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In June of last year, Facebook announced its latest effort to hold itself accountable and be more transparent. Called “Hard Questions,” the series of blog posts are intended to illuminate users about where the social network stands on some of the thornier issues facing the social network. But how hard can a question really be…
TaskRabbit, the mobile marketplace that matches freelance labor with local demand, has apparently been hacked. Both the company’s website and app were down at time of writing and notifications had been sent out to users warning of a security issue. “We understand how important your personal information is and are working with an outside cybersecurity…
On Tuesday, the US Supreme Court will hear arguments in a case that could at least somewhat clarify Donald Trump’s complaints about Amazon “not paying internet taxes.” It will also decide if those cheap deals on NewEgg are going to be less of a steal. The case concerns the state of South Dakota versus online…
T-Mobile has admitted it engaging in misleading calling practices with its rural customers, and as part of an FCC settlement, is coughing up $40 million. What exactly was T-Mobile trying to get away with? At issue is the practice of injecting false ring tones, causing rural customers to think their calls had already connected. Practically,…
On Sunday, a Planet Fitness in Saginaw Township, Michigan, was evacuated after a gym patron decided to stop working out and hop online, only to find “remote detonator” among the list of available wi-fi networks. The Planet Fitness was closed for about three hours while a Michigan State Police bomb-sniffing dog was brought in to…
Italian anthropologists have documented a remarkable case in which a Medieval-era Italian male not only managed to survive the amputation of his right hand, he also used a bladed weapon as a prosthetic limb. Over 160 tombs have been excavated at the Longobard necropolis of Povegliano Veronese in Veneto, Northern Italy, but this skeleton, pulled…
Thanks to advancements in telecommunications, more people are starting to work remotely—including Catholic exorcists. “There are priests who carry out exorcisms on their mobile phones. That’s possible thanks to Jesus,” Cardinal Ernest Simoni, an Albanian priest who was imprisoned and tortured for decades for refusing to denounce his faith, said at a Vatican conference on…
After pleading guilty to charges of violating sanctions and illegally shipping US goods to Iran, ZTE agreed to pay almost $900 million in fines in 2017, with up to $300 million in possible additional damages. However, it seems those penalties weren’t enough for Uncle Sam, because today the US Department of Commerce slapped the Chinese…
Tesla allegedly downplayed the safety risks at its Fremont, California, factory by allegedly failing to accurately record injuries, according to a new report from Reveal. Whistleblowers described a work environment in which production was prioritized over health, and safety and injuries were mislabeled. What’s more, they said CEO Elon Musk’s aesthetic proclivities contributed to the…
Sina Weibo, one of China’s most popular social media sites, has reversed a ban on content “related to” homosexuality. The Twitter-like site, which has about 400 million active users, announced the clean-up campaign last Friday with new guidelines that cracked down on LGBTQ content, as well as violent and pornographic material. Weibo said the new…
Ian Balina, a popular cryptocurrency evangelist, was in the midst of a standard livestream on his YouTube channel on Sunday night when a viewer asked, “Ian, did you know that somebody transferred all your tokens from your account?” With $2 million worth of cryptocurrency gone from his wallet, Balina claims he was hacked. But the…
According to troubling new allegations, workers in Amazon’s UK warehouses pee in bottles to avoid being penalized for taking bathroom breaks. The claims come from author and investigator Jared Bloodworth, who says he worked undercover as a warehouse worker for six months while writing a new book about low-wage work in the UK. “For those…
A new report by the Lords Select Committee in the UK claims that Britain is in a strong position to be a world leader in the development of artificial intelligence. But to get there—and to keep AI safe and ethical—tech firms should follow the Committee’s newly proposed “AI Code.” The new report was penned by…
Rodrigo Duterte rode to the presidency of the Philippines through a wave of social media promotion. But the homicidal world leader, who has overseen the murder of over 20,000 people in a brutal crackdown on alleged drug dealers and users, isn’t too happy with Facebook these days. Duterte claims that Facebook’s newest initiative to smoke…
You’ve got your smart home tech and other gadgets all set up just so, but if you have a family or steady stream of guests passing through, you might also want to make all these devices easily accessible to other people too. Whether you’re running an Airbnb or just have demanding relatives, here are a…
You might think the most dangerous part of a roll of plastic wrap is the metal cutting blade on the package, but another hazard lurks within the roll itself. After turning aluminum foil into an functional blade, Japan’s most talented knife maker has now demonstrated how a roll of regular food wrap can be hardened,…
In 2018, nearly everything is in place for a descent into a Ready Player One-style dystopia. The way things are going, we should be destitute and beaten down by climate change long before the 2040s. All we’re missing, for now, is the technology. People are already more than happy to spend huge percentages of their…
The Zuckening on Capitol Hill may be over—but fear not, internet of indignation, there are still plenty of things to fill us with fleeting rage. For example, your Yahoo and AOL emails can now be scanned for targeted advertising, thousands of apps on Google play are apparently violating children’s privacy, Uber is getting off easy…
Thousands of apps may be tracking the online activity of children in ways that violate US privacy laws, according to a recent survey of Android apps available on the Google Play store. Using an “automatic evaluation of the privacy behaviors of Android apps,” a team of university researchers and computer scientists concluded that of 5,855…
Apple will repair some Apple Watch Series 2 devices that suffer from defects including swollen batteries or an inability to activate, per an updated version of its service policy obtained by MacRumors. In an internal document sent to Apple Stores and licensed repair shops, Apple wrote it has “determined that under certain conditions, some Apple…
