Technology category, Page 28
Pennsylvania prepares to launch virus-tracing app next month
Pennsylvania plans to launch a coronavirus exposure-notification app in early September in an effort to more quickly break chains of transmission by using the new technology to notify people who may have been exposed, officials said Monday. The state has a $1.9 million contract to deploy and maintain the app...
TikTok and its employees prepare to fight Trump over app ban
TikTok and its U.S. employees are planning to take President Donald Trump’s administration to court over his sweeping order to ban the popular video app, according to a lawyer preparing one of the lawsuits. The employees’ legal challenge to Trump’s executive order will be separate from a pending lawsuit from...
Pompeo, in Slovenia, pushes 5G security, warns about China
BLED, Slovenia — U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is in Slovenia to make the case for high-speed wireless networks that bar Chinese companies like Huawei. On the second leg of a four-nation tour of central and eastern Europe, Pompeo was meeting Slovenian officials in the mountain lake town of...
Facebook launches new TikTok clone, Instagram Reels
NEW YORK — Facebook’s Instagram is launching its answer to the hit short video app TikTok — Instagram Reels. The new Instagram feature will let users record and edit 15-second videos with audio, and will let users add visual effects. Users will be able to share Reels with followers in...
Twitter permanently bans former KKK leader David Duke
Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke has been banned from Twitter for breaking the social media platform’s site’s rules forbidding hate speech. The company said Friday that Duke’s account “has been permanently suspended for repeated violations of the Twitter rules on hateful conduct.” It didn’t specify what exactly Duke...
Champion in Action grant awarded by Citizens Bank, Trib Total Media, Pittsburgh Cares
Computer Reach was recently named the 2020 Champion in Action for Western Pennsylvania in the environmental stewardship category by Citizens Bank, Trib Total Media and Pittsburgh Cares. The nonprofit focuses on eliminating the digital divide by making technology available to people in need while reducing e-waste. As a recipient of...
Experts say Twitter breach troubling, undermines trust
HONG KONG — A breach in Twitter’s security that allowed hackers to break into the accounts of leaders and technology moguls is one of the worst attacks in recent years and may shake trust in a platform politicians and CEOs use to communicate with the public, experts said Thursday. The...
Obama, Biden, Gates Twitter accounts hacked in bitcoin scam
Unidentified hackers broke into the Twitter accounts of technology moguls, politicians, celebrities and major companies Wednesday in an apparent Bitcoin scam. The ruse included bogus tweets from former President Barack Obama, Democratic presidential front-runner Joe Biden, Mike Bloomberg and a number of tech billionaires including Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Microsoft...
Vintage Super Mario Bros. video game sells for $114,000
DALLAS — An unopened copy of a vintage Super Mario Bros. video game has been sold for $114,000 in an auction that underscored the enduring popularity of entertainment created decades ago. A bidder who wished to remain anonymous snapped up an early version of the pioneering Super Mario Bros. game...
Reports: Amazon bars video app TikTok on workers’ phones
Amazon has told employees to delete the popular video app TikTok from phones on which they use Amazon email, citing security risks from the China-owned app, according to reports and posts by Twitter users who said they were Amazon employees. The notice said employees must delete the app by Friday...
Pompeo: U.S. ‘looking at’ banning Chinese social media apps, including TikTokVideo
The United States government is “looking at” banning Chinese social media apps such as TikTok, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said. Pompeo made the comment Monday during an appearance on Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle.” “With respect to Chinese apps on people’s cellphones, I can assure you the United States...
Facebook bans violent ‘boogaloo’ groups, not the term itself
OAKLAND, Calif. — Facebook has banned an extremist anti-government network loosely associated with the broader “boogaloo” movement, a slang term supporters use to refer to a second Civil War or a collapse of civilization. But the platform didn’t try to name the group, underscoring the difficulty of grappling with an...
Reddit, Twitch clamp down Trumpist forums for hate speech
Reddit, an online comment forum that is one of the internet’s most popular websites, on Monday banned a forum that supported President-Donald Trump as part of a crackdown on hate speech. The Trump forum, called The_Donald, was banned because it encouraged violence, regularly broke other Reddit rules, and defiantly “antagonized”...
Facebook to label all rule-breaking posts – even Trump’s
OAKLAND, Calif. — Facebook said Friday that it will flag all “newsworthy” posts from politicians that break its rules, including those from President Donald Trump. Separately, Facebook’s stock dropped more than 8%, erasing roughly $50 billion from its market valuation, after the European company behind brands such as Ben &...
California to vote on 1st-in-US electric truck sales rule
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California regulators approved new rules on Thursday that would force automakers to sell more electric work trucks and delivery vans, a first-of-its-kind rule aimed at helping the nation’s most populous state clean up its worst-in-the-nation air quality. The rules require a certain percentage of work truck sales...
Apple re-closes some stores, raising economic concerns
Apple’s Friday decision to close stores in four states with surging coronavirus cases highlights a question that other businesses may soon face: Stay open or prepare for more shutdowns? Apple, like many other major U.S. retailers, shut down all of its U.S. locations in March. On Friday, it said it...
Facebook removes Trump ads with symbols once used by NazisVideo
WASHINGTON — Facebook has removed campaign ads by President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence that featured an upside-down red triangle, a symbol once used by Nazis to designate political prisoners, communists and others in concentration camps. Nathaniel Gleicher, the company’s head of security policy, confirmed at a House...
Microsoft joins Amazon, IBM in pausing face scans for police
Microsoft has become the third big tech company this week to say it won’t sell its facial recognition software to police, following similar moves by Amazon and IBM. Microsoft’s president and chief counsel, Brad Smith, announced the decision and called on Congress to regulate the technology during a Washington Post...
Amazon bans police use of its face recognition for a year
NEW YORK — Amazon on Wednesday banned police use of its face-recognition technology for a year, making it the latest tech giant to step back from law-enforcement use of systems that have been criticized for incorrectly identifying people with darker skin. The Seattle-based company did not say why it took...
82-year-old ‘Gamer Grandma’ takes YouTube break over commentsVideo
At 82, Shirley Curry doesn’t fit the mold. It’s endeared her to some online. For others, it’s made her a target. Curry of Rocky Mount, Va., was born the same year as the invention of what’s been hailed as the first programmable computer. Eight decades later, she shares with thousands...
Man gets 10-month sentence for threatening Muslim politician
A North Carolina man was sentenced Tuesday to 10 months in prison for anonymously threatening on social media to lynch a Muslim-American man who ran for a state Senate seat in Virginia, according to prosecutors. Joseph Cecil Vandevere, 53, of Black Mountain, had faced a maximum sentence of 5 years...
Facebook employees speak out against company over Trump
OAKLAND, Calif. — Facebook employees are using Twitter to register their frustration over CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s decision to leave up posts by President Donald Trump that suggested protesters in Minneapolis could be shot. While Twitter demoted and placed a warning on a tweet about the protests that read, in part,...
On SpaceX rocket, Americans take off for space from U.S. after long hiatus
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A rocket ship built by Elon Musk’s SpaceX company thundered away from Earth with two Americans on Saturday, ushering in a new era of commercial space travel and putting NASA back in the business of launching astronauts from U.S. soil for the first time in nearly...
Watch: SpaceX ready for historic launchVideo
SpaceX will try again today to make a historic launch. Liftoff of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled for 3:22 p.m. from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. It would be the first launch from the U.S. with NASA astronauts in nearly a decade, according to the...
$349 USB ‘bioshield’ taps into 5G, coronavirus conspiracy fears
Clark Stanley would be proud. The “Rattlesnake King,” a former cowboy, made a splash at the 1893 World’s Exposition in Chicago by cutting open a live snake in front of onlookers as a promotion for “Stanley’s Snake Oil,” a liniment later found to contain no snake oil of any kind,...
