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Facebook has yanked its vampiric Onavo Protect service—which purports to be a privacy-enhancing Virtual Private Network (VPN) but is by all indications data-harvesting Facebook spyware—from Apple’s App Store. The Wall Street Journal reports that a source said Facebook was compelled to remove the app after Apple “ruled that the service violated its data-collection policies.” VPNs…
Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s (since-disavowed) former personal attorney, recently reached a plea deal on eight federal felony counts. Some related to illegal payoffs intended to silence two women alleging affairs with the then-candidate in 2016, while others entailed crimes like bank fraud and tax evasion. But Cohen seems to have been a very busy boy,…
The Dictionary.com team would really like misguided or trolling internet users to stop asking them to add new words to the online dictionary. On Wednesday, a lexicographer at Dictionary.com addressed a viral tweet going around suggesting that the online dictionary would add a word to the dictionary if it got 50,000 retweets. The claim was…
As excited or terrified as we might be by the latest advances in robot technology, they’re still far from being the ubiquitous helpers portrayed in science fiction. But a new study published Wednesday in Science Robotics does seem to offer a glimpse of their potential in assisting children who have communication differences due to autism…
Update, August 23: An alleged hacking attempt on the main voter file of the Democratic National Party turns out to have been a security test, according to a source familiar with the matter. The source indicated that the test had been authorized by a state party with the help of outside security staff. Gizmodo is…
Making a bustling city more bike-friendly can be a good way to cut down on traffic and congestion. But while introducing dedicated bicycle lanes to existing roads can be an expensive upgrade, adding more bike racks shouldn’t be, which is why cyclists in Quebec City, Quebec, are miffed that the city is adding just seven…
New flagship smartphones are some of the most closely guarded secrets in tech, and while leaks often occur a month or two before an official release, there’s typically enough mystery to keep things interesting until then. But in a nearly unbelievable turn of affairs, Russian blog Rozetked appears to have gotten its hands on a…
On Tuesday, Facebook revealed that it has terminated hundreds of pages that were engaged in what it called “inauthentic behavior.” The latest takedown of political influence campaigns was said to involve hundreds of pages with hundreds of thousands of followers which are believed to be tied to Iran and Russia. Social media companies are feeling…
By the time you’re finished reading this sentence, your brain will have rapidly assessed your surroundings 14 times to see if you should focus on something else. At least, that’s what new research suggests. This is a departure from the way we typically think our brains hold attention—neuroscientists have suggested that neurons fire in a…
Gizmodo has advocated for libraries as an excellent means of logging off, because a library is a service that lets you “stream” films, music, magazines, books, and all other kinds of media for free. But now one of the world’s greatest libraries is trying to enrich the social media experience. The New York Public Library…
In July, four thieves walked into an Apple Store in Fresno, California and, unarmed and in under thirty seconds, scooped up over $27,000 in iPhones and MacBooks from the display tables and ran out. On Sunday, five suspects were arrested after executing a similar heist from an Apple store in Thousand Oaks. According to ABC…
John Coster-Mullen was driving his truck to a warehouse in Oshkosh, Wisconsin when he told me that he owns uranium. He’d been talking on the phone for about hour, and I hadn’t been able to ask a single question about the project that has consumed a quarter century of his life—the reverse-engineering of America’s first…
The Russian military is searching for a “nuclear-powered” missile that it lost at sea, at least according to anonymous U.S. intelligence sources who spoke to CNBC. According to CNBC, those sources said Russia tested four of the missiles, which are reportedly called Burevestniks, between November 2017 and February 2018. But President Vladimir Putin’s boasting earlier…
Donald Trump’s personal attorney Michael Cohen reached a plea deal with federal prosecutors on Tuesday, admitting guilt to eight federal felony charges on everything from tax evasion and bank fraud to campaign finance violations. Those charges included arranging illegal payoffs to silence accusations infidelity on Trump’s behalf from adult film star Stormy Daniels and former…
Verizon throttled the Santa Clara County Fire Department’s supposedly “unlimited” data plan while the agency was fighting the record wildfires that have burned over one million acres of the state, Ars Technica reported on Tuesday. According to the report, Santa Clara County Fire Chief Anthony Bowden brought up the throttling in an addendum to a…
Under newly elected President Iván Duque, Colombia is testing remote-controlled drones designed to track and destroy coca, the crop used in cocaine production. The government has reportedly tested ten drones so far. The drones carry payloads of glyphosate, a powerful herbicide. During early tests they’ve destroyed “hundreds of acres of coca,” the Wall Street Journal…
Facebook has a controversial history when it comes to abetting discriminatory ad practices on its platform. But following a litany of investigations, a lot of bad press, and most recently, an official complaint from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Facebook is trying to clean up its mess. On Tuesday, the social network…
As disclosed by the Washington Post this morning, Facebook has been ranking users on their trustworthiness in identifying false information—though in a statement to Gizmodo, the platform distanced itself from implications that trust rank is broadly applicable to all facets of the network. “The idea that we have a centralized ‘reputation’ score for people that…
New details have emerged regarding the no-bid State Department contract awarded last year to SCL Group, the parent company of the now-defunct data analysis firm Cambridge Analytica. Recently obtained documents show the controversial firm, known primarily today for acquiring data on millions of Facebook users without their consent, was paid nearly $500,000 to design an…
Netflix is reportedly looking to become the latest tech giant to avoid paying out fees to Apple’s App Store. If you find yourself unable to access your account through the app on your Apple device, you may need to re-signup through a browser. For Apple’s cash cow service, this is bad news. The App Store…
