Associated Press

News Agency

Corporations gave over $50M to voting restriction backers

When executives from Coca-Cola and Delta Air Lines spoke out against Georgia’s new voting law as unduly restrictive last week, it seemed to signal a new activism springing from corporate America. But if leaders of the nation’s most prominent companies are going to reject lawmakers who support restrictive voting measures, they will have to abruptly […]

Facebook removes accounts tied to Iranian exile group

Facebook said Tuesday it has removed hundreds of fake accounts linked to an Iranian exile group and a troll farm in Albania. The accounts posted content critical of Iran’s government and supportive of Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, a dissident group known as MEK. In many cases, the Facebook and Instagram accounts used fake profile names and photos. Facebook […]

Japan's Toshiba studies acquisition proposal by global fund

Trading in Toshiba stock was halted Wednesday after the Tokyo-based technology conglomerate confirmed it had received a preliminary acquisition proposal. Toshiba Corp. said it had asked for more details on the proposal it had received on Tuesday, was giving it “careful consideration” and would make an announcement “in due course.” Major Japanese newspaper Nikkei reported […]

Lawmakers call YouTube Kids a 'wasteland of vapid' content

A House subcommittee is investigating YouTube Kids, saying the Google-owned video service feeds children inappropriate material in “a wasteland of vapid, consumerist content” so it can serve them ads. The inquiry comes despite Google agreeing to pay $170 million in 2019 to settle allegations that YouTube collected personal data on children without their parents’ consent. […]

SKorea's LG to exit loss-making mobile phone business

South Korean electronics maker LG said Monday it is getting out of its loss-making mobile phone business to focus on electric vehicle components, robotics, artificial intelligence and other products and services. LG’s board approved the shift in strategy and the company expects to fully exit the mobile phone business by the end of July, it […]

EXPLAINER: What Biden's new $100B plan for broadband means

The problems with U.S. broadband networks have been obvious for years. Service costs more than in many other rich nations, it still doesn’t reach tens of millions of Americans and the companies that provide it don’t face much competition. Now the Biden administration is promising to do something about all of those issues as part […]

High court sides with Google in copyright fight with Oracle

Technology companies sighed with relief Monday after the Supreme Court sided with Google in a copyright dispute with Oracle. The high court said Google did nothing wrong in copying code to develop the Android operating system now used on most smartphones. To create Android, which was released in 2007, Google wrote millions of lines of […]

Facebook data on more than 500M accounts found online

Details from more than 500 million Facebook users have been found available on a website for hackers. The information appears to be several years old, but it is another example of the vast amount of information collected by Facebook and other social media sites, and the limits to how secure that information is. The availability […]

Twitter slowdown in Russia until mid-May; no block for now

Russian authorities said Monday they would continue to slow down Twitter until mid-May, but wouldn’t block the social media platform for now because it has started to remove banned content faster. The announcement marks somewhat of a reprieve in the recent standoff between the Russian government and the platform, which has played a role in […]

Sports cards have gone virtual, and in a big way

Maybe the Luka Doncic rookie basketball card that recently sold at auction for a record $4.6 million was a bit rich for your blood. Perhaps you’d be interested in a more affordable alternative — say, a virtual card of the Dallas Mavericks forward currently listed for a mere $150,000? Not long ago, there’s no way […]