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Robocalls are annoying as hell, and it seems the problem is only getting worse. But if you’re on Verizon, you may have a new way to block them with the company’s Call Filter app, which recently became free for all Verizon customers. Previously, the service—which is designed to detect and help cut down on phone…
In a New York Times interview published today, Neal Mohan, YouTube’s chief product officer, sought to debunk “some myths” about the platform’s alleged tendency to radicalize users through its recommendations algorithm. It could have gone better. Mohan did what many of C-suite techies do when confronted by an angry public, the press, and a wealth…
Tyler R. Barriss has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for a string of phony emergency calls, one of which was made over a Call of Duty deal and led to police killing an innocent Kansas man. A U.S. District Judge sentenced Barriss on Friday, reports the Associated Press. In November, Barriss pleaded guilty…
A former recruiter for Google is suing its parent company, Alphabet, for alleged disability discrimination, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and a failure to provide reasonable accommodations. Among a slew of upsetting allegations, the complaint says that instead of sending her medical devices and other personal items following her termination, someone at Google mailed her…
In the quest to kill the selfie cam, or at least hid it a bit better, we’ve seen companies design phones with motorized pop-up cameras, mechanical sliders (both manual and automatic), and even dual displays. But on the upcoming Reno, it seems Oppo’s goal was to make a pop-up camera that looks like The People’s…
Boston Dynamics has released a new video demonstrating one of its newest robots—a birdlike creation that gracefully moves boxes around a warehouse floor like only an avian-Segway-hybrid contraption can. The new robot is the latest iteration of “Handle,” a machine the company first showcased two years ago. The early version was Boston Dynamic’s first wheeled…
Google has removed a so-called “gay conversion” app developed by Living Hope Ministries, a Texas-based Christian organization that tries to convince gay people that they can live as straight people with enough prayer and religious therapy. For months, the company dug in its heels refusing to remove the app which has already been dropped by…
An email chain between Facebook and Instagram executives discussing an anti-Semitic post on Alex Jones’ Instagram account and obtained by Business Insider and Britain’s Channel 4 News illustrates the kind of extreme lengths that the company goes to in order to avoid passing judgment on what’s right in front of their faces. They also show…
Say you need to borrow someone else’s laptop or desktop, but you don’t want to leave a digital trail of breadcrumbs behind you when you’ve gone. Maybe you’re using a public computer, or maybe you’re just borrowing a friend’s and don’t want to mess up all their own settings and preferences too much—how do you…
Huawei just reported over $100 billion in annual sales for the first time ever in 2018. And rotating chairman Guo Ping took a victory lap in front of reporters today with some particularly harsh words for the American government. “The U.S. government has a loser’s attitude. They want to smear Huawei because they can’t compete…
The Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday said Office Depot and a tech support firm will cough up a collective $35 million to settle with the agency over claims that both were complicit in a computer repair service scheme involving a fake malware scan. Using a program called PC Health Check, the FTC claimed in its…
There’s a fight unfolding in one of the richest neighborhoods in San Francisco, that northern-most outpost of Silicon Valley and the most expensive city in America. The struggle is over a new homeless shelter being built near some luxury high-rises and touristy areas, a proposal that’s shocked some of the city’s wealthier inhabitants. Slightly over…
For 35 years, a French coastal community has been haunted by the ghost of the world’s most iconic novelty telephone. Since the 1980s, pieces of Garfield phones have continually washed ashore in Brittany, puzzling locals and irking environmentalists. Last year alone, 200 pieces were reportedly found, a plague of orange shards covering the beach with…
As late as last month, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai was on the Fox News Channel boasting about having imposed on robocalls some of the “biggest fines in the FCC’s history.” Documents obtained this week by reporters at the Wall Street Journal, however, put the agency’s milquetoast enforcement in a more authentic light. As the paper…
While carriers continue working on building out 5G infrastructure before networks officially go live later this year, a team of researchers at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology have been looking for flaws in existing 4G LTE wireless networks. And by using a tool dubbed the “LTEFuzz,” the team managed to find more…
Growing up in rural Oregon, Erin Lauridsen didn’t have a lot of contact with blind people like herself. She recalls there being one other blind person in her town, but they were much older and, unlike Lauridsen, had lost their vision later in life. So when her family got dial-up internet during her high school…
Right on the waterfront in the most expensive city in America, a group of wealthy residents have quickly raised nearly $50,000 and rising to oppose San Francisco Mayor London Breed’s plan to use some of the city’s budget surplus to turn what is now a parking lot into a 225-bed homeless shelter in their rather…
Two weeks ago, members of the Gimlet Media staff announced its intentions to unionize. The company, which is known for podcasts like Start Up and Reply All, as well as its recent acquisition by Sweden-based streaming giant Spotify for over $200 million, has been less than welcoming of the staff’s attempts to formally organize. While this…
The most basic rule of deduction is that a simple explanation is far better than a complex one. The fewer assumptions one has to make, the fewer leaps of logic, the more likely it is that a conclusion is correct. So when we ask why the Georgia Republican Party is so dead set on spending…
Good news for couples and roomies who don’t hate each other—Spotify is testing a new subscription plan called Premium Duo for two-person households. It’ll go for €12.49 per month, or whatever the equivalent is in local markets, and offers some new playlist features along with it. Right now, Premium Duo is only available in five…
