Eliana Willis

Screenshot by Lance Whitney/ZDNETWant to learn more about a landmark, painting, animal, plant, food, or other object that you’ve snapped with your iPhone’s camera? Now you can, with an iOS 18.1 photo look-up feature called Enhanced Visual Search.By scanning and analyzing photos, this tool can categorize and even identify certain items via a web search. Enhanced Visual Search is also available on an iPad with iPadOS 18.1 and a Mac with MacOS Sequoia 15.1.Also: iOS 18.2 was killing my iPhone’s battery until I turned off this featureSounds great, right? Well, that depends. A similar feature called Visual Look Up first debuted with iOS 16, so this type of capability has been around for a couple of years. But Enhanced Visual Search is more advanced, as it shares your photos with Apple to help dig up the right details on the object. That difference has triggered privacy concerns among many people, especially since the sharing is enabled by default.How Enhanced Visual Search worksOpen a photo on your iPhone (or iPad or Mac) that contains an identifiable object. I chose a photo of the Statue of Liberty.If the item is supported by Enhanced Visual Search, the info icon at the bottom will display a small star in the upper left area. Tap the info icon, and the search will categorize the object as a landmark, artwork, animal, plant, or something else. Tap the Look Up option under the photo, and a web search will name the item and let you select any of the search results to learn more about it.Also: Looking to buy a new Apple device? You might want to hold off. Here’s whyBut here’s the rub. To run that search, Apple needs to analyze the photo. Since there are potentially millions and millions of landmarks, animals, and other common items that could be a match, the analysis can’t be done on your device. That’s why the photos need to be shared with Apple and analyzed on its servers.With privacy in mind, Apple has anticipated concerns over photo sharing. On a web page entitled Photos & Privacy, the company explained how Enhanced Visual Search works: More

Maria Diaz/ZDNETApple has settled a class action lawsuit in which tens of millions of users can expect a slice of the payout.Last Tuesday, the iPhone maker agreed to pay $95 million to settle a 2019 lawsuit claiming that Siri violated the privacy of Apple users by recording their conversations, as reported by Reuters.Lopez v. Apple, Inc.Known as Lopez v. Apple, Inc., the class action lawsuit was filed by three plaintiffs who alleged that Apple programmed Siri to intercept conversations even when no hot word, such as “Hey Siri,” was spoken. Further, the plaintiffs claimed that Apple violated their privacy by sharing recordings of the conversations with third-party contractors.Specifically, two of the plaintiffs said that mentioning Air Jordan sneakers and Olive Garden restaurants prompted ads for both products. The third plaintiff said he received ads for a surgical treatment after discussing it privately with his doctor.Also: iOS 18.2 was killing my iPhone’s battery until I turned off this featureIn settling the suit, Apple has denied any wrongdoing on its part. Before the plaintiffs and Apple users can receive their slice of the payout, the settlement must be approved by U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White in the Oakland, Calif., federal court. More

SOPA Images/Getty Images As the number of scam messages and videos continues to rise, McAfee is introducing a new way to catch scams before you fall for them. The company’s AI scam detector, debuting at CES 2025, will provide McAfee customers with comprehensive protection against text, email, and video scams.  Also: Did you get a […] More

ZDNETWell, that wasn’t fun. Last week, Ars Technica ran a report about 33 Chrome extensions that have been found to have malware. And yeah, yesterday I found that I had one of them installed.You can read the Ars article for a list to check yourself. One seemed familiar: Reader Mode. It was intended to clear a page of all non-text to make it more readable, like Safari’s Reader Mode. I haven’t run it for quite some time, but the name was familiar. Also: Google’s favorite Chrome extensions of 2024 can save you time and moneyI went to my 3-dot menu in Chrome, then Extensions, then Manage Extensions. And there it was, right at the top of the page: “This extension contains malware.” Fortunately, the extension was switched off, but I have no idea when it became infected or whether it did any damage to the Chrome installs on my Macs or Windows machines. More