Moving forward, the addendum prohibits TurboTax maker Intuit and the other nine companies that make up the Free File Alliance from “engaging in any practice” that would prevent their free software from showing up on Google or any other search engine. Additionally, all 10 companies must now stick to a standardized naming scheme so that…
US Army is the latest military branch to ban TikTok
As with the Navy ban, the Army is likely concerned that TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance could pose problems. While there’s no evidence of suspicious activity taking place, ByteDance could theoretically be compelled to forward soldiers’ sensitive info to the Chinese government or to recruit soldiers as spies.The company has been eager to fend off…
Microsoft Seizes ‘Hotrnall.com’ and Other Copycat Domains From North Korea-Linked Hackers
Photo: AP On Monday, Microsoft announced that it had taken control of 50 domains associated with a hackers believed to be operating out of North Korea. Unsealed court documents show that the domains include “hotrnall.com,” “office356-us.org,” and “mai1.info,” among other copycat URLs. In a blog post, the company said that the hacking group it called…
YouTube’s Justin Bieber docuseries premieres January 27th
The docuseries follows on the heels of YouTube’s Johnny Cash documentary. While Bieber hasn’t produced an album in years and canceled the final shows of his 2017 tour, he currently has 47.8 million subscribers, more than any other artist on YouTube. He’s in six videos with over one billion views, and he has over 19…
‘Untitled Goose Game’ honks its way to a million sales
Untitled Goose Game hasn’t just melted the hearts of mischievous gamers — apparently, it’s also a commercial success. Panic’s Cabel Sasser has revealed that House House’s chaos-creating title has racked up 1 million sales since its debut on September 20th. He didn’t break down sales by platform, although we wouldn’t be surprised if the PC…
Guy Gets Severed Arm Preserved by Taxidermist: ‘I Wanted to Do Something Cool’
Lots of people have two arms. Far fewer can say they have one on a shelf by their sink. A 37-year-old Canadian man recently joined this exclusive club, turning his amputated limb into a unique conversation piece thanks to a helpful taxidermist—and a hungry colony of beetles. 20 years ago, Mark Holmgren crashed on a…
President Trump signs anti-robocall TRACED Act into law
There are also self-review measures. Both the FCC and the Justice Department have to create a working group that will study enforcement of certain robocall bans, and report to Congress. Likewise, the FCC will have to examine its policies on number resources to see if it can reduce access to spammers. This isn’t likely to…
How home assistants ruined us, an explanation
Understandably, everyone is doing their introspection right now; their year- and decade-end summaries of what was most dreadful in tech, and what lead to this mess we’re all in. I can assure you that one of the key factors is what we have come to call The Internet of Shit and how we’ve embraced it….
This might be Samsung’s upcoming ‘zero bezel’ 8K TV
An earlier rumor had the bezel-free TV entering production in February. Pricing is still unknown as well, although the design might be limited to 65-inch or larger screens. There are questions as to the utility of this. Unless you’re really tight on space, you can probably live with the thin bezels on other modern TVs….
Anti-Robocall Bill That, in a Perfect World, Fines Spammers $10,000 Per Call Is Now Law
Photo: Steven Senne (AP) President Donald Trump on Monday signed into law a bill that aims to curb annoying spam robocalls that have saturated our recent-call lists over the past few years. And it might help! At the very least, it will make us feel like someone is trying to do something about this relentless…