Photo: Stephen Brashear (Getty Images)
Amazon’s Ring a company that is famously pretty chummy with law enforcement will now require law enforcement officials to make their requests for security footage public, the company said in a blog post published Thursday. Starting next week, any time an officer wants to ask Ring’s customers for any recordings that their cams picked up, they’ll need to use the customer-facing Neighbors app to do so.
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Up until this point, law enforcement officials across the country that work with Ring were able to make their requests for footage using a dedicated portal built for this purpose. But as the Amazon-Cop relationship keeps getting deeper, concerns from civil rights groups and lawmakers over how this tech might be abused have grown. During an Amazon shareholder meeting last week, 35% of the attendees voted for a proposal meant to analyze how technologies like Ring and Amazon Rekognition disproportionally harm communities of color
Out of bankruptcy, the Alamo Drafthouse announces the opening of five new theaters in Manhattan, St. Louis, and Washington, D.C. The company also says that the L.A. location has reopened and boasted sold out screenings all weekend.
Fresh off a decade of controversies, former Smiths frontman Morrisey announced that his new album, Bonfire Of Teenagers, is in need of a record label. On his website, he announced that the album would be auctioned off to the highest or lowest bidder.
Photo: Casey Feigh (Other)
Kids say the darndest things, or so we are told. Sometimes cakes say the darndest things, especially the birthday cakes of 3-year-olds. Still, there’s a logic to kid-based and cake-based communications that makes perfect sense. Take birthday girl Leona, for example, who demanded a birthday cake that featured one of cinema’s saddest scenes depicted in all its fondant glory. The reason: More cake, obviously.
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How does this all work? First, Leona asked for a
Lion King-themed cake in what is easily one of the most adorable/ingenious crimes in recent memory. Hakuna matata. Nothing strange about that. But as her uncle, actor and filmmaker Casey Feigh, who tweeted images of the cake over the weekend, tells it, there was a bit more going on than meets the eye.
The thank-you banners are down, but New York City residents have a real opportunity to show their appreciation for a population of low-paid, primarily immigrant frontline workers. New York City residents can help now by ditching Uber and Lyft for a competing driver-owned alternative app called “Co-op Ride,” created by the mostly volunteer-run Drivers Cooperative. If Co-op’s proposal plays out, drivers could make more money while their passengers, particularly those in underserved communities, could end up paying less for rides.