Privacy

Facebook has announced three additions to the Portal family: a new Portal, Portal Mini and Portal TV. The devices let users make calls using Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp. The Portal has a new design that resembles a picture frame. The Portal Mini is similar but smaller. The Portal TV looks like a...

The new larger version of Google's Nest Hub smart display has been garnering mixed reviews. It has a 10-inch screen, compared to its predecessor's 7-inch display, and it sells for $229, compared to $129 for the Nest Hub introduced at Google's I/O conference in June. "I like the big screen on the Nes...

Amazon is testing scanners that can identify a human hand to use as a payment method for in-store purchases. The company plans to introduce "Orville" to some Whole Foods stores by the beginning of 2020, and later expand it to all locations in the United States. Employees at Amazon's New York offices...

Apple has suspended audits of consumer interactions with Siri, and undertaken a review of practices and policies related to the voice assistant. Before suspending grading, the process involved reviewing a small sample of audio and computer-generated transcripts from Siri requests to measure how well...

Google's recent announcement of Privacy Sandbox -- an initiative to develop a set of open standards geared toward fundamental enhancements of privacy on the Web -- has stirred up a controversy. Blocking cookies is not a good idea for a number of reasons, and standardization of such efforts is needed...

A new application may be in the works that allows Instagram users to share real-time information with their closest friends. Called "Threads," the app allows users to set up automatic sharing with their closest Instagram buddies of such information as location, movement and battery life, as well as ...

Chinese government-affiliated hackers have been making a concerted effort to steal medical research, particularly cancer research, from U.S. institutions. The step-up in medical research theft appears to be linked to China's growing concern over cancer mortality rates and increasing healthcare costs...

Google, Mozilla and Apple have blocked a fake root certificate issued by Kazakhstan's government to spy on its citizens' online activities. The government instructed citizens to install the certificate on all of their devices, and it provided separate instructions for Android, iOS, Chrome, Firefox, ...

Facebook has announced the release of Off-Facebook Activity, a tool that will let members see which apps and websites supply information about their online activity, and clear that information from their Facebook accounts if they wish. It will roll out initially to members in Ireland, South Korea an...

Researchers associated with vpnMentor discovered a data breach involving nearly 28 million records in a BioStar 2 biometric security database belonging to Suprema. "BioStar 2's database was left open, unprotected and unencrypted," vpnMentor said. "After we reached out to them, they were able to clos...

Amazon, Google and Apple have suspended contractor review of consumer recordings following disclosures that the devices are nearly always listening and have captured personal, business and other delicate human interactions. Consumers using smart speakers and digital assistant apps from Amazon and Go...

United Airlines has announced plans to begin rolling out Clear's biometric prescreening at its hub airports. The system works by verifying a flier's fingerprints or eye scan. Clear already is available at about 60 locations throughout the United States. It offers a system that utilizes biometrics to...

Researchers led by speech neuroscientist Edward Chang at the University of California San Francisco have achieved success at decoding speech attempts in real time by reading the activity in the speech centers of test subjects' brains. Three persons capable of normal speech, who were being treated fo...

A flaw in a Facebook app designed for children under 13 years old allows kids to chat online with people unapproved by their parents. The messaging app is designed to give parents control over who their kids text and video chat with online, but a bug in the software lets a contact approved to chat w...

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