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On Friday, 20 groups of Amazon shareholders sent CEO Jeff Bezos a letter pressuring him to stop selling the company’s face recognition software to law enforcement, CNN reports. Called Rekognition, the software came under greater scrutiny last month when the ACLU published revealing internal documents related to its use by police. Numerous civil rights organizations…
A bug in macOS’ Quick Look feature has seemingly been known to forensic experts for the better part of a decade, but security researcher Wojciech Regula shed new light on how the vulnerability actually works in a report published earlier this month. The issue apparently has to do with how Apple’s Quick Look feature takes…
Meet DeepCube, an artificially intelligent system that’s as good at playing the Rubik’s Cube as the best human master solvers. Incredibly, the system learned to dominate the classic 3D puzzle in just 44 hours and without any human intervention. “A generally intelligent agent must be able to teach itself how to solve problems in complex…
California’s two net neutrality bills are poised to become one, offering the state’s 40 million residents comprehensive protection against internet service provider trying to shakedown businesses and subscribers in the wake of the FCC repeal. Lawmakers hope to pass a watertight law by combing two bills that prevent ISPs such as AT&T and Comcast from…
The Australian government is ending its plans for a national biometric database meant to help police departments track suspects and other persons of interest, the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission announced Friday. Surveillance and security company NEC was awarded the contract in 2016, but after a third-party audit found the project had nearly doubled its budget, ACIC…
As of now, Facebook users under the age of 18 can be served advertisements for firearm holsters, flashlight-mounts, and silencers, and other gun accessories. But a new policy is supposed to but an end to that starting June 21. Facebook announced the new policy on Friday, explaining that this decision came during a regular reassessment…
After pissing off law enforcement with its announcement that iOS 12 will include a tool intended to circumvent cracking of iPhone encryption, Apple has a new feature that police will probably like: Automatic transmission of location data when a user calls 911. The transition from landlines to smartphones has meant that many more people have…
If you’ve treated yourself to a shiny new computer then the excitement might be tempered somewhat by the thought of having to shift all your files and programs over to the new machine. With the right tools and know-how though, this doesn’t have to be a chore—here’s how to get it done quickly. Know what…
Not all superheroes wear capes, but many do, and it’s a long-established fact that these capes are crucial when it comes to flying around town to fight crime and brood and whatnot. And yet the people still don’t know, with anything approaching certainty, how exactly capes facilitate this process (at least, the capes that aren’t…
Amazon is one of the biggest companies in the world, is owned by the richest human on earth, and is creating tons of jobs with every new Fulfillment Center that it opens. But as we found out this week, the company’s brutally efficient supply chain often puts warehouse workers in a tough spot, pushing them…
Silicon Valley firms crunched their hardest in 2017 to rebrand ordinary merchandise long produced by other industries as uniquely innovative product lines. Some of them were pretty obnoxious, like Lyft’s totally-not-just-a-bus shuttle service, or WeLive’s attempt to market living in communal housing as a lived experience, or the company selling a “private pop-up space” that…
Google Translate is a useful tool for some quick and easy translations, but a federal judge in Kansas ruled this week that the machine translation service isn’t good enough to allow a person to consent to a police search. Omar Cruz-Zamora, a Mexican native in the US on a legal visa, had his vehicle searched…
The first paper straw factory in the “last several decades” in Britain is planning to launch in Wales as fast-food chains prepare for a planned ban on single-use plastic products throughout the UK, the Guardian reported, with some chains already preparing their own plans to phase out plastic in favor of paper. The plant, run…
Amazon Prime Video, the streaming service you turn to when Netflix doesn’t have what you’re looking for, is best known for shows like Transparent, The Man In the High Castle, and *checks notes* films claiming the government is run by human-reptile hybrids. The Telegraph reported that Amazon’s video streaming service has started promoting content from…
In between bragging, retweeting himself, and managing to repeat the phrase “Russian Collusion” four times in one tweet, Donald Trump found the time on Sunday to rev back up his ongoing feud with billionaire Jeff Bezos, who controls two companies the president hates: Amazon and the Washington Post. Though the president seemed a little unclear…
The Federal Trade Commission reached a settlement this week with a notorious scammer who worked with telemarketers to pose as large technology firms and offer fake tech support services to the elderly. Parmjit Singh Brar—the operator of Genius Technologies, LLC and Avangatee Services, LLC—agreed to a $7.5 million fine, though he will only pay $136,000…
Foxconn, the giant Taiwanese electronics manufacturer that works with everyone from Apple to Amazon, now has a North American headquarters in Milwaukee, Wisconsin after purchasing a large office building in the city, according to the Associated Press. The company is taking over a seven-story building previously owned by Northwestern Mutual, which is located about 30…
Axiom Zen’s CryptoKitties, which is essentially a digital version of Beanie Babies based on the Ethereum blockchain, sucked in a massive amount of funding just a few months ago. But it looks an awful lot like people bought into CryptoKitties looking for a quick return on their investment and are finding that digital cats don’t…
There were 332,198 robberies in the US last year according to the FBI, but (probably) only one of them involved a man trying to forcibly steal a domain name. Now the man responsible for the bizarre instance of domain hijacking will spend 20 years in prison. Sherman Hopkins Jr., a 43-year-old man from Cedar Rapids,…
Cambridge Analytica, the shady political consulting firm best known for obtaining a whole heap of personal information from Facebook users without their consent, might be dead and gone. But some of its former employees are reportedly hard at work on the re-election campaign of President Donald Trump. According to the Associated Press, Data Propria—a voter…
