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Federal investigators are looking into whether the mass submission of millions of fraudulent letters on net neutrality to the Federal Communications Commission’s digital comment system was a crime as part of a Department of Justice investigation, BuzzFeed News reported on Saturday. According to BuzzFeed’s report, two organizations who had previously received subpoenas stemming from a…
In what now seems to be an egregious oversight on the part of Apple, the scientific community this week flagged an anatomically incorrect squid emoji in the manner any good critic does: by mercilessly owning it on Twitter. The Monterey Bay Aquarium pointed to the error this week in a tweet stating that Apple’s squid…
You’ve probably heard the term “cute aggression” thrown around over the years. It describes the odd but seemingly common compulsion to smoosh, bite, or pinch—but not hurt—adorable things like babies and animals. Researchers have for years been looking into why some people report feeling this way. Katherine Stavropoulos is an assistant professor of special education…
After a year of protests by its own staff against its work with the military, alleged plans to build a censored Chinese search engine, and handling of sexual harassment allegations against executives, Google is doing some soul-searching and self-reflection over the true meaning of “Don’t be evil.” Just kidding! According to the Times of London,…
There are two distinct types of people on workplace communication platforms: the ones who painstakingly toil over every typed letter in a show of ultimate professionalism, and the ones who type with abandon—who slam keys haphazardly with their clumsy sausage fingers to get across whatever they’re trying to communicate before moving on, punctuation and grammar…
Lovers of classic films have been set adrift this month after the Filmstruck streaming service was unceremoniously murdered by corporate ghouls. But friends, I want to tell you about a free streaming service that’s in many ways just as good as Filmstruck, offers Criterion films, and has at least one feature that no one else…
The Federal Communications Commission has announced an investigation into whether carriers falsely reported information about their coverage areas to the agency, therefore screwing people over. The FCC said Friday that it would halt its $4.53 billion program aimed at providing high-speed mobile broadband coverage in rural areas while the investigation is underway. The FCC’s Mobility…
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai received an award on Wednesday from a conservative media organization for his “courage in public service.” It is the second time Pai has been awarded for “courage” in 2018. The award was bestowed by the Daily Caller News Foundation—the non-profit branch of Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s Daily Caller news site—citing…
Artificial intelligence is already beginning to spiral out of our control, a new report from top researchers warns. Not so much in a Skynet kind of sense, but more in a ‘technology companies and governments are already using AI in ways that amp up surveillance and further marginalize vulnerable populations’ kind of way. On Thursday,…
It’s shopping season, and you’re likely to be on the look-out for gifts for friends and family in the next few weeks. To limit the damage to your bank balance, you will, of course, want to do your business as cheaply as possible—but how can you spot the genuine discounts from the marketing tricks? And…
It’s come to our attention that the Ohio State University now features a bacon vending machine. The technology was installed in the Animal Sciences Building at the university’s College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences, and it dispenses servings of ready-to-eat bacon for $1 each. These basic facts have led me to ask a lot…
In a speech on Friday, Democrat Mark Warner, vice chairman of Senate Intelligence Committee, presented what he called “a new cyber doctrine,” advocating not only for a hardening of America’s digital infrastructure but for an approach to cyberwarfare that doesn’t hinge solely on mirroring adversaries’ use of offensive tactics. The U.S. needs to increase its…
Mary Queen of Scots, the controversial 16th century royalty, met a rather (spoiler alert) grisly end. And it all had to do with a cracked code. But how did Mary actually send her secret messages—the ones that she ultimately lost her head over? Mary communicated using a cipher that she changed repeatedly, substituting letters for…
Before we set foot into 2019, 3.9 billion people or about 51 percent of the global population will be using the internet, according to estimates by ITU, the United Nations agency for information and communications technology. “By the end of 2018, we will surpass the 50/50 milestone for internet use,” said Houlin Zhao, ITU Secretary…
Security researchers have discovered a batch of ad-fraud-enabling apps that have collectively been downloaded more than 2 million times on the Google Play store. The clever malware is able to impersonate various models of smartphones while it goes wild clicking online ads and draining your battery. On Thursday, anti-virus provider Sophos published a report describing…
In a teaser for an upcoming 60 Minutes segment, Elon Musk told veteran CBS journalist Leslie Stahl: Weed? Who? Never heard of him. Stahl, in probing Musk about his many foibles in the past year—which include accusing a rescue diver of being a pedophile, vacating his post as chairman of Tesla, and being accused of…
The robots are coming for our jobs, artificial intelligence is ascendant, and invisible programs are taking over our lives. “Automation” is the word that comes up in each of those contexts and plenty more. It’s certainly one of the looming concepts of Our Times—a business imperative, an economic driver, a utopian ideal. We’re automating work,…
This week, we’ve been assaulted with a barrage of 5G “news” and announcements, but without a real good reason for why things are happening now. Companies like Samsung, OnePlus, Xiaomi, and others have been out talking big about making 5G capable phones, while wireless carriers—most notably AT&T and Verizon—have been out there promising cell networks…
Huawei’s chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou was arrested in Canada on behalf of the U.S. last weekend and the incident grabbed the global spotlight after the arrest was revealed publicly on Wednesday night. Meng was apprehended for allegedly violating U.S. sanctions against Iran, but we won’t officially hear the charges until her bail hearing later…
We’ve known for some time that Andrew Smith, who was hired to lead the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection earlier this year, had a significant number of corporate ties that called into question whether he was fit for the role. But those corporate links apparently run much, much deeper than initially thought. Financial…
