Breaking News, Latest Philippines Headlines, World, Entertainment, Politics, Weather & Video News
SAN FRANCISCO, United States (AFP) – Fallen US biotech star Elizabeth Holmes was convicted on Monday of defrauding investors in her blood-testing startup Theranos, in a high-profile case seen as an indictment of Silicon Valley culture. Jurors found Holmes guilty of tricking investors into pouring money into what she said was a revolutionary testing system, but also acquitted her on some charges, and failed to agree on others. The 37-year-old now faces the possibility of […]
PARIS, France (AFP) — Facebook misidentified tens of thousands of advertisements flagged under its political ads policy, according to a study released Thursday, which warned that the failure could lead to political manipulation. Researchers at Belgium’s KU Leuven university and New York University examined 33.8 million Facebook ads that ran on the social media site between July 2020 and February 2021. “This is the first known study to quantify the performance of Facebook’s political ad […]
MANILA, Philippines (AFP) — Google will stop carrying election ads in the Philippines ahead of the May 2022 presidential vote, the internet giant said Wednesday, similar to action it has taken in the United States. Alarm has been raised in recent years by governments and election watchdogs over the use of targeted political advertising, especially disinformation campaigns to sway voters. The updated policy goes into effect on February 8, covering ads on Google, YouTube […]
by Joshua MELVIN WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — False Covid death reports, a vast gender gap, Nazi “fan fiction”: These are some of the perils an international crowd of volunteers battle across Wikipedia’s tens of millions of online entries. The world’s largest internet encyclopedia is often the first result to pop up when users ask the internet a question — and thus a massively influential source of free information but which also reflects humanity’s faults. […]
NEW YORK, United States (AFP) — YouTube announced Wednesday the tally of “dislike” clicks on videos will no longer be visible to the public to protect creators from harassment and targeted attacks. A public count of likes — or dislikes — that social media posts rack up is regularly cited by critics as harmful to well-being, and Facebook as well as Instagram have allowed users to opt out. Users on the Google-owned video sharing platform […]
MEXICO CITY, Mexico (AFP) — Mexico City has set a world record for free Wi-Fi access thanks to thousands of public internet access points across the capital, Guinness World Records announced Wednesday. Official adjudicator Carlos Tapia presented the award for the most hotspots — 21,500 — in a single free urban Wi-Fi network to Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum. The access points are spread across the sprawling city of some nine million people, particularly in […]
SAN FRANCISCO, United States (AFP) — Robinhood on Monday warned users that a hacker talked their way past the stock-trading app’s defenses, stealing millions of user email addresses and more. The culprit called customer support and, pretending to be an authorized party, duped a Robinhood employee into providing access to the customer support computer system, a hacker technique referred to as “social engineering,” the company said in a blog post. After stealing information from Robinhood, […]
by Glenn CHAPMAN Agence France Presse Amazon and Apple announced billions of dollars in quarterly profits on Thursday, but supply chain bottlenecks and the great chip shortage dented the tech giants, which have been riding a pandemic-stoked boom. Apple said sales of its signature iPhone and iPad were held back due to supply constraints, while Amazon struggled to get products and enough workers to meet demand. Both firms soared in the pandemic era […]
by Glenn CHAPMAN Agence France Presse Facebook changed its parent company name to “Meta” on Thursday as the tech giant tries to move past being a scandal-plagued social network to its virtual reality vision for the future. The new handle comes as the company battles to fend off one of its worst crises yet and pivot to its ambitions for the “metaverse,” which would blur the lines between the physical world and the digital […]
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AFP) — Police around the world arrested 150 suspects involved in buying or selling illegal goods online in one of the largest-ever stings targeting the dark web, Europol said Tuesday. Operation DarkHunTOR also recovered millions of euros in cash and bitcoin, as well as drugs and guns. The bust stems from a German-led police sting earlier this year taking down the “world’s largest” darknet marketplace. Dark HunTOR, “was composed of a series […]
by Glenn CHAPMAN SAN FRANCISCO, United States (AFP) — Facebook announced over $9 billion in quarterly profits on Monday, hours after a US news collective published a deluge of withering reports arguing the company prioritizes its growth over people’s safety. The social media giant has been battling a fresh crisis since former employee Frances Haugen leaked reams of internal studies showing executives knew of their sites’ potential for harm, prompting a renewed US push for […]
by Anne-Sophie THILL Agence France-Presse BEAUHARNOIS, Canada (AFP) – With vast amounts of cheap and renewable electricity mostly generated from hydro dams, Quebec is seeing more and more tech giants setting up power-hungry data centres in the Canadian province. Demand for cloud services has sent the number of data centres soaring worldwide, and in Quebec alone fifty now operate where just 39 existed two years ago. Many are owned by multinationals such as Amazon Web […]
