Bruxelles, Belgium | AFP | Eight months after revealing the links between Facebook and Cambridge Analytica (CA), whistleblower Christopher Wylie is pushing for the internet giant to be regulated — whether it wants to or not. He is scathing about Facebook’s “man-child” chief executive Mark Zuckerberg and the arrogance of …
Read More »Canada top court rules against journalist protecting source
Ottawa, Canada | AFP | Canada’s top court on Friday effectively ruled against journalists protecting their sources, in a case in which police sought a Vice reporter’s communications with an alleged jihadist for use in his prosecution. In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court said society’s interest in investigating and …
Read More »Marriott hotels says up to 500 million guests affected by hack
Washington, United States | AFP | As many as 500 million guests Marriott International hotels may have been victims of a hack of the chain’s reservation database, the company announced Friday. Marriott said it was alerted on September 8 that there had been an attempt to hack their reservation database …
Read More »Facial recognition deployed at China marathon to stop cheats
Shanghai, China | AFP | Facial recognition will be deployed at a marathon on Sunday in China to crack down on cheating, state media said, after a half-marathon was blighted by widescale flouting of the rules. Running and marathons are fast becoming popular in China, with participants sporting the latest …
Read More »Google extends telecom service Fi to iPhones
San Francisco, United States | AFP | Google said Wednesday it was expanding its “virtual” telecommunication service that was limited to select Android-powered smartphones to a wider range of devices, including iPhones. Freshly renamed “Google Fi” service aims to take on traditional carriers by letting people pay based on how …
Read More »China scientist defends gene-editing babies as trial paused
Hong Kong, China | AFP | The Chinese scientist who claims to have created the world’s first genetically-edited babies defended the highly controversial procedure Wednesday, but announced a halt to the trial following an international outcry. He Jiankui told a packed Hong Kong biomedical conference he was “proud” to have …
Read More »Former employee says Facebook failing black people
San Francisco, United States | AFP | A former Facebook employee on Tuesday went public with a memo saying the company is failing to include black people in its workforce and on the social network. Mark Luckie said that he shared the message with all Facebook employees around the world …
Read More »Google accused of manipulation to track users
Oslo, Norway | AFP | Seven European consumer groups filed complaints against Google with national regulators Tuesday, accusing the internet giant of covertly tracking users’ movements in violation of an EU regulation on data protection. The complaints cited a study by the Norwegian Consumer Council that concluded the Internet giant …
Read More »Snapchat selfie sparks terror scare on Jet Airways Indian flight
Kolkata, India | AFP | A passenger was taken off an Indian plane and detained for questioning after he posted a photo of himself on Snapchat alongside the word “terrorist”, officials said Tuesday. Yogvedant Poddar, 21, was removed from the Jet Airways flight after a passenger spotted him typing …
Read More »Huge cheers as Mars InSight spacecraft lands on Red Planet
Pasadena, United States | AFP | Cheers and applause erupted at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory on Monday as a $993 million unmanned lander, called InSight, touched down on the Red Planet and managed to send back its first picture. The high-drama landing of the waist-high spacecraft capped a nearly seven …
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