TECH NEWS

A hacker claims Samsung's smart TV software is doing secret reporting and looks for mics on connected devices — but this doesn't look like a privacy scandal on the face of it

Samsung TVs can report dog barks and baby cries to Samsung
TVs can detect mics in soundbars and other devices
It's not as sinister as it's being painted online

Privacy has always been a hot-button topic online, and since the furore over LG TVs' data collection people have been paying particular attention to televisions and associated accessories.

So the latest news about Samsung TVs seems rather scary: according to a thread on Reddit, it has "on-device AI listening for your dog and baby, watching what you watch, and borrowing your soundbar's mic if the TV doesn't have one."

That sounds appalling, but when you look into the detail the picture becomes considerably less sinister. Some of the supposed spying Samsung is doing isn't secret: in some cases it's for features Samsung happily advertised as reasons to buy its TVs.

That doesn't necessarily mean that Samsung is doing everything with...

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Anthropic Hands Over Agent Skills: What IT Teams Should Know

Anthropic is handing its AI agent playbook to an industry foundation, betting that shared standards will help software agents work across competing platforms. The company announced Oct. 22 that it is donating Agent Skills to the Agentic AI Foundation (AAIF), a Linux Foundation organization it co-founded with Block and OpenAI.

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Will Your iPhone or Android Change Time on Nov. 1? Check These Settings Before Sunday - TechRepublic

Your phone should turn back the clock automatically on Nov. 1. But in some parts of North America, doing so would leave it an hour behind. Daylight saving time ends Sunday, Nov. 1, 2026, across most of the United States, with clocks moving back one hour at 2 a.m.

SIMBA Could Lose Singapore Telecom Licence: What Customers Should Know - TechRepublic

Singapore’s SIMBA Telecom could lose its operating licence after regulators alleged that senior management approved the unauthorised use of mobile network frequencies. The Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) issued a notice to show cause on October 23, according to an October 26 disclosure by SIMBA’s Australian parent, Tuas

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Block Previews Dessa Voice AI Trained Without Text

Jack Dorsey’s Block is previewing a voice AI model that could change how businesses build conversational interfaces, though its reliability remains to be demonstrated beyond company-selected examples. Block has introduced Dessa, an experimental AI voice model trained entirely on recordings of human conversations, without written text or pretrained models.

Read more

Anthropic Hands Over Agent Skills: What IT Teams Should Know

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SIMBA Could Lose Singapore Telecom Licence: What Customers Should Know - TechRepublic

Block Previews Dessa Voice AI Trained Without Text