The onslaught of new television never stops, but that’s what we’re here for: to keep you posted on what’s new and significant in TV premieres and finales each week.
ESRB wants to make it easier to harvest kids' personal data | This Week in Business
28.07.2023 - 15:43 / gamesindustry.biz
This Week in Business is our weekly recap column, a collection of stats and quotes from recent stories presented with a dash of opinion (sometimes more than a dash) and intended to shed light on various trends. Check back every Friday for a new entry.
Is technology that guesses people's age based on their appearance a valid tool to confirm parental consent?
The ESRB is hoping so, as the North American ratings board is asking the US Federal Trade Commission to make facial age estimation one of the approved methods of verifiable parental consent (VPC) under the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).
Joining the ESRB in this request are Yoti, a developer of such technology, and SuperAwesome, which runs the free parental consent management platform Kids Web Services as well as kid-focused advertising and influencer marketing businesses.
The application was first made in June, but when word of it started making the rounds this week, there were concerns expressed about a shiny new technology based on a machine learning algorithm aimed at children (or rather, aimed at preventing children from passing themselves off as adults).
Given the litany of harmful activities already empowered by black box technology that was not created with the explicit goal of causing harm, some pushback should be expected. After all, such technology is already revolutionizing the fields of automobile collisions, legal malpractice, worker exploitation, sexual extortion, eating disorders and union busting AT THE SAME TIME, racist policing, stalking, and so much more.
The ESRB would rather not be associated with any of that, naturally, and once the news of its FTC application started making the rounds, it reached out with a statement.
QUOTE | "First and foremost, this application is not to authorize the use of this technology with children. Full stop. Nor does this software take and store 'selfies' of users or attempt to confirm the identity of users. Furthermore, this application makes no mention of using age estimation to prevent children from purchasing and/or downloading restrictively rated video games, nor do we intend to recommend its use in that way…
"To be perfectly clear: Any images and data used for this process are never stored, used for AI training, used for marketing, or shared with anyone; the only piece of information that is communicated to the company requesting VPC is a 'Yes' or 'No' determination as to whether the person is over the age of 25." – An ESRB spokesperson volunteering comment after reports on the application began circulating.
There's nothing wrong with that statement, but it's striking how many concerns the ESRB is trying to address at once. It wants to soothe people's fears about
The website gametalkz.com is an aggregator of news from open sources. The source is indicated at the beginning and at the end of the announcement. You can send a complaint on the news if you find it unreliable.
Top Authors
Popular Topics
pcmag.com
11.08.2023 / 10:11
Game Changers: Inside The Epic Quest to Make Gaming More Accessible
Like many young men, Jean Molla plays a wide range of video games. He enjoys popular shooters like Fortnite, he’s an avid Minecraft player, and he’s especially excited about Diablo IV—mostly because it can be played with one hand. You see, Jean has Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, a genetic disorder characterized by progressive muscle degeneration and weakness. Because of this, he can’t play games with a typical controller. But with the help of voice commands and software, Jean can play games he never even thought he could before.
pcmag.com
10.08.2023 / 16:31
Game Changers: Inside The Epic Quest to Make Gaming More Accessible
Like many young men, Jean Molla plays a wide range of video games. He enjoys popular shooters like Fortnite, he’s an avid Minecraft player, and he’s especially excited about Diablo IV—mostly because it can be played with one hand. You see, Jean has Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, a genetic disorder characterized by progressive muscle degeneration and weakness. Because of this, he can’t play games with a typical controller. But with the help of voice commands and software, Jean can play games he never even thought he could before.
polygon.com
10.08.2023 / 12:15
Strange New Worlds’ season 2 finale would make ’90s Star Trek proud
The promise of Star Trek: Strange New Worldswas that episodic television — specifically, the episodic adventures of the starship Enterprise — could still captivate audiences in the age of single-day full-season drops and movie-like “television events.”
polygon.com
07.08.2023 / 22:03
Marvel VFX workers want to unionize
More than 50 visual effect workers at Marvel Studios are looking to unionize. The group filed its desire on Monday, asking the National Labor Relations Board to schedule a formal election for as early as Aug. 21, according to Vulture.
rockpapershotgun.com
07.08.2023 / 16:19
Bayonetta creator Hideki Kamiya wants us to drop the "retro" game label
PlatinumGames co-founder, Bayonetta director and celebrated Twitter shoutyman Hideki Kamiya would like the "retro" game label to go out of fashion. His argument is that calling something "retro" is inherently condescending - each game has its own particular achievements and qualities that deserve to be understood in terms of more than just nostalgia cultivated by a novelty-driven industry. After all, Johnny 90s Developer didn't spend months knocking together a bespoke cover system or fancy artstyle so that you could badge it "quaint", "old school" and so on, 30 years later. Assuming you can still access the game at all.
wccftech.com
07.08.2023 / 04:31
Apple Has Admitted A Harsh Reality That May Negatively Affect Its Business; The U.S. Smartphone Market Has Been In A Decline For A While
Apple’s Q3 2023 earnings call reported that its iPhone division generated $39.67 billion for the three-month period, but that amount was 2 percent lower compared to the same quarter a year ago. While that is still an abnormally large chunk of change, it represents a trend that even the technology giant has noticed and has no choice but to admit; the U.S. smartphone market has been in decline, and it has been this way for a while. Naturally, this will prompt the firm to reduce its dependency on its biggest cash cow, but that is easier said than done.
pcmag.com
05.08.2023 / 22:41
Google Makes It Easier To Find and Remove Your Personal Info From Search
Google is making it easier to find out if your personal information is on the web and get rid of private information that right shows up in search results.
polygon.com
04.08.2023 / 23:23
The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Guardians of the Galaxy 3, and every new movie to watch at home this weekend
Happy Friday, Polygon readers!
pcmag.com
04.08.2023 / 16:53
ChatGPT Traffic Dip Continues, Possibly Because Kids Are Out of School
Spending less time on ChatGPT? You're not alone.
gamesindustry.biz
04.08.2023 / 14:55
Right to repair | This Week in Business
This Week in Business is our weekly recap column, a collection of stats and quotes from recent stories presented with a dash of opinion (sometimes more than a dash) and intended to shed light on various trends. Check back every Friday for a new entry.
pcmag.com
04.08.2023 / 14:13
What to Watch This Weekend
When it comes to streaming video, the content pile is vast, and you've got the whole weekend to decide how you want to slice it. There are now too many shows and movies to choose from, spread across too many video-streaming services. We make it easy for you. Each week, we highlight the streaming content we're excited to watch or think you should binge. Fire up your media-streaming device of choice, and start watching.