The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is expanding the kinds of information that it collects on immigrants to include social media information and search results. The new policy, which covers immigrants who have obtained a green card and even naturalized citizens, will take effect on October 18th.
You know that thing you do where you ask your partner/friend/family member to remind you to do something later? Yeah, well now Google Home can actually do that, and unlike that person you always ask, it won’t forget. This week, Google Home is rolling out an update that will finally enable voice-activated reminders for…
After a string of decent phones that failed to sell and a stock price that plunged so low the company was de-listed from the largest Taiwanese stock index we finally know what’s happening to HTC. Google ends months of speculation, but not by buying HTC, as previously rumored. Rather Google is purchasing the HTC staff…
According to a long-in-the-works report from Vanity Fair, Peter Thiel is in discussions to head what one insider described as the “only meaningful executive-branch oversight of the intelligence community.” Numerous officials, including Steve Bannon, confirmed this, and one of Thiel’s chief concerns is reportedly the…
Even though Google’s big October 4 event is still a couple weeks out, it seems we’ve just gotten a really good look at the four most important devices we expect the company to announce there. The leaks come courtesy of Droid Life, and include info and prices on a new, smaller version of the Google Home smart speaker,…
I was just trying to sleep.
YouTube’s latest push to ban terrorist propaganda across its ubiquitous video platform is getting off to a rough start. Earlier this week, noted investigative reporter and researcher Alexa O’Brien woke to find that not only had she been permanently banned from YouTube, but that her Gmail and Google Drive accounts had…
In the wake of the bloody white supremacist demonstration in Charlottesville last month, complicit tech companies decided to finally enforce their policies, pushing back against the rise of extremism online. One service caught in the crackdown was the “free speech” social network Gab, which was booted from Google’s…
A few weeks ago, Google announced that it had teamed up with a mental health advocacy group to take a stab at addressing the American epidemic of depression. People who type the words “clinical depression” into Google search via mobile in the US are now presented automatically with a link to a screening questionnaire…
Billions are being spent on developing self-driving cars, as seen in megadeals like General Motors dumping $1 billion into Cruise Automation, or Intel paying $15 billion for chipmaker Mobileye. Now, thanks to an ongoing lawsuit between Google’s self-driving car project and Uber, we now know how much Google has spent…
Google has surveyed the advertising landscape that it dominates and determined that it’s time for a change. Beginning in January, its Chrome web browser will mute autoplay video ads with sound by default. The effort is being framed as a drive to clean up the web, but it could just as easily be interpreted as a…
Another day, another multinational video service brought to its knees by a group of rogue hackers with a bone to pick.
Three former Google employees have filed a class-action lawsuit against the company for allegedly discriminating against women. The complaint claims that Google systematically pays women less than men performing similar jobs, promotes men more often than similarly qualified women, and keeps women in lower-paying and…
Now that Apple has officially announced its new iPhone 8 and iPhone X, it’s Google’s turn to try to wow the world with what it thinks is the future of smartphones. And even though last year’s Pixel was a success in many ways, there are still a number of improvements I’d like to see on the Pixel 2 (or whatever Google…
When Google’s Safe Browsing tool is working at its best, it’s invisible—a silent barrier between you and all the malware, phishing attempts, and other goblins lurking on the web. But every once in a while, you’ll see a glaring red warning when you try to visit a website that tells you to get the hell out of there.
Music streaming service Spotify no longer officially supports Apple’s Safari browser, and Safari users who attempt to access it say they are being redirected to use another browser or download Spotify’s desktop client.
US tech giants like Google, Amazon, Apple and Facebook which do business in the European Union have long ... avoided paying billions in taxes on their European operations through, uh, creative use of tax laws. That all might come to an end soon, if a group of member countries led by France is able to get their way.
In April, the US Department of Labor accused Google of gender pay discrimination. The tech behemoth denied the allegations, and when the DoL requested historical salary records from the company, Google argued that the endeavor was too expensive. Lucky for Google, good samaritans at the company have led efforts to…
Google’s self-driving car company Waymo sued Uber in February, claiming that Anthony Levandowski, a former Waymo engineer, stole 14,000 documents detailing Waymo’s lidar systems before accepting a job with Uber’s self-driving car program.
Tech and auto companies developing self-driving cars will have their eyes on Washington this month, as the White House and Congress are working on action that could steer the industry for years.
