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Somewhat unexpectedly, Twitter announced today that a dataset of tweets, accounts, and media associated with state-sponsored efforts on its platform would be made public. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the data is available only to researchers. Both the more recent Iran-linked accounts believed to be meddling in the U.S. midterms, as well as Russia-backed Internet…
Even in a world of face unlocking and fingerprint scanning, we still haven’t escaped the password just yet. They’re still a necessity and they’re still annoying to remember. There are now numerous browser features, third-party tools, and even hardware dongles designed to help keep your login credentials safe and secure. Here’s how to make sure…
The New York Attorney General’s office has subpoenaed “more than a dozen telecommunications trade groups, lobbying contractors and Washington advocacy organizations,” the New York Times reported on Tuesday, seeking to determine whether they were behind the flood of fake public comments submitted before the Federal Communication Commission’s decision to revoke net neutrality rules last year.…
Video giant YouTube appeared to be suffering a massive outage on Tuesday night, with users reporting widespread problems attempting to connect to the site. The cause is not yet clear, but reports indicate that viewers are experiencing a number of glitches including “500 Internal Server Error” messages (a generic HTTP status code), “Error while loading”…
It sounded a little slippery last week, when Facebook announced Portal, a new voice-activated speaker and video chat gadget, and the company said that it would not use data collected through the device to target ads. It was, in fact, very slippery. Facebook just admitted that Portal is completely capable of collecting data about you…
In response to the record-setting $5 billion fine recently levied against Google by the European Union, the search giant is making some changes. On Tuesday, it announced that manufacturers will soon have to pay a licensing fee to ship devices into the European Economic Area (EEA) with Google apps pre-installed. Google’s Android operating system controls…
History is rife with fakes. In 1983, the German magazine Stern announced that it had acquired previously undocumented diaries written by Hitler, a find British historian Hugh Trevor-Roper initially heralded as “an archive of great historical significance.” In reality, however, an illustrator named Konrad Kujau had penned the volumes himself. Thanks to the scrutiny of…
Huge numbers of Twitter users on Tuesday found their push notifications turned to useless strings of letters and numbers, and so far no one—including CEO Jack Dorsey—seems to know why. The bizarre notifications appear to be related to Twitter’s newest iOS update, version 7.34, and have caused confusion for a large swath of the service.…
Yang Kaili, a young internet star in China, was detained for five days for singing the country’s national anthem in a non-serious manner during a livestream. On October 7, clad in a fuzzy antler headband, Yang waved her hands around as she sang the national anthem for about 10 seconds. “The national anthem is an…
Ey, I’m Mista Real New Yawka from Da Big Apple, da biggest city in da whole woild. I tawk like “dis” and rememba da good old days when Ess-A-Bagel had da best bagel in da City and you’d neva eva think about gettin dat inna tube from da wiseguys at Stawbucks. I heah dese kids…
The good news is that it appears Wikileaks founder Julian Assange’s cat is alive in the Ecuadorian embassy. The bad news is Assange needs to be told by the Ecuadorian government to care for the cat or he’ll have to find it a new home. For the last six years, Assange has been hiding in…
Out of every original comment sent to the Federal Communications Commission about its Net Neutrality repeal proceedings, nearly all were against killing the regulations, according to a new Stanford University study. The study found that 99.7 percent of non-duplicated comments were against a repeal. The FCC requested public comments before the commission ultimately voted in…
While companies like Nintendo and Sony are content to cram a smattering of back-catalog titles into a tiny box to cash in on gaming nostalgia, Analogue has instead focused on making it easy for devoted retro gamers to enjoy all of their favorite classic games by making them shine on modern TVs. To date, the…
Lyft just announced the broad availability of its new All-Access Plan. This subscription-based service gets you 30 “FREE” Lyft rides (as long as those rides cost $15 or less) every 30 days for $300. After that, subscribers get a 5 percent discount on all rides. If the math that would make this a good deal…
Earlier this year, Huawei passed Apple to become the second largest smartphone maker in the world, which is pretty impressive when you consider that the company’s best phones like the P20 Pro aren’t officially sold in the U.S. And because of the current business climate, where largely going to miss out on Huawei’s next big…
When Amazon released its revamped Kindle Oasis last year, we called it the best ereader of all time. But $250 is lot to spend on something that’s essentially a single-purpose device. So, to shore up the other end of its ereader line, Amazon has made a new Kindle Paperwhite sporting many of the high-end features…
Google has become the latest tech company to pull out of a high-profile conference in Saudi Arabia commonly referred to as Davos in the Desert. Google didn’t give a reason for the decision but other companies have pulled out while citing the October 2 disappearance of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, last seen at the…
Facebook is banning spreading false information about voting requirements and will also “fact-check fake reports of violence or long lines at polling stations” as part of its preparations for the 2018 midterm elections, Reuters reported on Monday. Facebook’s general policy is not to delete fake or misleading information circulating on the platform per se—loathe to…
Mere hours after Fox News revealed the existence of a new Trump-centric dating app, a security researcher has apparently uncovered evidence that “Donald Daters” is leaking sensitive user information online. The app, whose obvious tagline is “Make America Date Again,” is reportedly dumping photos and biographical information about its users into a publicly accessible database—and…
Paul Allen, the man who co-created Microsoft with Bill Gates, one of the largest and most impactful technology companies in history, has passed away. He was 65. Allen had been ill with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma since 2009. After successful treatments of the disease, it returned earlier this year and, according to a statement released by Vulcan…
