Google Has Unleashed Its Legal Fury on Hackers and Scammers - Technology news - NewsLocker (2024)

The tech giant says its “affirmative litigation” deters and raises awareness of bad behavior. But skeptics wonder whether these suits are too small a gesture.

Your Photos Aren’t Real

This week: Google’s new photo manipulation tools produce some convincing results, but how much of this unreality are we supposed to stomach?

The Who's Who of Political Influencers

Which influencers are actually influencing? A survey of the field turns up everyone from people focused on specific state legislatures to Elon Musk.

A Visual Guide to the Influencers Shaping the 2024 Election

From Hasan Piker to Logan Paul, this interactive display maps how online personalities on the right and the left are using their massive followings to influence the US election.

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From Elon Musk to Carlos Espina, Meet the Influencers Shaping the US Election

From Hasan Piker to Logan Paul, this interactive display maps how online personalities on the right and the left are using their massive followings to influence the US election.

Kim Dotcom is being Megauploaded to the US for trial

Dotcom has been fighting US extradition for 12 years. | Photo by MICHAEL BRADLEY/AFP via Getty Images Kim Dotcom is being extradited to the United States to face long-standing criminal charges relating to his defunct file-sharing service Megaupload. The order was signed by New Zealand Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith according to Stuff, saying he received “extensive advice from the Ministry of Justice on this matter” and that “Mr Dotcom should be surrendered to the US to face tr

This Is the Most Detailed Map of Human Brain Connections Ever Made

In a world first, Harvard biologists worked with Google to diagram a cubic millimeter of human cerebral cortex at the subcellular level, paving the way for the next generation of brain science.

This Is the Most Detailed Map of Brain Connections Ever Made

In a world first, Harvard biologists worked with Google to diagram a cubic millimeter of human cerebral cortex at the subcellular level, paving the way for the next generation of brain science.

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This Code Breaker Is Using AI to Decode the Heart’s Secret Rhythms

Inspired by his expertise in breaking ancient codes, Roeland Decorte built a smartphone app that continuously listens for signs of disease hidden in our pulse.

Ex-Google CEO says successful AI startups can steal IP and hire lawyers to ‘clean up the mess’

Eric Schmidt. | Photo By Lukas Schulze/Sportsfile for Collision via Getty Images Former Google CEO and chairman Eric Schmidt has made headlines for saying that Google was blindsided by the early the rise of ChatGPT because its employees decided that “working from home was more important than winning.”
The comment was made in front of Stanford students during a recent interview, video of which was removed from the university’s YouTube channel after Schmidt’s gaffe was wide

GitHub is recovering after a major outage

Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge GitHub, the popular code repository and developer platform, is recovering after dealing with some major issues on Wednesday affecting its website and many GitHub services. The company is rolling back a “database infrastructure change” that it believes was the cause of the issues, according to its status website. GitHub was acquired by Microsoft in 2018.
When we first published this story, navigating to the main GitHub website showed an error messa

GitHub is down

Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge GitHub is currently dealing with some major issues affecting its main website and many GitHub services. “We suspect the impact is due to a database infrastructure related change that we are working on rolling back,” GitHub wrote at 7:29PM ET on its status website.
Navigating to the main website shows an error message that says “no server is currently available to service your request.” (The page also features an image of an angry unico

GitHub had a major outage, but now says its services are ‘fully operational’

Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge GitHub, the popular code repository and developer platform, has recovered after dealing with some major issues on Wednesday that affected its website and many GitHub services. The company has rolled back changes to its database infrastructure that apparently caused the issues and says that services are now “fully operational,” according to a 8:26PM ET status message. GitHub was acquired by Microsoft in 2018.
When we first published this story, nav

Harris campaign deceptively trims Trump post about Elon Musk interview

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge; Getty Images On Wednesday, Kamala Harris’ campaign page shared a Truth Social post from Donald Trump. In it Trump blamed “the complexity of modern day equipment” for making his voice sound “somewhat different and strange” during a live interview on X with Elon Musk.But while the Harris campaign shared what looked like a screenshot of the post, they cut off the last line, where Trump explained that he released “an actual, and p

Google Meet’s latest update includes a new UI and in-call messaging

Google’s bringing the “party” back to the party line with emoji reactions for group calls. | Illustration: The Verge Google’s Meet app is getting a few more features designed for calls. Meet, the videocalling app Google rolled Duo into a couple of years ago, is designed to handle both meetings and personal video calls. The update, which will roll out over the coming months, focuses on the personal side. It offers an updated UI and features like in-call messaging — t

AltStore PAL drops its annual subscription thanks to a grant from Epic

Image: AltStore AltStore PAL, a third-party iOS app store that’s available in the EU, is dropping its annual €1.50 (plus tax) subscription after receiving a “MegaGrant” from Fortnite developer Epic Games. AltStore originally charged the subscription to help cover Apple’s Core Technology Fee (CTF), which is a fee third-party app marketplaces have to pay for each annual app install.
Epic uses MegaGrants as a way to “sponsor the development of exciting projects th

A Single Iranian Hacker Group Targeted Both Presidential Campaigns, Google Says

APT42, which is believed to work for Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, targeted about a dozen people associated with both Trump and Biden’s campaigns this spring, according to Google’s Threat Analysis Group.

Logitech is taking 10 percent off a wide array of gaming peripherals right now

Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge Logitech is running a 10 percent off sale on its site through August 17th, extending some solid deals to a wide range of its G Gaming PC and console peripherals (with other retailers matching or beating Logitech’s pricing). Some notable deals include the G Pro X Superlight 2 gaming mouse and Astro A50 X headset. The former is down to $134.99 ($25 off) in white at Amazon and $139.99 at Best Buy (or $143.99 in all three colors from Logitech), while the lat

Logitech is taking 10 percent off a wide array of gaming peripherals

Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge Logitech is running a 10 percent off sale on its site through August 17th, extending some solid deals to a wide range of its G Gaming PC and console peripherals (with other retailers matching or beating Logitech’s pricing). Some notable deals include the G Pro X Superlight 2 gaming mouse and Astro A50 X headset. The former is down to $134.99 ($25 off) in white at Amazon and $139.99 ($20 off) at Best Buy (or $143.99 in all three colors from Logitech), whi

Epic judge says he’ll ‘tear the barriers down’ on Google’s app store monopoly

Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge Judge James Donato just made it crystal-clear: Google will pay.Eight months after a federal jury unanimously decided that Google’s Android app store is an illegal monopoly in Epic v. Google, Donato held his final hearing on remedies today. While we don’t yet know what will happen, he repeatedly shut down any suggestion that Google shouldn’t have to open up its store to rival stores, or that it’d be too much work, or cost too much,

iPhones will help decide offside violations in English soccer this season

Detecting an offside violation can be difficult. | Photo by Dan Istitene/Getty Images The UK’s top soccer league is switching up the tech it uses to detect offside violations on the football pitch. The English Premier League (EPL) has contracted with a company called Genius Sports, which will use dozens of iPhones combined with machine-learning models to help game officials make an offside call.
Offside violations aren’t always clear-cut, especially when players are grouped in a way

Valve is now hiding meme-y and ASCII art reviews on Steam store pages

Image: The Verge Valve has started publicly testing sorting reviews in the Steam store based on how well they help players make purchase decisions about games.Historically we’ve sorted reviews by the number of ‘helpful’ votes given to each review by other players. However, we’ve seen that many players use reviews for sharing jokes, memes, ascii art and other content that might not be the most helpful for a potential purchaser.Its solution to the problem is the new “

The FTC’s fake review crackdown begins this fall

Image: Cath Virginia/ The Verge The Federal Trade Commission has announced a final rule banning companies from creating or selling fake reviews, including AI-generated ones. Once it goes into effect, the FTC can take action against companies that violate the policy.
The new rule could help address AI-generated reviews that pop up on sites across the web, including Amazon. Here are the types of deceptive practices the FTC’s new rule prohibits:Offering incentives to customers in exchan

This head-tracking spinning chair could make VR less nauseating

The Roto VR Explorer chair can make VR feel more immersive by spinning in response to the user’s head movements. | Image: Rotovrltd The Roto VR Explorer chair is designed to make VR experiences feel more immersive (and less nauseating) by pairing real-world movements with what’s seen in a headset. By simply spinning a sitting user in place, it’s able to do that in a much smaller footprint than other solutions like the Virtuix Omni treadmill or Disney’s Holo Tile treadmill

Teslashould probably fix more of those whompy wheels, NHTSA says

Tesla The US National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is recommending Tesla expand an existing service bulletin that aims to fix older Tesla Model S and X vehicles suffering suspension failures. The suggestion comes from the agency’s Office of Defects Investigation (ODI), which just concluded its probe into the matter after finding 426 instances of the particular defect on Tesla vehicles.
As reported by Ars Technica, the defect is known in the larger Tesla community as th

Apple’s next big project might be a tabletop robot / iPad

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge Apple reportedly has “a team of several hundred people” working on a new product that attaches an iPad-style display to a robotic arm that uses actuators to tilt up and down as well as spin 360 degrees, according to a report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman.The tabletop device could reportedly serve multiple purposes, letting you control your smart home, attend video conferences, monitor home security, and more.
Gurman has reported rumors of

Disney wants to dismiss a wrongful death lawsuit because of a Disney Plus agreement

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Disney wants a Florida court to dismiss a wrongful death lawsuit at a Disney-affiliated restaurant based on terms of service for the entertainment giant’s website and streaming video services. The company argues that a couple agreed to an arbitration clause when one of them bought tickets to Disney World — and in an even more distant connection, when signing up for Disney Plus years before.
The lawsuit, filed in February, concerns a 42-year-old

Exclusive: Sonos considers relaunching its old app

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Sonos has explored the possibility of rereleasing its previous mobile app for Android and iOS — a clear sign of what an ordeal the company’s hurried redesign has become. The Verge can report that there have been discussions high up within Sonos about bringing back the prior version of the app, known as S2, as the company continues toiling away at improving the performance and addressing bugs with the overhauled design that rolled out in May to a flood

Alien: Romulus is a solid franchise tribute plagued by weird optics

Image: 20th Century Studios Though Fede Álvarez’s new Alien film is gorgeous, its questionable optics leave much to be desired.Continue reading…

It’s now even easier to create Google Sheets tables

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google recently introduced a new table formatting feature in Sheets that made it far easier to create self-contained, sortable blocks of cells inside a spreadsheet. But the company didn’t stop there and seems to be rapidly updating the software with features that make it faster to set up, configure, and view data within a table.
The latest update, which is rolling out in stages now, builds on its earlier addition of table formatting by adding “