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“Look, this is bad,” Mark Zuckerberg told reporters during an impromptu conference call on Wednesday. The Facebook CEO spent much of the time taking responsibility for the privacy scandals that have consumed his company recently, but he also pointed out that he’s been the victim of fake news. Contrary to a recent Reuters report, he…
A lawsuit against Equifax filed by Massachusetts is moving forward after a judge in Boston denied the credit-reporting firm’s motion to dismiss the complaint, Reuters reports. Suffolk County Superior Court Judge Kenneth Salinger on Wednesday ruled credible the central claim of the lawsuit, which states that Equifax failed to prioritize safety and privacy of consumers’…
Pokémon Go developer Niantic thinks being the very best like no one ever was should include a bit of community cleanup in honor of this year’s upcoming Earth Day. Niantic, in partnership with conservation organization Mission Blue, is encouraging players to participate in local cleanup events with some in-game incentives. As some may know, however,…
If your wallet serves as more of a toolbox than a place to stash a few bucks, alongside a flat-pack knife and credit card-sized multi-tools, you can also slip in this super tiny, 3D-printed chess set. Compared to playing rock-paper-scissors, it’s a far more civilized way to make important decisions. Designed by Kiriakos Christodoulou—aka Innovo—the…
Tinder is down, according to a number of users on Twitter who are unable to log into the dating app. Instead, they are stuck in a Facebook permissions loop. Trying times for the thirsty. Several publications and some users are pinning the blame on Facebook. On Wednesday, the social network announced changes to its API,…
The Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida, carried out by an Islamic State supporter, ended with 49 innocent people dead and another 58 injured. Now 16 of those wounded are suing Google, Facebook, and Twitter for allegedly providing “material support” to ISIS. Filed today in the Middle District Court of Florida, the victims of the…
It seems as if last year’s data breaches were characterized by increased regularity, yet somehow, according to the latest research from IBM Security, fewer records were actually exposed. The year saw a 25 percent dip in exposed records—2.5 billion down from 4 billion the previous year—according to IBM’s latest X-Force report. The cause: Cybercriminals have…
Facebook just revealed a frightening new figure for the number of users whose data was improperly shared by the political consultancy Cambridge Analytica. That number is now as high as 87 million. Whistleblower Christopher Wylie had previously said that more than 50 million people were affected. Now, according to Facebook CTO Mike Schroepfer, “up to…
A Department of Defense partnership has drawn ire from the Google’s employees, and thousands have now signed a petition urging CEO Sundar Pichai to shut it down. Google’s involvement in Project Maven, first reported last month by Gizmodo, was intended to help the Pentagon use artificial intelligence to analyze drone footage. The company—and its current…
On Monday Bloomberg News dropped a bombshell report. By 2020, it claimed Apple will stop using Intel CPUs in its computers. Just picture it: The third-largest PC maker in the world might one day leave behind the biggest computer chip maker. Quickly, Intel’s stock dropped following the news, and while much of Twitter was aflutter…
In what it presumably hopes will be seen as swift and stern action to inform and protect its users, Facebook announced new terms of service and a new data policy on Wednesday. Don’t worry, though, it’s not like the company has gone soft in his war on privacy. It’s just more explicitly copping to the…
Archaeologists in Switzerland are conducting an experiment to figure out how ancient Romans used a series of deep shafts to keep food cool well into the summer months. The shafts were discovered in 2013 at Augusta Raurica, an archaeological site located near the Swiss city of Basel. The Roman colony was founded in 15 BC,…
BlackBerry is gradually feeling out its new niche as a veritable patent troll. Following a complaint it filed against Facebook last month, the company has filed fresh litigation against Snap, creator of Snapchat, for allegedly infringing its messaging patents. Bloomberg first reported the lawsuit on Tuesday. It claims that BlackBerry has been trying to resolve…
A prominent research lab at MIT has terminated its relationship with Nectome, a new startup with the stated mission of preserving human brains such that they can be digitized and uploaded into a computer in the future, effectively bringing the dead back to life. But while MIT has chosen to distance itself from the for-profit…
The Royal Canadian Mint has created a flashy, egg-shaped, glow-in-the-dark coin to commemorate one of Canada’s most famous UFO sightings. One side shows Queen Elizabeth II, as all Canada coins do, but the other side depicts Stefan Michalak lying on the ground as a flying saucer hovers above Falcon Lake in Manitoba, Canada. Michalak reported…
A federal appeals panel has asked a district judge to decide whether it’s unconstitutional for South Dakota to impose a statewide ban on porn in prisons. The issue was raised by an inmate who was prohibited access to seemingly innocuous items, because the prison deemed them “pornography,” including a yoga magazine, images of classical nudes…
Now that notches are popping up on just about every new smartphone screen, Apple’s next iPhone will need some new tricks to stand out from its competitors. But if a report from Bloomberg is true, instead of coming up with entirely new ideas, it seems Apple may try to crib some features from a handful…
A dispute over an HTC smartphone ad took a surprisingly theoretical turn recently, with a British ad watchdog forced to decide whether consumers could dive while taking selfies as skillfully as Olympic medalist Tom Daley. The commercial in question features the British diver plunging off a board into a pool, taking selfies with an HTC…
Yesterday, at approximately 12:46pm local time, multiple 911 calls were made from 901 Cherry Ave in San Bruno, California, the headquarters of YouTube. Police arrived, responding to an active shooter who we now know to be Nasim Najafi Aghdam, a 39-year-old from San Diego. Early reports made a variety of inaccurate claims about the incidents:…
Taking a page from Kevin McCallister’s playbook in Home Alone, a landlord in Tokyo has developed a novel way for residents who live alone to feel safer. A tiny projector makes it appear as if there’s another person in the apartment from the outside by faking a moving, shadowed silhouette on a window curtain. In…
