Tesla Inc Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk tweeted on Sunday that the electric carmaker will resume allowing bitcoin transactions when miners who verify transactions use more renewable energy. “When there’s confirmation of reasonable (~50%) clean energy usage by miners with the positive future trend, Tesla will resume allowing Bitcoin transactions,” …
Read More »Japan to Launch Antitrust Investigation Into Google, Apple’s Activities, Reports Say
The Japanese government will probe the activities of US tech giants, Apple and Google, amid alleged antitrust violations, the newspaper Nikkei has reported. According to the media outlet, citing sources, a government panel will be formed this month to investigate the connection between domestic smartphone manufacturers and US companies. Currently, …
Read More »Biden drops Trump attempt to ban TikTok, WeChat; orders new review
US President Joe Biden on Wednesday withdrew a series of Trump-era executive orders that sought to ban new downloads of WeChat and TikTok and ordered a Commerce Department review of security concerns posed by those apps and others. The administration of former President Donald Trump had attempted to block new …
Read More »Global internet outage hits major websites – including the UK government site
A number of major websites have gone down around the world, including the UK government web pages. Those logging into to gov.uk have been faced with a message saying “503 Service Unavailable”. Other sites affected include news outlets The Guardian, Financial Times, Independent, New York Times, Evening Standard, Bloomberg, and …
Read More »Hundreds arrested in massive global crime sting
Law enforcement agencies say they’ve arrested hundreds of criminals across the world in a three-year operation using an FBI-designed app. Since 2018, Australia, New Zealand, and the FBI have used an encrypted app, ANOM, to keep track of organised crime. It has led to drug trade arrests in 18 countries …
Read More »Google fined $270 million in France
Google fined $270 million in France for unfair advertising practices Google will pay a €220 million ($270 million) fine and make changes to its huge online advertising business as part of an antitrust settlement with French regulators. The penalty comes as the tech giant faces multiple US suits over anti-competitive …
Read More »Nigeria says it suspends Twitter days after president’s post removed
Nigeria said on Friday it had indefinitely suspended Twitter’s activities, two days after the social media giant removed a post from President Muhammadu Buhari that threatened to punish regional secessionists. Information Minister Lai Mohammed said the government had acted because of “the persistent use of the platform for activities that …
Read More »Facebook suspends former US President Trump’s account until 2023
Facebook Inc on Friday suspended former U.S. President Donald Trump from its platform until at least January 2023 and announced changes to how it will treat rule-breaking world leaders in the future. Facebook’s independent oversight board in May upheld the social media giant’s block on Trump, which was enforced in …
Read More »EU and UK probe Facebook advertising data use
The European Union and Britain launched parallel competition probes on Friday into whether Facebook uses data from advertisers to unfairly dominate the online classifieds market. The US social media behemoth sells classified advertising on its Marketplace service, but also gathers data from commercial advertising that may give it an unfair …
Read More »Trump’s blog page shuts down a month after launch
Former US President Donald Trump’s blog page, launched last month in the wake of major social media platforms banning him, has been removed from his website. Trump aide Jason Miller on Wednesday said that the page, which had been called “From the Desk of Donald J. Trump,” would not be …
Read More »Twitter removes Nigerian president’s ‘abusive’ civil war post
Twitter removed on Wednesday a post by Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari threatening punishment for regional secessionists blamed for attacks on government buildings. The social media firm said Buhari’s tweet, referring to the 1967-70 civil war in the southeastern Biafra region that killed 1 million people, violated its “abusive behaviour” policy …
Read More »Tesla’s vehicle price increases due to supply chain pressure, Musk says
The price of Tesla vehicles is increasing due to supply chain pressures across the auto industry, particularly for raw materials, Elon Musk said on Monday in response to a tweet. “Prices increasing due to major supply chain price pressure industry-wide. Raw materials especially,” Musk said in a tweet. I really …
Read More »Intel reiterates chip supply shortages could last several years
Intel Corp’s CEO said on Monday it could take several years for a global shortage of semiconductors to be resolved, a problem that has shuttered some auto production lines and is also being felt in other areas, including consumer electronics. Pat Gelsinger told a virtual session of the Computex trade …
Read More »EU gives TikTok a month to respond to consumer complaints
The European Commission said on Friday it has given the Chinese-owned video app TikTok one month to answer complaints from a European consumer group over its commercial practices. The EU’s executive arm said it has started discussions involving the social media platform and the national consumer authorities following an alert …
Read More »Facebook U-turns on removing posts claiming COVID is manmade
Facebook says it will no longer remove claims that Covid-19 is man-made or manufactured from its apps. The change comes “in light of ongoing investigations into the origin of Covid-19 and in consultation with public health experts,” Facebook says. The company based in Menlo Park, California, has long battled a …
Read More »Russian court fines Twitter for failing to delete content considered illegal by Moscow
A Russian court on Thursday fined Twitter 19 million roubles ($259,000) for failing to delete content considered illegal by Moscow, in the latest episode of a long-running dispute between Russia and the social network operator. Twitter has been subjected to a punitive slowdown in Russia since March, part of a …
Read More »Air India says hackers stole personal data of 4.5mn passengers, including passport & credit card info
Air India has said the personal data of millions of passengers was compromised as a result of a cyberattack. The stolen information included credit card and passport details. India’s national carrier and largest international airline informed the public of the breach on Friday. “This incident affected around 4,500,000 data subjects …
Read More »Microsoft to unplug Internet Explorer next year as it seeks edge in browser war
Microsoft Corp is pulling the plug on its once omnipresent browser, Internet Explorer, next year as it prepares to battle market leader Chrome with its slicker Edge browser. Launched in 1995, Internet Explorer became the dominant browser for over a decade as it was bundled with Microsoft’s Windows operating system …
Read More »EU wants firm pledges from tech giants in fake news fight
Facebook, Alphabet unit Google, and other tech giants will have to pledge to do more to curb the monetisation of false information through advertisement placements, according to a European Commission document seen by Reuters. The EU executive also wants smaller social media or search services, private messaging services, ad exchanges, …
Read More »Facebook to defend itself against ‘damaging’ Irish data privacy probe
Facebook said on Friday it would defend its compliance with European Union privacy laws after the Irish High Court threw out its objections to an investigation opened by the Irish Data Protection Commission (IDPC). “We look forward to defending our compliance to the IDPC, as their preliminary decision could be …
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