Technology news

Did Facebook’s ad platform give Donald Trump an unfair advantage in the 2016 election? That’s a question I tried to answer last October, when I looked at how the dynamics of the ad platform can promote more polarizing ads. It came up again over the weekend, as more people digested Antonio García Martínez’s op-ed in Wired, which examines the same issue. Here’s how he put it:
During the run-up to the election, the Trump and Clinton campaigns bid ruthlessly fo

Coinbase told its customers on Friday that it plans to comply with a court order and hand over about 13,000 customers’ data to the IRS within 21 days. The IRS made the request back in November 2016, asking for the Coinbase records of all the people who bought bitcoin from 2013 to 2015 to seek out those who were evading cryptocurrency taxes. Anyone affected by the order should now have received an email from Coinbase to that effect.
Coinbase heavily resisted the summons. But ultimately, in

Following two months of public lobbying by U.S. legislators and security agencies, Chinese networking giant Huawei today confronted espionage accusations, dismissing them as “not fair” and “only based on groundless suspicion” while touting successes in other countries. The South China Morning Post and Agence France Presse provided English translations of Huawei chief executive Ken Hu’s Chinese-language comments, made today during a Mobile World C

Craig Wright, who once claimed to be long-sought Bitcoin founder Satoshi Nakamoto, has been sued for stealing $5 billion in bitcoin from a former business partner.Filed in the Florida District court earlier this month, the lawsuit alleges that Wright participated in a joint bitcoin-mining venture with the now-deceased IT consultant Dave Kleiman, ultimately mining between 550,000 and 1,100,000 bitcoin. According to the plaintiffs, Wright forged and back-dated a number of documents after Kleiman&

Art Club Challenge is a mobile game that takes the Bob Ross approach to painting: Everyone can do it, so don’t be afraid to try. It’s Cleveland-based Polytundra‘s debut title, and it will be out on iOS on March 1.
You’re playing with a limited palette in Art Club Challenge. Using just red, blue, yellow, and black, you must create paintings based on prompts. And you can only use certain shapes as well, like rectangles and squares. These constraints are intended to help peo

Pixel and Nexus smartphone owners on T-Mobile will now have an easier time determining whether a voicemail is worth listening to. The latest update for Google’s Phone app adds “Google-powered voicemail transcriptions for T-Mobile USA customers.” That sounds very similar to what Google Voice customers are already familiar with. When someone leaves you a voicemail, Google does its best to transcribe that message and puts the text right in the voicemail tab. It’s not always

Facebook has apologized for showing a demo of Oculus Rift shooter Bullet Train at the Conservative Political Action Conference, a week after 17 students were killed in a Florida school shooting. In a statement, Facebook VP of virtual reality Hugo Barra said that the demo was part of “a standard set of experiences” that Oculus featured at public events. “In light of the recent events in Florida and out of respect for the victims and their families, we have removed them from thi

50 Cent admitted that he did not, in fact, make $8 million in bitcoin by accepting the cryptocurrency as a form of payment for his album Animal Ambition back in 2014. In a Friday court document obtained by The Blast, the rapper admits that he has never owned bitcoin, and only went along with the initial report from TMZ because “so long as a press story is not irreparably damaging to my image or brand, I usually do not feel the need to publicly deny the reporting.”
He added, “T

There’s no specific release date yet for HBO’s Fahrenheit 451, an adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s 1953 novel about a future dystopia where books are illegal, and “firemen” are special operatives who find them and burn them. But the network has just released the first full trailer for the film. With Black Panther still setting box office records, the timing is just right: Fahrenheit 451 stars Michael B. Jordan, currently on-screen as Black Panther’s memorable, ce

GUEST: Amazon Echo’s voice assistant Alexa is ever-present in the AI world. The Echo is the best-selling device on the market, and it boasts a variety of capabilities beyond what we could have imagined from consumer technology just a few years ago. The question is no longer whether Alexa is useful for consumers, but rather how to get the most out of her 25,000-plus skills and more than 4,000 connected devices.
Consumers often purchase digital assistants with smart homes in mind, but w

The Weinstein Company announced plans to file for bankruptcy Sunday evening after talks fell through for a potential sale. Producer and studio co-founder Harvey Weinstein was ousted from the company last October after numerous allegations of sexual harassment and assault from dozens of women who said his abuses had persisted for decades. The Weinstein Company has been struggling financially ever since those allegations came to light, particularly reports from The New York Times and the New York

EXCLUSIVE: The competition among mobile advertisers is heating up, and adtech companies are creating new kinds of ads to take advantage of it. One of the ideas being borrowed from desktop advertising is in-app header bidding, which is a way to get multiple ad networks to bid in real time to be the provider of an ad inside an app or mobile game.
Appodeal, an ad mediation platform, is introducing its own solution, dubbed Parallel Bidding, for mobile apps. Parallel Bidding works as a unified a

Alex Garland’s heady, dreamlike science fiction movie Annihilation opened over the weekend to a modest $11 million box office take that looks paltry compared to Black Panther’s stunning numbers, but it’s still about what distributor Paramount Pictures projected. The film is something of a hard sell for widespread, mainstream audiences: it’s more philosophical than action-oriented, it’s distinctly weird and idiosyncratic, and it ends on an inconclusive moment that s

Volkswagen settled a major diesel emissions class action lawsuit brought by hundreds of vehicle owners right before the case was set to go to trial. The German auto giant’s US division settled the lawsuit brought by a North Carolina man and over 300 other owners of diesel cars who allege fraud and unfair trade practices.The trial could have featured testimony from current and former VW executives and would likely have caused a spate of bad press for the automaker regarding the Dieselgate

In 2017, Amazon decided to get into the podcast adaptation business, turning Aaron Mahnke’s hit podcast Lore into both a television series and an immersive haunted house. Apparently the show performed well because today, the company announced that it has ordered a second season of the Amazon Prime series.
Like its namesake podcast, Lore is an anthology show that tells one-off stories, usually with a horror bent, exploring the origins of popular urban legends and myths. Writer-producer Gle

Qualcomm has reversed its stance on an acquisition offer by competitor Broadcom, providing it raise the takeover bid to $160 billion including $25 billion in assumed debt, according to Financial Times. Broadcom initially proposed an unsolicited bid of $130 billion in November of 2017, which was unanimously rejected by Qualcomm’s board of directors.
Qualcomm turned down Broadcom’s first deal for two reasons: Qualcomm said it undervalued the company and came with “significant re

I started at VentureBeat exactly 10 years ago today, and l looked back at the post that my boss, Matt Marshall, wrote when I started. He referred to me as “Dean the Machine.”
Since that time, I’ve written about 15,621 posts. That comes out to 1,562 posts a year, or 30 per week, or 4.3 posts per day. That’s a lot of work, and I feel … tired. I suppose I’ve lived up to that nickname.
But it’s not just about the numbers. I still enjoy doing what I do.

Apple’s widely reported plan to create separate larger, faster, and cheaper versions of the iPhone X became clearer today thanks to a report from Bloomberg. Although the report focuses mostly on what it calls a “giant high-end iPhone,” it also includes a few details on Apple’s upcoming sequels to the iPhone X and iPhone 8.
Said to be code-named D33, the largest device will apparently pack a nearly 6.5-inch screen into a body “about the same size as the iPhone 8 Plus

Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman is adding to mounting expectations that Apple will release three new iPhones this coming September: an upgraded iPhone X, a larger version of that upgraded iPhone X, and a cheaper iPhone that will pair the X’s slim-bezeled screen design with an LCD display. All three will use Face ID for authentication, marking an end to Touch ID in new iPhone products.Gurman reports that the Plus-sized version of the X will have a screen that measures “close to 6.5 inc

EXCLUSIVE: Electronic Arts is hiring for a general manager in its Shanghai office to create a new Plants vs. Zombies mobile game.
The Redwood City, California-based game publisher posted an ad in China saying the PopCap Shanghai game studio is looking for a “game general manager” to “manage the development team for a new Plants vs. Zombies mobile game.” EA hasn’t announced any such game yet, so it seems like it’s early in the process.
Plants vs. Zombies has pr

In one of his most high-profile appearances since the killing of net neutrality rules last year, the chief U.S. telecom policy regulator insisted the move was widely misunderstood and would promote more internet freedom.
Speaking at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona today, FCC chair Ajit Pai, while avoiding using the term “net neutrality” in his prepared remarks, insisted the move would still allow for oversight of telecom carriers while simply returning internet regulations to a st

Romans woke up to a rare sight this morning: snow for the first time in six years, as freezing winds from Siberia — called the “Beast from the East” — move across Europe and cause a cold spell.The result? Nuns throwing snowballs in front of basilicas, famous landmarks dusted in white, and citizens building a snowman wearing lipstick with makeup brushes for arms. Photo: Domenico IzzoA snowman at the Vatican.
This week, the cold front from Russia is leading to higher power

The Walking Dead has returned from its traditional midseason break, careening toward the conclusion of the comic’s “All Out War” saga and the end of the feud between Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) and his arch-nemesis Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan). But thus far, the show’s big bet on Negan has been a bit of a misfire, with ratings hitting staggering lows last year and Negan himself absent from roughly half of this season’s episodes.But a midseason premiere is an opport

Microsoft has started selling Lumia Windows phones at the company’s online retail store once again. The software giant originally removed its Lumia devices back in June, leaving HP’s Elite x3 and Alcatel’s Idol 4S as the only choices for Windows Phone fans. Windows Latest has now spotted that Microsoft has started selling its Lumia devices again earlier this month.
The Lumia 950 is available for $399, alongside the Lumia 950 XL ($499), Lumia 650 ($199), and Lumia 550 ($139). M

Speaking at the Mobile World Congress today in Barcelona, Spain, U.S. FCC chairman Ajit Pai announced that the commission is prepared to quickly make 5G-ready wireless spectrum available through auctions. The only hitch: Pai says that Congressional action by May 13 will be necessary to avoid delaying the 5G rollout process.
Telecom industry leaders have identified certain chunks of radio spectrum as critically important for 5G, engineering upcoming 5G chipsets and antennas specifically around th

In October, Facebook began testing a News Feed minus the news. The test, which moved all shared articles to a separate feed called Explore, was designed to make it easier to see posts shared by friends and family. That test is still ongoing — but in the meantime, developer Ryan Orbuch is taking the experiment a step further. Feedless, a content blocker he released to the iOS App Store today, removes the entire feed from Facebook on the mobile web. The goal is to render a near-naked versio

Online platforms haven’t given up on net neutrality just yet. Along with organizations Fight for the Future, Demand Progress, and Free Press Action Fund, companies including Reddit, Tumblr, Etsy, and Medium are participating in a day of online and offline protests on February 27th. The protest — called Operation: #OneMoreVote — will call upon businesses, web users, and more to “flood lawmakers with phone calls and emails from constituents.”
The FCC voted in Decembe

Apple has confirmed that it uses Google’s public cloud to store data for its iCloud services in its latest version of the iOS Security Guide last month, as spotted by CNBC. Reports that Apple relied on Google’s cloud services surfaced in 2016 but were previously never confirmed.
Apple had previously used remote data storage systems provided by Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure. Apple’s edition of the iOS Security Guide in March 2017 still listed Microsoft Azure instead o

Hong Kong-based bike-sharing service Gobee is shutting down in France after suffering what the company is calling “mass destruction” of its fleet. Gobee, which had 2,000 bikes in Paris and claimed around 150,000 users across the country, says 3,400 of the company’s bikes have been damaged and more than 1,000 have been stolen, according to The Guardian.
Gobee’s troubles are the latest example of the uphill battle for so-called “dockless” bike-sharing. These sy

The Oasis Games studio announced today that the mobile action game Final Fantasy: Awakening is now available for iOS in the U.S. two weeks after its release on Android.
That Android release of Final Fantasy: Awakening already has 137,000 downloads. The free-to-play game first came out China (Oasis is in Hong Kong) in 2016. It came out in other Asian territories — including Taiwan and Malysa — in 2017.
Final Fantasy: Awakening is based on Final Fantasy: Type-0, an action rol

Last month, Apple announced that it would hand over management of its Chinese iCloud data to a local, state-owned firm in China called Cloud Big Data Industrial Development Co (GCBD) at the end of February in order to comply with new laws. Now, Reuters is reporting that Apple will also hold iCloud encryption keys for Chinese users in China itself, raising new concerns about government access. The new policy does not affect any iCloud users outside of China.
As Reuters notes, that compliance mea

Apple CEO Tim Cook will co-chair the 18th annual China Development Forum, a Chinese government event held in Beijing from March 18-20, according to a Wall Street Journal report this morning. The announcement of Cook’s role in the event comes only months after U.S. senators accused Apple of “enabling the Chinese government’s censorship and surveillance of the internet,” and two days before Apple hands over Chinese iCloud accounts to a Chinese government-controlled com

YouTube is announcing a few new features today meant to improve the experience for viewers watching live streams. First, the company has announced that it’s bringing automatic English captions to live streams whenever professionally provided captions aren’t available. The continued goal is to make streams accessible for more people.
These captions utilize the company’s live automatic speech recognition (LASR) technology, which is “approaching” industry standards fo

YouTube today announced a trio of new features for its YouTube Live streaming service.
Arguably the most interesting of the new features is automatic captions. YouTube has offered captioning functionality since 2006. In 2009, it added automatic captioning to the mix, merging its automatic speech recognition (ASR) smarts with YouTube’s captioning technology to automate the process of creating subtitles in videos. The Google-owned company announced last year that it has passed 1 billion

Google Assistant announced at the start of Mobile World Congress today that it is bringing its Android and voice app ecosystems together. For the first time, developers will be able to link a specific intent in a Google Assistant voice app to a specific experience in an Android app.
Deep links make it possible for a user to do things like complete a transaction with voice and then get forwarded to an Android app for more detailed information. Deep links between Google Assistant actions and Andro

If we don’t cut greenhouse gas emissions to address climate change, then by the end of the century, 70 percent of king penguins could face a tough decision: either find a new home or die, according to new research.
King penguins live on islands scattered throughout the Southern Ocean, the waters surrounding Antarctica. The birds can swim as far as 310 miles (500 kilometers) to feed on lanternfish, squids, and krill in a food belt circling the continent. But climate models show that this f

Fiat Chrysler has become the latest automaker to turn its back on diesel-powered engines as more of the industry pivots to battery-electric vehicles. According to the Financial Times, the Italian-American carmaker will end production of its diesel passenger vehicles by 2022.
FCA, which manufacturers Jeep, Dodge, Ram, Chrysler, Maserati, Alfa Romeo, and Fiat, will unveil its four-year plan to phase out diesel vehicles on June 1st, the Times says. A spokesperson did not return a request for comme

Lenovo is expected to announce an update to its E line of Moto phones at some point this spring, and today, VentureBeat reporter Evan Blass leaked an image of the rumored Moto E5 Plus. The device doesn’t look wildly different from last year’s E4 Plus, although it does seem to have dual, rear-facing cameras and a taller, thinner display with minimized bezels. It also might have a rear fingerprint sensor, as the Motorola logo looks slightly raised and less like a decal. The headphone

Into the Breach is a turn-based strategy game, along the lines of the Advance Wars series, where players control futuristic mechs fighting off an invasion of giant, bug-like alien monsters. It’s basically Pacific Rim crossed with XCOM, and it’s from the creators of the addictive spaceship simulator FTL: Faster Than Light. If any of those words sound appealing to you, you’re going to like Into the Breach a lot.
The game takes place in a future on the brink of disaster. Much of

A new group led by Delta, Sprint, and Gogo wants to revolutionize the quality of in-flight internet connectivity. This past weekend at Mobile World Congress, the Seamless Air Alliance, as they’re calling it, announced ambitious plans that include fast 5G or broadband-level connections in the sky, easier setup when connecting to the internet after boarding the plane, and more.The Seamless Air Alliance isn’t proposing some kind of radical revamp of how to equip planes with faster inte

Bixby fans, rejoice. DJ Koh, president of Samsung’s mobile division, has confirmed at Mobile World Congress that the company’s long-rumored Bixby smart speaker will be out sometime in the second half the year, according to The Wall Street Journal.Samsung confirmed that it was working on the smart speaker last August, and rumors from December pegged a release for sometime in the first half of 2018 for around $200, although it seems that the rumored release date has since slipped to t

The Apple TV 4K didn’t get rave reviews, which makes its $179 price tag a bit tough to swallow if you’ve been waiting to upgrade your current model. But if you’re locked into the Apple ecosystem and have been scouring for a steep discount, DirecTV Now is currently running a pretty good deal that’ll get you new Apple TV model for just $105.
At about $74 off retail, it’s one of the best deals out there for the new Apple TV, which still goes for about $149 for a refur

Say you sign up for a free email account. You live in country A, the tech company providing the email service is headquartered in country B, and the data center where the emails are stored is in country C. If the police in one country want your emails, where do they have to go, and whom do they have to ask?
That’s the logistical nightmare lurking in the background of US v. Microsoft, a case that will be heard before the Supreme Court on February 28th. In US v. Microsoft, law enforcement s