apple Apple Brings Universal App Purchases to iOS and macOS Platforms Apple introduces universal purchases in Xcode 11.4, letting customers buy an app once and access it across iOS, macOS, and tvOS. The update also unifies App Store categories and enables cross-platform app bundles.
spotify Spotify Reaches 271 Million Users as Podcast Engagement Doubles Spotify reports significant growth in its Q4 earnings with 271 million total users and a 200 percent surge in podcast consumption. Despite missing analyst revenue expectations, the streaming giant faces increasing pressure from well-funded competitors like Apple and Amazon.
youtube YouTube Orders Facial Recognition Firm Clearview AI to Stop Scraping User Photos YouTube demands that Clearview AI stop harvesting user images for its law enforcement facial recognition database. The controversial startup faces mounting legal pressure from major social platforms over severe privacy violations.
google Google Demands Clearview AI Halt Facial Recognition Photo Scraping Google and YouTube issue a cease-and-desist letter to Clearview AI, demanding the startup stop extracting photos for its controversial facial recognition database. Clearview's CEO vows to fight the order in court by comparing the practice to standard search engine indexing.
apple Apple Preps Digital Car Key Feature for iPhone and Apple Watch Apple's iOS 13.4 beta reveals a new CarKey API that turns iPhones and Apple Watches into digital car keys for NFC-compatible vehicles. The feature allows users to unlock, lock, and start cars without biometric authentication and easily share keys with family members.
iowa caucus Iowa Caucus App Failure Exposes Major Tech Vulnerabilities The Iowa Democratic Party experiences a stunning technology failure during the caucus vote counting process, forcing a shift to manual counting. Voters now demand better contingency plans to protect future elections from both hacking and basic software malfunctions.
twitter Twitter Sets New Rules Against Deepfakes Ahead of 2020 Election Twitter implements a new policy to combat synthetic and manipulated media, using a three-pronged test to determine if content causes harm. The platform plans to label or remove deceptive media to protect voters.
iowa caucuses Iowa Caucus Results Delayed by App Coding Issue, Not a Hack The Iowa Democratic Party blames a coding issue in its new reporting app for a significant delay in releasing caucus results. Officials confirm the underlying data remains sound and are manually verifying results against a paper trail.
baidu Baidu Open-Sources LinearFold Algorithm to Accelerate Coronavirus Research Baidu releases an AI tool that cuts RNA secondary structure prediction time from 55 minutes to 27 seconds, offering crucial support to scientists fighting the 2019-nCoV outbreak.
iowa caucus Iowa Caucus Results Delayed as Reporting App Fails on Election Night A specialized smartphone app designed to report Iowa caucus results crashes due to quality control issues, causing major delays. Party officials confirm the paper trail remains secure and rule out a cyberattack as the cause.
amazon Amazon's HQ2 Search Reportedly Driven by Bezos Rivalry With Musk A new report suggests Jeff Bezos pursues the massive HQ2 project primarily out of competitive envy toward Elon Musk. The controversial headquarters search ultimately faces intense public backlash and ends in failure.
twitter Twitter Shuts Down Vast Fake Account Network Exploiting Phone Number Bug Twitter suspends a massive network of fake accounts that abuse a system flaw to match millions of phone numbers to specific user profiles. The platform detects suspicious activity originating from IP addresses in Iran, Israel, and Malaysia.
google Google Unveils Meena, an AI Chatbot That Mimics Human Conversation Google introduces Meena, a highly advanced open-domain chatbot trained on billions of words to converse naturally on any topic. The new AI scores close to human levels on a proprietary conversation test, outperforming major competitors.
alibaba Chinese Tech Giants Deploy AI Tools to Accelerate Coronavirus Research Alibaba and Baidu release artificial intelligence tools to help scientists rapidly sequence the coronavirus genome. These technological efforts join broader initiatives by Google and Facebook to combat the global health crisis.
cloudflare Tech Industry Faces Rising Web Security Blocks Amid Online Threats Cloudflare and similar security services increasingly block legitimate users as they protect websites from automated attacks and malicious traffic.