Today’s Tech Sightings: UK Lawmakers: Brexit Referendum Website Might Have Been Hacked Rumors of possible manipulations swirled early on in last year’s Brexit referendum saga. But now, a UK legislative committee says the website that allowed more than a million potential voters to register for the referendum might have been hacked. Last June, the British […]
Google Kicks Off Hardware Launch; Touring Your Bloodstream With VR
Posted October 4th, 2016 at 12:36 pm (UTC-5)
Today’s Tech Sightings: #MadebyGoogle Event Launches in San Francisco With New Hardware, Smartphones Android fans can look forward to a bunch of new products from Google. Those include home devices to compete with Amazon’s voice-activated gadgets and high-end smartphones to compete with Apple. The most anticipated are a pair of Pixel smartphones that replace the […]
IoT Farmers Become Data Scientists; New York Curbs Free Wi-Fi
Posted September 15th, 2016 at 12:44 pm (UTC-5)
Today’s Tech Sightings: How IoT Is Creating ‘Precision Farming’ The Internet of Things (IoT) is slowly changing the way farmers work, turning them into data scientists to help them better manage their crops and livestock. Access to remote sensors and cloud services is enabling farmers to monitor the health of their livestock and make more […]
Passenger Drone Tests Begin This Year; Apps Put Wildlife at Risk
Posted June 8th, 2016 at 1:08 pm (UTC-5)
Today’s Tech Sightings: China’s Ehang Will Test World’s First Passenger Drone This Year Ehang – the Chinese company that unveiled an electric passenger drone in January – now has clearance to begin testing it in Nevada sometime this year. The permissions were secured through a partnership with the Nevada Institute for Autonomous Systems and the […]
Microsoft’s AI Learns Racism From Humans; New Trojan Targets USBs
Posted March 24th, 2016 at 11:32 am (UTC-5)
Today’s Tech Sightings: Microsoft’s Tay AI Chatbot Goes Offline After Being Taught to Be Racist Which is more dangerous: human or machine? Microsoft launched its artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot Wednesday, targeting people 18-24-years old, only to withdraw it 16 hours later. After many hours of chatting, it appears Internet users managed to teach Tay to […]
Hospital Hacked; Malware Remotely Erases Android Devices
Posted February 16th, 2016 at 11:36 am (UTC-5)
Today’s Tech Sightings: Hollywood Hospital Held to Ransom by Hackers Hackers have taken control of computer systems at the Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center and are now demanding $3.6 million in ransom. The hospital has been crippled by the attack, with staff having to revert to pen and paper for their records. The attackers are […]
Indonesia Fights Same-sex Emoticons; 25 Percent of Mobile Apps Insecure
Posted February 11th, 2016 at 11:10 am (UTC-5)
Today’s Tech Sightings: Indonesia Warns Messaging Apps to Drop Same-sex Emoticons The government of Indonesia, where homosexuality is a sensitive topic, is demanding that instant messaging apps remove stickers and images that express support for bisexual or transgender orientations. The move follows a backlash on social media over same-sex stickers on popular messaging app Line […]
Mobile Apps Challenge Open Web; The New Internet Digital Gap
Posted February 3rd, 2016 at 11:30 am (UTC-5)
Today’s Tech Sightings: Why Mobile Apps Are the Biggest Challenge to Internet Freedom Smartphone users spend up to 90 percent of their phone time in mobile apps. And while that may not necessarily be a bad thing, writer Matt Asay argues that it is not a healthy or open web environment if one company owns […]