Apple CEO Tim Cook used an appearance on a virtual International Data Privacy Day panel Thursday to attack Facebook in a series of thinly veiled jabs and to call for global data privacy reforms. Cook’s remarks followed reports appearing earlier in the day that the social media giant has been preparing an antitrust lawsuit against …
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Twitter on Monday announced a new community-driven forum called Birdwatch that’s meant to combat misinformation and disinformation on the site. The pilot forum allows Twitter users to identify information in tweets they believe to be misleading and add notes that provide helpful context, the social media site explained in a blog post. “We believe this approach has the potential to …
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The European Parliament has invited Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Apple chief Tim Cook, Facebook helmsman Mark Zuckerberg and Alphabet head Sundar Pichai to Brussels in February or March for a hearing focused on the dominance of their companies, Reuters reported. “The purpose of the planned hearing is to have an exchange with the chief executive officers of the four globally leading platform companies …
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Google on Friday threatened to remove its search engine from Australia as the country attempts to make into law a code that would force tech companies to share royalties with news publishers. Australia is aiming to pass the law to help finance its struggling publishing industry, which is suffering due to a decline in advertising revenue. Lawmakers argue that tech …
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Fantasian, the highly anticipated mobile RPG from Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi, could be released this year, according to some tweets from Sakaguchi’s studio, Mistwalker, this week. Fantasian was teased back when Apple’s mobile gaming subscription service Apple Arcade was first announced in Sept. 2019. Sakaguchi tweeted “game under development” on Wednesday with a screengrab of the game. Mistwalker retweeted …
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Facebook on Tuesday rolled out an update to its Automatic Alt Text (AAT) feature that improves the detail of photo descriptions for blind and visually impaired users. The tool, which launched in 2016, uses computer vision technology to automatically create descriptions. Updates are available when using a screen reader, an assistive technology that converts text to speech. An example of …
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Encrypted-messaging app Signal came back online Saturday after a daylong outage apparently caused by a crushing number of new users. The maker of the app alerted users on Friday morning it was aware of technical difficulties they were experiencing and was working to resolve the issue. More than 24 hours later, the service was finally restored Saturday afternoon. “Signal is …
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And we’re off — 2021 has officially begun in the world of consumer technology. This week brought us, virtually, both the annual bonanza that is CES and Samsung’s first Unpacked event of the year. There was no shortage of product introductions and gadget aspirations. From Samsung, for instance, we learned all about its new Galaxy S21 lineup, and all kinds …
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WhatsApp on Friday said it was postponing an update to its privacy policy following concerns and calls from users to switch to other encrypted apps like Signal and Telegram. The Facebook-owned app is now giving users until May 15 to review and accept its new policy, which relates to how businesses access user information. “No one will have their account …
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After a 2020 that went entirely virtual for many people, once-fantastic concepts like VR headsets and remote chat screens (including Facebook Portal) no longer seem so strange. In many ways, Facebook’s product lineup ended up being prophetic for the times we now live in. Last fall, Facebook launched its impressive Quest 2 VR headset. So, in 2021, what comes next? …
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