“Facebook is launching a recruitment drive for poll workers this weekend, putting messages into users’ News Feeds with links to poll worker registration sites in their state,” reports the Verge: CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a post announcing the drive that it was part of the company’s larger voting information campaign, which has a goal of helping 4 million people register…
Tag: Authority
Facebook Fights Irish Privacy Watchdog’s Data-Transfer Curbs
Facebook sought to derail proposals by the Irish data protection watchdog that the tech giant warns could curb transfers of vast amounts of commercial data across the Atlantic. From a report: The social network giant said it sought a judicial review of the Irish Data Protection Commission’s preliminary decision that the company may have to halt trans-Atlantic data transfers using the…
Apple iCloud, Google Drive and Dropbox Probed Over ‘Unfair’ Terms and Conditions in Italy
Italy’s competition authority has opened an investigation into cloud storage services operated by Apple, Dropbox and Google, in response to a number of complaints alleging unfair commercial practices. From a report: In a press release announcing the probe, the AGCM says it’s opened six investigations in all. The services of concern are Google’s Drive, Apple iCloud and the eponymous Dropbox cloud…
Coronavirus: Apple iPhones Can Contact-Trace Without COVID-19 App
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: Apple has begun letting its iPhones carry out contact-tracing without the need for users to download an official Covid-19 app.
As an alternative, owners are being invited to opt in to a scheme called Exposure Notifications Express (ENE). This keeps a 14-day log of other phones detected via Bluetooth and serves an alert…
Apple Showing Signs It May Soon Launch a Search Engine To Compete Against Google Search
An anonymous reader shares a report from Coywolf News, written by Jon Henshaw: For several years, it’s been reported that Google pays billions of dollars to Apple to remain the default search engine on Safari for iOS, iPadOS, and macOS. The deal ensures that iPhone, iPad, and Mac users search with Google when they use Safari. That is unless they manually…
Facial Recognition Designed To Detect Around Face Masks Is Failing, Study Finds
Many facial recognition companies have claimed they can identify people with pinpoint accuracy even while they’re wearing face masks, but the latest results from a study show that the coverings are dramatically increasing error rates. CNET reports: In an update Tuesday, the US National Institute of Standards and Technology looked at 41 facial recognition algorithms submitted after the COVID-19 pandemic was…
Dounreay Nuclear Power Site Available For Reuse In the Year 2333
The site of a Scottish nuclear power facility should be available for other uses in 313 years’ time, according to a new report. The BBC reports: Dounreay, near Thurso, was the UK site for the development of fast reactor research from 1955 to 1994. The facility on the north Caithness coast is in the process of being closed down, demolished and…
Text Editor Notepad++ Banned In China After ‘Stand With Hong Kong’ Update
The website of Notepad++ is banned in China as of Monday, “obviously due to” its release of editions named “Free Uyghur” and “Stand with Hong Kong,” the source code and text editor announced on Twitter. TechCrunch reports: First released in 2003 by France-based developer Don Ho, free-to-use Notepad++ operates on Windows and supports some 90 languages. In his release notices for…
Red Hat, Google, Microsoft, GitHub, and Others Launch the Open Source Security Foundation
InfoQ reports on a new security group that launched last week: Supported by The Linux Foundation, the Open Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF) aims to create a cross-industry forum for a collaborative effort to improve open source software security. The list of initial members includes Google, Microsoft, GitHub, IBM, Red Hat, and more. “As open source has become more pervasive, its…
TikTok Ban: Trump Will Prohibit Transactions With ByteDance Beginning September 20
According to The Verge, “President Trump has signed a new executive order which will block all transactions with Bytedance, TikTok’s parent corporation, in an effort to ‘address the national emergency with respect to the information and communication technology supply chain.'” From the report: The move comes after months of escalating tensions, which saw Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and others at…