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 […]
Indonesia Fights Same-sex Emoticons; 25 Percent of Mobile Apps Insecure
Posted February 11th, 2016 at 11:10 am (UTC-4)
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Google Exec to Head Cancer-Detection Startup; Facebook’s Andreessen Offends Indians
Posted February 10th, 2016 at 12:00 pm (UTC-4)
Today’s Tech Sightings: Google’s Huber to Lead Illumina Cancer-Detecting Startup Grail Google executive Jeff Huber has been named CEO of Illumina Inc.’s Grail, a startup developing a blood test to detect cancer at its earliest stage. Grail aims to create a screening blood test that can diagnose all types of cancers before their symptoms begin […]
USBs Fight N. Korea’s Media Ban; Facebook’s Dilemma in India
Posted February 9th, 2016 at 11:07 am (UTC-4)
Today’s Tech Sightings: Old USB Drives Fight North Korea’s Media Ban The New York-based Human Rights Foundation and Silicon Valley nonprofit Forum 280 have launched a new initiative to collect USB flash drive donations and then ship them to the Koreas. Once activists in Seoul, such as the non-profit North Korean Strategy Center, receive the […]
Tor Project Builds on Support After First Crowdfunding Campaign
Posted February 5th, 2016 at 11:00 am (UTC-4)
Wrapping up its first ever crowdfunding campaign, the Tor Project is now looking to fine-tune its anonymizing network and spread the word about its popular Internet browser. The $200,000 raised during the non-profit’s crowdfunding effort came as a bit of a surprise. The Tor Project is a non-profit research and education organization that runs the […]
How Facebook Censors Some Posts; Alibaba’s Shopping Site Hacked
Posted February 4th, 2016 at 11:20 am (UTC-4)
Today’s Tech Sightings: Facebook Censorship Under the Microscope OnlineCensorship.org – a non-profit looking at social media censorship – has been collecting data about posts blocked by Facebook. Surprised? There are some topics that Facebook will block if you try to post stories about them, such as drone strikes or some topics related to conflict zones. […]
Mobile Apps Challenge Open Web; The New Internet Digital Gap
Posted February 3rd, 2016 at 11:30 am (UTC-4)
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 […]
Amazon Takes on Math; Bitcoin’s Future Could Be in Developing World
Posted February 2nd, 2016 at 11:45 am (UTC-4)
Today’s Tech Sightings: Think You Stink at Math? Amazon Wants to Change That Amazon, in collaboration with Stanford University and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, is launching a new initiative to help kids and teachers look at math in a more favorable way. The initiative – With Math I Can – has a […]
Guyana, Haiti, the Philippines Look to Drones for Medical Deliveries
Posted January 29th, 2016 at 11:00 am (UTC-4)
A Knoxville, Tennessee organization that helped test the first medical drone delivery approved by the U.S. Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) in Virginia last year, is now looking to deploy medical delivery drones in remote areas of Haiti, the Philippines, and Guyana, South America. “The Guyana government is very interested in this possibility. I think what […]
North Korea Online Population: 0.03 Percent; Death of the Java Plug-in
Posted January 28th, 2016 at 11:40 am (UTC-4)
Today’s Tech Sightings: There Are Just 7,000 Web Users in North Korea That there are any people online in North Korea is refreshing. But a new survey from marketing Group We Are Social found only 7,200 Web users in the country. The survey says only about 0.03 percent of the population are allowed to go […]
iPhones Too Pricey for Poorer World; Malaysia Blocks ‘Medium’
Posted January 27th, 2016 at 11:39 am (UTC-4)
Today’s Tech Sightings: Tim Cook Basically Admits Price of iPhones May Be Too High for World That’s Growing Poorer Apple’s earnings report shows iPhone sales declining. But CEO Tim Cook’s also conceded while addressing the report that one of the reasons for the decline is Apple’s policy of charging the highest possible prices to protect […]