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AI facial recognition led to a grandma being wrongly jailed

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Angela Lipps, a 50-year-old grandma from Tennessee, spent more than five months in jail after the AI facial recognition platform Clearview AI falsely matched the grandmother with a suspect of bank fraud more than 1,000 miles away in North Dakota.

Fargo police chief Dave Zibolski admitted to CNN that there were a "couple of errors" in the investigation that led to Lipps' arrest.

A "partner agency’s facial recognition technology” and “additional investigative steps independent of AI to assist in identification” led to a warrant being issued for Lipps, Zibolski said.

The grandma was arrested on July 14 while looking after four children. Authorities in Tennessee held Lipps in county jail for 108 days before she was extradited to Fargo. Lipps says she had never even been to the state of North Dakota before her arrest.

According to her GoFundMe page, Lipps found out that a woman in North Dakota stole tens of thousands of dollars from banks in Fargo using a fake military ID. Clearview AI matched the fake ID image with Lipps in Tennessee.

The case against Lipps fell apart in December when the lawyer she was given in Fargo was able to produce bank records showing Lipps was at a gas station and ordering pizza in Tennessee at the time that authorities claimed she was in North Dakota.

Lipps was released on Christmas Eve, after nearly 5 months in prison. Lipps says she lost her home, income, car, and health insurance as a result of her imprisonment.

What is Clearview AI?

Clearview AI is a tech company that has plenty of charges from critics on its rap sheet already. it has created massive facial-scan databases by scraping photos from social media platforms and other places on the internet, then training its machine learning algorithms on them.

In 2020, Facebook sent Clearview AI a cease and desist over the mass photo scraping. Other tech companies like YouTube, Twitter, and Venmo also requested that Clearview AI stop scraping its platforms. Clearview AI claimed it had a "First Amendment right" to the data.

In 2022, a legal settlement with the ACLU resulted in Clearview AI agreeing to stop selling access to its tool to private businesses. However, it did not bar Clearview AI from working with law enforcement.

While Fargo police have admitted to making mistakes in the investigation, authorities have not yet apologized to Lipps for her ordeal. Lipps' attorneys are currently looking at filing a civil rights claim.

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Forget about floor cleaning by grabbing the Eufy C28 robot vacuum and mop while its $270 off at Amazon

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the Eufy C28 robot vacuum and mop on a pink and coral-colored background

SAVE $270: The Eufy C28 robot vacuum and mop is on sale at Amazon for $529.99, down from the standard price of $799.99. That works out to a 34% discount.



Eufy C28 robot vacuum and mop

Credit: Eufy

$529.99
at Amazon

$799.99
Save $270

We all deserve a break these days. Even if your schedule is not packed with meetings and errands and other daily chores, having some relaxing time is essential. Instead of spending energy on cleaning the floors, offload the task to a robot. Sure, robots might not be ready to cook us dinner, but they've proven their worth as vacuums and mops. Check out this deal at Amazon today on a budget-friendly model.

As of April 21, the Eufy C28 robot vacuum and mop is on sale at Amazon for $529.99, marked down from the usual price of $799.99. That works out to a 34% discount that shaves $270 off the price.

Mashable's resident expert on robot vacuum and mops, Leah Stodard, ranked the Eufy C28 as the best affordable robot vacuum and mop combo with a self-wash station. In her full review of the Eufy C28, she wrote, "The Eufy C28 is the most affordable mainstream roller mop robot vacuum we've seen so far," and that's even more true now that it's $270 off.

It's a compact model that does a great job at vacuuming and mopping floors given its price point. Stodart mention it doesn't earn a spot on the list of the best robot vacuums for pet hair on carpets, but it does a reliable job with keeping up on the daily.

While it's $270 off, snag the affordable Eufy C28 robot vacuum and mop. You'll be able to offload both vacuuming and mopping so you can take off on summer's best adventures or simply relax on the couch.

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Dive into the Magic: The Gathering Secrets of Strixhaven expansion with this discounted booster box

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SAVE $20.71: As of April 21, preorder the Magic: The Gathering Secrets of Strixhaven – Play Booster Box (30 Packs) for $143.99 at Amazon, down from its usual price of $164.70. That's a discount of 13%.



Magic the Gathering Secrets of Strixhaven Booster Box on white background

Credit: Amazon

It's that time again: a new Magic: The Gathering expansion is on its way. Secrets of Strixhaven is officially landing on April 24. It'll bring hundreds of new cards to the game, and if you plan on competing or collecting, you'll want to get your hands on some of the latest and greatest cards. You can do that easily with this discounted set that's up for preorder right now.

As of April 21, preorder the Magic: The Gathering Secrets of Strixhaven – Play Booster Box (30 Packs) for $143.99 at Amazon, down from its usual price of $164.70. That's $20.71 off and a discount of 13%.

There are nearly 368 new cards that comprise Secrets of Strixhaven, with several magical colleges to explore in the world of Arcavios. This box comes with 30 Play Boosters, each containing 14 cards. That means 1-5 cards of Rare or higher rarity, 3-6 Uncommon, 5-8 Common, and 1 Land card. You'll also find surprises like Traditional Foils, Foil Borderless Mythics, and more in these packs.

This booster box is the best way to build your stores of cards that can be used to create new decks. You'll get a good spread of options for filling in holes or starting a brand new deck to see what the expansion has to offer.

If you're ready to dive into this new addition to the world of Magic, you'll want to lock in your booster box preorder while it's discounted. These things always sell out rather quickly.

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Why Instagram was turning some users photos black and white

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Have your Instagram posts been turning black and white without your consent? You're not alone.

According to Engadget, some users on Facebook and presumably elsewhere (though I wasn't able to find a lot of complaints on X) have complained that photos uploaded to the Instagram app in color were being automatically and unintentionally turned black and white at some point in the uploading process.

It was enough of a problem that Instagram confirmed its existence to Engadget, explained what the problem was, and claimed it had already been fixed.

"Earlier today, a technical issue caused some HDR photos to appear incorrectly as black-and-white for a subset of accounts,” Instagram told Engadget, before saying the problem was already being fixed.

According to the Instagram spokesperson, anyone still experiencing the problem should simply wait a few hours for the photos to automatically go back to their original, intended state.

In the meantime, if you want to avoid anything like this happening in the future, there's a way to turn off HDR photos on an iPhone. By default, your iPhone will turn on HDR automatically when it's called for, but if you go to Settings, then Camera, then turn off Auto HDR, you can avoid any HDR-related mishaps going forward.

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