Period trackers coercing women into sharing risky information, Temu faces legal complaint

Smartphones should come with a health warning, according to new research.
Female health monitoring apps are putting women at risk by “coercing” them into disclosing – and then poorly handling – highly sensitive data, according to new research. The study examined the privacy policies and data safety labels of 20 of the most popular of these kind of apps, which are commonly used to help women conceive. It found a host of poor data-management practices, including some apps not having a delete function, even for highly personal information such as menstrual cycles and miscarriages. Its authors say it is the most extensive evaluation its kind completed to date. BBC 

Temu is facing a fresh legal complaint filed by 17 companies in the European Union. The Chinese online retailer is accused of “failing to protect consumers” and “using manipulative practices which are illegal under recent EU legislation”, according to consumer group BEUC. Temu was only launched in September 2022, but has quickly become one of the most popular online marketplaces worldwide. In the UK, it was the most downloaded app in 2023 but it is now facing difficulties in the EU. Sky News 


There’s plenty to like about the newly announced Fujifilm X-T50. It features the snazzy new 40.2MP sensor, it has 7 stops of in-body image stabilization, can capture 6K 30p video. But there’s one talking point that’s dominating all others: the addition of a new Film Simulation dial, putting Fujifilm’s popular effects at the forefront of a camera like never before. Which will no doubt to make the X-T50 irresistible to the filter-loving social media crowd that’s currently snapping up its products like hot cakes. Digital Camera World 

Elon Musk reportedly fired virtually all of Tesla’s Supercharger vehicle charging team after a presentation and argument with a top executive. Mr Musk made the decision to fire most of the personnel on the 500-member team after a meeting with charging chief Rebecca Tinucci, according to anonymous company sources who spoke with Reuters. During the meeting, Ms Tinucci reportedly pushed back against Mr Musks’s calls for deep cuts to the charging team. Independent 

Microsoft has been accused of asking hundreds of employees in China to consider transferring outside of the country amid growing tensions between Washington and Beijing. The US tech giant is asking about 700 to 800 people in its China-based cloud-computing and artificial-intelligence operations if they want to transfer to the US, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand, according to the Wall Street Journal. The move by Microsoft comes two days after the White House ramped up tensions with Beijing by imposing tariffs on $18bn (£14.6bn) of imports from the world’s second largest economy. Telegraph 


The new iPad Pro is here and the inevitable YouTube stress tests are already online. JerryRigEverything and AppleTrack posted their bend test videos, and both seemingly came to the same conclusion: the new iPad Pro holds up well to extreme force and seems pretty resistant to bending during normal use. AppleTrack repeated the same bends with the M2 iPad Pro and the new M4 iPad Pro to compare, and whereas the M4 iPad Pro came away almost unscathed, the M2 iPad Pro had a definitive curl in the corner near the cameras. 9to5Mac

Meta revoked a job offer to a prominent cyber-intelligence analyst immediately after he criticized Instagram for failing to protect children online. Paul Raffile had been offered a job as a human exploitation investigator focusing on issues such as sextortion and human trafficking. He had participated in an 24 April webinar on safeguarding against financial sextortion schemes, during which he criticized Instagram for allowing children to fall prey to scammers and offered possible solutions. Guardian 

 

Chris Price