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Category Archives: E-Commerce

We tested Amazon’s new shopping chatbot. It’s not good.

Washington Post via MSN: “Amazon is experimenting with an artificial intelligence chatbot to help you figure out what to buy. Instead of sorting through thousands of options for vacuum cleaners, you can ask the chatbot to recommend the best models for hardwood floors or for sucking up pet hair. The chatbot called Rufus, which Amazon announced last month, is still under development. In my testing over the past several days, the chatbot wasn’t a disaster. But I also found it mostly useless. I’ll get to the details shortly. In general, I thought the shopping bot was at best a slight upgrade on searching Amazon, Google or news articles for product recommendations. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.) A test version of Amazon’s shopping bot is available only for a select few. That’s good because it needs a lot of work. I am prepared to change my mind if the chatbot significantly improves. An Amazon spokesperson said feedback from people who tested the chatbot “has been positive.” The company said it would continue to refine the AI to make the chatbot better. The experience encapsulated my exasperation with new types of AI sprouting in seemingly every technology you use. If these chatbots are supposed to be magical, why are so many of them dumb as rocks?…”

Perplexity brings Yelp data to its chatbot

The Verge: “Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas tells The Verge that many people are using chatbots like regular search engines. It makes sense to offer information on things they look for, like restaurants, directly from the source. So it’s integrating Yelp’s maps, reviews, and other details in responses when people ask for restaurant recommendations. “Our underlying… Continue Reading

Everything You Need to Know About Facebook Marketplace Scams

AARP: “…It’s difficult to gauge the extent of the risk. Meta, Facebook’s parent company, hasn’t disclosed how many complaints it’s received about scammers or how many it’s taken action against, though from July to September 2023 alone, the website removed 827 million fake Facebook accounts, according to a Meta spokesperson. However, the BBB’s Scam Tracker… Continue Reading

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, March 2, 2024

Via LLRX – Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, March 2, 2024 – Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, finance, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on… Continue Reading

Scam Baiting: An Innovative Approach to Combating Online Fraud

Via LLRX – Scam Baiting: An Innovative Approach to Combating Online Fraud – The thesis of Kyra Strick‘s instructive paper promotes a proactive approach to a rapidly increasing online security crisis. Strick states that in the dynamic landscape of cybersecurity, scam baiting has emerged as a captivating and unconventional approach to combating online fraud. Scam baiting is… Continue Reading

Toward a durable, dictator-proof Washington Post

Via LLRX – Toward a durable, dictator-proof Washington Post – David H. Rothman’s timely, outside the box commentary addresses the growing wave of news outlets abruptly closing down their websites, laying off staff, and in some cases, eliminating access to their respective archives. Rothman proposes an alternative to “how do I charge them enough” to… Continue Reading

Axel Springer vs. Google

Fortune: “Axel Springer is at Google’s throat again. The German news-publishing giant (for which I worked in my days at Politico) has a long history of battling Google over the issue of so-called ancillary copyright fees—payments for carrying snippets of text and thumbnail images in search results. But now it’s waging war on another front:… Continue Reading

The Best VPNs to Protect Yourself Online

Wired – “It won’t solve all of your privacy problems, but a virtual private network can make you a less tempting target for hackers. A virtual private network (VPN) is like a protective tunnel you can use to pass through a public network, protecting your data from outside eyes. Whether you’re worried about hiding your… Continue Reading

Amazon’s Big Secret

The Atlantic [unpaywalled] – “…Nearly 30 years after the company was founded, we still don’t really know where its profits come from. The answer will loom large in the antitrust case against it. Under SEC rules, public corporations must file quarterly reports disclosing revenue, expenses, profits, and other metrics. Initially, only company-wide data were required.… Continue Reading

How to stop your devices from listening to you

PopSci: “Our smartphones and smart speakers can listen for specific voice commands and take action accordingly, but maybe you don’t want your devices always having one digital ear open. Aside from privacy concerns, the smart assistants inside our gadgets can be triggered accidentally–by someone else in the house or even someone speaking on television. Turning… Continue Reading