We have learned that Brad Cox, computer scientist known mostly for creating the Objective-C programming language with his business partner Tom Love, died on January 2, 2021 at his residence. He was 76. From a Legacy.com post: Brad was born on May 2, 1944 in Fort Benning, Georgia, to the late Nancy Hinson Cox and Dewey McBride Cox of Lake City,…
Tag: Cox
How the US Military Buys Location Data from Ordinary Apps
Joseph Cox, reporting for Motherboard at Vice: The U.S. military is buying the granular movement data of people around the world, harvested from innocuous-seeming apps, Motherboard has learned. The most popular app among a group Motherboard analyzed connected to this sort of data sale is a Muslim prayer and Quran app that has more than 98 million downloads worldwide. Others include…
How Ex-Facebook Data Experts Spent $75 Million On Targeted Anti-Trump Ads
The night before America’s election, Fast Company reported: On the internet, we’re subject to hidden A/B tests all the time, but this one was also part of a political weapon: a multimillion-dollar tool kit built by a team of Facebook vets, data nerds, and computational social scientists determined to defeat Donald Trump. The goal is to use microtargeted ads, follow-up surveys,…
Comcast is Looking To Enter the Smart TV Wars
Comcast wants to turn the software running on its set-top boxes into an operating system for smart TVs, Protocol reported Friday, citing multiple industry insiders with knowledge of the company’s plans. From the report: The company began pitching TV manufacturers on the idea in recent months and had some conversations on the subject at CES in January. It’s unclear how far…
Western Bumblebee Population Drops Up To 93% Over the Last 20 Years
The western bumblebee is one of around 30 bumblebee species in the western U.S. and Canada. Now a federal review “unveils an alarming trend for the western bumblebee population, which has seen its numbers dwindle by as much as 93% in the last two decades,” reports the Associated Press: The find by the U.S. Geological Survey will help inform a species…
Facebook Boycott Leaders ‘Disappointed’ After Meeting With Zuckerberg, Sandberg
Leaders from four of the organizations spearheading the #StopHateforProfit campaign sat down with Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg and Chief Product Officer Chris Cox today to discuss the demands of a large advertiser boycott that now includes hundreds of brands. According to Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, the chat was an unequivocal disappointment. “Today we saw little and heard just about nothing,”…
Data Caps On AT&T, Comcast, T-Mobile Will Return June 30
An anonymous reader quotes a report from PCWorld: Major Internet service providers are scheduled to end their quarantine benefits soon, once again subjecting Americans to data caps and removing protections if they are unable to pay their bills. The FCC’s Keep Americans Connected Pledge is set to expire on June 30. Companies initially agreed to the pledge and rushed to add…
Some Believe the US Has Been Hit By Large-Scale DDoS Attack — Others Are Skeptical
Forbes reports major internet outages across many companies including T-Mobile, Fortnite, Instagram, Comcast, and Chase Bank. Some experts believe it is the result of a coordinated attack, others not so much. Slashdot reader bobthesungeek76036 shares the report: On June 15, a flurry of reports on a number of different services in the U.S. have indicated that the country may be experiencing…
Facebook Brings Back Chris Cox, a Former Top Lieutenant To Zuckerberg
Facebook said on Thursday that Chris Cox, a former top executive, was returning to the company as chief product officer (Warning: source may be paywalled; alternative source. The New York Times reports: Mr. Cox had left the social network in March 2019 over disagreements with Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive. In coming back as chief product officer, Mr. Cox, 37, who…
Cox Readies a Re-entry Into Mobile
Mike Dano, reporting for Light Reading: Cox Communications — one of the nation’s largest cable providers — is preparing to launch a mobile service, according to several sources familiar with the company’s plans. However, the details of Cox’s mobile strategy, including when it might launch and which wireless network provider it might partner with, are still unclear. AT&T executives have publicly…