TECHNOLOGY

The Federal Trade Commission has sued to block graphics chip maker Nvidia’s $40 billion purchase of chip designer Arm.

If you’ve turned on a television in the last three years, chances are you’ve been inundated with advertisements for sports betting, and not only during game broadcasts.

There's a new Silicon Valley corporate name change on the block.

Facebook says it removed hundreds of fake accounts linked to an effort to spread unfounded claims that the U.S. was pressuring scientists to blame the coronavirus on China.

Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates say they will still work with the Giving Pledge.

Citing an improved supply of automotive computer chips, General Motors raised its financial guidance on Wednesday and said it expects to return to a normal production rate by the end of next year.

Ex-Facebook employee and whistleblower Frances Haugen implored lawmakers to avert the usual congressional stalemates as they weigh proposals to curb abuses on social media platforms by limiting the companies’ free-speech protections against legal liability.

The head of Britain’s foreign intelligence agency says China, Russia and Iran pose three of the biggest threats facing the U.K. in a fast-changing, unstable world.

The United Kingdom’s antitrust watchdog has blocked Facebook’s acquisition of Giphy and ordered the social network to sell off the GIF-sharing platform.

Disgraced entrepreneur Elizabeth Holmes on Monday cast herself as the abused puppet of her former lover and business partner Sunny Balwani during tearful testimony aimed at refuting accusations she lied about a flawed blood-testing technology that hailed as a major breakthrough.

Newly named Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal (PUH-rag AH-gur-wahl) has emerged from behind the scenes to take over one of Silicon Valley’s highest-profile and politically volatile jobs.

A new union election for Amazon workers in Bessemer, Alabama will be held based on objections to the first vote that took place in April.

Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey has stepped down as CEO of the social media platform.

Tidal power generators that look like aircraft are being tested in the sea off the Faroe Islands.

Collins Dictionary has chosen the term NFT as its word of the year after surging interest in the digital tokens that can sell for millions of dollars brought it into the mainstream.

NASA has launched a spacecraft on a mission to smash into an asteroid and test whether it would be possible to knock a speeding space rock off course if one were to threaten Earth.

Biotechnology entrepreneur Elizabeth Holmes, a former billionaire accused of engineering a massive scam, expressed some remorse while on the witness stand Tuesday, but denied trying to conceal that her company’s blood-testing methods weren’t working as she had promised.

Wireless carrier T-Mobile is paying $19.5 million in a settlement with the Federal Communications Commission over a 12-hour nationwide outage in June 2020 that resulted in thousands of failed 911 calls.

Samsung said it plans to build a $17 billion semiconductor factory in Texas amid a global shortage of chips used in phones, laptops, cars and other electronic devices.

Tech giant Apple is suing Israel’s NSO Group, seeking to block the world’s most infamous hacker-for-hire company from breaking into Apple’s products, like the iPhone.

Italy’s antitrust watchdog has fined Apple and Amazon more than 200 million euros, or $225 million, for cooperating to restrict competition in the sale of Apple and Beats branded products.

Help Desk reporter Heather Kelly looks at what might cause holiday shopping headaches and how to avoid them.

It's the season for giving. Unfortunately, it's also the season for taking as porch pirates scout out homes and steal packages. These products can help keep an eye on your home and deliveries.

Fallen Silicon Valley star Elizabeth Holmes returned to the witness stand on Monday to tell a story likely to determine whether she is convicted or acquitted of criminal charges alleging she duped investors and patients into believing she had invented a breakthrough in blood-testing technology.

Thailand's DTAC and True Corp. plan a merger that they say will create an “equal partnership" for pursuing opportunities in the tech sector.

WhatsApp is adding more details to its privacy policy and flagging the information for European users.

El Salvador President Nayib Bukele says his government will build an oceanside “Bitcoin City” at the base of a volcano.

Fallen Silicon Valley star Elizabeth Holmes, accused of bamboozling investors and patients about her startup Theranos and its medical device that she said would reshape health care, unexpectedly took the witness stand Friday in her trial for criminal fraud.

If anyone has a good idea on how to put a nuclear fission power plant on the moon, the U.S. government wants to hear about it.

New Mexico education officials are partnering with public television providers for a stopgap that could ease students' internet problems.

Job candidates rarely know when hidden artificial intelligence tools are rejecting their resumes or analyzing their video interviews — but New York City residents could soon have more say over the computers making behind-the-scenes decisions about their careers.

A Fortune Magazine reporter whose story helped turn Elizabeth Holmes into a Silicon Valley sensation came to court Thursday to explain why he felt like he became a pawn in her attempts to hype a blood-testing technology she promised would revolutionize health care.

A group of state attorneys general are investigating Instagram and its effects on children and young adults, saying its parent company Facebook — recently renamed Meta Platforms — ignored research about the harms it causes to young people.

Two suspected Iranian computer hackers have been charged in a broad campaign of election interference aimed at intimidating American voters during last year’s presidential race and undermining confidence that the results of the contest could be trusted.

Ford Motor Co. is in talks with a computer chip maker GlobalFoundaries Inc. to shore up its semiconductor supplies as it tries to avoid factory shutdowns in the future.

Customers are caught in the middle of a growing dispute between Amazon and Visa over transaction fees.

The European Commission says it could approve aid to fund production of semiconductors in the 27-nation bloc amid a global chip shortage.

After being victimized by massive unemployment fraud, housing officials in California and other states are reporting few fraudulent applications in their rental assistance programs.

SpaceX is aiming to launch its futuristic, bullet-shaped Starship to orbit in January.

Apple is letting some iPhone users fix their own phones, a sharp turnaround for a company that has long prohibited anyone except Apple-approved technicians from fiddling with its proprietary parts and software.

An advisory issued by officials in the United States, United Kingdom and Australia warns that hackers linked to the Iranian government have been targeting a “broad range of victims” inside the U.S. with ransomware and other malicious cyber activity.

A sculpture sponsored by Amazon Web Services that uses artificial intelligence to integrate viewers' feelings into the artwork is being featured at the Smithsonian.

Amazon says it will stop accepting Visa credit cards issued in the United Kingdom because of a dispute over fees.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has announced a new plan to protect and promote technologies critical to the national interest, including quantum technologies, in a challenge to China’s emerging dominance in key strategic fields.

President Joe Biden’s choice to lead enforcement of competition laws at the Justice Department has won Senate approval.

A small city in the top U.S. coal-mining state of Wyoming will be home to a Bill Gates-backed experimental nuclear power project near a coal-fired power plant scheduled to close soon.

Twitter users will soon see new warning labels on false and misleading tweets, redesigned to make them more effective and less confusing.

Cybersecurity experts say they have evidence of direct involvement by Belarus' government in a hybrid hacking/disinformation campaign against Eastern European NATO members since 2016.

Ohio's largest public employee pension fund has sued Facebook, alleging that it broke federal securities law by purposely misleading the public about its product's negative effect on children.

The Washington Post's Tatum Hunter shows how tools thieves used to hide from the law can help you protect your privacy, money and data from being stolen.

A new report says misinformation is hurting efforts to solve some of humanity’s greatest challenges, be it climate change, COVID-19 or political polarization.

U.S. auto safety regulators are looking into a complaint from a Tesla driver that the company’s “Full Self-Driving” software caused a crash.

The National Labor Relations Board has confirmed that a group of Amazon workers in Staten Island, New York has withdrawn its petition to hold a vote to unionize.

SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket lifted off, carrying four astronauts to the International Space Station from the Kennedy Space Center on Nov. 10.

Four astronauts splashed down safely in the Gulf of Mexico on Nov. 8, completing a six-month mission on the International Space Station.

The new technology is part of a partnership with the TSA to cut wait times at security checkpoints.

Inexpensive Bluetooth trackers like AirTags and Tile give us the perilous power to find and confront our thieves.

Senators say new social media laws could be on the way - sooner than later | Accountable

An independent U_N_ investigator is warning that despite the Nobel Peace Prize to courageous Filipino journalist Maria Ressa, “gender equality in freedom of expression remains a distant goal.”

Tech reporter Heather Kelly shares a quick tip to make your Google experience more private for The Washington Post's Help Desk.

Tech reporter Chris Velazco shares tips on what to do with your old phones and gadgets for The Washington Post's Help Desk.

There’s no telling what you might find — or how you’ll find it — when the search engine is off.

To find the best payment apps to go cashless, tech reporter Tatum Hunter compares usability and major features for The Washington Post's Help Desk.

SpaceX’s Inspiration4 flight splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean on Sept. 18, completing the first all-civilian mission to orbit the Earth.

On Sept. 14, the Apple showed off a new smartwatch with a tougher, larger screen and new software for typing messages.

Watch the highlights of Apple's Sept 14 fall product reveal.

First Solar is one of few U.S. solar-panel manufacturers in an industry dominated by Chinese factories.

Relativity Space is building rockets using an autonomous, 3D manufacturing robot called "Stargate."

It said it had listened to feedback from privacy campaigners and others and would reassess.

The technology could be in all new cars that are manufactured in the next few years.

Too many countries fail to record deaths and their causes accurately. This makes tracking the spread of Covid-19 and other diseases harder than it needs to be.

The social-media platform said its technology had been erroneously identifying the comments as benign.

Technology is helping scientists expose the pollution of smaller, less known oil spills and those responsible for them.

The U.S., Russia and China say a ban on AI weapons is unnecessary. But growing number of activists and international allies are pushing for restrictions.

The technology lets experts predict which areas might burn the worst during wildfire season.

Activists see their fight as a patriotic struggle against government overreach, authoritarianism, and even a battle for their civil rights to refuse vaccines.

Around the world, animal conservation has evolved so it's not just humans monitoring wildlife.

The Enhanced Nightvision Goggles Binocular or ENVG-B combine low light and thermal images with an augmented reality overlay.

The Enhanced Night Vision Goggle-Binocular, or ENVG-B, combines low light and thermal images with an augmented reality overlay.

The board will decide if former president Donald Trump is allowed on Facebook, a test case of social media companies' power to moderate inflammatory speech.

The walls of Jerusalem's Church of the Holy Sepulchre are etched with thousands of small crosses, but who made them remains an open question. Archaeologist Amit Re'em analyzed thousands of etchings with new digital technology to try to solve the mystery. Ian Lee reports.

United Airlines is turning to technology that aims to capture carbon dioxide from the air and store it underground to help offset its carbon emissions completely by 2050, a change from offset programs the airline industry and others have traditionally leaned on to reduce their footprints. The company is developing a carbon capture plant in the Permian Basin in Texas. While the coronavirus pandemic has decimated air travel around the world, airlines usually generate around 2% of global carbon emissions. Carriers have used biofuels and carbon offsets, which are purchased in exchange for conserving forests and other projects. "The only way we can truly make a dent in the levels of atmospheric carbon is through direct air capture and sequestration."

CBSN Originals presents "Reverb | A City Under Surveillance" The Detroit Police Department is using facial recognition technology and a network of surveillance cameras to combat the city’s high crime rates. But critics say the technology has racial bias built into it and has even landed innocent people behind bars. In this documentary, CBSN Originals explores the debate over high-tech policing that promises to make our communities safer yet at the same time threatens our civil liberties.

They came in just ahead of that time, said Hus daughter Leah, who also works at the restaurant, the Royal Palace. Their duties will include greeting customers, serving drinks and dishes and returning used glasses and crockery. We will use them to make sure the 1.5 meters (5 feet) we need during the corona crisis sticks, Leah Hu said. We want to give them a normal name," said Leah Hu. They help us with the work we do, said Leah Hu.

French Digital Affairs junior minister Cedric O demonstrates how to use the French app StopCovid meant to trace the virus' future spread on during an interview with the Associated Press in Paris, Friday, May 29, 2020. . France is the first major democracy to roll out such an app, and many people fear it invades their privacy. It will make France the first major world democracy to roll out such a tracing app. O said the app has been tested for two weeks and the government is confident that the data are protected. The French app uses low-energy Bluetooth signals on mobile phones to trace individuals that people infected with the virus come into close contact with.

President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump arrive at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., Wednesday, May 27, 2020, after traveling to Florida. !Press secretary Kayleigh McEnany told reporters Trump would sign an executive order relating to social media companies but provided no further details. Trump and his campaign had lashed out at the company Tuesday after Twitter added a warning phrase to two Trump tweets that called mail-in ballots fraudulent and predicted that mail boxes will be robbed, among other things. Trump and his allies have long accused the tech giants in liberal-leaning Silicon Valley of targeting conservatives on social media by fact-checking them or removing their posts. The protections have been credited with allowing the unfettered growth of the internet for more than two decades, but now some Trump allies are advocating that social media companies face more scrutiny.

This photo shows a sign at the headquarters for Washington state's Employment Security Department Tuesday, May 26, 2020, at the Capitol in Olympia, Wash. Washington state's rush to get unemployment benefits to residents who lost jobs due to the coronavirus outbreak left it vulnerable to criminals who made off with hundreds of millions of dollars in fraudulent claims. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)OLYMPIA, Wash. Washington has recovered $300 million paid to criminals who used stolen personal information to file fraudulent unemployment benefit claims amid the COVID-19 crisis, state officials said Thursday. This is a national attack by sophisticated criminals and isnt just happening to Washington state, LeVine said. Nearly 1.5 million claims for benefits with some of that number reflecting people who filed multiple claims were filed for the week of May 17-23, and more than $494.5 million was paid last week to 424,995 individual claims. Washingtons stay-at-home order has been in place since March 23 and the states unemployment rate jumped to a record 15.4% last month.

Published: May 28, 2020, 8:13 am Updated: May 28, 2020, 9:30 amCVS Health will try delivering prescriptions with self-driving vehicles in a test that begins next month. Customers will have to confirm their identity in order to unlock their delivery after the Nuro vehicle arrives. And drugstores like Woonsocket, Rhode Island-based CVS Health Corp. and competitor Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. have been expanding home delivery services for a few years now. Some hospitals in North Carolina have been testing drone delivery of medical samples and supplies. CVS and UPS announced in late April that they will start delivering prescriptions by drone to a big retirement community in Florida.

(AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, File)CVS Health will try delivering prescriptions with self-driving vehicles in a test that begins next month. Customers will have to confirm their identity in order to unlock their delivery after the vehicle arrives. Nuro has previously started partnerships to test the delivery of pizzas for Dominos or groceries for Kroger, also in the Houston area. Woonsocket, Rhode Island-based CVS Health Corp. said that for the Houston test, customers can chose the Nuro delivery option when they fill their prescriptions online. Earlier this year, federal regulators gave Nuro temporary approval to run autonomous delivery vehicles on public roads for the first time without human occupants.

(AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)SEATTLE The first word Seattle political consultant Dayna Lurie had that someone filed for unemployment benefits in her name was when her boss called. We got an unemployment form from the state of Washington saying you don't work here anymore.It turned out that, like thousands of Washington state residents, Lurie's identity was used by criminals seeking to capitalize on a flood of legitimate unemployment claims by sneaking in fraudulent ones. By late last week, attacks had been detected in at least nine states, most recently Ohio and Hawaii, he said. She said the state began paying her unemployment benefits, but halted the payments May 15 and required more verification. Fraud prevention efforts have been a singular focus for the Department of Labor and the states, he said.

President Donald Trump answers questions from reporters during an event on protecting seniors with diabetes in the Rose Garden White House, Tuesday, May 26, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)WASHINGTON President Donald Trump threatened social media companies with new regulation or even shuttering on Wednesday after Twitter added fact checks to two of his tweets. Trump, the historically prolific tweeter of political barbs and blasts, claimed on Twitter early Wednesday that tech giants silence conservative voices." Trump and his campaign had lashed out Tuesday after Twitter added a warning phrase to two Trump tweets that called mail-in ballots fraudulent and predicted that mail boxes will be robbed, among other things. The protections have been credited with allowing the unfettered growth of the internet for more than two decades, but now some Trump allies are advocating that social media companies face more scrutiny.

WASHINGTON President Donald Trump on Wednesday threatened social media companies with new regulation or even shuttering after Twitter moved a day earlier to add fact checks to two of his tweets. Trump and his campaign angrily lashed out Tuesday after Twitter added a warning phrase to two Trump tweets that called mail-in ballots fraudulent and predicted that mail boxes will be robbed, among other things. Trump did not explain his threat Wednesday, and the call to expand regulation appeared to fly in the face of long-held conservative principles on deregulation. The protections have been credited with allowing the unfettered growth of the internet for more than two decades, but now some Trump allies are advocating that social media companies face more scrutiny. Why are they getting subsidized by federal taxpayers to censor conservatives, to censor people critical of China.

(Richard Termine/Sesame Workshop via AP)Is a pandemic the perfect time to launch a new and relatively expensive streaming service? The phone company is investing billions in HBO Max, its first big entertainment venture since it spent $85 billion for Time Warner in 2018. HBO Max costs $15, same as the HBO Now streaming service it's supposed to replace, with discounts after the launch limited to some AT&T customers. Disney launched Disney Plus and the sports-focused ESPN Plus and took control of Hulu from an industry joint venture. It's easy to prompt HBO Now users to switch to Max if they signed up directly through HBO, and many big cable companies have agreed to promote HBO Max to their existing HBO customers.

PARIS French lawmakers were set to vote Wednesday on whether to endorse a contact-tracing app designed to contain the spread of the coronavirus amid sharp debate over privacy concerns. If approved, France's StopCovid app will be made available to users on a voluntary basis starting Monday. French privacy watchdog CNIL backed the app this week, stating the technology wont lead to creating a list of infected people but only a list of contacts using pseudonymous data. The government says the app doesn't involve location tracking and it guaranteed the privacy of users, but rights advocacy groups have raised concerns over the issue. The French government refused to use the technology for pandemic apps released last week by Google and Apple, saying it lacked sufficient data privacy guarantees.

QUESTION: Twitter has resisted taking action on Trump's tweets for years, despite the president's history of spreading misinformation and abuse on the platform. Twitter began flagging tweets that spread disputed or misleading claims about the virus with get the facts links to more information, including news stories and fact checks. Those tweets met specific Twitter criteria for misinformation on certain topics, including the coronavirus, how to vote in elections and the census. QUESTION: How does Twitter decide which tweets get flagged with the warnings? ANSWER: Trump's tweets got flagged after someone reported them.

Millions of people have helped online retail sales surge as consumer spending fell off rapidly when businesses shut down. She's among millions who have helped online retail sales surge as consumer spending fell off rapidly when businesses shut down. In the U.S., retail sales tumbled by a record 16.4% from March to April as business shutdowns caused by the coronavirus kept shoppers away, threatened stores and weighed down a tanking economy. Measured year over year, online sales surged 21.6%. It's panic on lots of levels, said Wendy Liebmann, CEO of WSL Strategic Retail, a global consulting firm specializing in retail strategy and shopper insights.

A Virgin Orbit Boeing 747-400 aircraft named Cosmic Girl takes off from Mojave Air and Space Port in the desert north of Los Angeles Monday, May 25, 2020. Richard Branson's Virgin Orbit failed Monday in its first test launch of a new rocket carried aloft by the Boeing 747 and released over the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Southern California. (AP Photo/Matt Hartman)LOS ANGELES Virgin Orbit engineers were analyzing data Tuesday to find out what caused the maiden flight of its air-launched satellite booster to fail. Virgin Orbit, founded by billionaire Richard Branson, is among several new companies developing rockets specifically for launching small satellites. Chief Executive Officer Dan Hart said in a statement there was a treasure trove of data from flight instruments.

CANBERRA A U.S. biotechnology company began injecting a coronavirus vaccine candidate into people in Australia on Tuesday with hopes of releasing a proven vaccine this year. About a dozen experimental vaccines against the coronavirus are in early stages of testing or poised to start, mostly in China, the U.S. and Europe. Still other vaccine candidates are more old-fashioned, made with dead, whole virus. Novavax used genetic engineering to grow harmless copies of the coronavirus spike protein in giant vats of insect cells in a laboratory. The way we make a vaccine is we never touch the virus, Novavax told The Associated Press last month.

They confirmed their names and told the judge how they were connecting to the court: on laptops, tablets and iPhones. The coronavirus pandemic has crippled courts nationwide, putting many cases on indefinite hold and leaving judges trying to manage some hearings via videoconferencing. According to the National Center for State Courts, which has tracked court functions during the pandemic, its the first remote jury trial ever in the United States. It would just be too difficult, too many constitutional hurdles to clear for a defendant to be brought to a virtual trial, said Randy Gioia of Massachusetts public defender agency. And Miskel suggested courts might blend in-person and online doing trials over video but bringing jurors into to court to deliberate.

The Care19 app, developed by ProudCrowd, of North Dakota, was one of the first contact tracing apps endorsed by state governments in response to the coronavirus. But tech privacy company Jumbo Privacy reported this week that developers included lines of code that send users' location and identification data to third-party companies including Foursquare, BugFender and Google. The Care19 app shared location data with Foursquare, an advertising company that markets to people based on their location. The Jumbo Privacy report noted that the code, along with the phone's identification, was sent to BugFender, a Barcelona-based company that helps developers track malfunctions. Its really an oversight from them, said Jumbo Privacy CEO Pierre Valade.