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Tech News Today for June 23, 2017

Tech News for Friday June 23, 2017

For quite a while now, Google has been actively scanning the contents of emails sent and received through Gmail in order to better equip its ad tracking to deliver targeted ads to customers. Diane Green, SVP of cloud at Google, was behind a decision to cease ads in Gmail, and stop the scanning of email contents for that purpose. G Suite, Google Cloud’s paid office software package, was never exposed to such ads, but still, business customers were confused and concerned about the privacy implications as it affected their business. Green says this change makes in unambiguous. Read more at bloomberg.com.

ZDNet says Microsoft's claim of "No Known Ransomware" on Windows 10 S, doesn't hold up to testing. It took security researcher Matthew Hickey from Hacker House just over three hours to exploit the way Microsoft Word automate tasks in order to create a malicious, macro-based Word document. Hickey said that although Windows 10 S did present a few more challenges than Windows 10, he was surprised at how easy it was to get in. The researcher circumvented Word's "protected view" by downloading his malicious Word document from a network share, which Windows sees as a trusted location. Once content is enabled, the macros would give a hacker access to a shell with administrator privileges where she could turn off antimalware and anything else.  Read more at zdnet.com.

Media regulators in China have issued tougher restrictions on audio and video streaming services, further tightening rules that already require a special license for broadcasters on those services. Weibo, AcFun and iFeng.com were specifically called out as allowing programs that “comment on current affairs and spread negative comments”. Weibo, one of China’s largest social networks, is reportedly working hard trying to parse the vague order to figure out if the license required for media outlets would also extend to individuals.  Read more at mashable.com.

Google will now scrub private medical information from search results. The company has long claimed to take a hands-off approach when it comes to editing search results, but personal medical information that appears in results will now be removed along with revenge porn, and personal financial data. Google didn't announce the change, but Bergen spotted the added line on Google's Removal Policies Page, where the company lists what and why they remove information from search results. What responsibility do you think Google has in removing this sort of information?  Read more at theguardian.com.

If you thought Samsung might ease up as it heads into the release season for it’s big followup to last year’s firey Note 7, think again. Noted leaker Evan Blass, EvLeaks, says the Note 8 is expected to retail for around 999 euros when its unveiled in the latter part of September. That works out to around $900 US, slightly more than the $850 for the Note 7 last year. For that premium price, Evan says to expect a device that is slightly larger than the Galaxy S8+, but includes 6GB of RAM, and dual 12MP cameras on the back, a first for Samsung devices. Perhaps most importantly though, a smaller 3300mAh battery is included, down from the Note 7’s 3500mAh battery.  Read more at venturebeat.com.

Megan Morrone and Jason Howell are joined today by Lauren Silverman of KERA News to talk about the rise of webcam notaries. Tech News Today streams live weekdays at 4PM Pacific, 7PM Eastern at twit.tv/live. Subscribe to the show and watch it on-demand at twit.tv/tnt.

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