip. MacFamilyTree is a modern and sophisticated genealogy application for macOS and an easy way of recording cornerstones in your family history. Get an overview of where you hail from and maybe enthuse your relatives about exploring your family’s past at your upcoming family reunion.