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Those looking to run advertisements for cryptocurrencies and related products may soon have to steer clear of Twitter, which Sky News reported on Sunday is “preparing to prohibit a range of cryptocurrency advertisements amid looming regulatory intervention in the sector.” Sky News wrote it had learned that prohibitions on ads for “initial coin offerings (ICOs),…
United Airlines had its third dog-related mishap this week, following up on the death of a puppy its flight attendants allegedly insisted be stuffed in an overhead bin and the accidental shipment of another dog to Japan by putting a third dog in the wrong plane. Per the Washington Post, a United flight from Newark,…
This White House has had a lot of trouble with privacy and cybersecurity: Former communications director Hope Hicks lately claimed her email account was hacked, numerous staffers used possibly compromised personal email accounts despite the warnings of intelligence officials, and aides have repeatedly unintentionally revealed information like the secretary of defense’s phone number. Now, one…
YouTube Kids, the supposedly child-friendly version of YouTube that’s been shown to often play host to troves of slop content and disturbing videos, apparently was showing videos from British conspiracy theorist David Icke, a guy who believes reptilian aliens secretly control the world and are responsible for the Holocaust. According to a Saturday report in Business Insider, searching…
St. Patrick’s Day is ostensibly a religious occasion that is also intended to celebrate the accomplishments and culture of the Irish people, though in the US it’s long been bastardized into quasi-synonymity with drunken debauchery. The US Army’s official social media team apparently decided that this year’s commemoration of the holiday would be a good…
The death toll from the collapse of a pedestrian bridge over a road at Miami’s Florida International University on March 15th has risen to at least six, with the university admitting on Saturday that one of the project engineers had waved off concerns over a crack just hours before. Per the Wall Street Journal, the…
Facebook has booted Cambridge Analytica, a data firm once hired by President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, and its UK-based parent company SCL Group after it allegedly received user data improperly downloaded and shared by a University of Cambridge professor. Per the New York Times, Cambridge Analytica was formed years ago as an effective “shell” for…
For all the complaints you can levy against Apple—user-hostile repair and upgrade practices, The Great Slowdown, removing the headphone jack—there remains an undeniable truth: Overall, the user experience you get from using Apple’s devices is simply better than anything else. And this is doubly true if you stay within Apple’s walled garden. Things just. work…
Google was served at least four sweeping search warrants by Raleigh, North Carolina police last year, requesting anonymized location data on all users within areas surrounding crime scenes. In one case, Raleigh police requested information on all Google accounts within 17 acres of a murder, overlapping residences, and businesses. Google did not confirm or deny…
Nothing lasts forever, I suppose. In what could be construed as a cruel joke, Digg is pulling the plug on Digg Reader, the company’s answer to the demise of popular RSS service Google Reader. Digg Reader will shut down on March 26th, 2018, giving you just enough time to export your data before the service…
China’s terrifying “social credit” system isn’t planned to be fully implemented until 2020, but we’re already seeing facets of it being put in place. In May, people who have committed acts of “serious dishonor” will reportedly be unable to travel on trains or flights for up to a year. Reuters first reported the policy announced…
If you’re shopping for a “garden and kitchen scale with 0.5 gram precision weighing technology,” you might be a drug dealer. And evidently some joker at Home Depot knows this. Buried in the website’s listing for such an item, there are a bunch of pictures that appear to show what appears to be a pile…
It’s time for a look at the latest Insider Preview build of Windows 10. There are some small but welcome improvements, like the addition of HEIF (high efficiency file format) that lets you more easily save and view photos and videos from across the web, along with a safer removal process for people using external…
Digging through your purse or pockets every time you enter public transit can be a hassle, so last year Australian biohacker Meow-Ludo Disco Gamma Meow-Meow (yes, that’s his legal name) had a chip from a transit pass implanted in his hand. The chip allowed him to tap on or off of trains in Sydney with…
Chalk it up to the incredibly high creep factor or a second consecutive year of flat sales, but clothing and outdoor equipment chain L.L. Bean’s foray into blockchain-connected attire has reportedly been cancelled. What’s more, the company is downsizing its workforce and eliminating bonuses for employees for the second time in ten years. The company’s original…
Advanced surveillance technologies once reserved for international airports and high-security prisons are coming to schools across America. From New York to Arkansas, schools are spending millions to outfit their campuses with some of the most advanced surveillance technology available: face recognition to deter predators, object recognition to detect weapons, and license plate tracking to deter…
Apple cofounder Steve Jobs is remembered today as a genius renaissance man, but he was once just a dirtbag kid who was bad at filling out job applications. One application, from 1973, just sold for $174,757. Along with other Jobs-related items, the application far exceeded its estimate. RR Auction finalized the staggering sale on Thursday…
A federal appeals court on Friday overturned a portion of an Obama-era rule aimed at curbing unwanted calls from nuisance telemarketing companies. The court found that a provision of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), intended to limit the use of automated dialers to make uninvited calls, was unreasonably expansive. The rule amending the TCPA…
On Friday, The Times of London teamed up with a tech company and a creative agency to digitally recreate “the speech JFK would have made in Dallas had he not been assassinated.” The Dallas Trade Mart speech never happened—Kennedy was killed the day he was supposed to deliver it—but thanks to artificial intelligence, you can…
Amazon is testing a new, less conversational option for Alexa. The setting, called “Brief Mode,” replaces Alexa’s typical responses (“Okay, I’ll do [X]”) with brief chirps, Reddit users noted earlier this week. An Amazon spokesperson told Gizmodo that “the setting will be available to all users” eventually, but didn’t specify when. Here’s a video of…
