Danielle Teuscher decided to give DNA tests as presents last Christmas to her father, close friends and 5-year-old daughter, joining the growing number of people taking advantage of low-cost, accessible genetic testing. But the 23andMe test produced an unexpected result. Ms. Teuscher, 30, a nanny in Portland, Ore., said she […]
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One of the main reasons behind Google Chrome’s Incognito mode is to allow users to browse the web in private, where their information will not be saved by the browser, and that certain identifying information about the user won’t be shared with websites. This is done by logging users out […]
Read MoreThe Internet of Dongs is Brad Haines’s term for the world of internet-connected, “teledildonic” sex toys, and Haines, along with Sarah Jamie Lewis, have exhaustively documented all the ways in which internet-connected sex toys can screw you, from leaking private data to physically attacking your junk. But Lewis and Haines’s work remains an […]
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Not a fan of Google storing your location history while using Google Maps? That’s actually a feature that some are finding to be a bit invasive in terms of privacy, but the good news is that in an upcoming Google Maps update, Google will make it so that the app […]
Read MoreWhether you love them or hate them, rideshares like Uber and Lyft have become a daily part of life for millions of New Yorkers. These app-based services make it easy to pay for your ride, but while the privacy cost isn’t always as clear, it’s about to get a lot larger. These apps have […]
Read MoreApple and Google are under fire for hosting a Saudi Arabian government app that lets men track women and prevent them from leaving the country, reported Business Insider. Downloaded over one million times, Absher includes innocuous functions like being able to pay a parking fine. However, it’s the app’s travel features that have been the target […]
Read MoreAn RSA survey of 6,000 US and EU adults found that only a minority (48%) believes there is any ethical way to use personal data (that figure rises to 60% when considering US respondents alone); 57% believe that data-breaches are the fault of companies for gathering and retaining data, not the hackers who release […]
Read MoreFingerprint scanners make it easier than ever to secure your smartphone, reducing the need to type in a PIN code every single time. Whether you’re locking or unlocking your device, or signing into apps, it’s certainly one of the most practical features on today’s phones. There’s also another use for biometric security on smartphones, with […]
Read MoreAndroid Q news is starting to arrive bit by bit, largely due to an early AOSP build that’s been doing the rounds. Probably the most welcome enhancement — other than the much-anticipated system-wide dark mode — is an overhaul to the privacy and permissions settings. Thanks to our friends at XDA Developers, we now know […]
Read MorePicture this: you have national security level web browsing to do, and fire up Incognito mode. However, unless you also remember to toggle your keyboard over to Incognito, it’s still studying what you type to add words to its dictionary. If you can already see a potentially embarrassing situation brewing, worry no more, as the […]
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An honest Facebook friendship anniversary video for Mark Zuckerberg. We turned Facebook’s friendship anniversary video into a look back on the company’s rocky 15 years.
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SAN FRANCISCO — When Facebook employees woke up on Wednesday morning, many found they could not perform even the most basic work tasks. Their calendars were not working. Nor were campus maps that help people find their co-workers. They were unable to check Facebook’s latest shuttle bus schedule. And they […]
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It’s nowhere in his job description, but Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive, has recently taken a moonlight gig as Facebook’s privacy watchdog. On Wednesday, Mr. Cook and his lieutenants took aim at Facebook for violating Apple’s rules with a research app that allowed Facebook to snoop on users’ online activity. […]
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With iOS 12, Apple introduced Siri Shortcuts which was basically the company’s take on the Workflow app that they had previously acquired. Siri Shortcuts allows users to create shortcuts for certain actions, kind of like macros. The best part is that anyone can create a Siri Shortcut and share it […]
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Image credit – TechCrunch Early last year, a report from TechCrunch revealed that Facebook had been trying to promote its VPN client which actually tracked and gathered information about the user. The app was later removed from Apple’s App Store. However a new report from TechCrunch has revealed that Facebook […]
Read MoreFacebook has been paying users up to $20 a month to install a VPN app dubbed Facebook Research. The app collects your browsing activity, encrypted app data, and more. The app has a lot in common with Onavo Protect, which was banned from the App Store last year. Facebook has had a tumultuous 2018, as […]
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The internet’s business model is tailored advertising. Internet firms hoover up information about what you do and say on the web, in apps and even in physical locations. They then sell advertisers the ability to figure out whether you’re valuable enough for them to want to reach you, and if […]
Read MoreWe’re likely a couple of months away from the first developer preview build of Android Q, but already we know a fair amount about what to expect from the next major version. Most excitingly, we could be finally getting a system-wide dark mode. We can now say with a greater degree of certainty that Android […]
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SAN FRANCISCO — The iPhone as an eavesdropping device? Watch out, it can happen. On Monday, Twitter and other social networking sites lit up with anxious Apple users after the news site 9to5Mac reported on a strange glitch in the company’s iPhones. The issue: It turns out that an iPhone […]
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In a bid to protect the privacy of its users due to a major FaceTime bug, Apple has disabled Group FaceTime for its users. The company’s System Status page is also reflecting an “issue” with Group FaceTime and says that it is temporarily unavailable. A serious Group FaceTime bug allows […]
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How phone calls work is that usually you can only hear the other person when they answer the phone. Unfortunately there seems to be some kind of weird bug going around that has affected Apple’s FaceTime service, where it seems that the caller can actually tap into the microphone of […]
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Silicon Valley’sliberalbranding can seem paradoxical given its political impact. Thescandals that accompanied the 2016 election—CambridgeAnalytica, Russianinterference—revealed that Facebook had contributedto the election of one of the least liberal presidents in history. The company hasalso been criticized for a host of other sins similarly at odds with SiliconValley’s liberaltechnocratic vibe: hijackingattention, […]
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