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The largest crowdfunding platform says it is banning campaigns raising money to promote falsehoods about vaccinations. This year the World Health Organization added “vaccine hesitancy” to its annual list of health threats. Dozens of children have been infected with measles in recent outbreaks in New York and Washington, according to the CDC. But despite the alarming spread…
The relationship between Silicon Valley and the Pentagon is one of the most high-stakes, high-tension, and high-dollar links in the world. Desperate to lead the globe’s militaries in artificial intelligence, the U.S. Defense Department is trying to navigate a maze of tech employee protests and political minefields with the hope of getting cozier with American…
When AT&T rebranded part of its 4G cell service as 5G E, or 5G Evolution, it wasn’t fooling anyone. That’s because, despite claims that 5G E was the first step to a true 5G network, the phones were the same, the speeds were the same, the only thing that had changed was the little icon…
Faced with the never-ending onslaught of convenient cordcutting solutions from competitors, Comcast has decided to take a new tack. The company just announced Xfinity Flex, a little box that lets you stream 4K HDR content (including some free content) from your favorite channels through a selection of apps. You can even use voice controls like…
Last week, a sheriff’s office in South Carolina posted a pretty crazy story to its Facebook page about how Facebook’s “People You May Know” feature had foiled a woman’s attempt to hide her identity from the police. The story, which was shared thousands of times and got some pick-up in the local media, went like…
If you were using Microsoft Word in the late ‘90s, you probably remember Clippy, the anthropomorphic paperclip who popped up from time to time in order to offer tips on how to better use Microsoft Office. That is, until Microsoft demoted Clippy with the introduction of Office XP in 2001, only to finally kill him…
This week Google announced Stadia, a gaming service that runs from the cloud rather than a console in your living room or a souped-up gaming rig in your study. The concept of streaming games over the web isn’t new though—these are the other services that Stadia is going up against, and what they offer. First,…
Guy Rosen is Facebook’s vice president of Product Management. But when the company published an update about the Christchurch massacre in the middle of the night on Wednesday, Rosen got a shiny new title: VP of Integrity. That is, until a journalist called Facebook out on the switch. Guardian tech journalist Alex Hern was apparently…
Following an investigative report by the Atlantic on the prevalence of misinformation on Instagram, the company appears to be scrubbing its platform of some popular anti-vaxxer content. In a sweeping report on misleading content and conspiracy theories at large on Instagram, the Atlantic reported Thursday that anti-vaxxer content was being surfaced on the platform through…
The Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has issued an alert that some Medtronic implanted defibrillators contain vulnerabilities that would allow them exploited by attackers who had the right knowledge of the devices and close proximity to an individual possessing one. The Star Tribune reported Thursday that as many as 750,000 devices…
While not admitting to doing anything wrong, the Federal Communications Commission on Wednesday settled a lawsuit for tens of thousands of dollars after unlawfully withholding records from a reporter under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The FCC will pay over $43,000 in attorneys’ fees and costs to New York journalist Jason Prechtel over records…
There’s a lot of reasons why you might have heard about FuckJerry. In addition to being a popular Instagram account, it’s also come under fire for playing a big hand in promoting the ill-fated Fyre Festival via owner Elliot Tebele’s social media agency Jerry Media. It’s also notorious for building its success by stealing jokes…
Stanford University, the bastion of higher education known for manufacturing Silicon Valley’s future, launched the Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence this week with a massive party. Big names and billionaires like Bill Gates and Gavin Newsom filed into campus to back the stated mission that “the creators and designers of AI must be broadly representative…
A Lithuanian man faces up to 30 years in prison after admitting to his role in a scheme that bilked Google and Facebook out of $121 million, Bloomberg reports. According to the news outlet, Evaldas Rimasauskas pleaded guilty on Wednesday to one count of wire fraud in relation to the phishing scheme that conned the…
Tuesday afternoon, a contingent of Kickstarter employees went public with their intention to unionize under the name Kickstarter United. According to an email provided to Gizmodo, however, senior staffers at the crowdfunding company are already attempting to push back against their fellow employees’ plan to make Kickstarter the first major tech firm to have a…
Many file sharers want the highest quality copy of a film they can find, and until recently, those would most often come from ripping a 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray disc. Links to these files are clearly labeled as such, but a few weeks ago a 2160P copy of Aquaman leaked onto the internet claiming it…
Facebook stored hundreds of millions of account passwords in plaintext for years, the company admitted on Thursday following a report by cybersecurity reporter Brian Krebs. The passwords were accessible to over 20,000 Facebook employees, according to Krebs, raising the obvious risk that they could be improperly accessed. “We estimate that we will notify hundreds of…
Chelsea Manning’s legal team went into damage-control mode Thursday after a headline by the Daily Beast suggested that prosecutors had accused her of lying or mistakenly giving false testimony during her 2013 court-martial. Citing an unsealed court filing, the Beast reported that prosecutors believe Manning may have given “false or mistaken testimony” when recounting the…
The co-founder of MoviePass wants to make going to the movies more affordable, so long as you’re comfortable submitting to mandatory ad watching and creepy surveillance tech. PreShow, an invitation-only service launched by Stacy Spikes, uses facial recognition software to make sure you are actively tuning into a hellacious amount of ads. In return for…
If you’ve ever griped about the cost of printer ink—and at this point, who hasn’t?—then prepare for some well-deserved schadenfreude. On Wednesday morning, a tractor-trailer spilled 40,000 pounds of printer ink onto an Atlanta highway in what is undoubtedly a really freaking expensive crash. According to a local Atlanta news station, the accident occurred around…
