Associated Press

News Agency

As Shatner heads toward the stars, visions of space collide

“Risk is our business,” James T. Kirk once said. “That’s what this starship is all about. That’s why we’re aboard her.” More than a half-century later, the performer who breathed life into the fabled Enterprise captain is, at age 90, making that kind of risk his own business and heading toward the stars under dramatically […]

Amazon to allow employees to work remotely indefinitely

Amazon said Monday it will allow many tech and corporate workers to continue working remotely indefinitely, as long as they can commute to the office when necessary. The new policy was announced in a blog post and is a change from Amazon’s previous expectation that most employees would need to be in the office at […]

White House proposes tech 'bill of rights' to limit AI harms

Top science advisers to President Joe Biden are calling for a new “bill of rights” to guard against powerful new artificial intelligence technology. The White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy on Friday launched a fact-finding mission to look at facial recognition and other biometric tools used to identify people or assess their emotional […]

UK eyes 'walk me home' phone-tracker to protect lone women

A top British government official is backing a phone company’s proposal for a new tracking service to help protect women walking alone, an idea pitched amid ongoing outrage over the slayings of two young women who were targeted near their homes in London. The chief executive of Britain’s biggest phone company, BT, proposed the “walk […]

How one Facebook worker unfriended the giant social network

Less than two years after Facebook hired Frances Haugen to help correct dangerous distortions spilling across its platform, she had seen enough. The idealism she and countless others had invested in promises by the world’s biggest social network to fix itself had been woefully misplaced. The harm Facebook and sibling Instagram were doing to users […]

Microsoft: Russia behind 58% of detected state-backed hacks

Russia accounted for most state-sponsored hacking detected by Microsoft over the past year, with a 58% share, mostly targeting government agencies and think tanks in the United States, followed by Ukraine, Britain and European NATO members, the company said. The devastating effectiveness of the long-undetected SolarWinds hack — it mainly breached information technology businesses including […]

Nevada tech company asks to withdraw 'Innovation Zones' plan

A company that asked Nevada to let it form its own local government on its vast land holdings in the desert no longer plans to build the experimental smart city that they said could transform Nevada into a global hub for emerging technology. Blockchains, a Nevada-based technology company, had for months lobbied state lawmakers to […]

Ex-Facebook employee asks lawmakers to step in. Will they?

Camera lights glare. Outrage thunders from elected representatives. A brave industry whistleblower stands alone and takes the oath behind a table ringed by a photographers’ mosh pit. The former Facebook product manager who has accused the social network giant of threatening children’s safety — and the integrity of democracy — is urging Congress to take […]

Google: flight search tool can help you fly 'greener'

Searching for flights on Google just got “greener.” A new search feature rolled out Wednesday tells users which flights have lower carbon emissions, giving them the ability to choose flights based on carbon emissions just as they would price or the number of layovers. A basic search for flights will give an estimate of how […]

UN endorses world's 1st malaria vaccine as 'historic moment'

The World Health Organization on Wednesday endorsed the world’s first malaria vaccine and said it should be given to children across Africa in the hope that it will spur stalled efforts to curb the spread of the parasitic disease. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called it “a historic moment” after a meeting in which two […]