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Tech NewsNewsPrivate Equity Firm Trying to Take Over .Org Registry Pinkie Swears to Only Be Sort of Evil for a Limited Time
There’s no good reason for the nonprofit Internet Society’s Public Interest Registry, which controls .org registration across the planet, to be sold off to private equity vampires that exist only to suck value out of other ventures. But that’s slated to happen, and buyer Ethos Capital is trying to sweeten the deal by promising-not-promising to … Continued
By Tom McKay -
Tech NewsTech PolicySex Offenders on Tinder, Other Dating Apps, Spur Probe by House Members
House Democrats on Thursday revealed they are investigating reports of registered sex offenders across a slew of popular dating apps owned by Match Group, including Tinder, Plenty of Fish, and OkCupid, and are questioning whether Match Group is taking appropriate steps to protect users from sexual violence. “We are concerned Match Group does not conduct … Continued
By Dell Cameron -
Tech NewsNewsGoogle Is Finally Making Android Apps Treat Your Location Information More Responsibly
Google has informed developers that it’s about to enforce new restrictions on Android apps that unnecessarily track user location data in the background. It informed developers that all apps in the Google Play store will need to have express approval from the company to collect such data or risk being pulled entirely. The news was … Continued
By Catie Keck -
Tech NewsNewsMoscow Using Facial Recognition to Enforce Coronavirus Quarantine of 2,500 Travelers from China
Moscow is using facial recognition technology to enforce a quarantine on thousands of people who arrived in Russia from China, over fears of the new coronavirus that has killed over 2,000 people worldwide, according to a new report from the Moscow Times. The news comes as the virus, which causes an illness dubbed COVID-19, continues … Continued
By Matt Novak -
Tech NewsDesignMattel Turned This Graphic Designer’s Minimalist UNO Deck Into a Game You Can Actually Buy
Occasionally, sharing a piece of work you’re proud of on the internet can lead to good things (not just other people stealing your creation) as Brazilian graphic designer Warleson Oliveira discovered when Mattel reached out to turn his gorgeous, minimalist UNO deck design into an actual product. Oliveira originally shared his UNO redesign, which he … Continued
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Tech NewsNewsYou Can Thank Japan for Inventing Convenient Sliced Mayonnaise
If you love slathering everything from french fries, to canned tuna fish, to BLT sandwiches in mayonnaise, but don’t always have the energy to squeeze a bottle, Japan has once again come to the aid of the lazy with packages of sliced mayonnaise that are as easy to use as sliced cheese. Created by the … Continued
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Tech NewsNewsTrump Regime Overruled CDC, Flew Coronavirus-Infected Americans on Plane With Healthy People: Report
The U.S. State Department overruled the advice of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), choosing to bring 14 Americans who were infected with the new coronavirus back from Japan, according to the Washington Post. The new report raises serious questions about the U.S. government’s decisions at a time when the coronavirus, which causes … Continued
By Matt Novak -
Tech NewsNewsCameo’s Private Celeb Shout-out Videos Weren’t So Private After All
Cameo is a delightful app. You can pay D-list celebrities—the tier of folks you’d watch on The Masked Singer or some other ridiculous reality show—to record personalized videos for you and your friends. Prices per video depend on each celeb’s rates, but paying a Real Housewife to send a surprise birthday greeting to a Bravo-obsessed … Continued
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Tech NewsThis 143-Slide Instruction Manual for the Nevada Democratic Caucus Makes It Real Simple
Following the Iowa caucus app mishap which fried the votes on computer and left us all confused about the official results, the Nevada State Democratic Party has planned for all eventualities and unleashed a 143-slide instruction manual for caucus volunteers. The party has ditched the Shadow app that spectacularly imploded in Iowa and pivoted to using … Continued
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Tech NewsNewsSwiss Court Finds That Clicking ‘Like’ to Spread Hateful or Defamatory Content May Be a Crime
Mashing the Facebook share or like buttons on defamatory content as well as anti-Semitic propaganda or other far-right drivel could amount to a crime in Switzerland as a result of a ruling in Swiss Federal Court this week. The defendant in the case had liked posts that accused animal rights activist Erwin Kessler of being … Continued
By Tom McKay -
Tech NewsNintendo Has a Cloud Problem
Nintendo showed off its latest first-party title, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, this morning, and the reception was mostly good. However, gameindustry.biz noted that there’s at least one big problem with the yet-to-be-released game: You’re pretty screwed if you lose your save. The problem is the limitation Nintendo is putting on saves. The FAQ at the … Continued
By Alex Cranz -
Tech NewsGoogleEU Warns Google Buying Fitbit Presents a Major Privacy Risk
It wasn’t too long ago that Google announced it had plunked down $2.1 billion to acquire Fitbit. While the news was welcomed by some, many others raised the question of what would happen with all that health data Fitbit had collected. You can count the European Data Protection Board among the latter. At its 18th … Continued
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Tech NewsNewsKidKraft Playset Connects With Alexa for Baby’s First Self-Surveillance
Amazon’s privacy woes are no secret. There are a million and one reasons that privacy-minded consumers should be wary of Amazon’s smart gadgets and those of its subsidiaries. If a parent knows to think twice before buying a veritable Amazon surveillance device for themselves, why the hell would they buy one for their kid? But … Continued
By Catie Keck -
Tech NewsNewsTwitter Update Makes It Easier to Continue One of Your Awful Threads
A new Twitter update makes it easier for users to follow up their dumb, old tweets via a “Continue thread” menu, allowing users to continue a thread without actually having to navigate to the tweet in question. It’s pretty simple. Instead of going to the actual tweet and clicking reply, users can click a drop-down … Continued
By Tom McKay -
Tech NewsApple Might Let You Change Your Default Apps, Other Giants Could Finally Get a Fair Shake
Potentially yielding some bitterly-contested ground, Apple is thinking about allowing its users to replace their default essential apps like Safari, Mail, and Apple Music with third-party apps, Bloomberg reports. [Muted golf clap.] This comes less than a year after the Supreme Court paved the way for app-related antitrust lawsuits, ruling that iPhone users could sue … Continued
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Tech NewsGadgetsHTC Vive Adds Three New AR and VR Headsets to the Cosmos Family (Plus a Prototype Teaser)
HTC Vive had big plans to put on some fancy demos at Mobile World Congress, and while the show has been canceled due to concerns about the coronavirus, that isn’t stopping HTC from announcing three new additions to its Cosmos headset family. When the original Vive Cosmos went on sale late last year, it was … Continued
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Tech NewsNews2 Cruise Ship Passengers Die of Coronavirus, Raising Death Toll Outside China to 11
Two passengers from the Diamond Princess cruise ship currently docked in Yokohama, Japan have died from COVID-19, according to Japan’s public broadcaster NHK. They’re the first passengers from the cruise ship to die since it was put under quarantine on February 5, raising Japan’s death toll from the new coronavirus to three. The news comes … Continued
By Matt Novak -
Tech NewsNewsReport: Firm Tracking Purchase, Transaction Histories of Millions Maybe Not Really Anonymizing Them
The nation’s largest financial data broker, Yodlee, holds extensive and supposedly anonymized banking and credit card transaction histories on millions of Americans. Internal documents obtained by Motherboard, however, appear to indicate that Yodlee clients could potentially de-anonymize those records by simply downloading a giant text file and poking around in it for a while. According … Continued
By Tom McKay -
Tech NewsPrivacy and SecurityJulian Assange Says Trump Offered Him a Pardon to Deny Russia Hacked Democrats in 2016
Lawyers for beleaguered WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange claim that Donald Trump offered him a pardon if he’d claim the 2016 hacks of Democratic Party email systems had nothing to do with Russia, the Guardian reported on Wednesday. Assange is currently detained in the UK after he evaded bail over an unrelated, since-dropped rape investigation in … Continued
By Tom McKay -
Tech NewsNewsFlywheel Bikes No Longer Work, So You Get a Free Peloton Instead
Peloton accused rival stationary bike company Flywheel of stealing its ideas back in 2018, and now the two companies have settled. Flywheel is ending its at-home classes—both live-streamed and on-demand—in March, The Verge reported, which means Flywheel bike owners won’t have anything to watch on their giant screens. But don’t worry: Peloton is offering those … Continued