News

Unique Illinois privacy law leads to $550M Facebook deal

By KATHLEEN FOODY Associated Press CHICAGO (AP) — Adam Pezen, Carlo Licata and Nimesh Patel are among millions of people who have been tagged in Facebook photos at some point in the past decade, sometimes at the suggestion of an automated tagging feature powered by facial recognition technology. It was their Illinois addresses, though, that […]

Barr's call for U.S. control of 5G providers quickly rebuked

By TALI ARBEL AP Technology Writer NEW YORK (AP) — Trump administration officials, increasingly intent on preventing Chinese global technological domination, keep floating the idea that the U.S. government should take a more direct hand in running next-generation 5G wireless networks. But the notion isn’t terribly popular — not even within the administration. On Thursday, […]

US lets autonomous vehicle bypass human-driver safety rules

By TOM KRISHER AP Auto Writer DETROIT (AP) — For the first time, the U.S. government’s highway safety agency has approved a company’s request to deploy a self-driving vehicle that doesn’t need to meet the same federal safety standards for cars and trucks driven by humans. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration granted temporary approval […]

Uber loses $1.1B investing in food delivery, driverless cars

By CATHY BUSSEWITZ AP Business Writer NEW YORK (AP) — Uber is still losing money as it expands its food delivery business and develops technology for driverless cars. But revenue for its rides business nearly tripled in the final three months of last year as the company picked up more passengers around the world. That […]

Facebook, YouTube: Firm must stop scraping faces from sites

By MATT O’BRIEN AP Technology Writer Facebook joined YouTube, Twitter and payment service Venmo on Wednesday in demanding that a facial recognition company stop harvesting user images to identify the people in them, which the startup does as part of its work with police. Facebook said it has demanded New York-based Clearview AI stop accessing […]

Twitter to label altered media, remove if it may cause harm

By BARBARA ORTUTAY AP Technology Writer SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Twitter will begin to label and in some cases remove doctored or manipulated photos, audio and videos that are designed to mislead people. The company said Tuesday that the new rules prohibit sharing synthetic or manipulated material that’s likely to cause harm. Material that is […]

Disney Plus hits nearly 29M subscribers in 3 months

By TALI ARBEL AP Technology Writer NEW YORK (AP) — Disney said its Disney Plus streaming service reached nearly 29 million paid subscribers in less than three months, an impressive start for what the company has positioned as its future as more people drop cable subscriptions. But as expected, starting up a new service comes […]

Google 4Q revenue grew, but not enough for Wall Street

By BARBARA ORTUTAY AP Technology Writer SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Google’s revenue grew, but Wall Street wanted more. Parent company Alphabet‘s stock fell more than 4% after financial results came out Monday, even as profits rose 19% and beat expectations for the last three months of the year. Helped by lower taxes, Alphabet said Monday […]

WHO working with Google to combat virus misinformation

By JAMEY KEATEN Associated Press GENEVA (AP) — The World Health Organization is working with Google to ensure that people get facts from WHO first when they search for information about the new virus that recently emerged in China. Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told the opening of WHO’s executive board meeting on Monday that social […]

In fight to survive, US dairy farmers look for any tech edge

By IVAN MORENO Associated Press PICKETT, Wis. (AP) — At Rosendale Dairy, each of the 9,000 cows has a microchip implanted in an ear that workers can scan with smartphones for up-to-the-minute information on how the animal is doing — everything from their nutrition to their health history to their productivity. Feed is calibrated to […]