Credit Card Payment Systems Crashed Friday at Stores and Restaurants Across America

On Friday credit-card payment systems went down for major businesses scattered across the U.S. Business Insider reports:
Fiserv, one of the leading payments providers in the US, told Insider, “A widespread internet service provider outage has impacted multiple businesses today.” Ann Cave, a company spokesperson, added in an email: “Some Fiserv services that rely on internet connectivity were interrupted. The majority have…

How Facebook Silenced an Enemy of Turkey To Prevent a Hit To the Company’s Business

Long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 shares this report from ProPublica: As Turkey launched a military offensive against Kurdish minorities in neighboring Syria in early 2018, Facebook’s top executives faced a political dilemma. Turkey was demanding the social media giant block Facebook posts from the People’s Protection Units, a mostly Kurdish militia group the Turkish government had targeted. Should Facebook ignore the request,…

Is the Net Neutrality Debate a Pointless Distraction?

“People may scream at me for saying this, but net neutrality is one of America’s longest and now most pointless fights over technology.” So argues the New York Times “On Tech” newsletter author Shira Ovide, calling the debate “a distraction for our elected leaders and corporations when there are more pressing issues.” Ovide also shares their discussion with Times technology and…

Google’s Stadia Problem? A Video Game Unit That’s Not Googley Enough

The tech giant likes to test and tweak. Stadia promised to change the industry and failed to deliver. From a report: Google’s streaming video game service Stadia had ambitious plans to disrupt the gaming industry, which is dominated by consoles. The tech giant had planned to pack Stadia with original content, announcing two years ago that it was hiring hundreds of…

Best Buy Lays Off 5,000 Workers, Will Close More Stores

Best Buy said it laid off 5,000 workers this month and is planning to close more stores this year as more consumers buy electronics online. From a report: The news comes at a time when big chains face growing competition from Amazon and other sites that sell items like TVs and laptops. Fry’s Electronics said Wednesday that it would abruptly close…

Launching Academies: Accelerate Digital Transformation with Job-Based Learning

Over 100 SkillSets help employees develop exact skills needed for their role By Shwetabh Mittal, Senior Director, Product Management This past year, as the pandemic forced companies to move online, digital transformation that may have required years took mere months. According to the World Economic Forum, the double disruption caused by automation and the pandemic […]
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Fry’s Electronics Going Out of Business, Shutting Down All Stores

UnknowingFool and scores of other readers have shared this report: Fry’s Electronics, the decades-old superstore chain with locations in nine American states, appears to have gone defunct. Bay Area TV station KRON-4 was the first press outlet to confirm the news late Tuesday, saying that Fry’s will shut down all 30 of its American locations. The retailer will reportedly make an…

A Digital Firewall in Myanmar, Built With Guns and Wire Cutters

The Myanmar soldiers descended before dawn on Feb. 1, bearing rifles and wire cutters. At gunpoint, they ordered technicians at telecom operators to switch off the internet. For good measure, the soldiers snipped wires without knowing what they were severing, according to an eyewitness and a person briefed on the events. The New York Times: The data center raids in Yangon…

Software Bug Keeping Hundreds Of Inmates In Arizona Prisons Beyond Release Dates

According to Arizona Department of Corrections whistleblowers, hundreds of incarcerated people who should be eligible for release are being held in prison because the inmate management software cannot interpret current sentencing laws. From a report: KJZZ is not naming the whistleblowers because they fear retaliation. The employees said they have been raising the issue internally for more than a year, but…

Anthony Levandowski Closes His Church of AI

The first church of artificial intelligence has shut its conceptual doors. From a report: Anthony Levandowski, the former Google engineer who avoided an 18-month prison sentence after receiving a presidential pardon last month, has closed the church he created to understand and accept a godhead based on artificial intelligence. The Way of the Future church, which Levandowski formed in 2015, was…