Tag Archives: technology

The Associated Press reports: A federal judge on Friday approved a $650 million settlement of a privacy lawsuit against Facebook for allegedly using photo face-tagging and other biometric data without the permission of its users. U.S. District Judge James Donato approved the deal in a class-action lawsuit that was filed in Illlinois in 2015. Nearly 1.6 million Facebook users in …

CBS News reports: Facebook announced Thursday it has blocked Australians from viewing and sharing news on the platform because of proposed laws in the country to make digital giants pay for journalism. Australian publishers can continue to publish news content on Facebook, but links and posts can’t be viewed or shared by Australian audiences, the U.S.-based company said in a …

The Observer reports: Astroscale is a space sustainability company headquartered in Tokyo that is committed to creating solutions for removing potentially dangerous space junk. As space tourism missions to the ISS (International Space Station) become more prevalent, even more attention will have to be paid to orbital highways to ensure their maintenance and cleanliness. It’s more than a courtesy, it’s …

The Associated Press reports: Struggling luxury car brand Jaguar will be fully electric by 2025, the British company said Monday as it outlined a plan to phase out internal combustion engines. Jaguar Land Rover, which is owned by Indian conglomerate Tata Motors, hopes the move will help turn around the fortunes of the 86-year-old Jaguar brand, which for many epitomizes …

Via press release from Christian Newswire: New research suggests that even as churches and other religious gatherings have been closed during lockdown, there’s been a big increase in people turning to prayer and other forms of spirituality. The free ChatPray app is being launched today in response to those needs. The app has been specifically designed as an intuitive way …

Reuters reports: A SpaceX Starship prototype rocket exploded on landing after an otherwise successful high-altitude experimental launch from Boca Chica, Texas, on Tuesday, in a repeat of an accident that destroyed a previous test rocket. The Starship SN9 that blew up on its final descent, like the SN8 before it, was a prototype for the heavy-lift rocket being developed by …

Tech Crunch reports: Amazon founder and current CEO Jeff Bezos will be transitioning to Executive Chair of the company sometime in Q3 of this year, with current AWS CEO Andy Jassy taking over the top executive role at the commerce company. Amazon announced the news alongside its earnings results on Tuesday. Amazon initially rose after-hours as the market digested both …

The Independent reports: Microsoft has been granted a patent that would allow the company to make a chatbot using the personal information of deceased people. The patent describes creating a bot based on the “images, voice data, social media posts, electronic messages”, and more personal information. “The specific person [who the chat bot represents] may correspond to a past or …

The Verge reports: Boston Dynamics’ Atlas and Spot robots can do a lot of things: sprinting, gymnastic routines, parkour, backflips, open doors to let in an army of their friends, wash dishes, and (poorly) get actual jobs. But the company’s latest video adds another impressive trick to our future robotic overlords’ repertoire: busting sick dance moves. The video sees Boston …

Newsweek reports: Several Google services appear to be suffering outages, with widespread issues hitting Gmail, YouTube, Drive and Hangouts. An error on Gmail reads: “We’re sorry, but your account is temporarily unavailable. We apologize for the inconvenience and suggest trying again in a few minutes.” YouTube is also offline, with a warning that now reads: “Something went wrong…” According to …

CNBC reports: Amazon’s cloud-computing service on Wednesday was hit with an outage that took down some websites and services. A notice on Amazon Web Services’ status page said it was experiencing problems with Kinesis, its service that processes large streams of data, causing “increased error rates” for a number of websites. The outage also impacted its ability to post updates …

Mediaite reports: This genius “through the looking glass” creation comes from the minds behind South Park, Trey Parker, and Matt Stone, who have created a YouTube series based on a fictional reporter to warn Americans of the perils of deep fakes. Oh, and their Fred Sassy is a deep fake of President Donald Trump. It’s a brilliantly hilarious, or hilariously …

Axios reports: Many of the world’s biggest tech and telecom companies, like Google, Amazon, Microsoft and AT&T, are licensing the Associated Press’ election results to power their voice, video and search products, executives tell Axios. How it works: Because tech firms need to answer millions of unique voice commands and search queries in real time, the results will be coded …

The Verge reports: “I’d be more worried about the camera on your phone than I would be about a drone,” Amazon devices SVP Dave Limp told me in an interview a few hours after yesterday’s big Echo event. The drone in question is the Ring Always Home Cam, an autonomous indoor drone that can use a map of your home …

The New York Times reports: Two dozen award-winning computer scientists, in a rebuke of President Trump’s immigration policies, said on Friday that they were endorsing Joseph R. Biden Jr. in November’s presidential election. The scientists, including John Hennessy, the executive chairman of Google’s parent company, Alphabet, are all winners of the Turing Award, which is often called the Nobel Prize …

The Hill reports: Eligible voters will be able to register to vote and request mail-in ballots through the Uber app, as well as receive information on and discounted rides to and from polling places, the company announced Tuesday. Uber is partnering with TurboVote to help “riders, eaters, drivers and delivery people” register to vote or request a vote-by-mail ballot through …

The Verge reports: Uber announced Tuesday that “100 percent” of rides will take place in electric vehicles by 2030 in the US, Canada, and Europe, and by 2040 for the rest of the world. But rather than pay drivers directly to trade their gas-burning vehicles for electric ones, the company will impose an extra fee on trips completed in an …

The Verge reports: Amazon’s top reviewers in the UK appear to have engaged in fraud, leaving thousands of five-star ratings in exchange for money or free products. The company took down 20,000 product reviews following an investigation by the Financial Times. Scams like these typically start on social networks and messaging apps such as Telegram, where companies can meet potential …

The Verge reports: Some of them are embarrassing, some are potential privacy violations, but they’re among the examples in Apple’s new Over Sharing ad, which re-emphasizes the company’s focus — or at least its image — of being a protector of online privacy. The ad’s tagline, shown at the end, reads “Some things shouldn’t be shared. iPhone helps keep it …

The New York Times reports: The Justice Department plans to bring an antitrust case against Google as soon as this month, after Attorney General William P. Barr overruled career lawyers who said they needed more time to build a strong case against one of the world’s wealthiest, most formidable technology companies, according to five people briefed on internal department conversations. …