Almost everyone would agree that robocalls are annoying, and the Federal Communications Commission has been ramping up efforts to crack down on illegal calls. Since 2015, the FCC has ordered violators of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, which governs telemarketers and robocalling, to pay a total of $208.4 million, according to a report from the …

As of April 30, the Cortana bot will no longer be a part of Skype.  Skype users have reported seeing notifications saying the Cortana bot, the chatbot version of Microsoft’s voice assistant, will no longer be available on the video app. Instead, Microsoft is advertising a new Amazon Alexa voice assistant integration, according to OnMSFT.  “We are constantly evaluating and testing our products …

Microsoft is making Windows Defender available via extensions for Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome — because everyone needs protection. The company said its goal was to extend its antivirus technology to other browsers and give customers a way to protect themselves against browser-based attacks. The extensions automatically redirect untrusted webpage visits to Windows Defender Application Guard for Microsoft Edge, Windows Insider …

Apple acknowledged Wednesday that some MacBook owners are having trouble with the company’s latest butterfly keyboard but said most aren’t. “We are aware that a small number of users are having issues with their third generation butterfly keyboard and for that we are sorry,” an Apple spokesperson said in an email. “The vast majority of Mac notebook customers are having …

One of my favorite aspects of Spotify is the personalization: Discover Weekly, the Daily Mixes, or suggestions based on artists I’ve listened to. Now the streaming service wants to take its playlist algorithms to the next level, according to a Wednesday blog post from the company. Some of the playlists created by Spotify’s editorial team, ones like Happy Hits and …

T-Mobile is teeing up for another season as Major League Baseball’s official wireless sponsor. MLB’s opening day is Thursday. To get customers primed for the great American pastime, T-Mobile is offering a full season of MLB.TV at no additional cost to its regular monthly subscribers. The subscription, the All Teams plan, includes hundreds of out-of-market baseball games and would regularly cost almost …

Ahead of schedule, Ikea revealed its newest collaboration with Sonos: the Wi-Fi bookshelf speaker, winner of the Red Dot Design award. The speaker is part of the Symfonisk product range is expected to be available in August. The companies announced the speaker prototype last summer. Pictures show that the speaker can rest vertically or horizontally (like a book) and that …

If you search “BBC” in the Google Podcasts app today, you’ll be disappointed. Most BBC podcasts have been removed from the app and apparently aren’t searchable through Google Assistant either.  Listeners, like myself, are bummed. The BBC was unhappy that Google had started directing searches for BBC podcasts to Google’s own podcast app, rather than any other podcast service, Kieran Clifton, director …

Apple CEO Tim Cook saved the biggest surprise for last regarding its Apple TV Plus streaming service . Media mogul Oprah Winfrey took the stage Monday to announce she would be bringing two documentaries to Apple TV Plus.  The first documentary, with a working title of Toxic Labor, deals with sexual harassment in the workplace. The second is currently unnamed and …

Google Maps has added a feature that lets you create a public event through Maps for Android. The new feature is live now, according to Android Police, but doesn’t appear to be available to everyone. CNET staffers didn’t see the option to create an event. Google wasn’t immediately available for comment. On the support page, Google said the feature might …