Technology

Elon Musk’s Twitter account has seemingly been compromised by a hacker intent on using it to run a bitcoin scam. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates also had his account seemingly accessed by the same scammer, who posted a similar message with an identical bitcoin wallet address. Both accounts are continuing to post new tweets promoting the scam almost as fast as they are deleted. The Tesla CEO’s account issued a mysterious tweet at 4:17PM ET this afternoon reading, “I‘m feeling generous because of Covid-19. I’ll double any BTC payment sent to my BTC address for the next hour. Good luck, and stay safe out there!” The tweet also contained a bitcoin address, presumably one associated with the hacker’s crypto wallet. The tweet was then deleted and replaced by another one more plainly laying out t...

President Trump today gutted the National Environmental Policy Act, a move that many environmental advocates worry will make it harder for people to have a say in how major infrastructure projects would affect them. The new rules speed up permitting for large infrastructure projects like pipelines and highways by truncating the environmental review process. Environmental reviews are designed to figure out if a project will significantly change the environment around the project in some way. The process can take years and involves scientific studies, intense analysis, and time for the public to comment on the proposals. The new rules, first proposed in January, limit the timeline for environmental reviews to two years — even though the process frequently takes twice as long. The changes wou...

Zoom, whose user base exploded with the onset of COVID-19, is expanding into hardware. The company has announced a new touchscreen device designed to help with remote work. The appliance, called Zoom For Home — DTEN ME, will cost $599 and will ship in August. The DTEN ME is a 27-inch touchscreen device with three smart webcams and eight noise-reducing microphones built in, and it comes preloaded with the Zoom software. Zoom isn’t actually building the hardware; the product comes from DTEN, a San Jose-based company that makes videoconferencing appliances. Image: Zoom The DTEN appears to have a pretty simple interface that provides quick access to Zoom’s various features, including meetings, whiteboards, and contacts. It also syncs with your calendar and displays your upcoming meetings in a ...

You may be switching jobs, or maybe you’ve decided to stop using a specific email account, or maybe you just want a copy of all your email just in case. Whatever your reasons, it’s not a bad idea to back up and export your Gmail and other Google accounts using Google’s Takeout feature. In fact, you can set your accounts to back up regularly, which is a good practice in general. One note: if you’re backing up a company account, you may find that your company has disabled Takeout. There are third-party apps that say they can back up your Gmail, but you should check your company’s policies before you try them out. How to back up your Gmail: Go to myaccount.google.com Under Privacy & personalization, click on “Manage your data & personalization.” Scroll down to “Download, delete, or ma...

Facebook has released its latest annual diversity report, which suggests the company is slowly increasing representation across its workforce. According to Facebook, the representation of women and Black and Hispanic people among its employees increased across all of its tracked categories. But the social network has yet to hit its long-term goals, such as 50 percent of its workforce being from an underrepresented background by 2024. That figure now stands at 45.3 percent, up from 43 percent last year. Facebook’s diversity report, which is now in its seventh year, is especially important in 2020. Last month, the company’s employees staged a virtual walkout over its decision not to take action against posts from President Donald Trump. One post appeared to threaten violence against people e...

Until now, if you wanted to include more than one image in a single post on Reddit, it’s been a chore. Most users, especially on mobile, had to drop links to external photo-sharing sites like Imgur into a post or reply. But today, Reddit is adding a new feature called Image Gallery, which lets you combine multiple images or GIFs into a single post, even if you’re on mobile. Previously, redditors had one way to upload multiple images directly to the site if they were using a desktop computer with the Reddit redesign enabled. Using the Fancy Pants Editor (yes, that’s what it’s called), users could select multiple images and drag them into the post or select the small image icon and highlight which images to add. Reddit’s new image galleries will now allow you to post up to 20 images or GIFs ...

The EU’s second-highest court has overturned a ruling that ordered Apple to pay a record €13 billion ($14.9 billion) in back taxes to the Irish government. The ruling was originally made by the European Commission in 2016 and was seen as a significant win for Margrethe Vestager, the EU’s antitrust chief. Vestager concluded that a “sweetheart deal” from the Irish government meant the iPhone-maker paid an effective tax rate of less than 1 percent, a uniquely preferential deal that counted as “illegal state aid.” Tim Cook said the 2016 ruling was ‘political crap’ “Member States cannot give tax benefits to selected companies — this is illegal under EU state aid rules,” said Vestager in 2016. “The Commission’s investigation concluded that Ireland granted illegal tax benefits to Apple, which ena...

Let’s spend a few minutes today catching up on the antitrust inquiries into Google. There are investigations related to competition underway against most of the biggest tech giants – Apple, Facebook, and Amazon face similar inquiries, and their CEOS are scheduled to join Sundar Pichai for a virtual hearing with the House of Representatives later this month. But there’s reason to believe the case against Google will land the soonest of any of them — in May, the New York Times reported that charges could come “as early as this summer.” Scrutiny into the company’s business practices has since accelerated. Politico reported last week that California, which sat out an investigation led by 48 attorneys general, is preparing to mount its own inquiry into Google’s competition practices. As Leah Ny...

Google is investing $4.5 billion for a 7.73 percent stake in Jio Platforms, an Indian internet giant that offers broadband, mobile services, and online commerce platforms, the company announced today. The investment, which is pending regulatory review, is part of Google’s commitment to invest around $10 billion in India over the next five to seven years. It follows a similar move from Facebook to invest $5.7 billion for a 9.9 percent stake in the company earlier this year. Jio Platforms is the tech subsidiary of Reliance Industries. As part of today’s announcement, Google says that it is working with Jio on an “entry-level affordable smartphone.” Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani said this work will involve creating a customized version of Android designed for low-cost, entry-leve...

US truck maker Navistar is joining forces with TuSimple, a leading autonomous vehicle startup, to build a self-driving semi truck that can operate without a human driver on highways and local roads. As part of the deal, Navistar is taking a minority stake in TuSimple — though neither company would disclose the size of Navistar’s investment. TuSimple recently unveiled its plans to build out a coast-to-coast freight-hauling business using a fleet of camera-and-LIDAR equipped autonomous class 8 tractor trailers. Now the company has a manufacturing partner to help it realize its dream of robot semi trucks criss-crossing across the nation. “This is a major key component, of course, of being able to bring autonomy to the market,” TuSimple president Cheng Lu told The Verge. “This is a major key c...

Nissan has long been a leader in electric vehicle sales, despite really only having one EV — the functional-if-uninspiring Nissan Leaf hatchback — on the market. That changed today with the introduction of a new mid-sized SUV with up to 300 miles of range called the Ariya. First unveiled last year as a concept, the Ariya is scheduled to go on sale in Japan in mid-2021, followed by the US and Canada later in the year. Pricing will start around $40,000, which is only a few thousand dollars more than the current average selling price of a vehicle in the US. Buyers of Nissan’s electric and hybrid vehicles are still eligible for the full $7,500 federal tax credit and various state incentives, which depending on where people live could help reduce the cost by up to $10,000 in the US. The Ariya w...

Sony is ordering at least 50 percent more PlayStation 5 consoles than it had originally planned to ship this year, according to reports in the Japanese press. While the company was expecting to produce around six million consoles in 2020, Nikkei says that the figure is now at about nine million, while Bloomberg says it could reach 10 million. Both publications put the raised expectations down to increased demand for at-home entertainment in the age of the coronavirus. If Sony could sell anywhere near that total number of PS5 consoles through the end of the year, it would mark a major increase on its predecessor; the PS4 launched in November 2013 and had sold through 4.2 million units by the end of the following month. New Oculus headset entering production this month: Nikkei Facebook is al...