A federal court ordered shutdown of revenge porn website MyEx.com. Granting the FTC and Nevada’s request, the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada also ordered the operators to pay more than $2 million for violating state and federal law by posting intimate images and personal information of people without consent and charging takedown fees, the FTC said Friday. It announced the complaint in January (see 1801090067). Defendants "harmed individuals by publishing their intimate images, and then victimized them again by trying to extort money to take the information down,” said FTC Consumer Protection Bureau Director Andrew Smith. The defendant's attorney didn't comment.

Google took a step toward making voice assistant interaction more natural, enabling Google Assistant to respond to several requests during an interaction without a user having to repeat, “Hey, Google." For Google Assistant to have a natural conversation, "it should be able to understand when it’s being spoken to and should be capable of responding to several requests during an interaction,” blogged Jaclyn Konzelmann, Google Assistant product manager. Continued Conversation launched Thursday on Google Home, Home Mini and Home Max speakers. Users can turn on the feature in the Google Assistant app.

Smart vehicle company Byton licensed BlackBerry's QNX SDP 7.0 real-time operating system and Hypervisor 2.0 software for its first series of production vehicles, said the companies Thursday. Byton chose BlackBerry's technology for its ability to partition and isolate safety-critical systems from non-safety critical systems, said the car company. Byton plans to launch its M-Byte Level 3 and sports utility vehicle in China next year, followed by the U.S. and Europe in 2020, it said last week at CES Asia in Shanghai (see 1806150004 or 1806140002). BlackBerry's QNX software is embedded in more than 120 million cars, it said.

The Basel Action Network officially debuted its EarthEye e-waste GPS-tracking service Thursday, saying it hopes the program will help thwart “unauthorized exports” of discarded electronics “to substandard recycling operations in developing countries.” BAN soft-launched the EarthEye program Tuesday with Dell (see 1806190002). BAN’s studies have found 40 percent of discarded devices given to U.S. contractors for responsible recycling instead were sent to developing countries, said the green group: “The evidence is compelling that far too many companies are unaware of the risks involved with improper management of electronic waste.”

A product hazard “enabled by connectivity is not simply a product hazard” but also a “cybersecurity risk,” said CTA in comments, posted Wednesday in docket CPSC-2018-0007 on the Consumer Product Safety Commission's review of potential safety issues and hazards associated with IoT devices (see 1803290032). Internet-connected consumer devices can give hackers “a connected entry point through a vulnerable device to a potentially vulnerable network,” said CTA. “CPSC can play a unique and valuable role with respect to the IoT, but it should not aim to do so alone,” said the group. “The agency should seek to bring its expertise regarding product safety to broader public, private, and joint public-private efforts directed at improving IoT safety and security.” It urged a “focus on product safety, rather than broader cybersecurity risks.” The Retail Industry Leaders Association agrees the commission “must take care not to conflate issues that clearly fall within the agency’s statutory authority and those that do not,” it commented. “Threat of hackers stealing personal data is real, alarming and could cause major damage to consumers,” said RILA, which represents Best Buy, Walmart and other big-box retailers. But the CPSC “has no statutory jurisdiction over privacy data and security,” it said. “That responsibility belongs to the FTC.”

There's often a political urge to try to use antitrust authority to tackle social and economic ills, but the market "is the most effective regulator," wrote International Center for Law and Economics Executive Director Geoffrey Manne and Nebraska College of Law assistant professor Gus Hurwitz in a Cato Institute paper Tuesday. They said activist antitrust proponents' calls for either restraining big tech firms or mandating more smaller firms goes against decades' worth of experience and learning. They said it would mean dumping "the crown jewel of modern antitrust law -- the consumer welfare standard" and returning to days when inefficient firms were protected from competition. The structure-conduct-performance and the Justice Louis Brandeis views of antitrust favor smaller firms, but years of economic research showed large firms are often good routes for maximized consumer welfare. "It's not unusual for efficient, competitive markets to comprise only a few big, innovative firms," they said. Thus modern antitrust law is "fundamentally agnostic" about a company's size or the extent of market concentration, they said.

Basel Action Network is teaming with Dell Technologies to use GPS trackers to verify where Dell e-waste goes after it’s collected through the company’s U.S. consumer takeback programs, said the green group Tuesday. The pilot project with Dell is the start of BAN’s EarthEye commercial tracking services launching officially on Thursday to “all major corporations and institutions,” it said. Dell plans to send 40 hidden trackers into its U.S. takeback logistics chain to “see if things end up where they are supposed to -- in accordance with the law and Dell's strict no-export of e-waste policy,” said BAN.

Amazon Technologies landed a U.S. patent Tuesday that uses drones for more efficient movement of inventory in warehouses. Patent 10,000,284 describes a “collaborative unmanned aerial vehicle for an inventory system.” Modern inventory systems “face significant challenges in responding to requests for inventory items,” and those challenges become “non-trivial” when stock needs to be split between ground floors and upper “mezzanine levels within a large structure,” it said. An inventory system can quickly “dispatch autonomous ground drive units on both the first floor and on the mezzanine to collect the items,” it said. “At the mezzanine, the items can be collected at a staging point and consolidated into a container for transport.” The staging point may double as a “docking station” for a drone, it said. Amazon didn’t comment on commercial implications.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is going to Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington state this week on a new road trip to "highlight" how broadband expansion can close the digital divide and create opportunity, said an advisory Monday. He "will visit Tribal lands, a telehealth facility, an emergency communications center, a mining company, a potato farm, local Internet service providers, as well as meet with elected officials, local broadcasters, business leaders, and first responders."

Startup electric vehicle company Byton sees user interface as the future of the driving experience, said President Daniel Kirchert, addressing the CES Asia conference Thursday in Shanghai. The company’s first step was to do away with a cars’ traditional interface of buttons and knobs as it redefines the car interior as a “digital living space.” Each passenger has an individual full digital experience, Kirchert said. The 49-inch “shared experience display” from the driver's side to the passenger’s window has a dedicated panel for the driver and two separate ones for passengers that can function together or independently. Gone are buttons, replaced by an eight-inch touchpad in the steering wheel, plus voice and gesture control, said Kirchert. Facial recognition will identify passengers and download personal profiles, he said. Kirchert quoted Apple co-founder Steve Jobs as saying technological revolution “will start from the user interface.” Kirchert said “that will definitely be true for the smart car.” Jobs might not have appreciated what Kirchert said next about the user experience in a Byton vehicle: “Passengers will not ever have to take out their smartphone again.” The automaker with $500 million in Series B funding also previewed a concept Level 4 autonomous vehicle sedan.