Customers trying to avoid online delivery platforms like Grubhub by calling restaurants directly might be dialing phone numbers generated and advertised by those very platforms — for which restaurants are charged fees that can sometimes exceed the income the order generates. BuzzFeed News reports: Here’s how phone fees work: Grubhub (which also owns Seamless, MenuPages, Tapingo, and LevelUp) generates a unique…
Tag: telephone
AT&T’s Randall Stephenson To Retire As CEO
AT&T Chief Executive Randall Stephenson said he will retire at the end of June (Warning: source paywalled; alternative source), handing leadership of one of the world’s largest media and telecommunications companies to longtime deputy John Stankey. The Wall Street Journal reports: Mr. Stephenson, who turned 60 this week, has spent most of his 13 years as chairman and CEO piecing together…
Vint Cerf Explains Why the Internet is Holding Up
In a video interview over Google Hangouts this week, 76-year-old Vint Cerf explained to the Washington Post why the internet’s 50-year-old architecture is still holding up, “with a mix of triumph and wonder in his voice.” “Resiliency and redundancy are very much a part of the Internet design,” explained Cerf, whose passion for touting the wonders of computer networking prompted Google…
How the Telephone Failed Its Big Test During 1918’s Spanish Flu Epidemic
Fast Company’s technology editor harrymcc writes:
When the Spanish flu struck in 1918, the U.S. reacted in ways that sound eerily familiar, by closing public places and telling people to stay at home. The one technology that promised to make isolation less isolating was the telephone, which was used for commerce, education, and even news distribution. But the phone itself got caught…
Broadband Engineers Threatened Due To 5G Coronavirus Conspiracies
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Telecoms engineers are facing verbal and physical threats during the lockdown, as baseless conspiracy theories linking coronavirus to the roll-out of 5G technology spread by celebrities such as Amanda Holden prompt members of the public to abuse those maintaining vital mobile phone and broadband networks. Facebook has removed one anti-5G group in…
Mental Health Tips for the COVID-19 Outbreak
Dr. Steve Joordens, a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto, Scarborough, regularly connects psychology to world events. Below, listen to the conversation or read the transcript, and hear Dr. Steve Joordens’s thoughts on: Tips to manage anxiety and fear around the new coronavirus pandemic How often you should check the news How parents […]
The post Mental Health Tips for…
FCC Approves Plan To Pay Satellite Companies To Give Up Airwaves
U.S. regulators approved a plan to pay Intelsat SA and other satellite providers to give up airwaves so they can be redeployed for the fast 5G mobile networks being rolled out. From a report: The Federal Communications Commission on a 3-2 vote Friday approved Chairman Ajit Pai’s plan for as much as $9.7 billion to clear the frequencies, with the money…
NSA Phone Surveillance Program Cost $100 Million, Yielded One Major Investigation
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Hill: A National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance program that accessed American citizens’ domestic phone calls and text messages resulted in only one investigation between 2015 and 2019 despite costing $100 million, a newly declassified study found. The report, which was produced by the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board and briefed to Congress…
This App Automatically Cancels and Sues Robocallers
DoNotPay, the family of consumer advocacy services meant to protect people from corporate exploitation, is launching a new app aimed at helping end our long national nightmare surrounding robocalls by giving you a burner credit card to get their contact details then giving you a chatbot lawyer to automatically sue them. From a report: DoNotPay Founder and CEO Joshua Browder’s Robo…
Astronomers award 2020 Education Prize to Deborah Byrd
Byrd received the prize from the American Astronomical Society, the largest organization of U.S. astronomers. The prizes are given for outstanding achievements in scientific research, education, scholarly writing, and service to the astronomical community. Source: https://earthsky.org/human-world/2020-aas-education-prize-deborah-byrd…