Tech news, analysis, culture, business, security, and more
You’re not the only one worried about how much time you’re spending on Facebook. The social media giant is, according to TechCrunch, working on a time-tracking tool designed to let users know how long they spend on Facebook. The “Your Time on Facebook” tool, found in Facebook’s Android app by Jane Manchun Wong, gives you…
Leah Juliett was 14 when nude photos of her were circulated throughout her school without her consent. She had sent the photos privately to a boy, who then shared them with fellow students. “It really was kind of an emotional numbness. I completely shut down,” Juliett told Gizmodo. For years after the crime occurred, she…
You reap what you sow. That’s the message activists are bringing after Miguel Santiago, a Democrat of Los Angeles, eviscerated a net neutrality bill before his committee in the California Assembly earlier this week. The reaction to Santiago’s “betrayal,” as many voters are calling it, has been fast and, yes, furious, with accusations of “corruption”…
On Friday, the Supreme Court ruled in a five-to-four decision that law enforcement generally must obtain a warrant to gather cellphone location data from network providers. In an age where virtually everyone is carrying a location-tracking device, the decision is a huge win for privacy advocates. The case of Carpenter v. United States was expected to…
Facebook’s messaging service for children has been widely criticized by child health advocates who have urged Mark Zuckerberg to delete the app altogether. But Facebook hasn’t scrapped the chat app for kids as young as six years old. Instead, it’s adding more features and extending its reach. On Friday, Facebook announced it is rolling out…
Body camera manufacturer Axon requested a contract for face recognition software from an artificial intelligence startup, the Wall Street Journal reports, which stands to further fears from privacy advocates about the state of surveillance in America. In a report on the future of privacy and face recognition, WSJ spoke with Brian Brackeen, CEO of Kairos,…
The city of Akron, Ohio has suspended two firefighters after they allegedly filmed a porn video in a fire station, then uploaded the proof of their fiery love life on the internet. Arthur Dean and Deann Eller have been on paid leave since Monday after administrators were alerted to the alleged videos. Both firefighters were…
When it comes to groundbreaking research, there are two fields that seem to occupy the newscycle: carbon nanotubes and artificial intelligence. The potential combination of those two fields of study seems like it could radically change the word as we know it, or, as South Korean scientists have discovered, at least change how we type.…
Reporters are regularly being denied access to America’s concentration camps along the U.S.-Mexico border. And on the rare occasion when they’re allowed in, journalists aren’t permitted to take photos or record video. But some reporters are taking a new approach to the Trump regime’s obstruction. They’re using drones in an effort to show the world…
The crash of an Uber self-driving car that killed an Arizona woman in March was “entirely avoidable,” according to police reports released by the Tempe Police Department. Cellphone data obtained by police suggests that the Uber operator was also streaming an episode of reality show The Voice at the time of the fatal incident. The…
Fans of popular YouTube personalities will soon have a new way to show their support for their favorite creators. YouTube announced Thursday several new tools for YouTubers to generate revenue, including a Channel Memberships feature that will allow viewers to subscribe to channels for a monthly fee. Made public by YouTube at the VidCon conference…
Facebook, in attempts to crack down on fake news and other content, has somehow made news organizations its enemy. Just one day after Facebook was criticized for rejecting a promoted post from the nonprofit investigative journalism outlet Reveal, Instagram has now reportedly removed a video from ProPublica’s account. Lucas Waldron, a social visuals and graphics…
Following employee protests at Google and Microsoft over government contracts, workers at Amazon are circulating an internal letter to CEO Jeff Bezos, asking him to stop selling the company’s Rekognition facial recognition software to law enforcement and to boot the data-mining firm Palantir from its cloud services. Amazon employees objected to the Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance”…
Fresh off an apparently successful effort to gut a net neutrality bill in California, AT&T is taking a victory lap with the announcement of WatchTV, a skinny streaming TV bundle that finally shows us what the internet will look like without net neutrality protections. Launching next week, WatchTV offers 31 channels—including a handful from Time…
Telecom shill and FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is on some sort of Mark Zuckerberg-style tour of America’s heartland, and he’s uploaded his first vlog that he’s labeled as “comedy.” On Thursday, the man who spearheaded the death of net neutrality uploaded this strange clip of himself hanging out in Twin Falls, Idaho. The 44-second clip…
More than five dozen Github contributors on Thursday signed a letter threatening to abandon the website unless Microsoft canceled its Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) contract. Microsoft, which acquired GitHub, the internet’s largest source code repository, for $7.5 billion earlier this month, is one of several tech companies facing heat for its work on behalf…
Historically, Twitter has done a poor job of protecting its users from incessant abuse and threats. In a bid to curb the rampant harassment on its service, however, Twitter announced today that it’s buying Smyte, a San Francisco-based startup that aimed to help companies curb spam, fraud, and abuse online. As part of the acquisition, Smyte…
Until another service offers a better deal, it’s hard be angry when MoviePass pulls some bullshit changes to its plan. But we’re going to go ahead say you should be pissed about the new surge pricing that will reportedly be introduced in July. Surge pricing is a tactic cooked up by the devil and Travis…
The New York state Senate failed to vote on a revenge porn bill on Wednesday, and those advocating for the legislation blame Google and a tech lobbyist group for pressuring lawmakers to abandon it in the final hour. The bill, if passed, would have criminalized the non-consensual distribution of intimate photos in the state, which…
Your Newegg purchases are likely to get a little bit more expensive in the near future. On Thursday, the Supreme Court ruled against the online retailer in what’s been called the “tax case of the millennium.” The five-to-four decision found that states are allowed to collect sales tax from online purchases even if a business…
