John Lister

Google has been fined $5 billion USD for breaking antitrust rules. European officials ruled it had acted unfairly in the way it linked its own services with Android devices. The fine comes from the European Commission, the administrative wing of the ... European Union, whose competition rules apply in 28 countries. It says Google breached the rules through the restrictions it places on companies that want to use its Android system on phones and tablets. Although the system is technically open source, regulators say three elements of Google's set-up go too far in promoting its other products and ... (view more)

Researchers say key physical infrastructure that keeps the Internet working could be underwater within 15 years. They say the effects of climate change over the next century will have an impact on the equipment sooner than later. The researchers, ... from the Universities of Oregon and Wisconsin, explored the risks to US-based infrastructure including both the cables that carry Internet data and the key 'nodes' in the network such as colocation centers. These facilities not only route Internet data, but also house the computers where many websites are physically stored. Major website often rent ... (view more)

Google is updating the Chrome browser to give it better defenses against major security threats. It comes at the price of reduced performance and a larger memory footprint. The changes are to address two security bugs labeled Meltdown and Spectre by ... researchers. They take advantage of a flaw in almost every computer processor built since 1995, which is (as of this day) 100% of all computers, tablets, smartphones, laptops - and anything else that uses a processor. The flaw is in regard to a processor feature, which is designed to speed up a computer's response time. It works by using spare ... (view more)

A German court has ruled that Facebook accounts can be inherited. It's the latest attempt to solve the problem of what happens to online data after somebody dies. The ruling came from the Federal Court of Justice, Germany's highest court, and ended ... a six-year legal process. It began with the death of a 15-year-old who died when she was hit by a train. Her parents asked Facebook to give them access to her account, meaning they could see the contents of private message exchanges. They said they wanted to find any clues as to whether the death was suicide or an accident. As well as giving the ... (view more)

Facebook is testing new tools to stop people being fooled by bogus messages. Meanwhile it's subsidiary "Whatsapp" is working on ways to stop hoaxes and other false information. The Facebook trial is for a series of tools relating to the direct ... messaging elements of the service, which includes messages through the website itself and via the dedicated "Messenger" app for mobile devices. The tools are aimed at messages which come from people or organizations the user hasn't previously communicated with, which carry a higher risk of being bogus than from genuine contacts. The ... (view more)

Researchers have warned that smart home technology could be used to aid domestic abuse. They've put together resources for people who could be threatened by abusive partners or former partners. The list comes from University College London and ... follows a New York Times article detailing some of the way domestic abusers have turned smart home tech into a tool to further their abuse. One example is a former partner taking account of a security loophole to continue to access a smart doorbell. That meant they could not only watch video of the partner leaving or returning from the house and monitor ... (view more)

Facebook removed a post with sections of the Declaration of Independence because it was "hate speech." It's not clear if the screw-up was a human error or a failure of an automated filter. The post came from Texas newspaper the Liberty County ... Vindicator, which posted the Declaration of Independence as a series of scheduled posts to mark July 4th. One of the posts was flagged and removed by Facebook while it was still in the scheduled queue, yet to go live. The newspaper received a message saying the deletion was because the post "goes against our standards on hate speech." Indians Reference ... (view more)

Google has confirmed that third parties may be able to read your Google email (Gmail) messages. The resulting controversy comes from a lack of clarity over its permission settings. The issue isn't about Google itself reading email messages. ... Previously, Google servers would scan email messages for keywords, then use targeted advertisements based on those keyboards whenever users logged into Gmail to read their emails. However, Google has dropped this policy last year and instead bases its ads on other information, such as Google web searches and YouTube viewing. The latest controversy relates ... (view more)

Samsung phone owners say they were shocked to discover photos from their phone were being sent to random contacts. An update to SMS text messaging appears to have caused the bug. One user says the entire contents of his photo gallery was sent to his ... girlfriend's phone via text message. His own phone had no record of the messages being sent and the first he heard of it was when his girlfriend asked him what was happening. Other users report similar issues, with no obvious pattern as to who received the images other than being in their contacts list. Reports suggest the problem is with the ... (view more)

Google has invested $22 million in a company that makes software for bare-bones smartphones. As part of the deal, it hopes to bring some of its key apps to the budget handsets. The investment is in an operating system named KaiOS. It's based on an ... open source system that was developed by Mozilla, the makers of the Firefox browser, before being abandoned. Originally Mozilla had hoped to make a phone for as little as $25. Cheap Handsets Get More Attractive KaiOS is specifically designed for "feature phones." That's a term with a loose definition, but generally refers to very basic ... (view more)