Tech

The CEOs of social media giants Facebook, Twitter and Google have faced a grilling as congressional lawmakers tried to draw them into acknowledging responsibility for helping fuel the January insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and rising COVID-19 vaccine misinformation

Facebook has allowed groups — many tied to QAnon and militia movements — to glorify violence during the 2020 election, a new report finds.

The electric vehicle maker has made Elon Musk the “Technoking of Tesla” and CFO Zach Kirkhorn the “Master of Coin.”

Facebook is adding informational labels to posts about vaccines as it expands efforts to counter COVID-19-related misinformation flourishing on its platforms

In a letter to the NHTSA last month, NTSB chief Robert Sumwalt named Tesla 16 times while urging the sister agency to set stricter standards.

With vaccination against COVID-19 in full swing, social platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter say they’ve stepped up their fight against misinformation that aims to undermine trust in vaccines.

When the Covid pandemic hit, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar pivoted so his nonprofit foundation could still bring a STEM education to underserved students.

Cowabunga! The heroes in a half shell are back with a new game.

Russia has announced that it plans to throttle speeds on social media platform Twitter for failing to remove illegal content from its platform.

Twitter has filed a lawsuit against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton

Republican state lawmakers want social media giants to face costly lawsuits for policing content on their websites, taking aim at a federal law that prevents internet companies from being sued for removing posts

The U.S. has issued an emergency warning after Microsoft said it caught China hacking into its mail and calendar server program, called Exchange, NBC News reports.

A new icon that Amazon rolled out on its mobile app has quietly undergone an alteration after part of the logo drew some comparisons to the mustache worn by Adolf Hitler. The new logo, which debuted in January, features a cardboard box design with a blue strip of tape on it. Some said the tape, situated above the company’s...

Microsoft’s Mesh cloud service will enable applications in which people can share holograms, speak with one another, make doodles and appear as virtual avatars.

A federal judge in San Francisco has approved a $650 million settlement of a privacy lawsuit against Facebook for allegedly using photo face-tagging without the permission of its users

Twitter on Thursday announced a number of new features that the company is experimenting with, including Super Follow subscriptions.

Military-controlled state and media companies will also be blocked, while army-linked commercial firms will not be able to advertise on Facebook and Instagram.

The decision follows negotiations between Facebook and Australia which is set to pass a new media law that will require digital platforms to pay for news.

The U.K. Supreme Court has ruled that Uber drivers should be classed as “workers” and not self-employed

For two decades, global news outlets have complained internet companies are getting rich at their expense, selling advertising linked to their reports without sharing revenue

A NASA rover is hurtling toward a landing on Mars in the riskiest step yet in an epic quest to bring back rocks that could answer whether life ever existed on the red planet

The top White House cybersecurity official says authorities are still working to unravel the likely Russian hack of U.S. government agencies and companies

The feature is being tested on some popular videos.

The right-wing friendly social network Parler says it’s re-launching

Struggling luxury car brand Jaguar will be fully electric by 2025

Australia’s Treasurer Josh Frydenberg says Google and Facebook are close to striking “significant commercial deals” to pay Australian media for news ahead of Australia creating world-first laws that would force the digital giants to finance journalism.

Outspoken anti-vaxxer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been banned from Instagram, a spokesperson told NBC News.

Bumble found business success with its female-focused dating algorithm, now the women behind the app including CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd are making IPO history.

When army generals in Myanmar staged a coup last week, they briefly cut internet access in an apparent attempt to stymie protests

Clubhouse, an invitation-only audio chat app launched less than a year ago, has caught the attention of tech industry bigshots like Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg — not to mention the Chinese government, which has already blocked it in the country

That specific, adorable filter may be tough to find for anyone looking to replicate the viral moment.

A report out Wednesday says election systems in the U.S. are vulnerable to cyber intrusions similar to the one that hit federal agencies and numerous businesses last year and remain a potential target for foreign hacking

United Airlines said Wednesday it will buy up to 200 small electric aircraft to help customers in urban areas get to the airport.

Twitter will uphold its ban on former President Donald Trump, even if he were to run for office again, according to the company’s chief financial officer.

A hacker’s botched attempt to poison the water of a small Florida city is raising alarms about just how vulnerable such systems may be to attacks by more sophisticated intruders

A hacker gained entry to the system controlling the water treatment plant of a Florida city of 15,000 and tried to taint the water supply with a caustic chemical, exposing a danger cybersecurity experts say has grown as systems become both more computerized and accessible via the internet.

Parents in National City say they woke up to find their 11-year-old daughter not in her bed. After a city-wide manhunt and rescue, the girl is now safe and police say the 20-year-old accused of taking her is in jail.

John Matze says he has been fired as CEO of Parler, which was among social media services used to plan the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of then-President Donald Trump

The latest prototype of SpaceX’s next-generation Starship rocket exploded on impact during an attempted landing after a test flight on Tuesday.

The settlement requires Amazon to pay more than $61.7 million to the FTC, which will be used to compensate Flex drivers.

Elon Musk said in an interview late Sunday that a monkey has been wired up to play video games with its mind by a company he founded called Neuralink. 

Google will pay $2.6 million to more than 5,500 employees and past job applicants to resolve allegations that the internet giant discriminated against female engineers and Asians in California and Washington state.

A Maine company that’s developing a rocket to propel small satellites into space passed its first major test.

Cybercriminals shifted away from stealing individual consumers’ information in 2020 to focus on more profitable attacks on businesses.

General Motors has set a goal of making the vast majority of the vehicles it produces electric by 2035, and the entire company carbon neutral, including operations, five years after that.

Apple CEO Tim Cook has fired off a series of thinly veiled shots at Facebook and other social media companies

The U.S. has struck a rare blow against an international ransomware gang, charging one alleged member of a hacker ring that has shut down health care facilities, colleges and utilities companies, NBC News reports.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Wednesday announced that the company will no longer recommend civic and political groups to its users.

Apple is urging iPhone and iPad users to update their devices to fix security flaws that might have been “actively exploited” by hackers

YouTube said Tuesday that it had suspended Rudy Giuliani, former President Donald Trump’s attorney, from a program that allows partners to make money from ads on their videos after Giuliani broke YouTube’s rules by repeatedly sharing election misinformation, NBC News reports.

Twitter has permanently banned My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell’s account after he continually perpetuated the baseless claim that Donald Trump won the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

With his renditions of centuries-old sea shanties, Nathan Evans has spawned a global craze on the ultra-modern social media platform TikTok, NBC News reports.

Daisy Ridley and Jennifer Hudson went to a movie premiere together last week

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has announced that he is donating $100 million towards a prize for the best technology that can capture carbon dioxide.

The Atlanta Dream are close to being sold, ending defeated U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler’s contentious stint as a WNBA owner

China’s highest-profile entrepreneur, e-commerce billionaire Jack Ma, has appeared in a video posted online, ending a 2 1/2-month disappearance from public view that prompted speculation about his status and his business empire’s future

Crews on Monday were searching for a 12-year-old boy who was swept into the water at Cowell Ranch State Beach in San Mateo County, officials said.

The updates related specifically to features that allow users to message and interact with businesses on WhatsApp. Last year, Facebook announced that businesses using WhatsApp could store and manage their chats with customers using Facebook’s “secure hosting infrastructure.”

Twitter on Sunday temporarily suspended the account of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Republican U.S. Congresswoman from Georgia who has expressed racist views and support for QAnon conspiracy theories online.

The launch occurred after the Boeing 747-400 took off from Mojave Air and Space Port in the desert north of Los Angeles and flew out over the Pacific Ocean to a drop point beyond the Channel Islands.

Major social platforms have been cracking down on the spread of misinformation and conspiracy theories in the wake of the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol

TikTok announced Wednesday that it has launched an incubator program to promote and foster Black talent on the platform, NBC News reports.

The Google-owned company took down the account following similar actions by Facebook and Twitter.

A month after federal regulators ordered it to disclose how its practices affect children and teenagers, TikTok is tightening its privacy practices for the under-18 crowd

Social media platforms are continuing to crack down on fringe groups and conspiracy theories following last week’s deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Parler, a social media app popular with conservatives and supporters of President Donald Trump, has gone offline.

Facebook will remove content containing the phrase “stop the steal” from its services in the lead-up to President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20.

Every January, huge crowds descend on Las Vegas for the CES gadget show, an extravaganza of tech and glitz intended to set the tone for the coming year in consumer technology.

Amazon suspension effectively takes Parler offline, unless it can find a new company to host its services.

Posts on the pro-Trump social network related to the U.S. Capitol riot last week called for violence, which violates Apple’s rules against objectionable content.

Though stripped of his Twitter megaphone, President Donald Trump does have alternative options of much smaller reach

The Twitter account @realDonaldTrump, which grew from the random musings of a reality TV star into the cudgel of a president, has died

“We’re aware of continued posting in the Parler app that seeks to incite ongoing violence in the U.S.,” the company said.

Associated Press/NBC News

Office communication tool Slack started the first work day of the new year with a widespread outage.

A New York Times op-ed written by two employees, Parul Koul and Chewy Shaw, announced the formation of the Alphabet Workers Union.

On June 26, 2017, the lifeless body of Ronald French, a bearded auto mechanic with once-twinkling eyes, was mysteriously found in a cornfield in Kalamazoo County, Michigan.

The coronavirus decimated the retail industry in 2020 — but also fueled dramatic advances in new technology. From Walmart’s self-driving delivery trucks to American Eagle’s virtual stores, the retail industry has advanced several years in just nine months, experts say.

Microsoft said Thursday in a blog post that hackers tied to a massive intrusion of dozens of U.S. government agencies and private companies sneaked further into its systems than previously thought, although the intrusion doesn’t appear to have caused any additional harm

The Christmas Day bombing in downtown Nashville led to communications outages over hundreds of miles in the southern U.S., raising concerns about the vulnerability of U.S. networks

A new video by technology giant Boston Dynamics showing four of its robots dancing to the 1962 hit “Do You Love Me?”

We streamed, we Zoomed, we ordered groceries and houseplants online, we created virtual villages while navigating laptop shortages to work and learn from home.

Federal officials are outlining new rules that will let operators fly small drones over people and at night.

Apple is making a bold move into the electric car market, with a 2024 target date for producing a passenger e-vehicle using its own battery technology, according to a report Monday from Reuters, citing people familiar with the program.

Dozens of more states are joining an escalating effort to prove Google has been methodically abusing its power as the internet’s main gateway in a way that hurts consumers habitually feeding personal information into its search engine and advertisers pouring billions of dollars into its vast marketing network

Before this week, few people were aware of SolarWinds, a Texas-based software company providing vital computer network monitoring services to corporations and government agencies around the world.

HBO Max debuted in May for phones and a variety of smart TV platforms, but was notably absent from Roku.

Twitter on Wednesday announced that it will moderate and in some cases remove content that spreads harmful misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccines.

A Virgin Galactic test flight Saturday ended prematurely as the spacecraft’s rocket motor failed to ignite

YouTube has been repeatedly criticized for allowing election misinformation on the platform, taking a more hands-off approach than its social media peers.