For the first time ever, California prosecutors have filed felony charges against a driver who caused a crash that killed two people in 2019 while using Tesla’s “Autopilot” feature.
Snapchat, the social media platform particularly popular with teens, has claimed that it is working to make it tougher for drug dealers to connect with children on its platform. The parent of one teen who overdosed on fentanyl-laced pills he bought from a dealer on Snapchat said in response: “What I find with Snap Inc. is that they publicize one Band-Aid after another, but at the end of the day, you can still go online and get drugs in seconds.”
Apple and Google recently warned U.S. lawmakers that bipartisan antitrust legislation that aims to curb the power of the Masters of the Universe could threaten user privacy and security.
Recent patents filed by Facebook (now Meta) reveal how the company plans to generate profit from its metaverse virtual reality platform. According to the patents, Facebook plans to track everything from eye movements to nose twitches as its users explore the new platform.
E-commerce giant Amazon is reportedly demanding such a large number of electric delivery vans in its quest to take over the American economy, that so far no automaker has been able to keep up.
Users reportedly spent around $2.3 billion on the popular Chinese-owned social media platform TikTok last year, according to a recent report. This represents an astounding 77 percent increase from the previous year. TikTok also surpassed 3 billion global installations, the first app to do so since Facebook.
Facebook (now Meta) has found its VR division under investigation by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and multiple U.S. states over renewed antitrust violation allegations.
Exercise equipment maker Peloton reportedly plans to increase the price of its original Bike and Tread products, citing rising inflation and heightened supply chain costs. One executive explained: “Right now, people are raising prices. Ikea just raised prices. We want to go in the middle of the pack.”
Amazon has reportedly backtracked on a previous statement that it would not be accepting visa credit cards in the UK from January 19.
Tesla has once again delayed one of its products, with the latest reports indicating that the company’s Cybertruck will be delayed until 2023. The Company initially promised production would begin in 2021.
Digital real estate in the metaverse is reportedly being sold for millions of dollars in some cases as more people buy into the hype of digital reality. One investor spent $450,000 to be the virtual neighbor of rapper Snoop Dogg.
Microsoft has reportedly hired a team of external lawyers to review the company’s sexual harassment policies, including the handling of allegations against company founder Bill Gates.
Tech giant Apple is reportedly prepared to spend “billions” on live sports content over the next four years and is on an “aggressive hunt” for live sports streaming deals, according to analyst reports.
Facebook (now called Meta) is facing a $3.2 billion lawsuit over the alleged exploitation of its UK users. One expert involved in the lawsuit said: “They are exploiting users by taking their personal data without properly compensating them for taking that data. I don’t think the users are entirely clear when they click on the terms and conditions how unfair that deal is.”
Microsoft has reportedly introduced a new feature in the latest version of its Word software that suggests more politically correct phrases and words, including the removal of offensive terms like “mankind.”
Scammers have reportedly begun placing fake QR codes on parking meters to trick people parking their vehicles into sending their cash to the scammers. Fake QR codes have been located in multiple cities in Texas including Austin, Houston, and San Antonio.
Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) has written a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg demanding that he respond to an investigation that claimed that drug dealers are openly selling illegal drugs including opioids on Instagram. Hawley wrote that “It is unconscionable that any company would aid and abet this epidemic of death and despair.”
A class action lawsuit is accusing Kim Kardashian and Floyd Mayweather of artificially inflating the price of the cryptocurrency “EthereumMax” and making “false or misleading statements” about the token. The cryptocurrency has crashed 97 percent since June, leading investors to accuse the team behind the token and their celebrity partners of engaging in a “pump and dump” operation.
Mozilla, the organization behind the popular Firefox web browser, is conducting a study to analyze Facebook’s “tracking pixels” that track user actions across the internet. The “Facebook Pixel Hunt” aims to understand how Facebook pulls data about users from millions of websites that contain its tracking pixels even when they aren’t using the Facebook platform.
A federal judge has ruled that the FTC can move forward with its revised antitrust case against Facebook. The judge rejected Facebook’s request to dismiss the case, writing: “Although the agency may well face a tall task down the road in proving its allegations, the court believes that it has now cleared the pleading bar and may proceed to discovery.”
Printer giant Canon has begun telling customers how to bypass their ink cartridge DRM technology as the global chip shortage has resulted in the company being unable to manufacture ink cartridges with the appropriate DRM chips. The ink cartridge DRM tech is a key component of Canon’s business as it discourages customers from using third-party ink cartridges in their printers.
According to recently released documents from the National Labor Releations Board (NLRB), tech giant Google ran a secret anti-union campaign called “Project Vivian,” between 2018 and 2020 to convince employees that “unions suck.”o
Two LAPD officers reportedly ignored a call to respond to a robbery at a local Macy’s to spend time hunting down a Pokémon in the popular mobile game Pokémon Go. Both men were fired from the police department, a decision upheld by an appeals court. According to transcripts from their police cruiser, the duo did capture the popular “Snorlax” character they were chasing at the time of the robbery call.
Norton 360, one of the most popular security suites on the market, has reportedly begun installing a cryptocurrency mining program on its customers’ computers. Although the cryptominer is opt-in, the company is facing considerable backlash from customers who expect features like antivirus, not a tool to use their hardware (and electricity) in the hopes of generating digital currency.
Google has accused fellow tech giant Apple of benefiting from “bullying” by using a deliberate strategy to make Android smartphones users appear like second second-class citizens on the iMessage service.
Facebook (now known as Meta) recently lost its head of communications, just the latest in a growing parade of top executives fleeing the company for calmer waters in the wake of a scandal-plagued 2021.
Theft of NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) appears to be on the rise, with many collectors losing millions of dollars as a result. In one recent example that led to widespread mockery, an NFT investor complained “all my apes are gone,” referring to the popular “Bored Apes” and “Mutant Apes” NFTs they had invested in.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk recently launched his Las Vegas Convention Center Loop tunnel this week which was touted as solving the City of Sin’s congestion problem. There’s just one problem — the anti-congestion tunnel promptly became congested with traffic.
The CEO of digital bank Starling said that the company will stop buying ads on Facebook and Instagram, which places its ads “alongside scammers who are going after the savings of our customers and those of other banks.”
Google and Facebook have reportedly been fined millions by France’s data protection agency for using “dark patterns,” a type of coercive user interface design, to confuse users into accepting tracking cookies. Google faces a fine of $170 million and Facebook $68 million, which represent a minuscule percentage of Big Tech’s massive profits.
The United States International Trade Commission has reportedly upheld a ruling finding that Google infringed upon five audio technology patents held by speaker company Sonos.
According to a recent report by Wired, human meteorologists still outperform AI algorithms when predicting weather events – particularly those that could be dangerous.
Google has reportedly fixed a bug in its Android phones that prevented users from calling 911. In one documented incident, a person couldn’t call 911 as their grandmother was suffering from a suspected stroke. The bug appears to have been caused by the interaction of certain apps.
Amazon and Google are reportedly mobilizing the small businesses that they claim rely on their platforms to fight antitrust bills that threaten to break up the Masters of the Universe. Incredibly, some small businesses are arguing that bills designed to stop Amazon from copying their products and destroying their business by favoring the platform’s own brand would be a net negative for their companies.
Facebook (now known as Meta) recently announced a number of virtual reality concerts set to take place in its Horizon Venues metaverse — but all three shows were largely ignored by the general public.
A new class-action lawsuit alleges that Apple and Google have an agreement that keeps the iPhone maker out of the search engine business as long as Google pays to remain the default search option in Apple’s Safari browser. The lawsuit claims the two companies maintain their anticompetitive agreement with “regular secret meetings” between Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Apple CEO Tim Cook.
This week, classic BlackBerry smartphones running BlackBerry OS will no longer be able to make calls, send text messages, access data, and call 911 making them essentially unusable.
Apple briefly hit a market cap of $3 trillion during trading on Monday, the first company to ever achieve this valuation. After hitting the landmark valuation, Apple shares have traded down, leaving the iPhone giant just short of the historic value. The tech giant has tripled its valuation in the last four years.
In a recent article, the New York Times discusses the issue of inaccurate prenatal blood tests which regularly indicate that unborn babies could have disorders and ailments. But the tests are often wrong. The Times reports that for every 15 times they accurately diagnose a health issue in babies, they are wrong a stunning 85 times.
Electronics giant Samsung plans to introduce extensive support for Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) starting with its 2022 lineup of TVs. The company claims that consumers will use their TVs to “browse, purchase, and display your favorite art.”
