Jennings Brown

Tech News

How This Dubious “Doctor” Became “The Most Quoted Human on the Planet”

Online, Steve Maraboli looks like the trope of a motivational speaker—photos of him speaking onstage, podcasts, apparent endorsements by celebrities, frequent mentions about best-selling books. He spent the last two decades crafting this image, building an online empire of self-mythology. He has falsely presented himself as a doctor, a United Nations humanitarian program director who … Continued

Tech NewsCrime

Man’s Confession of Killing His Sister Reportedly Caught on Doorbell Camera

A former football player accused by law enforcement of murdering his pregnant sister allegedly confessed to the killing while standing in front of a doorbell camera that captured the moment. A Travis County Sheriff’s Office report states that Michael Egwuagu, 25, allegedly stabbed his sister, Jennifer Ebichi, 32, several times with a kitchen knife in … Continued

Tech NewsPrivacy and Security

ProtonMail Just Launched A Calendar So You Can Encrypt Your 2020

ProtonMail—an email service that makes it stupid-easy to encrypt communication—has now made it stupid-easy to encrypt your schedule. The Switzerland-based company uses open source cryptography and end-to-end encryption to secure emails. The free service is about as simple to use as Gmail and has made it easier for anyone to take a big extra step … Continued

io9Television

Thing I Instinctively Hate Likely to Become Wildly Popular

In its quest to create new ways to make its denizens dissociate from reality, Snapchat is launching a cartoon series that puts user avatars in the episodes. Snapchat first started placing Bitmojis into content in November 2018 with the launch of Bitmoji Stories—regularly published comic strips that make the beholder the protagonist of various scenarios … Continued

Tech NewsNews

China Set to Launch Its GPS Competitor Next Year

China is close to launching the last two satellites that will complete BeiDou-3 Navigation Satellite System—the nation’s rival to the United States’ Global Positioning System. Ran Chengqi, a spokesperson for China’s Satellite Navigation Office, shared the status of the program on Friday at a rare media event, according to the Associated Press. Ran told reporters … Continued

Tech NewsNews

Cox Communications Ordered to Pay $1 Billion For Failing to Stop Pirates

A Virginia jury ruled on Thursday that Cox Communications must pay a whopping $1 billion to several music publishers because the telecom company didn’t take enough action to stop its customers from pirating music. As Billboard and Variety report, Sony Music, Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, and fifty other music publishers filed a lawsuit … Continued

Tech NewsMicrosoft

Welp, There’s at Least One Thing That Bing Does Better Than Google—Disinformation

The Bing search engine—which is still around ten years after Microsoft created it, despite having only five percent market share—gets a lot of flak for not being as useful as Google’s search engine. But a recent study found that it’s actually even worse at delivering information than was previously known. A Stanford Cyber Policy Center … Continued

Tech NewsNews

Navy Pilot Who Filmed UFO Describes Moment It Stopped Behaving Within The Normal Laws of Physics

In 2004, Navy Pilot Chad Underwood was on a flight-training exercise near the California coast when he spotted and filmed an unidentified flying object with an infrared gun-camera pod. The video of the 40-foot-long oblong mass traveling about 138 miles per hour—now known as the “Tic Tac”—was released in a 2017 New York Times report … Continued

Tech NewsNews

Trolls Sent Strobing GIFS to People With Epilepsy in A Targeted Attack During Epilepsy Awareness Month

The Epilepsy Foundation filed criminal complaints this month following an attack on its Twitter account that could have harmed people with epilepsy. The non-profit organization announced on Monday it had asked law enforcement agencies to assist with a mass attack on social media that took place during National Epilepsy Awareness Month. According to the statement, … Continued

Tech NewsNews

Investors Want to Exhume Body of Crypto-CEO Who Had the Password to Millions In Bitcoin

It’s been about a year since users of Canadian cryptocurrency exchange QuadrigaCX were informed that the company’s CEO unexpectedly died, taking the password that accessed most the money from their accounts with him to the grave. And now, those clients want to know what’s inside that grave. The majority of QuadrigaCX’s holdings were kept offline … Continued

ScienceHealth

‘It Was an Almighty Boom’: Car Explosion Chalked Up to Excessive Air Freshener Use

Let this serve as a lesson for those who mask the smell of smoke in their car with an exorbitant amount of air freshener spray. A driver in West Yorkshire reportedly destroyed his black sedan Saturday afternoon by lighting a cigarette after unloading a can of aerosol air freshener, according to the local police and … Continued

Tech NewsTransportation

Boeing Halts 737 MAX Production

Boeing will halt production on its infamous 737 MAX plane nine months after authorities grounded the passenger airliner following crashes in Ethiopia and Indonesia that took 346 lives. The Wall Street Journal first reported on Monday that the beleaguered aviation company has made the decision to temporarily suspend manufacturing of the aircraft in January. News … Continued

Tech NewsFacebook

Instagram AI Will Shame Users Before They Post Offensive Captions

In Instagram’s latest push to be one of the least toxic of the major social media services, the platform is launching a feature that warns users before they post something that could be offensive. The company announced in a blog post on Monday that it had begun introducing a new tool that informs people that … Continued

Tech NewsTech Policy

FCC Wants to Fine a Robocaller $10 Million For Spreading Lies About Politician

The Federal Communications Commission has proposed that a robocall firm pay about $10 million in fines for spamming Californians with lies about a state assembly candidate. An investigation by the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau found that Kenneth Moser and a telemarketing operation he runs allegedly made about 47,000 illegal robocalls over the course of two days. … Continued

Tech NewsPrivacy and Security

Ring User Blocks $400K Bitcoin Extortion Attempt by Taking Out the Batteries

Tania Amador of Grand Prairie, Texas, awoke on Monday to an alarm and a sinister voice speaking to her through her Ring device. “This is Ring support,” the voice said, laughing. Then the hacker got to business. “We would like to notify you that your account has been terminated by a hacker,” the voice said, … Continued

Tech NewsTransportation

Chilean Plane Carrying 38 Passengers Disappears During Flight to Antarctica

Operators lost contact with a C-130 Hercules military aircraft on Monday at 6:13 pm GMT—almost an hour and a half into a flight carrying 21 passengers and 17 crew members to Antarctica, according to a statement released by the Chilean Air Force. The flight began in Santiago, then made a brief stop in the southern … Continued

ScienceHealth

Jeffrey Epstein-Funded Geneticist Is Building a Dating App That Only a Eugenicist Could Love

Renowned Harvard Medical School geneticist George Church has focused his work on reversing the effects of aging, helping humans become immune to viruses, and eradicating genetic diseases. He’s hoping to come closer to accomplishing at least one of those goals with a disturbing dating app that swipes right on eugenics. On Sunday, CBS’s 60 Minutes … Continued

Tech NewsNews

Why Won’t Steam Approve These Games Supporting Hong Kong Protestors?

Last year Valve proclaimed that it would allow virtually any game on its Steam service, so long as the game wasn’t illegal or “straight up trolling”—but activist-minded developers who have made games about the Hong Kong protests have realized that, perhaps, there are other ways to get barred from the gaming platform. Two developers recently … Continued

Tech NewsGoogle

Genius Sues Google for Allegedly Stealing Lyrics After Busting It With Hidden Code, ‘Red Handed’

Genius has filed a lawsuit against Google alleging that the tech giant copied lyrics from its song-annotation platform. In the suit, which first reported by Wall Street Journal, Genius claims that the lyric licensing company LyricFind pulled lyrics from Genius’ pages, and that Google used those lyrics in its search result displays. As the lawsuit … Continued

Tech NewsPrivacy and Security

DHS Aims to Expand Facial Recognition at Border to Include U.S. Citizens

Facial recognition technology has been creeping into American airports for a few years, but now the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is trying to give its agents the ability to perform mandatory face scans on all U.S. citizens traveling into and out of the country. DHS has been testing facial recognition systems at U.S. airports … Continued