A week's worth of tech news that takes you 5 minutes to read

Welcome to this week's Sunday Download (and happy early birthday, ‘Muria)! What we do is simple: we break down a week's worth of tech news in 5 minutes or less so you can stay informed and up to date.

This week we'll cover Big Tech, mobility, AI and Machine learning, fintech, futuristic tech, and everything in between.

In return, we ask that you share it with a friend or colleague instead of keeping the Smartology goodness all to yourself. While greed may be good on Wall Street, sharing is caring here at Smartology. 🤝

Lots of stuff to go through this week, so let's not waste any (more) time. Highlights of this week's issue include:

• Apple going local

• BingGPT goes live

• Public school IT dept shows us what NOT to do

Total read time: 4 minutes and 22 seconds. Let's goooooo! 🚀

Amazon shops small business

Amazon is connecting with a range of small businesses across the US to build out its package delivery network. Participating businesses are required to have a physical location and be available for delivery seven days a week. There are no long-term contracts and businesses bring their own staff, vehicles, and devices. Amazon hopes to connect with 2,500 drivers operating out of these small businesses by the end of the year. Small businesses can apply to become an Amazon Hub Partner online. Read more here.

SpaceX making major changes

SpaceX's plans for upgrading its Starship megarocket include changing how the rocket's two stages separate, propulsion system improvements, and a beefed-up launch pad. Elon Musk estimates that there is a 60 percent chance that the next Starship test flight will make it to orbit. It may be some time before SpaceX obtains clearance for its next test flight. This article details the changes that SpaceX will make to Starship. Read more here.

Netflix does Canada dirty

Netflix has quietly killed the $9.99 CAD per month basic plan in Canada for new subscribers. This simplifies the streaming company’s offering but leaves a big gap between the ad-supported plan and the standard plan. Canadaians voiced their outrage with a collective “oh sheesh”. Read more here.

Listen Linda is making moves

Twitter's new CEO Linda Yaccarino is preparing a series of measures to bring advertisers back. The plans include introducing a video ads service, attracting more celebrities, and increasing headcount. Twitter's new ad format, which focuses on video, is still in a beta stage. Yaccarino, known as the 'velvet hammer' in the ad industry due to her tenacity in dealmaking, plans to make commerce easier on Twitter and will seek to mend relations with partners. Read more here.

BingGPT?

ChatGPT on mobile can now surf the web. But only via Bing — for better or worse. This week, OpenAI announced that subscribers to ChatGPT Plus, the premium version of the company’s AI-powered chatbot, can use a new feature on the ChatGPT app called Browsing that lets users use ChatGPT to search Bing for answers to questions.

More HIPPA, More Problems

Half a million people had their personal and health information stolen during a ransomware attack on Intellihartx, a Tennessee-based company. The attack targeted its vendor, Fortra, and resulted in the theft of patient names, addresses, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, medical billing and insurance information, diagnoses, and medication details. The attack was part of a larger mass ransomware attack on Fortra's GoAnywhere file-transfer software, impacting numerous companies and organizations. The Clop ransomware group claimed responsibility, prompting the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to issue a warning about the group targeting the healthcare industry. Clop has also targeted other file transfer tool vendors in recent attacks.

Other victims of the attack of Fortra include AvidXchange, Saks Fifth Avenue, healthcare call center provider ITx Companies, digital financier Hatch Bank, security giant Rubrik, and the City of Toronto (yes, the whole city).

IRL is anything but “Real”

In the ultimate tech-irony, the social app IRL‘s users don’t exist in real life. An internal investigation by IRL’s board of directors found that 95% of the app’s reported 20 million users were automated or from bots. So, after raising more than $200 million in venture capital, IRL is shutting down. Read more here. 

What NOT to do…

During a cybersecurity audit at Oak Park and River Forest (OPRF) High School in Illinois, an error occurred that reset every student's password. In response, the school changed ALL the passwords to "Ch@ngeme!" and instructed students to update it to a unique password. However, this move was criticized for its lack of security, as it allowed anyone with the shared password to access other students' accounts. One parent discovered this vulnerability and alerted the school, prompting them to rectify the situation by implementing a unique password process for each student. Illinois public schools making us all proud… Read more here.

Rapid Fire

• ByteDance wants to make music

• The police want Robotaxt footage to solve crimes

• Apple market cap it’s $3 trillion

• The list of companies in the MOVEit hack keeps growing

• Meta gets transparent about AI

• Google cuts more jobs as it merges teams with Waze

• 4 people just went to pretend Mars and will be there for 1 full year

• US tech war with China continues to heat up

• The most affordable electric cars on the market right now

• Is 5G home internet all hype?

• US spending $42 billion in broadband internet expansion

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