#15 Story Points

Welcome back to Story Points, where our tech news is fresher than your unboxing experience with a brand-new gadget. Let's unwrap this week's stories! ??

News sprint

1. Anthropic’s Claude Sonnet is launched and beats GPT-4o right away. #AI
2. Microsoft's controversial feature “Recall” is being delayed, although the backlash was so hard it might actually be discontinued. #copilot
3. The United States has imposed sanctions on a dozen executives from Kaspersky Lab due to their involvement in the Russian technology industry. Kaspersky is going to be banned due to security issues.? #safety
4. Don't delay your Windows update. Microsoft recently fixed a serious security flaw in Windows 11 and 10 that could endanger your PC on public Wi-Fi. #security
5. Amazon EKS has made the Pod Identity agent open source, giving users more flexibility in how they package and deploy the agent within EKS clusters. #cloud
6. Reddit reveals changing patterns in how users find content. #marketing
7. HubSpot released its annual Social Media Trends Report for 2024. #report
8. For the first time, UnitedHealth has disclosed the specific medical and patient data stolen in the major Change Healthcare ransomware attack. #healthtech
9. Live streaming on X will soon be available only to Premium subscribers. #socialmedia
10. OpenAI has postponed the release of GPT-5 to late 2025, promising that it will feature capabilities equivalent to those of a Ph.D. expert. #OpenAI

Retrospective

Comment from our team about Microsoft's Recall feature:

We don’t need to go over the serious privacy and security issues that arise from storing screenshots of everything people do on their computers. Thankfully, the tech community was quick to sound the alarm and Microsoft was forced to listen.

Still, we can’t help but wonder: can the supposed benefits promised by this feature overcome these justified concerns? Will users care enough about files being easier to find that they’re willing to opt into something eerily similar to spyware?

Even tech-savvy users can feel overwhelmed by the amount of security and privacy threats we face daily on the internet – from hundreds of tracking third parties hiding in plain sight on cookie consent forms, to deepfake scams and beyond.

Companies will continue developing powerful technologies, and that's a good thing. However, they must act responsibly and remember that they exist to serve customers, not prey on them.

In any case, our best defense as technology users is to stay on our toes and constantly develop our technological literacy and critical thinking skills to make informed, conscious choices.

The Backlog

How to calculate the lifetime costs of software development?

Before you choose a development partner, make sure you know how you’re money will be spent. You can either save in advance or make sure that you’re solution will be cost-effective long-term. Here’s how to make proper calculations.?

Link to the calculations with real-life examples.?