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Google, bored of constantly duking it out with Apple and Amazon, is now suing Sonos—though, to be fair, Sonos did sue Google first. Google filed its countersuit in the Northern District of California on Thursday, alleging that Sonos infringed on five of the company’s patents covering networking and audio personalization. But, basically, the search company…
In January 2020, former vice president and likely Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden went off on Facebook, saying it should lose its Section 230 immunity from lawsuits for user-generated content and CEO Mark Zuckerberg should be held personally liable in civil and maybe even criminal court. On Thursday, Biden’s campaign juiced it up a little,…
Amid ongoing public outcry and protests over systematic racism, police brutality, and the killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis last month, Paramount Network made the sound and long-overdue decision to yank its police-reality series Cops. But the series can still be watched on free streaming service Pluto TV, a service owned by ViacomCBS—which…
While Microsoft has already shared a number of details about the Xbox Series X, Sony has taken a more cautious approach for its next-gen console. But today, following an absolute deluge of trailers for upcoming games, Sony finally gave us a glimpse at the PS5. Sporting features including 4K Ultra HD Blu Ray support, real-time…
Google Assistant is incredibly useful, but depending on which devices you own, you might not have access to all of its commands and features. Google plans to change that. In an update announced today, the company pledged to make more of its Assistant’s abilities available on as many devices as possible, starting with three important…
The Environmental Protection Agency is cracking down on Amazon and eBay over products claiming to kill coronavirus, a novel strain of which causes the deadly disease covid-19. The crackdown is a grim reminder that products attempting to manipulate concerned consumers remain available for sale despite the apparent efforts of online marketplaces to scrub them from…
Following the cycle of stories of Uber’s plans to buy Grubhub—a potential move that reportedly rankled U.S. senators and investors alike—it looks like the multibillion-dollar food delivery company has found a new buyer: Just Eat Takeaway, a food-delivery service based in Europe. The acquisition, per Bloomberg, cost the dot-com company a hefty $7.3 billion dollars.…
On May 31, activists, survivors, and relatives of those who died in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests held a commemorative vigil over Zoom. A week later, on June 7, Humanitarian China, the pro-democracy group behind the vigil, discovered that Zoom had shut down its account. Humanitarian China says it found out its account had been…
Are you a frontline worker dealing with new stresses or irresponsible management? Is working (or not working) from home starting to take a psychological toll? How are you coping with reopening? Submit a story using this Google form or send me an email with the subject line “My Covid Story” and provide as much detail as…
Now that posting photos of yourself to social media has become a career for many, Adobe has put some of the powerful photo-editing capabilities of its Photoshop software into a new camera app that uses AI to do all the hard work for you. But the app doesn’t just apply filters you can preview before…
Sick of streaming paywalls and unending searches on multiple services to find where that one movie doesn’t cost five bucks? Seems like a whole lot of people in Europe are too. Police throughout the European Union have taken down a TV and movie streaming ring that they claim involved over 2 million subscribers, dozens of…
Facebook security personnel and engineers helped the FBI track down a notorious child predator by helping a third-party company develop an exploit in a security-focused version of the Linux operating system, Tails, per a Wednesday report by Vice. But they did so quietly and without notifying the developers of Tails afterwards of the major security…
For years, activists and media have supplied Facebook with a long menu of white supremacist groups to target, and to its credit, it’s finally budging a little (emphasis on little). Last week, Facebook deactivated nearly 200 accounts tied to the white supremacist groups the Proud Boys and the American Guard. Facebook is being proactive, and…
For the second time in a week, Amazon is trying to score PR brownie points for doing next to nothing in the wake of global anti-racist protests—this time for the weakest possible concession around some of its most dangerous software. And so intones our humble refrain: Fuck off! Amazon has a cozy relationship with the…
In its latest push to promote more informed conversations, Twitter is rolling out a new feature for Android phone users that will totally call you out if you haven’t read an article before you retweet it. “In an effort to help start healthier conversations, we want to help people know what they are sharing. So…
The moment we’re living in is so strange that even the phrase “unprecedented times” is seeing unprecedented usage. Fear is a natural response to such uncertainty, but it’s worth remembering that this time also makes great change possible. For instance: The New York City Department of Health seems to have quietly endorsed the use of…
Book-loving kids in Christiansburg, Va., are about to get a special delivery to ease the boredom of summer quarantine (and months of being stuck at home). Google will soon start dropping books to kids via its drone delivery service, Wing, according to the Washington Post. Now they can get their hands on a copy of…
During a trip to Glacier National Park in Montana last year, scientist and amateur photographer Gaurav Agrawal simply wanted to capture a beautiful sunset. Unfortunately, after sharing his pic on Flickr, people discovered that Agrawal’s lovely work was crashing certain Android 10 phones. Unbeknownst to Agrawal, even though his gorgeous photo appeared just fine on…
After adding screencasting support with Apple AirPlay last month, short-form streaming service Quibi says users can now cast its bite-sized shows to Chromecast devices as well. The support follows a rocky couple of months for the stubbornly mobile-first streaming service that launched, unfortunately for Quibi, in the middle of a pandemic. The idea was for…
Intel first unveiled a new kind of processor designed for slim PCs like 2-in-1s, foldable tablets, and dual-screen devices a year and a half ago at CES 2019. Now the first devices using the new processor, codenamed “Lakefield,” are on their way. Unlike the common desktop or laptop CPUs, which have one chip per package…
