Geek News

Amazon Key, the service that lets the company’s couriers access your home to drop off parcels, works via a home security camera and a smart door lock. The service was introduced last October and runs in tandem with the Amazon Key app, which has been updated today on Android to include fingerprint authentication, as spotted by Android Police . Amazon Key allows you to remotely lock / unlock your door and check delivery footage, so the extra layer of security is useful for people who might leave a secondary phone or tablet lying around the house. Reviewers have previously expressed concern that the app launches with automatic access to the camera, guest profiles, and the door lock — problems that should be mitigated with fingerprint... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2HPgYvv"

The longer you consider Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica scandal , the stranger it seems. The basic details of the story, in which a researcher improperly gave away data to the company that became Donald Trump’s data operations team in 2016, have been known for two years . The effectiveness of Cambridge Analytica’s psychographic targeting, which attempted to influence voters by mapping out their Facebook likes, is highly suspect and likely overstated. The eye-popping number of Facebook profiles said to be involved — 50 million — may turn out to be marketing hype for a company that excels at it. And yet revelations from this weekend’s stories in the New York Times and the Guardian continue to batter the company. A bipartisan group of US... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2HOsC9D"

If you’ve finally given up on the world’s most popular social media network and want to get rid of Facebook, it’s not too complicated to remove yourself from the service. But before you delete all of those pictures, posts, and Likes, you should download your personal information from Facebook first. Your Facebook archives contain just about all of the pertinent information related to your account , including your photos, active sessions, chat history, IP addresses, facial recognition data, and which ads you clicked, just to name a few. That’s a ton of personal information that you should probably maintain access to. To download your archive, go to “Settings” and click “Download a copy of your Facebook data” at the bottom of General... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2HMiIpi"

Technology But catastrophic events like these are rarely as simple as the ABCs. On March 15, just five days after the bridge was erected, 950 tons of concrete gave way, killing six motorists. Could the technology behind the pedestrian overpass be to… via Popular Science "http://ift.tt/2DFhBFp"

Google is announcing new efforts today to support the media industry by fighting misinformation and bolstering journalism, which will live under a newly announced umbrella called the Google News Initiative . Google already offers something similar in Europe through the Digital News Initiative , but the Google News Initiative is intended to be a wider worldwide expansion of those kinds of efforts. There are three specific goals of the Google News Initiative: highlight accurate journalism while fighting misinformation, particularly during breaking news events; help news sites continue to grow from a business perspective; and create new tools to help journalists do their jobs. Google is serious about supporting these goals, too, pledging to... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2HOJYTY"

Facebook has found itself embroiled in yet another colossal controversy related to how its sprawling, multibillion-person social network has been abused by bad actors. This time, the culprit is Cambridge Analytica, a data analytics firm used by President Donald Trump’s campaign during the 2016 US election to target election ads on Facebook. It turns out, Cambridge Analytica misused the user data of as many as 50 million Facebook users via its affiliated behavior research firm Strategic Communication Laboratories, which violated Facebook’s terms of service by acquiring said data from a third-party app and reportedly lying about when that data was deleted and how it was used. The announcement was made on Friday to preempt the publication... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2FXZlJh"

Rachio is introducing a new version of its smart sprinkler controller today, with a slight design tweak and a handful of new features. Among those is support for faster 5GHz Wi-Fi — although it’s hard to imagine that this will be terribly useful for a sprinkler system — as well as support for “hyperlocal” weather information so the system can better determine when to water your lawn and physical controls for getting your system to start and stop watering. Those aren’t major changes, but there’s one addition that is: Rachio is also adding support for a water flow meter, which can be attached to your sprinkler system’s water line to detect leaks and wirelessly relay that info back to the system. If a leak is detected, Rachio can shut down... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2IFcwQS"

A UK Parliamentary committee has asked Mark Zuckerberg to appear and provide testimony on how Facebook acquires, stores, and protects users’ data. Damian Collins, chair of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, writes in a letter to Zuckerberg that Facebook officials have “consistently understated” the risk of data being taken without users’ consent and have misled the committee. “It is now time to hear from a senior Facebook executive with the sufficient authority to give an accurate account of this catastrophic failure of process,” Collins writes. He specifically requests that Zuckerberg be the person to appear before the committee to answer for those failures, noting that the CEO made it his goal for the year to “fix” the... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2DFUx9B"

DIY Turn your laptop into a mobile television set. You probably use your computer to consume on-demand TV shows. But what about sports games and news broadcasts? Here's how to watch live channels on your laptop. via Popular Science "http://ift.tt/2FZOUoI"

Encrypted messaging app Telegram has lost an appeal before Russia’s Supreme Court where it sought to block the country’s Federal Security Service (FSB) from gaining access to user data, as reported by Bloomberg . Last year, the FSB asked Telegram to share its encryption keys and the company declined, resulting in a $14,000 fine. Today, Supreme Court Judge Alla Nazarova upheld that ruling and denied Telegram’s appeal. Telegram plans to appeal the latest ruling as well. If Telegram is found to be non-compliant, it could face another fine and even have the service blocked in Russia, one of its largest markets. According to Telegram’s lawyer, a separate court ruling and action from communications regulator Roskomnadzor would be required in... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2DGnl1I"

Apex Construct is Now Available on Steam! Travel to the shattered future of Apex Construct , where merciless robots prowl the world as a result of mankind’s reckless experiments. As these synthetic creatures seek to dominate their new hunting grounds, you must use both your wits and combat skills to survive. In this atmospheric first-person Action/Adventure game, built exclusively for VR , the fate of mankind rests on you – the last human alive. via Steam RSS News Feed "http://ift.tt/2HQlWYJ"

Winter persists in New York City, as does the Circuit Breaker Live show. Today, we’re going live at 4PM ET on YouTube, as usual, and we will post an archived version to our page after the show initially airs. You can watch here or in the embed above. In today’s episode, Nilay, Paul, and I will break down the latest in digital avatars, like Animoji, Samsung’s AR Emoji, and even Google Allo selfie stickers. I bet you forgot about those. Then, Dan Seifert will be on to talk about Wear OS and why Google changed the name of Android Wear. Sam Sheffer will also be on the show to reminisce about his old Sidekick LX. We’re going to laugh, ponder, and maybe cry today on Circuit Breaker Live , so make sure you don’t miss out. See you at 4PM. Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2FO5VGd"

Do you take selfies? Do you take them in public? Do you watch other people take selfies in public and judge them harshly, as if it is any of your business? Or, uh, why does anyone have an opinion on the selfie behaviors of others? I don’t take them; Ashley does. Who cares? This is our question on Why’d You Push That Button this week — with a long detour to defend Kim Kardashian, the tryingest social media pioneer and performance artist of our time — and we’re going to get to the bottom of it. We spoke to Alicia Eler, author of the brand-new book The Selfie Generation, and she broke down the subtle misogyny of maligning young women for making their own records of their lives. We discussed the Super Bowl “selfie kid” and those very... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2FNDVT6"

TCL’s 6-Series 4K HDR Roku TVs, the follow-up to last year’s excellent P-Series, will be available by May 1st. The company announced a release timeframe today, but stopped short of confirming pricing; TCL has said that the 55-inch model 6-Series will retain the price point of the P-Series ($650), but the cost of the larger 65-inch set isn’t yet known. The 6-Series improves on the P-Series in a number of ways. Picture-wise, it increases the number of full-array local dimming zones to 120 in the 65-inch model and 96 in the 55. (The P-Series had 72.) That gives the TV much greater and more precise control over backlighting, so it can produce deeper blacks on one part of the screen even when something bright is elsewhere in the image. TCL... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2FXaQ3I"

The View 10 is Honor’s most compelling US phone yet, but it’s got tough competition Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2GbgQcu"