In most situations, a mailbox is just a mailbox. But in the milestone union election at an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, a mailbox installed earlier this year threatens to upend the whole process — or at least become a focus for the union if it loses the vote. The public tally began Thursday afternoon.
Continue ReadingInformation scraped from around 500 million LinkedIn user profiles is part of a database posted for sale on a website popular with hackers, the company confirmed Thursday. The sale of the data was first reported on Tuesday by cybersecurity news and research site CyberNews, which said that an archive including user IDs, names, email addresses,
Continue ReadingSnap and Twitter are among a group of investors that have just poured half a billion dollars into Mohalla Tech, an Indian startup that owns social media platform ShareChat as well as Moj — a TikTok-like app that has soared in popularity since the Chinese original was banned in India last year. The $502 million
Continue ReadingArtificial intelligence systems are often criticized for built-in biases. Commercial facial-recognition software, for instance, may fail when attempting to classify women and people of color. In an effort to help make AI fairer in a variety of ways, Facebook is rolling out a new data set for AI researchers that includes a diverse group of
Continue ReadingFormer Vice President Joe Biden said Amazon should “start paying their taxes” in a broader critique of large, successful businesses. “I don’t think any company, I don’t give a damn how big they are, the Lord Almighty, should absolutely be in a position where they pay no tax and make billions and billions and billions
Continue ReadingTom Brady is joining the NFT party. The seven-time Super Bowl champion is launching an NFT platform called Autograph this spring. It will bring together some of the biggest names in sports, entertainment, fashion and pop culture to work with creators to develop unique digital collectibles, a representative for Brady tells CNN Business. Autograph will
Continue ReadingWednesday morning, Slack rolled out a feature to let its users message people at other companies. By Wednesday afternoon, it was walking the feature back and making changes to prevent harassment after people pointed out that it could be used to send unsolicited DMs and perhaps even abusive emails. The feature is part of Slack
Continue ReadingWhen people think of Samsung smartphones, it’s normally Galaxy S devices, Notes and foldables. Now, the unsung heroes of the portfolio are getting a chance to shine. The company announced Wednesday that it’s doubling down on its mid-range Galaxy A Series smartphone line in the United States — an effort that includes its first 5G
Continue ReadingOver the weekend, cybersecurity experts revealed that about half a billion Facebook users’ personal information was breached — a treasure trove of data the includes full names, birthdays, phone numbers and their location. Facebook said that massive leak stems from an issue in 2019, which has since been fixed. Still, there’s no clawing back that
Continue ReadingFinancial technology firm Plaid on Wednesday announced a $425 million Series D funding round, more than doubling the total amount the company has raised since its 2012 founding. The new funding pushes Plaid’s valuation to $13.4 billion, according to a source close to the company. That’s a huge jump from the $5.3 billion for which
Continue ReadingSamsung expects to have pulled off a strong first quarter, even as one of its chipmaking facilities was temporarily shut by a brutal US winter storm earlier this year. The South Korean conglomerate said Wednesday that it likely made about 9.3 trillion Korean won ($8.3 billion) in operating profit from January to March, marking a
Continue ReadingRapper will.i.am wants to make face masks a high-end, high-tech statement. The Black Eyed Peas member announced this week he is teaming up with Honeywell to launch XUPERMASK, a $299 mask with a ton of bells and whistles. In addition to dual three-speed fans and HEPA filters, a type of mechanical air filter, it features
Continue ReadingBusiness leaders had a lot on their plates over the past year, and many have let cybersecurity fall by the wayside. Nearly half of businesses say work-from-home policies have hurt their cybersecurity practices, according to Verizon’s 2021 Mobile Security Index, published Tuesday. The report includes findings from a survey of 856 professionals responsible for buying,
Continue ReadingYahoo Answers, a question-and-answer platform that launched more than 15 years ago and became one of the largest troves of information — and misinformation — on the internet, is shutting down on May 4. The Verizon-owned website announced the platform’s cancellation Monday with a terse statement on Yahoo Answers’ homepage. The portal will go into
Continue ReadingIf you were a Facebook user in 2019, it’s possible that your information is among the millions of records posted on a website used by hackers. Cyber intelligence firm Hudson Rock over the weekend revealed that personal information from 533 million Facebook accounts was leaked, including names, phone numbers, Facebook IDs, locations, account creation dates,
Continue ReadingAmazon illegally fired last year two of its corporate employees who had been vocal critics of the company, the National Labor Relations Board has found. The employees, Emily Cunningham and Maren Costa, organized workers around climate action and warehouse conditions during the pandemic before their firings in April 2020. The federal agency said it would
Continue ReadingThe Supreme Court has handed Google a win in a decade-old case in software development, holding that the technology giant did not commit copyright infringement against Oracle when it copied snippets of programming language to build its Android operating system. Google’s copying of so-called application programming interfaces from Oracle’s Java SE was an example of
Continue ReadingLG is getting out of the “incredibly competitive” business of making smartphones. On Monday, the South Korean tech giant announced that it would close down its mobile phone unit after years of losses, marking the end of an era for a trailblazer in the Android world. The division is expected to be wound down by
Continue ReadingTaiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, announced Thursday that it expects to pour $100 billion into advanced chips over the next three years to keep up with rising demand. The investment is a massive increase over the $25 billion to $28 billion that TSMC planned to spend to make advanced chips this
Continue ReadingTaiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, announced Thursday that it expects to pour $100 billion into advanced chips over the next three years to keep up with rising demand. The investment is a massive increase over the $25 billion to $28 billion that TSMC planned to spend to make advanced chips this
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