Technology

Mediaite reports: In recent months, Silicon Valley’s major players have visited Congress for various hearings on matters related to data gathering. Tuesday, it’s Google CEO Sundar Pichai‘s turn in the hot seat. The Google chief sits before the House Judiciary Committee to offer testimony for a hearing titled: “Transparency and Accountability: Examining Google and its Data Collection, Use and Filtering …

Reuters reports: Volkswagen will develop its final generation of vehicles using combustion engine technology in 2026, the company’s strategy chief said today. VW made a strategy shift toward battery-driven vehicles in the wake of a damaging diesel-emissions cheating scandal in 2015, which forced the carmaker to pay billions of dollars in fines for hiding excessive pollution. “In the year 2026 …

Axios reports: SpaceX successfully reused for a third time a Falcon 9 rocket booster on Monday — a company first. It also launched 64 satellites from 34 organizations into space from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The mission, on behalf of the private company Spaceflight, set a record for the largest single launch of satellites from U.S. soil, SpaceX …

The Verge reports: Tumblr says that child pornography was the reason for its app’s sudden disappearance from the iOS App Store. The app has been missing from the store since November 16th, but until now the reason for its absence was unclear — initially Tumblr simply said it was “working to resolve the issue with the iOS app.” However, after …

Market Watch reports: Spending too much time on “social media” sites like Facebook is making people more than just miserable. It may also be making them depressed. A new study conducted by psychologists at the University of Pennsylvania has shown — for the first time — a causal link between time spent on social media and depression and loneliness, the …

Axios reports: Here’s a potential time-saver this Black Friday: a smartphone app that will deploy a robot to hold a parking space for you at the mall. MyPark is a Miami-based parking reservation service that deploys mobile space blockers to hold spots for customers willing to pay a few dollars for the convenience. The app triggers a pop-up rectangle that …

The Telegraph reports: British companies are planning to microchip some of their staff in order to boost security and stop them accessing sensitive areas. Biohax, a Swedish company that provides human chip implants, told the Telegraph it was in talks with a number of UK legal and financial firms to implant staff with the devices. One prospective client, which cannot …

Reuters reports: Twitter deleted more than 10,000 automated accounts posting messages that discouraged people from voting in Tuesday’s U.S. election and wrongly appeared to be from Democrats, after the party flagged the misleading tweets to the social media company. The number is modest, considering that Twitter has previously deleted millions of accounts it determined were responsible for spreading misinformation in …

Fortune reports: The AI humanoid ‘Sophia’ has been making a worldwide tour on behalf of her creator, Hanson Robotics of Hong Kong, and made an unexpected stop to the Caucasus this week. The Caucasus stop meant granting the world’s first ever visa granted to a robot, a process that took just two minutes thanks to some smart technology. Sophia’s visit …

Agence France-Presse reports: China is planning to launch its own ‘artificial moon’ by 2020 to replace streetlamps and lower electricity costs in urban areas, state media reported Friday. Chengdu, a city in southwestern Sichuan province, is developing “illumination satellites” which will shine in tandem with the real moon, but are eight times brighter, according to China Daily. By reflecting light …

The Guardian reports: Facebook is promoting a new “war room” as a part of its solution to election interference, unveiling a team of specialists working to stop the spread of misinformation and propaganda. It’s unclear how well it’s working. The Silicon Valley company, which has faced intensifying scrutiny over its role in amplifying malicious political content, opened its doors to …

TechCrunch reports: Apple has refreshed and expanded its privacy website, a month after its most recent iPhone and Mac launches. You’re not going to see much change from previous years — the privacy pages still state the same commitments that Apple’s long held, like that privacy is a “fundamental human right” and that your information is largely on your iPhones, …

Engadget reports: If what you need today is a dog robot twerking to “Uptown Funk,” well then you’re in luck. Boston Dynamics’ SpotMini robot is featured in a new video intended to show off its mobility, and it certainly does that as the robot dog steps, gyrates and dances in time with music. The SpotMini goes on sale sometime in …

CNBC reports: Microsoft Co-Founder Paul Allen has died from complications of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, Vulcan Inc. said Monday on behalf of his family. Allen passed away Monday afternoon in Seattle at 65 years old, Vulcan said. His sister, Jody, said he was “a remarkable individual on every level.” Allen ranked among the world’s wealthiest individuals. As of Monday afternoon, he ranked …

Axios reports: Sale of the one millionth electric vehicle in the U.S. is likely to occur this month, according to an estimate by the group Securing America’s Future Energy (SAFE) that’s based on data compiled by Inside EVs. It’s a symbolic threshold that signals growing adoption of the technology, even though it remains a small part of the overall U.S. …

Reuters reports: Facebook Inc said on Friday attackers stole names and contact details of 29 million users in the mass security breach disclosed by the social media network late last month. The breach, Facebook’s worst ever, has exacerbated concerns among users, lawmakers and investors that the company is not doing enough to safeguard data, particularly in the wake of the …

Axios reports: Google announced Monday it won’t bid on the Pentagon’s $10 billion cloud contract because of concerns the work wouldn’t align with its artificial intelligence ethical principles, which hold that its software shouldn’t be used to cause harm to people or violate human rights. Google has lately faced a series of conflicts between those ethical principles and major business …

The Wall Street Journal reports: Google exposed the private data of hundreds of thousands of users of the Google+ social network and then opted not to disclose the issue this past spring, in part because of fears that doing so would draw regulatory scrutiny and cause reputational damage, according to people briefed on the incident and documents reviewed by The …

The Houston Chronicle reports: Houston City Council on Wednesday updated its rules on sexually oriented businesses, instituting changes that could bar plans for a store that allows customers to try out sex dolls on the premises from opening near the Galleria. Toronto-based KinkySdollS had planned to open a Houston branch where it would sell “adult love dolls” constructed of synthetic …

Business Insider reports: The amount of information about individual users stored online and on their phones is enormous, Cook said in an interview with Vice News Tonight on Tuesday. The tech industry hasn’t done a good job of respecting and protecting that data, he said. “I’m not a pro-regulation kind of person, I believe in the free market deeply,” Cook …