🪅 Heap Heap Hurray Ed. #119

Happy Friday! The weekend is near - keep going!

#PrivacyConcerns - Apparently, smart TVs are being used to harvest people's data and sell it to advertisers! It's like, they're watching us and tracking everything we do, even on our own devices! And get this, they're using the same ad tech to deny us privacy online! It's like, what's the point of having privacy settings if they're just gonna ignore them?

#ContentModeration - Apparently folks are getting blocked for the stupidest things on Meta’s Threads. “I am dying of heat” got a journalist blocked… An adult got blocked because their system thought they were a child… and many more.

UPI Lite and UPI123Pay Transaction Limit Doubled
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has increased the transaction limit for UPILite from Rs 500 to Rs 1000 and maximum amount to 5000 from 2000 allowing feature phone users to make larger payments. This is part of the RBI's strategy to drive further adoption of UPI, making digital payments more accessible and inclusive in India.

Star Health Insurance Faces Off Against Hacker Group
Star Health and Allied Insurance, one of the largest health insurance firms in India, has confirmed it was the target of a “malicious cyberattack” The Chennai-headquartered insurance giant told TechCrunch in a statement Wednesday that the cyberattack resulted in “unauthorized and illegal access to certain data” Star Health would not say if the data breach included customers’ data.

X Shifts To Engagement-based Ad Revenue Sharing Model
X is making a big change to how creators can earn money from the platform. Since last year, X has shared ad revenue with creators based on how many verified users see ads in replies to their posts. But the company announced today that creators are instead going to be paid based on “engagement with your content from Premium users.”

Amazon Unveils AI-powered Shopping Guides
Amazon, one of the tech giants, has introduced a new AI-powered shopping tool called Shopping Guides, designed to help customers quickly find products based on specific features they need. The feature uses artificial intelligence to provide users with more tailored product information and recommendations, making it easier to make informed purchase decisions.

Wayback Machine Suffers 31 Million User Data Breach
Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, a digital library of the internet, has suffered a massive data breach after a threat actor compromised the website and stole a user authentication database containing 31 million unique records. The breach is believed to have occurred on September 28th, 2024, and the stolen data will soon be added to the Have I Been Pwned breach notification service.

China-based Group Tries To Phish Openai Employees With Malware Emails
OpenAI says it disrupted a spear-phishing campaign that targeted its employees. The group, which OpenAI says is called SweetSpecter, sent phishing emails that contained a malicious attachment designed to deploy the SugarGh0st RAT malware. The company believes that Sweet Specter has also been using OpenAI’s services for offensive cyber operations.

Qrframe | Code-based qr code generator

Evolution Api | Evolution API is an open-source WhatsApp integration API

This week (7th October to 11th October) we will not display any jobs. We are in the middle of making some changes to this section and hope to get it back soon.

Tech Pioneer Recounts
A chance meeting and a challenge from the top led to a career shift for a young programmer, who went on to become a pioneer in the tech industry.

Escaping The Dict Trap
Did you know that simple prototypes can quickly turn into complex applications, and dicts can become a nightmare to maintain? Learn how Python's modern features can help you avoid tech debt and create more scalable code.

Enforcing Warm Handoffs For Better Slack Collaboration
Implement the Warm Handoff procedure to improve communication and collaboration in Slack. This involves redirecting questions to the right team while supporting the requester. Follow a policy and guidelines, and enforce Warm Handoffs to avoid siloed "us vs. them" culture and reduce delays.