Tonic launches a personalized news reader that respects user privacy
Personalization technology can lead to better experiences as it allows apps to customize their content for each individual user. But it can also chip away at user privacy. A company called Canopy wants to change that. It has developed a personalization engine that works without...
Hackers to stress-test Facebook Portal at hacking contest
Hackers will soon be able to stress-test the Facebook Portal at the annual Pwn2Own hacking contest, following the introduction of the social media giant’s debut hardware device last year. Pwn2Own is one of the largest hacking contests in the world, where security researchers descend to...
US cell carriers team up to combat robocalls — but no deadline set
Twelve cell carriers, including the four largest — AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon — have promised to make efforts to prevent spoofed and automated robocalls. Announced Thursday, the pledge comes after 51 U.S. attorneys general brokered a deal that would see the telecom giants roll...
T-Mobile customers report outage, can’t make calls or send text messages
T-Mobile customers across the U.S. say they can’t make calls or send text messages following an apparent outage — although mobile data appears to be unaffected. We tested with a T-Mobile phone in the office. Both calls to and from the T-Mobile phone failed. When...
Toolkit for digital abuse could help victims protect themselves
Domestic abuse comes in digital forms as well as physical and emotional, but a lack of tools to address this kind of behavior leaves many victims unprotected and desperate for help. This Cornell project aims to define and detect digital abuse in a systematic way....
Siri recordings ‘regularly’ sent to Apple contractors for analysis, claims whistleblower
Apple has joined the dubious company of Google and Amazon in secretly sharing with contractors audio recordings of its users, confirming the practice to The Guardian after a whistleblower brought it to the outlet. The person said that Siri queries are routinely sent to human...
FaceApp gets federal attention as Sen. Schumer raises alarm on data use
It’s been hard to get away from FaceApp over the last few days, whether it’s your friends posting weird selfies using the app’s aging and other filters, or the brief furore over its apparent (but not actual) circumvention of permissions on iPhones. Now even the...
Facebook’s regulation dodge: Let us, or China will
Facebook is leaning on fears of China exporting its authoritarian social values to counter arguments that it should be broken up or slowed down. Its top executives have each claimed that if the U.S. limits its size, blocks its acquisitions or bans its cryptocurrency, Chinese...
Highlights from Facebook’s Libra Senate hearing
Facebook will only build its own Calibra cryptocurrency wallet into Messenger and Whatsapp, and will refuse to embed competing wallets, the head of Calibra David Marcus told the Senate Banking Committee today. While some like Senator Brown blustered that “Facebook is dangerous!”, others surfaced poignant...
No technical reason to exclude Huawei as 5G supplier, says UK committee
A UK parliamentary committee has concluded there are no technical grounds for excluding Chinese network kit vendor Huawei from the country’s 5G networks. In a letter from the chair of the Science & Technology Committee to the UK’s digital minister Jeremy Wright, the committee says:...
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