Top Stories

YouTube Limits Data Collection, Targeted Ads on Kids’ Videos

This month, Alphabet-owned YouTube will begin limiting the data it collects on children’s videos and stop showing data-driven personalized ads. Video creators will be responsible for designating their content as targeting children and will face Federal Trade Commission fines if they do not do so. The FTC also won’t allow comments or other features such as pop-ups meant to increase viewership. The new data collection limits will likely have negative financial implications for creators of free kids’ content. Read more

Dynamic Branding: Ryff’s Quest for Virtual Product Placement

In the presence of decreasing ad rates and a growing SVOD media landscape, product placement has become an increasingly important revenue source. Ryff is looking to enhance this $11.44 billion market, according to data collected by Statista, by enabling virtual product placement. Their technology allows users to detect favorable locations in existing video and dynamically introduce photorealistic virtual products. On-demand product placement of branded goods has long been a dream of the advertising and marketing industry. As Ryff CEO and founder Roy Taylor said, “[It is] the only advertising format that can’t be skipped by the viewer.”

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Deloitte Predicts 5G Will Spark Boom of Smart Home Devices

A new Deloitte study, “Connectivity and Mobile Trends Survey,” found that current U.S. households own “an average of 11 connected devices, including seven with screens to view content.” Deloitte vice-chair/U.S. telecom and media and entertainment leader Kevin Westcott declared that, after AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon roll out 5G, we’ll see “a significant increase in connected devices.” The study further found that 67 percent of consumers plan to upgrade to 5G-compatible smartphones when they become available. Read more

Federal Agency Reveals Bias in Facial Recognition Systems

The National Institute of Standards and Technology reported that most commercially available facial recognition systems — often used by police departments and federal agencies — are biased. The highest error rate involved Native American faces, but African-American and Asian faces were incorrectly identified 10 to 100 times more than Caucasian faces. The systems also had more difficulty identifying female faces and falsely identified older people up to 10 times more than middle-aged adults. Read more

Multiple Bugs Made Zoom Hardware Susceptible to Hackers

In July, security firm Forescout discovered that DTEN touchscreen smart TVs, one of video conference service Zoom’s “certified hardware providers,” can be hacked to allow evildoers to bug conference rooms and capture video feeds and whiteboard notes. A two-week study of the DTEN D5 and D7 connected displays revealed five bugs, three of which have been patched but two of which remain. After Forescout disclosed the flaws to DTEN, it decided to go public to raise awareness of the security threat. Read more

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