Figures Abstract DBSCAN (A Density-Based Algorithm for Discovering Clusters in Spatial Databases with Noise) is a classic clustering algorithm. However, clustering distributed data with privacy protection in edge computing environments is a key challenge for DBSCAN. In this research, we combine federated clustering and DBSCAN and propose two secure federated parameter-free DBSCAN clustering methods, called FDBSCAN and FDBSCAN++. The process involves the following steps: (1) differential privacy is applied to the client data and adaptive DBSCAN is used at each client to identify core points; (2) the clients send the extracted core points to the server, where the server aggregates these to obtain the final global cluster centers (FDBSCAN and FDBSCAN++ use different methods in this step); (3) the final clusters are generated using these global centers. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed two algorithms, we use eight real datasets, including the large-scale image dataset MNIST. Compared with traditional and state-of-the-art (SOTA) improved DBSCAN and federated clustering algorithms, the proposed algorithms achieve better clustering accuracy. In addition, we also apply FDBSCAN++ to image clustering and segmentation tasks, which achieves satisfactory results. Citation: Cheng F, Deng Z, Alobaedy MM, Huang X (2026) Federated parameter-free DBSCAN clustering and its application in image recognition. PLoS One 21(8): e0355161. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0355161 Editor: Agbotiname Lucky Imoize, University of Lagos Faculty of Engineering, NIGERIA Received: November 6, 2025; Accepted: June 29, 2026; Published: August 4, 2026 Copyright: © 2026 Cheng et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Data Availability: All data that support the findings of this study are publicly available in the GitHub repository at https://github.com/mlyizhang/Clustering-Datasets. The repository contains all benchmark datasets required to replicate the
Aug 4, 2026 · via journals.plos.org
Incode has made GovFaceMatch broadly available, giving businesses a way to verify a customer by comparing a live selfie with the portrait held in a participating US state motor vehicle record. For the person completing the check, the process is designed around the phone already in hand. The user scans the barcode on a driver’s licence, gives explicit consent and takes a live selfie. Incode says the match result can be returned in about 10 seconds. The distinction from a standard document-and-selfie check is the source of the reference image. Instead of relying only on the portrait printed on the licence, GovFaceMatch sends the comparison into the participating DMV’s environment and returns the outcome to the organization requesting verification. Incode says it does not receive or store the DMV portrait or the biometric template created from that image. It also says facial biometrics can be deleted immediately after the check, although the organization deploying the service determines the wider verification journey and its data practices. Coverage depends on participating state systems rather than a single national driver database. Incode says the connections available through the service collectively reach more than 95 percent of the US population. GovFaceMatch is part of the company’s GovMatch suite, which connects identity-verification flows to authoritative government records. Incode’s technical documentation shows that the US service can return separate results when licence data is not found and when a selfie does not match the government-database portrait. The mobile flow adds a government-held reference to a familiar remote-onboarding experience, but it is not a consumer app that individuals can use independently. A bank, marketplace or other participating organization must integrate the service and present it as part of its own sign-up or identity-verification process. The launch follows independent testing of Incode’s mobile biometric defenses. The company’s Deepsight
Aug 4, 2026 · via mobileidworld.com
Posted in: Comics, Conventions, Events, Image, Pop Culture, san diego comic con | Tagged: 2019 SDCC, Capitol Comics, comicspro, sdcc Capitol Comics Wins Summer 2026 Image Comics Select Retailer Award Capitol Comics of Raleigh, North Carolina wins Summer 2026 Image Select Retailer Award At the ComicsPRO event at San Diego Comic-Con, Image Comics announced that the Summer 2026 Image Select Retailer Award winner, Capitol Comics in Raleigh, North Carolina, is their second North Carolina shop in a row. "We are beyond ecstatic and absolutely honoured to receive this recognition from Image Comics. We have enjoyed servicing our comic community in Raleigh and greater North Carolina for the past forty years, and look forward to many more. To our local community of regular and new customers, our online communities on Facebook, Instagram, and Whatnot, and our customers, friends, show vendors, and fellow shop owners, thank YOU for the support and the camaraderie you give us in this industry. We look forward to new firsts for our company yet to come next year, and to continuing to support Image Comics, a true 'House of Ideas,' and a launchpad for so many wonderful literary and artistic creations." – Capitol Comics The Image Select Retailer Award is an initiative from Image to galvanise recognition for members of the Comic Book Direct Market retail community who are going above and beyond to serve their customers, expand readership, and foster a healthier marketplace. The previous winner of the award was ATOM Comics. Comic shops were nominated by fans via a form submission and based on criteria such as exemplary customer service. thoughtful and exciting hand-selling recommendations. efforts fostering a welcoming and inclusive atmosphere. easy-to-browse shelving. attractive and innovative displays. forward-thinking customer marketing and out-of-the-box consumer outreach. community engagement. robust inventory of & support for Image Comics
Aug 4, 2026 · via bleedingcool.com
HXMX’s AI Matches Expert Geoscientists in Williston Basin Case Study with Devon Energy Published Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2026 | 9:32 a.m. Updated Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2026 | 9:32 a.m. OKLAHOMA CITY & GOLDEN, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug 4, 2026-- Devon Energy and HXMX will present joint research at IMAGE 2026 showing that an automated interpretation platform can pick formation tops as reliably as expert geoscientists across a large Williston Basin dataset. The study also introduces a new method for measuring how far a single reference well can carry an accurate correlation. The presentation is scheduled for August 19, 2026, at 8:00 a.m. in Room 372A of the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston. Authored by Drew Kreman and Kevin Pelton of Devon Energy and Alan Lindsey of HXMX, the study benchmarks HXMX’s automated formation-top picking against traditional manual correlation. The team calibrated the platform on a multi-well calibration set with interpreter-verified tops, then deployed it on an extensive multi-county test set. Automated picks matched expert picks with strong accuracy across most intervals. At the center of the work is Triangulated Cross-Validation (TCV), a method that checks each automated pick against every other well in a set and reports consistency in feet. Across both large and tightly spaced study areas, key formations picked with sub-foot spreads from a single reference well. TCV gives geoscientists a direct, quantitative measure of uncertainty — and defines the practical range over which a verified reference well can be trusted to guide automated picking. Manual well-log correlation is accurate but slow, and it scales poorly across the thousands of wells required for basin-wide analysis. The HXMX platform lets geoscientists calibrate the system on a small set of verified wells, then extend consistent picks across a basin while staying in the role of reviewer and decision-maker. Because the
Aug 4, 2026 · via lasvegassun.com
Apple is set to face a class-action privacy lawsuit that could cost it nearly $32.5 billion. As 9to5Mac reports, the lawsuit was brought in 2020 by a group of 10 Apple users in Illinois, who claimed Apple violated the state’s Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) when it collected users’ biometric data without their consent to organize the People album in the Photos app. The People album has been part of the Photos app since 2016. It uses on-device machine learning to recognize people in your photo library and organize photos into separate albums. Though some might find that helpful, facial-recognition features have faced intense scrutiny. In Illinois, BIPA requires companies to notify users and get their written consent before collecting their biometric information. For violating the law through Facebook’s photo-tagging feature, Meta paid nearly $650 million to users in the state in 2022 and a record $1.4 billion to users in Texas in 2024 for a similar violation. As The Times reports, Apple tried to get the Illinois class-action thrown out multiple times. In June, a district judge allowed the class action to move forward, but Apple appealed to the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Last week, the court denied Apple’s appeal, meaning the lawsuit can go back to the district court for further proceedings. According to the report, the class includes 6.5 million customers in Illinois who had photos in the People album between Sept. 13, 2016, and the present. Each of them could seek up to $5,000 in damages, for a total of $32.5 billion for Apple if it's found liable. About Our Expert Jibin is a tech news writer based out of Ahmedabad, India. Previously, he served as the editor of iGeeksBlog and is a self-proclaimed tech enthusiast who loves breaking down complex information
Aug 4, 2026 · via pcmag.com
by Dr. Sofia Rehman in Culture & Lifestyle on 4th August, 2026 We often hear the elite class telling us AI is “inevitable,” and not so long ago Reese Witherspoon lamented her worries about women being “left behind” by the unstoppable tidal wave of AI heading for us all. I am an AI sceptic, with too many ethical concerns to simply accept this vision of the future without resistance. At the same time, though, I want to be honest. My relationship with AI is best told in two stories. The first occurred not long ago; I was steadfastly against the use of AI and had managed to keep a healthy distance. But then, working to a tight deadline, I made an error on CapCut that undid me. I had spent three hours editing a video project; trimming, layering, getting every cut exactly right, adding sound effects, visual effects–you get the picture. And then, in one careless moment, I deleted the clips from the project. Beads of sweat started to form on my brow as I frantically tried to restore what I had just done. I couldn’t find a way to do so. I started searching the internet, scouring Reddit threads. They all seemed to say CapCut is a merciless mistress, undoing a mistake like mine was not possible! I am not proud of what happened next: I fell to the floor quite dramatically and moaned. All the while, the clock was ticking, and I was only too aware of my deadline, whilst completely fatigued by the hours of work already burned through. In desperation, I typed the exact problem, step by step, into an AI tool. It offered several possible solutions, walked me through them, and within minutes my video was restored, every edit intact. That was the day my
Aug 4, 2026 · via amaliah.com
Facial recognition fare payment trial at Punggol Coast MRT station for selected public officers - A facial recognition fare payment trial is ongoing at Punggol Coast MRT, involving only selected LTA and public officers. - Passengers linked to SimplyGo cards can use facial scans to enter and exit Punggol Coast station while using regular card taps at other stations. - LTA has no plans to expand the trial currently and did not disclose its duration or other trial locations. AI generated SINGAPORE – A closed trial of facial recognition technology for fare payment is underway at Punggol Coast MRT station, involving a selected group of Land Transport Authority (LTA) officers and other public officers. In response to media queries, LTA said on Aug 4 that the participants can enter and exit the station through a modified gantry using facial scan, provided their facial profiles are linked to their SimplyGo cards. They can use the same cards to enter and exit other stations by tapping in or out at gantries. LTA said the modified gantry is part of a closed trial and there is currently no plan to expand the early technology trial. Such a trial is a preliminary roll out of a new technology to evaluate its feasibility in an operational environment, commonly used to stress-test hardware and software as well as to collect user feedback. LTA did not comment on the duration of the trial or whether it is being conducted at other stations. Multiple images of the modified gantry and a floor decal with the words “facial recognition detection zone” at Punggol Coast MRT station have been circulating widely on social media platforms, with some users expressing curiosity about the new technology. In 2018, LTA had tested hands-free fare payment technologies at Bedok, Kembangan, Redhill and Tiong Bahru
Aug 4, 2026 · via straitstimes.com
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Aug 4, 2026 · via youtube.com
Apple will face a class-action lawsuit alleging it violated Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA), in a case that could cost the company more than $30 billion. Here are the details. Apple on the hook for up to $32.5 billion In March 2020, a group of roughly 10 Apple users filed a putative class action accusing Apple Photos’ “People” feature of violating Illinois’ BIPA, which gives citizens “the right to control their biometric information by requiring notice before collection and giving them the power to say no by withholding consent.” BIPA allows for damages of $1,000 for each negligent violation and $5,000 for each intentional or reckless violation. This is the same law that led to a lawsuit against Meta ending in a $650 million settlement over Facebook’s facial-recognition system, which scanned photos to suggest people for users to tag, as well as a separate $68.5 million settlement over allegations that Instagram collected and stored users’ biometric data without consent. Back to the case against Apple, since it was filed in 2020, the lawsuit has undergone four amended complaints, years of discovery, and multiple attempts by Apple to have the claims dismissed, before the court ultimately granted class certification in June. Based on the certification document spotted by The Times (via AppleInsider), the plaintiffs are seeking to represent roughly 6.5 million from three proposed classes: - Local Device Class: Every Illinois citizen whose Apple Device put a photograph of that citizen into a People album at any time between September 13, 2016, and the present. - iCloud Subclass: Every Illinois citizen who had an Apple Device with a People album tagged with that citizen’s name or other identifier, and had an iCloud account enabled for photo storage, at any time between September 13, 2016, and the present. - iCloud Faceprint
Aug 4, 2026 · via 9to5mac.com
A St John Ambulance volunteer who met Princess Anne after gaining national recognition has admitted possession of indecent images of children. Elliot Brooke, 19, was honoured at the Young Achievers’ Reception in 2024, an annual event which celebrates the exceptional contributions of young St John Ambulance members. The event was attended by The Princess Royal, who has served as St John’s Commandant-in-Chief (Youth) for many years. Brooke, of Rowan Road in Martham, appeared at Norwich Magistrates’ Court facing four charges involving images of children aged as young as under 10 after being arrested in March 2025. He pleaded guilty to three offences of making indecent images including 45 category A, the most serious, 48 category B and 31 category C. The teenager also admitted possessing a prohibited image of a child. Adjourning his sentencing until September 9, District Judge Matthew Bone said: "The offences you have admitted are serious and they attract a guideline starting sentence of 12 months in custody. "However they also say I should take into account other mitigating factors." He ordered a pre-sentence report to look at options including a suspended prison sentence, committal to the crown court or a community order. Brooke was made subject to interim notification requirements and bail conditions including restrictions on his internet use. The court heard there was also evidence that Brooke had messaged children though he has not been charged with any communications offence. He had been aged 16 and 17 at the time and the messages had been to other teens, one of whom has been charged with similar offences, the court was told. His defence solicitor said he had a number of conditions including autism spectrum disorder. Brooke was previously nominated for a Young Diamonds award, a special regional recognition created by the Norfolk Lieutenancy and the
Aug 3, 2026 · via edp24.co.uk
Windows 11 supports numerous AI capabilities, but the best experiences require a Copilot+ PC, a new class of AI PC that includes a powerful and efficient Neural Processing Unit (NPU). Copilot+ PCs can run sophisticated AI workloads locally–on-device–against Small Language Models (SMLs), so these features don’t require an Internet connection or a paid, cloud-based AI service. Granted, you don’t need a Copilot+ PC to use many of the AI features that Windows 11 offers. Those AI features that rely on cloud-hosted Large Language Models (LLMs) are available to all Windows 11 users, albeit with a few limitations: - Connectivity. Your PC must be online to access these AI features. - Subscription. Most of the cloud-based AI features in Windows 11 have usage limits unless you pay for a Microsoft 365 Personal, Family, or Premium subscription. With a Copilot+ PC, you get the best of both worlds: All the AI features that Windows 11 offers plus all the local AI features that are unique to AI PCs and Copilot+ PCs. Windows 11, AI PCs, and Copilot+ PCs Understanding which AI-based Windows 11 features work for everyone and which require AI PCs or Copilot+ PCs can be confusing. So it may be helpful to understand what’s available depending on the type of PC you have. AI features in Windows 11 Windows 11 includes a growing set of AI features integrated throughout the system and in its in-box apps. Many of these features provide so-called generative AI capabilities, meaning they can be used to create new content or edit existing content. The in-box apps in Windows 11 ship with an extensive and always growing set of AI features and functionality that’s available to all users. Some key examples include: - Copilot in Windows 11. This conversational AI-powered assistant brings the ever-improving productivity and
Aug 3, 2026 · via thurrott.com
New California law will change the internet forever as ‘digital fingerprints’ added See more of our coverage in your search results. Add The California Post on Google California is putting a digital leash on AI fakes. A landmark new state law taking effect this week will require artificial intelligence companies to add invisible “digital fingerprints” to AI-generated images, videos and audio, giving users a way to determine whether the content they’re seeing was made by a human — or a machine. Written by Bay Area lawmakers, it will require AI companies to embed difficult-to-remove data known as “provenance” into their creations, allowing people to check a file’s origins through content verification tools. The goal is to make the internet a little less of a Wild West. “While AI has some benefits, we’ve seen AI content used for election misinformation for scams and abusive deepfakes,” state Sen. Josh Becker, D-Menlo Park, recently told KQED. The concern comes as AI-generated political content has already begun making waves in The Golden State. As previously reported by The Post, two California Democrats recently urged Congress to crack down on AI-generated campaign ads that could impersonate candidates or political organizations as the technology becomes increasingly sophisticated. US Sen. Adam Schiff and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont) are pushing a new crackdown that would stop fake candidate impersonations from hijacking federal campaigns. The push came after California political campaigns embraced AI-generated ads. This included Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton’s videos attacking Gov. Gavin Newsom, former Vice President Kamala Harris and Democratic nominee Xavier Becerra — as well as former Los Angeles mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt’s viral “Pratt Man” campaign video, which racked up millions of views with a Hollywood-style AI parody. Schiff warned that AI-fueled political deception crosses party lines. “AI-generated fraudulent advertising which uses the likeness
Aug 3, 2026 · via nypost.com
Figures Abstract This study presents a pythagorean fuzzy set-based framework combined with contrast-limited adaptive histogram equalization (CLAHE) for low-light color image enhancement. Low-light color images often suffer from poor contrast, reduced visibility, and brightness distortion. To address these challenges, the proposed method employs pythagorean fuzzy sets to model pixel-level uncertainty more flexibly than conventional fuzzy representations. The method first transforms the input image into a pythagorean fuzzy image using a parameterized nonlinear membership mapping and then applies adaptive CLAHE to enhance contrast while preserving color fidelity. Experimental results on benchmark datasets demonstrate that the proposed approach improves visual quality and achieves competitive quantitative performance compared with existing enhancement techniques. Performance is evaluated using entropy, absolute mean brightness error, contrast improvement index, correlation coefficient, structural similarity index, and the natural image quality evaluator. The results highlight the effectiveness of integrating pythagorean fuzzy uncertainty modeling with adaptive contrast enhancement for low-light color image processing. Citation: S UM, S J (2026) Enhancing low contrast color images via pythagorean interval-valued fuzzy sets and CLAHE. PLoS One 21(8): e0354362. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0354362 Editor: Peng Wu, Anhui University, CHINA Received: September 19, 2025; Accepted: July 7, 2026; Published: August 3, 2026 Copyright: © 2026 S., S.. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Data Availability: The datasets used in this study are publicly available from the Figshare repository at DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.27192921, and all relevant data are presented within the paper. Funding: The author(s) received no specific funding for this work. Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. 1. Introduction Image enhancement plays a critical role in improving visual perception for computer vision, pattern recognition, and digital image
Aug 3, 2026 · via journals.plos.org
A translation of a mass shooter’s cryptic journal in the days after an attack. A public records review that revealed failures to install flood warning systems in Central Texas. An exposé of American technology companies’ complicity in building the Chinese surveillance state. An audit of the SEC’s crypto lawsuits that showed weakening enforcement under the second Trump administration. On May 4, the Pulitzer Prizes recognized these stories among the winners and finalists across 15 journalism categories. The reporters behind each of these stories also disclosed using AI to the judging committee. Ultimately, five award winners and three finalists this year disclosed AI adoption in their submissions — the most since the disclosure requirement was added in 2024. For the past two years, I’ve spoken to Pulitzer-recognized reporters about how they used AI in their reporting. Both years, generative AI took a back seat to more conventional machine learning technologies, like using embedding models to produce complex data visualizations and pattern recognition models to analyze satellite imagery in conflict zones. This year, though, generative AI tools and commercial large language models (LLMs) were more commonly used, largely to speed up the process of combing through document dumps. “To state the obvious, perhaps, AI is here to stay,” Marjorie Miller, the administrator of the Pulitzer Prizes, told me. “The industry [used to be] far more apprehensive about AI tools than it is today, with a clearer understanding now of what uses might be appropriate — data collection and analysis, for example — and when it might not, such as in writing and editing stories in any format that might be considered for a Pulitzer Prize.” Miller cautioned that as AI evolves, reporters will need to “ensure and reassure” the Pulitzers that submissions are ultimately produced by human beings, even when AI is
Aug 3, 2026 · via niemanlab.org
Figures Abstract With the extensive applications of satellite image data in environmental monitoring and geographic surveying and mapping, the amount of data has increased rapidly, which brings great challenges for transmitting and storing these images. However, when processing high-resolution and multi-spectral satellite data, existing image compression methods often lead to low compression efficiency or poor reconstruction image quality due to its insufficient generalization ability. In this paper, we propose an end-to-end deep learning image compression framework for visible infrared imaging radiometer suite (VIIRS) satellite imagery. The framework consists of an analysis transform encoder, a synthesis transform decoder, a hybrid training-testing quantizer and a probability model for entropy coding. A cumulative distribution function (CDF) is constructed to compute the discrete likelihood of quantized latent symbols under a Gaussian-mixture entropy model. It is integrated with a checkerboard context structure and a VIIRS-oriented block-processing pipeline. Finally, we conduct systematic experiments based on NASA VIIRS multi-spectral datasets. Experimental results show that the proposed method achieves 0.51 ± 0.04 bpp, 38.39 ± 0.72 dB PSNR and 0.973 ± 0.007 SSIM. Relative to ELIC and the Transformer-CNN baseline, it reduced bpp by 13.6% and 10.5% and improved PSNR by 0.78 dB and 0.61 dB, respectively. The framework can compress the data volume to approximately 1.5%−4% of the original size, corresponding to an average compression ratio of about 30:1. In order to meet the processing requirements of high-resolution satellite images, we further propose a block compression strategy, which divides large-size images into sub-blocks of 256 × 256 pixels for independent compression, and realizes complete image reconstruction through decompression and splicing technology. Citation: Gao Y, Xu H, Huang W, Bai H, Peng B, Xu H (2026) An end-to-end deep learning image compression method for satellite images based on entropy model. PLoS One 21(8): e0355234. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0355234 Editor: Hashmat Fida,
Aug 3, 2026 · via journals.plos.org
Liberal California city makes dramatic U-turn on police surveillance, poll shows See more of our coverage in your search results. Add The California Post on Google San Francisco police have expanded their use of cameras, drones and other surveillance tech to nab criminals — and most residents of the famously liberal city are good with it, a new poll shows. Seventy-two percent of those surveyed in a poll by GrowSF, a San Francisco political advocacy group, said they somewhat or strongly support the use of cameras and drones after a 911 call to assist in “active investigations.” A strong majority — 66% of those surveyed — even backed real-time video monitoring of crime hotspots such as Tenderloin drug markets “to help deter crime and hold criminals accountable.” Currently, police are only allowed to monitor live footage in limited circumstances. Similar numbers of San Francisco residence said they support using surveillance tech for other uses, such as preventing illegal dumping (67%) and “monitoring areas with high drug-use” to help prevent overdoses (69%). The GrowSF poll suggests San Franciscans broadly support giving cops more leeway in catching suspects: 66% support giving police tasers, while an overwhelming 75% are in favor of police dispersing drug markets. “By many measures, San Francisco is safer, and its quality of life is stronger than it has been in decades, thanks in part to modern public-safety technology,” said Steven Bacio, co-founder of GrowSF, in a statement. “The message is clear: residents want city leaders to continue modernizing the police department and deploying every effective tool available to keep them and their families safe,” he added. The new survey appears to reflect a sharp turnaround in police surveillance sentiment in the Bay Area city, which became the first city in the US to ban the use of facial
Aug 3, 2026 · via nypost.com
Apple eyes facial recognition for smart home hub Apple is reportedly developing a Siri-powered smart home hub that uses facial recognition to identify household members and display personalized content, according to Bloomberg. The device is expected to feature a seven-inch display that recognizes who is looking at the screen. It could also estimate a person’s distance from the device and adjust the size and type of information displayed accordingly. Once it recognizes a household member, the hub could display personalized information such as calendars, notes and other user-specific content. Bloomberg also reports that Apple is developing a higher-end version of the hub with a nine-inch display and a robotic arm that can move the screen. The hub would support FaceTime video calls, smart home controls, security camera monitoring, photo viewing, music playback and an intercom function. It is reportedly designed to serve as the primary visual interface for Apple’s connected home ecosystem, allowing users to control HomeKit-enabled devices including smart locks, speakers, lighting and security accessories. Bloomberg reports that Apple could release the hub between October 2026 and early 2027. The company is also said to be working on a separate home security camera to compete with Amazon’s Ring products. The reported expansion of facial recognition into the home comes as Apple continues to face scrutiny over how it collects and manages biometric data. Illinois lawsuit raises questions on control of face biometric data Apple’s smart home devices are expected to launch as the company faces a certified class action in Illinois over the facial grouping feature in its Photos app. The lawsuit centers on the Photos app feature previously known as People and now called People & Pets. Plaintiffs allege Apple scans facial biometrics to group photographs of the same individual, then synchronizes that biometric information across devices through
Aug 3, 2026 · via biometricupdate.com
LEO Technologies extends prison surveillance from calls to voices, faces, and behavior LEO Technologies has launched a pair of AI products that expand correctional surveillance beyond the content of incarcerated people’s communications, allowing agencies to identify speakers through voice biometrics and continuously analyze camera feeds for movements, relationships, and behavior the company says may signal an emerging threat. Verus Voice AI is designed to detect when someone uses another incarcerated person’s personal identification number to place a call. The launches represent a significant broadening of correctional monitoring. Instead of requiring an investigator to search calls or review recorded video after an incident, LEO Technologies is marketing Verus as a continuously operating intelligence system that can connect a person’s communications with their physical movements and institutional history. Voice AI addresses a longstanding weakness in prison telephone systems. Calls are generally attributed to the PIN entered before they are placed, but PINs and telephone access can be shared, traded, coerced, or stolen. That can allow one person to use another’s account, obscuring who is communicating with people outside the facility. Verus Voice AI analyzes the speaker rather than relying on the account or device. The company says its agentic AI continuously develops voice identities across monitored calls and alerts investigators when the detected speaker does not appear to match the person assigned to the PIN. The system is intended to identify possible PIN sharing, identity fraud, and unauthorized communications across large quantities of recorded call data. The product can also be used as an investigative voice seeker whose name or account information is unknown. The company describes the capability as a way to “surface hidden voices” and connect individuals across different conversations. A suspected mismatch can then be cross-referenced through the larger Verus platform against the person’s previous calls and facility history.
Aug 3, 2026 · via biometricupdate.com
New support allows desktop PCs and docked laptops to use TPM-protected biometric authentication. Key Takeaways: Microsoft is making passwordless sign-ins more secure and accessible for desktop users by extending Windows Hello Enhanced Sign-in Security (ESS) to compatible external fingerprint readers. This update enables hardware-backed biometric authentication on more Windows 11 devices, which helps protect sensitive data from sophisticated cyberattacks. Windows Hello Enhanced Sign-in Security (ESS) is an advanced security feature in Windows 11 that strengthens biometric sign-ins by creating a protected pathway between users’ fingerprint reader or facial recognition camera and the operating system. ESS uses hardware-backed protections, such as the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) and Virtualization-Based Security (VBS), to isolate sensitive biometric data and authentication processes from potential malware and unauthorized access. This capability makes it harder for an attacker with elevated privileges to intercept, manipulate, or spoof biometric credentials. Previously, devices with built-in fingerprint sensors could take advantage of enhanced Sign-in Security (ESS). However, users with external USB fingerprint readers often couldn’t access the same level of protection. Consequently, desktop users and those with docked laptops had to choose between the convenience of biometric sign-in and the stronger security safeguards provided by ESS. Microsoft’s latest update (KB5101684) addresses this gap by allowing compatible external fingerprint readers to work within the ESS framework. This release brings secure, passwordless authentication to a much wider range of Windows 11 devices. “Windows Hello Enhanced Sign-in Security (ESS) now supports external fingerprint sensors. With this update, this secure sign-in option extends beyond devices with integrated fingerprint sensors to desktop PCs and other Windows 11 PCs, including Copilot+ PCs. To get started, connect a supported ESS fingerprint reader,” Microsoft explained. Microsoft has started rolling out this optional update to PCs running Windows 11 versions 25H2 and 24H2. Users can get started with fingerprint authentication
Aug 3, 2026 · via petri.com
Dive Brief: - Wegmans is piloting new, smaller shopping carts at two upstate New York stores, the grocery company confirmed with Grocery Dive. - The new carts are lighter, quieter, easier to maneuver and feature conveniences like cup and phone holders. They’re also better suited for larger items and family-pack purchases. - The carts are still undergoing updates based on initial feedback that Wegmans received from shoppers and employees. Dive Insight: At a time when most grocers are testing smart carts — and about a year after Wegmans itself confirmed it was piloting the tech-forward carts — the New York grocer is taking a more classic approach to improving the in-store customer experience. Wegmans first rolled out the redesigned carts to its Pittsford and Penfield, New York, locations in mid-July, the grocer wrote in emailed comments. This month, Wegmans is introducing a limited number of redesigned small carts at both stores based on feedback from shoppers and workers and said it will continue gathering customer feedback to evaluate next steps. The carts, which are manufactured in the U.S., aim to improve the shopping experience as well as better support the store team, Wegmans said, noting that its previous small cart design was more than 15 years old.
Aug 3, 2026 · via grocerydive.com