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"Every Ford EV model set a new sales record in 2024 with double-digit growth," reports Electrek, with Ford's total U.S. electric vehicle sales jumping to 97,865, an increase of 34.8% from 2023. And in the last three months of 2024 Ford sold 30,176 EVs — which is also a new record. The Mustang Mach-E had its best sales quarter since launching in late 2020, with 16,119 models sold in Q4. With 51,745 Mach-Es sold last year, it was the second-best-selling electric SUV in the US, behind the Tesla Model Y. Even more impressive, the Mach-E outsold every gas-powered Ford Mustang model in 2024. Ford sold just over 48,600 gas Mustangs last year, down 9.5% from 2023. The article adds that to thank customers, Ford has now extended its "Power Promise" promotion, "which gives all new EV buyers a free Level 2 home charger, and Ford is covering the cost of standard installation."

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Google is reintroducing "digital fingerprinting" in five weeks, reports Mashable, describing it as "a data collection process that ingests all of your online signals (from IP address to complex browser information) and pinpoints unique users or devices." Or, to put it another way, Google "is tracking your online behavior in the name of advertising." The UK's Information Commissioner's Office called Google's decision "irresponsible": it is likely to reduce people's choice and control over how their information is collected. The change to Google's policy means that fingerprinting could now replace the functions of third-party cookies... Google itself has previously said that fingerprinting does not meet users' expectations for privacy, as users cannot easily consent to it as they would cookies. This in turn means they cannot control how their information is collected. To quote Google's own position on fingerprinting from 2019: "We think this subverts user choice and is wrong...." When the new policy comes into force on 16 February 2025, organisations using Google's advertising technology will be able to deploy fingerprinting without being in breach of Google's own policies. Given Google's position and scale in the online advertising ecosystem, this is significant. Their post ends with a warning that those hoping to use fingerprinting for advertising "will need to demonstrate how they are complying with the requirements of data protection law. These include providing users with transparency, securing freely-given consent, ensuring fair processing and upholding information rights such as the right to erasure." But security and privacy researcher Lukasz Olejnik asks if Google's move is the biggest privacy erosion in 10 years.... Could this mark the end of nearly a decade of progress in internet and web privacy? It would be unfortunate if the newly developing AI economy started from a decrease of privacy and data protection standards. Some analysts or observers might then be inclined to wonder whether this approach to privacy online might signal similar attitudes in other future Google products, like AI... The shift is rather drastic. Where clear restrictions once existed, the new policy removes the prohibition (so allows such uses) and now only requires disclosure... [I]f the ICO's claims about Google sharing IP addresses within the adtech ecosystem are accurate, this represents a significant policy shift with critical implications for privacy, trust, and the integrity of previously proposed Privacy Sandbox initiatives. Their post includes a disturbing thought. "Reversing the stance on fingerprinting could open the door to further data collection, including to crafting dynamic, generative AI-powered ads tailored with huge precision. Indeed, such applications would require new data..." Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader sinij for sharing the news.

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Unanimous AI's founder Louis Rosenberg predicts a "wave" of new superhuman abilities is coming soon that we experience profoundly "as self-embodied skills that we carry around with us throughout our lives"... "[B]y 2030, a majority of us will live our lives with context-aware AI agents bringing digital superpowers into our daily experiences." They will be unleashed by context-aware AI agents that are loaded into body-worn devices that see what we see, hear what we hear, experience what we experience, and provide us with enhanced abilities to perceive and interpret our world... The majority of these superpowers will be delivered through AI-powered glasses with cameras and microphones that act as their eyes and ears, but there will be other form factors for people who just don't like eyewear... [For example, earbuds with built in cameras] We will whisper to these intelligent devices, and they will whisper back, giving us recommendations, guidance, spatial reminders, directional cues, haptic nudges, and other verbal and perceptual content that will coach us through our days like an omniscient alter ego... When you spot that store across the street, you simply whisper to yourself, "I wonder when it opens?" and a voice will instantly ring back into your ears, "10:30 a.m...." By 2030, we will not need to whisper to the AI agents traveling with us through our lives. Instead, you will be able to simply mouth the words, and the AI will know what you are saying by reading your lips and detecting activation signals from your muscles. I am confident that "mouthing" will be deployed because it's more private, more resilient to noisy spaces, and most importantly, it will feel more personal, internal, and self-embodied. By 2035, you may not even need to mouth the words. That's because the AI will learn to interpret the signals in our muscles with such subtlety and precision — we will simply need to think about mouthing the words to convey our intent... When you grab a box of cereal in a store and are curious about the carbs, or wonder whether it's cheaper at Walmart, the answers will just ring in your ears or appear visually. It will even give you superhuman abilities to assess the emotions on other people's faces, predict their moods, goals, or intentions, coaching you during real-time conversations to make you more compelling, appealing, or persuasive... I don't make these claims lightly. I have been focused on technologies that augment our reality and expand human abilities for over 30 years and I can say without question that the mobile computing market is about to run in this direction in a very big way. Instead of Augmented Reality, how about Augmented Mentality? The article notes Meta has already added context-aware AI to its Ray-Ban glasses and suggests that within five years Meta might try "selling us superpowers we can't resist". And Google's new AI-powered operating system Android XR hopes to augment our world with seamless context-aware content. But think about where this is going. "[E]ach of us could find ourselves in a new reality where technologies controlled by third parties can selectively alter what we see and hear, while AI-powered voices whisper in our ears with targeted advice and guidance." And yet " by 2030 the superpowers that these devices give us won't feel optional. After all, not having them could put us at a social and cognitive disadvantage." Thanks to Slashdot reader ZipNada for sharing the news.

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