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In this week’s issue:
🤖 Meet your new AI friend
🚘 Chinese EVs could be on their way to Canada
🦿 Exo-skeleton hiking pants to give you a boost
👀 Stalking on dating apps
This AI necklace wants to be your BFF
Hello, meet your new AI companion, Friend.YouTube
In the latest example of new artificial-intelligence technology feeling increasingly like an episode of Black Mirror, meet Friend, an AI companion that exists on a pendant hung around your neck. With a built-in microphone, the glowing orb is always listening if you want to talk. It doesn’t reply, but instead texts in the associated app.
“It’s very supportive, very validating, it’ll encourage your ideas,” creator Avi Schiffmann said in an interview with The Verge. “It’s also super intelligent, it’s a great brainstorming buddy.”
In a new trailer that can only be described as dystopian, we see Friend in action: A woman hiking on her own gets words of encouragement; a man gaming with two IRL buddies gets roasted for his subpar playing; a young woman on a secluded garden rooftop tells her date, while clutching the necklace, “I come up here to be by myself. I’ve never brought anybody else. I mean, besides her.”
Friend is available for preorder, and it’ll be interesting to see whether it gets real uptake, or if it ends up with a similar fate to Humane’s Ai Pin, which has been marred by bad reviews and slow sales.
EV manufacturer BYD puts Canada on its roadmap
Canada is debating tariffs on Chinese-made EVs, such as the inexpensive BYD.Chalinee Thirasupa/Reuters
Chinese electric vehicle manufacturer BYD has Canada on its future roadmap, but it may be a bumpy ride. Last month, lobbyists for the company filed a notice with Canada’s federal registry to advise government officials on the EV giant’s entry into the Canadian market. But as BYD takes this first step, Canada is debating adding tariffs on made-in-China EVs and excluding them from federal incentive programs, which could undermine BYD’s greatest appeal: its price.
BYD’s least expensive model sells for around US$10,000, which is nearly four-times cheaper than U.S. giant Tesla’s most affordable option, the Model 3 at US$38,990. BYD, which stands for Build Your Dreams, is already getting closer to surpassing Tesla in global EV sales, with Bloomberg Intelligence predicting it could happen by the end of the year.
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland has warned that cheap Chinese EVs could flood the market and quash Canada’s nascent EV industry before it even has a chance to compete. The U.S. has already quadrupled tariffs to 100 per cent. At the same time though, environmental groups have called out the Canadian government, saying massive tariffs would be at odds with the Liberals’ goal of a green transition.
Canada to investigate Ticketmaster data breach
This week, the federal privacy commissioner announced it’s investigating Ticketmaster Canada after its parent company admitted last month it had suffered a huge data breach that may have resulted in millions of users getting their personal information stolen.
This update is the latest in a long saga that started this spring when a user going by “ShinyHunters” posted on a hacker forum that they were hawking the personal data of millions of Ticketmaster accounts. The commissioner’s office said it will examine the federal private-sector privacy law’s safeguards and if it fulfills breach notification requirements.
Stalkers on dating apps could locate a user’s locations within two metres
Researchers found a Bumble user's location could be identified within two metres.Peter Morgan/The Associated Press
The worst online daters are notorious for ghosting, using outdated photos, and now, according to new research, potentially stalking. An academic paper from Belgian university KU Leuven found that a user could find the near-exact location for another user on Bumble, Hinge, Grinder, Badoo, happn and Hily.
The researchers used a technique called “oracle trilateration” to pinpoint a target’s location, which involves identifying their rough location based on what’s displayed in their profile, and then gradually moving until the target is no longer nearby. This technique is repeated in three different directions until the stalker can triangulate the target’s position.
All the apps that were found to have vulnerabilities have since fixed how their distance filters worked. But if you’re not over conventional online dating and want to embrace full Goblin Mode, maybe Date Like Goblins is for you. Launching this fall, it’s a new platform that allows daters to connect over voice chat while gaming.
What else we’re reading this week:
Trump vs. Harris is dividing Silicon Valley into feuding political camps (Washington Post)
The new Gods of weather can make rain on demand – or so they want you to believe (Wired)
Filipinos want the country’s biggest YouTube star to be their next president (Rest of World)
Adult Money
Get a boost with exoskeletal hiking pantsArc’teryx
Arc’teryx exoskeleton MO/GO hiking pant, US$5,000 USD
Outdoor apparel brand Arc’teryx and Skip, a company that formed from Google’s X Labs, have paired up to design battery-powered MO/GO pants, which are equipped with a lightweight electric motor at the knee to give hikers an extra boost.
The exo-skeleton module weighs around seven pounds, but will make hikers feel up to 30 pounds lighter, according to Skip. MO/GO kicks your knee forward when you walk, feeling like when a doctor tests your reflexes with a mallet, according to a reviewer from Fast Company. These pants strike me as like the sartorial version of an e-bike. You’ll still need to do the hiking, but it makes trekking up steep terrain easier.
Culture Radar
Hollywood video game voice actors on strike over AI concerns
Video game voice actors and motion capture artists are on strike after more than 18 months of failed negotiations with blockbuster gaming companies Activision, Warner Bros. and Disney that would give workers protections around the use of AI. The union representing the performers argue AI poses a threat in the video game industry because AI generators make it easy to replicate a performers’ voice without their consent.
This is the third work stoppage in Hollywood this year, where artificial intelligence was a sticking point. Both the screenwriters’ and the actors’ unions were able to gain protections against the technology in their negotiations.
Other tech and telecom news:
Need a mini digital detox? These screen-free spaces nudge people offline and back into real life
Lightspeed promises stronger subscription growth in second half as first quarter boosted by payments