In a letter to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, three US senators are calling for an investigation into whether US mobile carriers are throttling traffic to certain streaming apps like YouTube and Netflix without telling customers. The letter, sent Wednesday by Democratic Sens. Edward Markey of Massachusetts, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Ron Wyden of Oregon, said …
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Ahead of India’s national elections later this year, WhatsApp is trying to wrangle bulk messaging and fake accounts. Over the last three months, the Facebook-owned messaging has banned more than 2 million accounts each month for bulk or automated behavior. WhatsApp released a white paper on Wednesday detailing its efforts to curb this type of abuse, which can be used …
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If you got a call from a number you didn’t recognize last year (odds are, you got a few of those), it was likely one of the 26.3 billion robocalls made in the US in 2018, according to a report from Hiya. That breaks down to an average of 10 monthly calls per person. Hiya, a caller ID service, published …
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Add another player to the growing field of streaming services. IMDb is launching a free, ad-supported video service called Freedive, the company said Thursday. It’ll be available via your computer, but also through Amazon’s Fire TV devices. IMDb is a wholly owned subsidiary of Amazon. “With the launch of IMDb Freedive, they can now also watch full-length movies and TV …
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Instagram is looking in the rearview mirror of 2018. What does it see? Soap, Fortnite and Disneyland Tokyo. On Thursday, Instagram published a video of its biggest trends from the year. It turns out that in 2018, photos geotagged at Disneyland Tokyo had the most smiley face emoji in their captions. The most-used face filter was Heart Eyes. And the …
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AT&T is making good on plans to bring its AT&T Fiber to more cities. The company on Wednesday said the ultra-high-speed broadband service is now in 12 additional cities. This brings the count up to 10 million locations spread across 84 metro areas in the US. AT&T intends to hit 14 million locations by mid-2019. “We have millions of miles …
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After declining in 2018, smartphone shipments could see some modest growth in 2019, according to a report from IDC out Tuesday. In 2019, smartphone shipments could rise 2.6 percent and eventually hit about 1.57 billion units by 2022. That growth could be attributed to a shift toward bigger screens, as well as higher-end phones, the report said. “With many of …
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If you’re using dating app Coffee Meets Bagel to find your next… whatever, you might notice some changes this week. The app is getting a light makeover, ditching its bright blue for a streamlined, minimalist white background with bigger pictures and introducing a way to send messages to others on the platform, the company said Tuesday. “Some of our color choices …
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Comcast Xfinity TV customers will be able to sync their accounts with Movies Anywhere, the company said Thursday. Movies Anywhere allows film buffs to watch movies in one spot, irrespective of where they were bought. CNET’s Iyaz Akhtar described the service as a “digital bridge” between online video vendors. So if a customer has bought a title through another Movies …
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T-Mobile is getting back into mobile banking. The company quietly launched a pilot of a mobile banking service called T-Mobile Money. The service’s website touts no fees for things like over drafting or using an ATM. It’s being rolled out on a limited basis. T-Mobile Money checking accounts will offer 1 percent annual interest, but T-Mobile wireless customers can get …
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