Tech Report: Most Americans say they have experienced sonic snooping

According to cybersecurity company NordVPN, more than half of Americans says they have been the victim of sonic snooping. Sonic snooping is where apps on your smartphone listen in to background noise, including conversations, to gather more information about you. This common tactic can be spotted when an ad for something you recently talked about or watched on TV appears on your devices. NordVPN says this personalized product placement is due to a type of data monitoring called ultrasonic cross-device tracking.

Amazon’s Cloud Computing Division became the latest tech giant to try and cash in on generative AI. They announced new artificial intelligence offerings Thursday. These services will be used more for businesses than individuals, but can help shoppers find what they’re looking for.

IBM is exploring the sale of its weather business. The Weather.com owner could fetch more than 1 billion dollars in a sale. The deal was part of a push by IBM to use its cloud infrastructure to provide accurate weather forecasts and help companies control costs. The business issues more than 25 billion forecasts a day.

Netflix turns 25 this week and setting records along the way. The streaming platform is seeing record numbers in both streaming hours and revenue. Viewers worldwide spent 1.65 billion hours watching season one of Squid Game, which was released in 2021. Close behind is the 2022 release of the fourth season of Stranger Things, streamed for 1.35 billion hours. Wednesday was also incredibly popular, with 1.24 billion hours of streaming globally.