Tag Archives: internet

People Magazine reports: After first announcing the decision last year, Microsoft will shut down Internet Explorer on Wednesday. The move comes about 27 years after the company first debuted the browser. Starting Wednesday, most people who try to open the application will be directed to Microsoft Edge — the company’s newer browser. Although the browser is nowhere near as popular …

From the editor in chief of The Hill: You’ve likely noticed some changes to our digital experiences. We’ve upgraded The Hill’s website, video player, newsletters, and mobile apps. These updates provide a solid foundation for our mission to provide free, relevant, trusted, and actionable information about policy and politics to more Americans. Our new website is responsive, which means it …

The Independent reports: The man who created the GIF has died from Covid-19 at the age of 74, his family has confirmed. Stephen Wilhite came up with Graphics Interchange Format, which are now used for animated internet memes and jokes, when he worked for CompuServe in the 1980s. “Even with all his accomplishments, he remained a very humble, kind, and …

The New York Times reports: Six magazines operated by the media mogul Barry Diller through his Dotdash Meredith group will immediately stop publishing in print and move online. The move, which affects Entertainment Weekly, InStyle, EatingWell, Health, Parents and People en Español, will lead to 200 job cuts, according to a memo sent to employees on Wednesday. The cuts amount …

Protocol reports: TikTok has dethroned Google as the most popular domain in 2021, according to Cloudflare’s 2021 Year in Review for internet traffic. In 2020, the video-sharing platform was ranked No. 7 while Google came in at No. 1. This year, TikTok came in first, followed by Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Apple, in that order Read the full article. TikTok …

The Data Center reports: Amazon Web Services is down again, in its third outage this month. There is a problem with AWS at its US-East-1 (Virginia) cloud region, impacting a number of customers and users. Among those impacted are Coinbase, Fortnite, Hulu, Instacart, Rocket League, Acadly, Peloton, Hinge, Quora, the Epic Games Store, Slack, GitHub rival Bitbucket, Samsung Smart Lights, …

The Verge reports: Twitter says it is testing an overhaul to the process for reporting tweets, which it says will ultimately make it easier for users to alert the company to abusive or suspicious behavior. The approach being tested with a small group of users in the US streamlines the current reporting process so that a person reporting a tweet …

The Washington Post reports: Amazon doesn’t distinguish well enough between paid ads and organic search results, something that could trick consumers, according to a new complaint filed with the Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday. More than a quarter of search results on Amazon are paid ads, according to the complaint filed by the Strategic Organizing Center, a coalition of labor …

The Associated Press reports: Amazon Web Services suffered a major outage Tuesday, the company said, limiting service at many key and popular sites. The company provides cloud computing services to many governments, universities and companies, including The Associated Press. Amazon said in a post an hour after the outage began that it had identified the root cause and was “actively …

Polygon reports: The Roblox Corporation is suing controversial Roblox content creator Benjamin Robert Simon, better known online as Ruben Sim, for leading a “cybermob” that they say terrorizes the Roblox platform and its developers. Roblox lawyers filed the lawsuit Tuesday in a California court, alleging that Simon “commits and encourages unlawful acts designed to injure Roblox and its users.” Roblox …

USA Today reports: Xfinity customers from California to New Jersey are experiencing extensive outages affecting their internet and cable. According to Down Detector, there are over 52,000 reports of outages as of Tuesday morning. KPIX 5 reported widespread outages across the San Francisco area Monday night. The outage led to the Marin County Sheriff to tweet for people to not …

Market Watch reports: PayPal Holdings Inc.’s quest to become a “super-app” may be kicking into a new gear following reports that the company has held acquisition talks with Pinterest Inc. The financial-technology company has been expanding beyond payments and into other areas of financial services and commerce, driven by a revamp of its app to emphasize features like crypto purchasing …

The Associated Press reports: TikTok, an app best known for dancing videos with 1 billion users worldwide, has also become a shopping phenomenon. National chains, hoping to get TikTok’s mostly young users into its stores, are setting up TikTok sections, reminiscent of “As Seen On TV” stores that sold products hawked on infomercials. At Barnes & Noble, tables display signs …

The Verge reports: Just as Facebook’s Antigone Davis was live on CNBC defending the company’s policies and its handling of research data suggesting Instagram is harmful to teens, its network of services suddenly went offline. On Twitter, Facebook communications exec Andy Stone says, “We’re aware that some people are having trouble accessing our apps and products. We’re working to get …

The BBC reports: A major operation to influence public opinion saw comments posted on Western media articles in support of Russian interests, according to new research. Cardiff University’s Crime and Security Research Institute found 32 prominent media websites across 16 countries were targeted including Mail Online, the Express and the Times. The comments were fed back into Russian-language media outlets …

Yahoo Finance reports: OnlyFans’ upcoming ban on sexually explicit material appears to be over before it even began. The company said it had “suspended” its planned October 1st change after having “secured assurances” needed to support its existing creator base. The exact situation isn’t clear (we’ve asked for comment), but it appears adults-only content is safe for now. A more …

Bloomberg News reports: OnlyFans is getting out of the pornography business. The company will prohibit users from posting any sexually explicit conduct, starting in October. Creators will still be allowed to post nude photos and videos, provided they’re consistent with OnlyFans’ policy, the company said Thursday. The changes are needed because of mounting pressure from banking partners and payment providers, …

Vice News reports: Scammers are abusing Instagram’s protections against suicide, self-harm, and impersonation to purposefully target and ban Instagram accounts at will, with some people even advertising professionalized ban-as-a-service offerings so anyone can harass or censor others. It appears that in some cases, the same scammers who offer ban-as-a-service also offer or are at least connected to services to restore …

Vice News reports: As pointed out by Twitter user @dox_gay, hardcore porn is now embedded on the pages of the Huffington Post, New York magazine, The Washington Post, and a host of other websites. This is because a porn site called 5 Star Porn HD bought the domain for Vidme, a brief YouTube competitor founded in 2014 and shuttered in …

Vice News reports: In April 2020, Mark Herring’s heart stopped beating when armed police surrounded his house, responding to a bogus call of an alleged murder. The swatting incident—where people call in fake threats to the police so officers respond to someone’s address, potentially harming them—was all for the purpose of a scammer trying to gain control of Herring’s Twitter …