Articles by John P. Mello Jr

Members of the U.S. House of Representatives on Monday introduced legislation that aims to protect online shoppers from purchasing counterfeit goods Titled "Stopping Harmful Offers on Platforms by Screening Against Fakes in E-Commerce," the proposed Shop Safe Act would do the following:...

YouTube's efforts to reduce the spread of conspiracy theories on the platform appear to be bearing fruit "Our analysis corroborates that YouTube acted upon its policy and significantly reduced the overall volume of recommended conspiratorial content," three researchers wrote in a study the University of California, Berkeley, released Monday....

Firefox users in the United States are getting an extra measure of privacy protection starting this week, the Mozilla Foundation announced Tuesday Firefox Desktop Product Development Vice President Selena Deckelmann heralded the rollout of encrypted DNS over HTTPS (DoH) by default in Mozilla's browser....

Microsoft whetted demand for its Xbox Series X product line on Monday with the revelation of some impressive specs for its next-generation gaming console Xbox Head Phil Spencer spilled the following details:...

A new extortion scheme targets users of Google's AdSense program The scam threatens to flood a website with bogus traffic until Google suspends the site's AdSense account unless the owner pays US$5,000 in bitcoin to avoid or stop the attack, security blogger Brian Krebs reported Monday....

Samsung refreshed its Galaxy smartphone line, introduced a new foldable phone, and upgraded its wireless earbuds offering at an event held Tuesday at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco Its three new flagship phones, pictured above, are all 5G ready. The S20 is priced at US$999, while the S20 Plus will sell for $1,199, and the S20 Ultra for $1...

Motorola's new foldable Razr phone has been garnering mediocre notices from early reviewers "If this phone didn't fold in half, it would be a solid mid-tier Android phone," Patrick Holland wrote for Cnet....

A coding error in an app used to count vote totals in the Democratic caucuses in Iowa has delayed the release of final tallies, the state's Democratic Party announced Tuesday Although the data collected by the app was sound, it was reporting only a portion of that data to party headquarters due a coding issue with its reporting system, the party ex...

A new iPhone app allows you to capture two high-quality video streams simultaneously from any of the mobile device's cameras Called "DoubleTake," the free software is produced by FiLMiC, based in Seattle, which also makes a pro-style video capture and editing app for the iPhone....

Motorola on Monday began taking orders for its US$1,499 Razr foldable smartphone. Units are expected to start shipping on Feb. 6 Motorola made its mark on the mobile handset business with the original Razr, introduced in 2004, which ushered in the era of flip phones....

Apple shelved plans to give iPhone users control over encrypted backups stored on the company's iCloud service over concerns raised by the FBI and internal sources, Reuters reported Tuesday The company made the decision to retain control over iCloud encryption around two years ago, but it came to light just recently, the news service noted, citing ...

Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and parent company Alphabet, on Monday called for government regulation of artificial intelligence technology in a speech at Bruegel, a think tank in Brussels, and in an op-ed in the Financial Times There is no question in Pichai's mind that artificial intelligence should be regulated, he reportedly said in Brussels. Th...

Apple and the U.S. Justice Department are at it again. This time it's over cracking a brace of iPhones owned by the Saudi Air Force cadet who killed three sailors in a shooting spree last month at the naval air station in Pensacola, Florida At a news conference held Monday to announce the findings of an investigation into the Pensacola incident, U....

The 300-plus mile trip between Cleveland and Chicago could take as little as 32 minutes by Hyperloop, according to a US$1.2 million feasibility study released earlier this week Hyperloop is the only form of high-speed transportation that is profitable and makes economic sense in the United States, maintains the 160-page study, a joint effort of Tra...

Measuring Broadband America, a 10-year-old FCC program to ensure that Internet service providers deliver on their connection speed promises to consumers, has become unreliable Companies including AT&T, Cox, Comcast and Verizon have been employing tactics to make their performance numbers look better than they actually are, The Wall Street Journal r...

Facebook on Monday rejected a request from the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia for a "backdoor" in its end-to-end encrypted messenger apps to help law enforcement agencies combat crime and terrorism "Cybersecurity experts have repeatedly proven that when you weaken any part of anencrypted system, you weaken it for everyone, everywhe...

Twitter on Monday announced its formation of a new Privacy Center to give users more clarity on what it does to protect the information people share The center will host everything relevant to Twitter's privacy and data protection work, including initiatives, announcements, new privacy products and communication about security incidents, Twitter Da...

The European Union has launched a probe into how Google and Facebook gather, process, use and monetize data for advertising purposes The European Commission, the EU's executive arm, on Monday told CNBC that it has begun distributing questionnaires as part of a preliminary investigation into Google's and Facebook's data practices. ...

Google on Tuesday raised the curtain on its Stadia streaming gaming platform, and the early reviews are mixed at best For US$129, gamers can get the hardware they need to take the service for a spin -- a Stadia controller, and a Chromecast Ultra for playing games on a TV....

Apple is getting into the medical research field with its recent announcement of three studies to be conducted through its Research app Apple Watch and iPhone users in the United States can use the app to enroll in the Apple Women's Health Study, the Apple Heart & Movement Study, and the Apple Hearing Study....