It’s time for us to select our winner and loser from the last week and it’s been a busy week for Apple.
Not only did iOS 18 begin rolling out on the iPhone, but iPadOS 18, WatchOS 11 and MacOS Sequoia also started to hit devices, bringing Apple’s latest tech and features to a range of devices across its product line.
Meanwhile, Amazon announced a date for its second annual Prime Big Deal Days sale, giving Prime members a third opportunity to bag a deal between the usual Prime Day and Black Friday.
Keep reading to find out who we named our winner and loser this week.
Winner: Sony
Our winner this week is Sony, as the company celebrated 30 years of PlayStation with the launch of two exciting limited-edition consoles.
The PlayStation 30th Anniversary Collection includes retro versions of the PS5 Pro and PS5 Slim in the same classic grey finish as the original 1994 PlayStation with the nostalgic multicolour logo. Each console also comes bundled with plenty of accessories and extras.
The PS5 Pro 30th Anniversary Limited Edition Bundle, for example, includes the console with 2TB SSD, Wi-Fi 7 and matching grey accessories, including the DualSense Edge Wireless Controller, DualSense Charging Station, Disc Drive Console Cover and a Vertical Stand. Exclusive collector’s items in the box include a sticker, poster, paperclip, four cable ties and an original controller-style cable connector housing.
Along with the PS5 Pro and PS5 Slim, Sony is also releasing 30th Anniversary editions of the PlayStation Portal and standalone DualSense and DualSense Edge Wireless Controllers with the original multicolour logo and buttons.
Unsurprisingly, Sony will only be releasing a small number of these consoles, with the PS5 Pro bundle limited to just 12,300 units etched with a unique number. Sony has yet to announce a price yet, but pre-orders begin September 26th giving fans just under a week to prepare for the chaos of snapping one up.
Loser: LinkedIn
Our loser this week is LinkedIn as the company was accused of training AI models on user data without telling users first.
According to a report by 404 Media (via TechCrunch), LinkedIn may have started training AI models on user data before updating its terms of service. The report explains that LinkedIn users in the US have an opt-out toggle in their settings that states that LinkedIn scrapes personal data to train content creation AI models. However, LinkedIn didn’t update its privacy policy to reflect these changes.
LinkedIn later revealed in a Q&A that its generative AI models may be trained by “another provider”, such as parent company Microsoft. “For example, some of our models are provided by Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI service”, stated LinkedIn.
Thankfully, it’s possible to stop LinkedIn from using your data to train its AI models. We recommend heading into the data privacy settings for your account right now and toggling it off.
However, the fact this is an opt-out system as opposed to an opt-in one means a large number of users could have their data scraped and used to train AI without their knowledge or consent, making LinkedIn an easy candidate for this week’s loser in our books.
