Tech NewsPrivacy and Security

California Lawmakers Pass Bill Stopping Companies Like Facebook From Selling User Data Without Consent

The California legislature just passed one of the most robust data privacy bills in the United States. Known as the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018, the bill largely mirrors protections offered to European citizens under the recently implemented General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). It is likely to drastically change the ways that American companies … Continued

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Disney Has Built Impressive Robot Stunt Doubles That Mean No One Any Harm

Following the debut of the Donald Trump robot that perfectly captured the soul of its namesake, many people are wondering what Disney’s Imagineers will do next. The answer turns out to be autonomous stunt double bots that bring us one giant leap closer to IRL Westworld. It might come as a surprise that it’s easier … Continued

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RIP Asimo, You Useless Robotic Honda Ad

Honda just announced that it will cease development of Asimo, the super cute humanoid that tours the world in the name of stunt marketing. Asimo was 18 years old. Asimo, once heralded as the future of robotics, was not even old enough to buy a beer. But it was always happy to help sell you … Continued

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Sling TV’s Great, Super-Cheap Streaming Plan Is Getting a Price Hike

Sling TV, like other streaming services out there, is hiking the price of its base package of channels, making the cord-cutting service five dollars less appealing. Lucky for cheapskates, Sling is also pushing some updates to its app, and letting users purchase certain channels à la carte, potentially saving them a few bucks in the … Continued

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This New Tool Aims to Help Reunite Kids Seized at the Border With Their Families

Freedom for Immigrants, a California-based nonprofit working to expose and abolish U.S. immigration detention, launched a tool on Wednesday that it says will help reunite families separated through immigration incarceration. The tool, aptly named REUNITE, is designed to allow the organization to find people in U.S. immigration detention, criminal custody, and Office of Refugee Resettlement … Continued

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Earth Has Many More Rivers and Streams Than We Thought, New Satellite Study Finds

Rivers and streams cover much more of the planet than geologists previously estimated, according to a new study published in Science. In total, this new estimate shows that, excluding land with glaciers, Earth is covered by just under 300,000 square miles (773,000 square kilometers) of rivers and streams. That’s more square footage than the state … Continued

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Japan’s ‘Naked Hermit’ Pried From Island Utopia After 29 Years

For nearly 30 years, Masafumi Nagasaki lived a life many of us extremely logged-on folks can only dream of. A life completely void of commuting, the internet, and screens. He had the entire island of Sotobanari to himself—foraging, raking debris from the shore, and watching baby turtles hatch from their eggs and scurry to the … Continued

Tech NewsFacebook

Quiz App Left 120 Million Facebook Users’ Data Exposed as Recently as Last Month

Facebook’s race to prove it’s a good and trustworthy company over the last few months kicked off when it was revealed that a quiz app sold user data to a political firm. Now, a different quiz app is getting some heat. A researcher discovered that a third-party app called NameTests left the data of 120 … Continued

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Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine Ordered to Pay $25 Million to Former Beats Partner

A Los Angeles superior court jury has ordered Beats co-founders Jimmy Iovine and Andre “Dr. Dre” Young to pay former business partner Steve Lamar just over $25 million over royalties on the sales of Beats headphones, Billboard reports. The ruling expands a 2007 settlement granting Lamar royalties for only one pair of headphones, the Beats … Continued

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Amazon Buys PillPack in a Move to Swallow Your Pharmacy

Amazon has a new side hustle. The company confirmed on Thursday that it’s buying its way into the pharmacy industry by snapping up PillPack, a service that sells prescription drugs online. Simple over-the-counter drugs are already available on Amazon.com, but this will mark Amazon’s first big foray into the pharmaceutical industry. PillPack describes itself as … Continued

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This Brilliant Case Packs Built-in Springs to Protect Your Phone From Falls

I struggle with phone cases. On one hand, I’d like to protect my expensive handheld computer. But at the same time, I can’t stand ruining the look and feel of a phone with big, bulky hunks of plastic, which means my phones tend to be naked. But at long last, I think I’ve found a … Continued

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Canada Reassures Citizens There Will Be Enough Weed For Everyone on October 17th

On October 17th, recreational use of marijuana will be legal in Canada. But some people are worried that there won’t be enough federally licensed weed shops to meet demand on opening day. The government says not to worry. There will be plenty of weed to go around on October 17th. When weed becomes legal in … Continued

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Salesforce CEO Says It Won’t Sever Ties With Customs and Border Protection

Earlier this week, news broke that hundreds of employees at Salesforce had signed an open letter to CEO Marc Benioff protesting the company’s relationship to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, one of the government agencies enforcing President Donald Trump’s much-maligned “zero tolerance” immigration policy that resulted in authorities cruelly separating thousands of children from their … Continued

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Pornhub Adds Closed Captions For the Hearing Impaired and Stenographer Fetishists

Pornhub, the internet’s favorite smut factory, announced Wednesday that it is introducing a new feature to its massive collection of adult videos. The streaming service is adding closed captions to some of its videos to extend its offerings to people who are deaf or hard of hearing. According to the company, it will start its … Continued

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Report: Jack Dorsey on Futile Quest to Make Angry Republicans Less Angry, At Least At Him

Right-wingers have long been obsessed with the notion Silicon Valley liberals are conspiring to censor them on social media. But it’s reached a fever pitch recently, with Republicans decrying Google’s fact-checking modules and its firing of workplace sexist James Damore, pretty much anything Facebook does to slow down right-leaning hoaxes and propaganda, and purges of … Continued

Tech NewsPrivacy and Security

Personal Information of 340 Million People and Businesses Leaked By Florida Marketing Firm

A little-known, Florida-based marketing firm called Exactis may be responsible for a significant amount of personal data being exposed. According to a report from Wired, the firm left 340 million individual records on a publicly accessible server that any person could have gotten ahold of. The leak was discovered earlier this month by security researcher … Continued

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FTC’s New Head of Consumer Protection is a Major Corporate Shill

At this point when a new person joins the Trump administration as a regulator, the question isn’t if they are a corporate shill, it’s how big of one are they? In the case of Andrew Smith, the new head of the Bureau of Consumer Protection at the Federal Trade Commission, he is truly a shill’s … Continued

Tech NewsPrivacy and Security

Ticketmaster Discloses Breach That Impacts Nearly 5 Percent of Its Customers

Ticketmaster on Wednesday disclosed a data breach reportedly caused by malware infecting a customer support system outsourced to an external company. In a statement, Ticketmaster said some of its customer data may have been accessed by an unknown intruder. Email notifications were sent to customers who purchased tickets between February and June 23, 2018, the … Continued

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Faking My Westworld Fandom Was So Easy, I Almost Forgot I Was a Fraud

Reading The Ringer’s recent review of Hereditary’s Wikipedia page, I thought I’d found another opportunity to do my favorite thing. Everyone’s favorite thing. The activity that the internet seems to have been designed for: acting self-righteous. “I have read the Wikipedia plot summary for Hereditary multiple times, which is the only way I will ever … Continued

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AT&T Slipped an Extra $1.23 Onto Your Wireless Bill, and It Stands to Make a Fortune

Earlier this week, former employees called out AT&T for unethical business practices that pushed customers to sign up for various streaming TV packages, sometimes without their knowledge or explicit consent. But now, it seems things may have gotten even worse thanks to a sneaky tactic that could allow AT&T to rake in an extra $800 … Continued