Tag Archives: technology

Ars Technica reports: Comcast spokesperson Sena Fitzmaurice has been claiming that we got the story wrong. But a further examination of how Comcast’s net neutrality promises have changed over time reveals another interesting tidbit—Comcast deleted a “no paid prioritization” pledge from its net neutrality webpage on the very same day that the Federal Communications Commission announced its initial plan to …

TechCrunch has tracked down the former Twitter staffer (technically a contract employee) who early this month briefly took down Trump’s Twitter account on his last day on the job. From their deep-dive interview: We were among those looking for the contractor, and through a string of events found out his name, Bahtiyar Duysak, and got him to agree to talk …

Bloomberg reports: Hackers stole the personal data of 57 million customers and drivers from Uber Technologies Inc., a massive breach that the company concealed for more than a year. This week, the ride-hailing company ousted Joe Sullivan, chief security officer, and one of his deputies for their roles in keeping the hack under wraps. Compromised data from the October 2016 …

The Associated Press reports: U.S. regulators have approved the first drug with a sensor that can track whether patients have taken their medicine. The Abilify pill was first approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2002 to treat schizophrenia, and the sensor technology was approved for marketing in 2012. The FDA said in a statement Monday that the digitally-enhanced …

USA Today reports: Our commander-in-chief is going to have a lot more room to tweet. Twitter announced Tuesday it will roll out a 280-character limit for single tweets after testing the option among a handful of users since September. The new character limit applies to languages where cramming is an issue, such as English. The change won’t apply to Chinese, …

CNET reports: If you just spent $1,000 or more on an iPhone X, put a case on it now! Apple’s tenth-anniversary iPhone has a slick new look with a nearly bezel-less screen, glass back and stainless steel frame. Just like the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus, the glass back allows the X to have wireless charging– but it also means …

Reuters reports: Sprint Corp and T-Mobile US Inc said over the weekend they have called off merger talks to create a stronger U.S. wireless company to rival market leaders, leaving No. 4 provider Sprint to engineer a turnaround on its own. The announcement marks the latest failed attempt to combine the third- and fourth-largest U.S. wireless carriers, as Sprint parent …

The New York Times reports: Twitter blamed the deletion of President Trump’s Twitter account on Thursday night on a rogue customer support employee. That employee has since been hailed in social media as a hero and as a scourge for acting against the president, who said the move reflected the impact his Twitter messages have had. Yet it turns out …

Reuters reports: Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook quashed concerns recently about muted demand for the iPhone X, saying pre-orders for the 10th anniversary smartphone were “off the charts,” but it might be the company’s market capitalization that needs a bigger graph. Positive reviews for the new device and expectations that many users are on the verge of upgrading from older …

The Hill reports: Facebook is testing a new update that would move non-promoted posts out of users’ newsfeeds, which could be a major hit to media publishers who use the platform to bring traffic to their websites. The changes are currently being tested in six countries including Slovakia, Serbia and Sri Lanka, according to Filip Struhárik, a journalist at Slovakian …

After decades of decline mostly attributed to safer vehicles and stiffer DUI penalties, traffic deaths in the US have spiked by 14.4% over the last two years. The government has yet to formally blame the rise on smartphone use, but others are convinced. Bloomberg reports: There are three big clues, and they don’t rest along the highway. One, as you …

Bloomberg reports: The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to decide whether law enforcement officials conducting a criminal investigation can demand data held overseas by Microsoft Corp. and other technology companies in a high-stakes clash over digital privacy. The justices will review a federal appeals ruling that the Trump administration says has become a major obstacle in criminal probes. Already, Google Inc. …

Reuters reports: Paris authorities plan to banish all petrol and diesel-fueled cars from the world’s most visited city by 2030, Paris City Hall said on Thursday. The move marks an acceleration in plans to wean the country off gas-guzzlers and switch to electric vehicles in a city often obliged to impose temporary bans due to surges in particle pollution in …

Mashable reports: Bad news, friends: Facebook appears to be down for a large number of users. Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, is reportedly struggling too. Users of the social media platform began reporting issues around 11:11 a.m. EST, and it appears the outage has spread. The problems appear to be affecting users on both desktop and mobile. Multiple services, …

Recode reports: Twitter’s iconic 140-character limit for tweets may be on the way out. In the hope that it will encourage more people to post, Twitter is doubling the number of characters that some users get for a tweet. The test means that a small group of Twitter users will now get 280 characters per tweet instead of the traditional …

Reuters reports: T-Mobile US Inc is close to agreeing tentative terms on a deal to merge with Sprint Corp, people familiar with the matter said on Friday, a major breakthrough in efforts to merge the third and fourth largest U.S. wireless carriers. The transaction would significantly consolidate the U.S. telecommunications market and represent the first transformative U.S. merger with significant …

CNBC reports: During Apple’s demo on stage of the iPhone X’s Face ID, which is supposed to let a user unlock the phone by looking at it, the feature failed. Oops. The new Face ID feature is supposed to be more accurate and secure than Touch ID, which currently lets iPhone users unlock their devices with a fingerprint. But what …

Allegedly $1000. The Verge reports: After months of speculation and anticipation, we’re only a few moments away from Apple’s big event where the company is expected to announce the new iPhones, along with updates to the Apple Watch and Apple TV. The spotlight is expected to be firmly on the iPhone X, a new, top-of-the-line model that’s rumored to feature …

Bloomberg reports: U.S. prosecutors prevailed in their request to seek information about subscribers to an anti-Trump website allegedly linked to rioting during the presidential inauguration in Washington, D.C. A judge in District of Columbia Superior Court on Thursday ordered DreamHost LLC, the host of the website disruptj20.org, to comply with a government warrant seeking information about the site’s subscribers. The …

The Washington Post reports: A Los Angeles-based tech company is resisting a federal demand for more than 1.3 million IP addresses to identify visitors to a website set up to coordinate protests on Inauguration Day — a request whose breadth the company says violates the Constitution. “What we have is a sweeping request for every single file we have” in …