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A vulnerability in Philips Hue smart lightbulbs and their controller bridges could allow intruders to infiltrate networks with a remote exploit, Check Point Software Technologies has disclosed. The researchers notified the owner of the Philips Hue brand about the vulnerability, and it issued a patch...

Google misdirected a number of private videos that users of its Google Photos app intended to back up to Google Takeout, sending them instead to strangers' archives. The company emailed affected users to inform them that a technical issue caused the error. Google recommended that affected users back...

The United States Department of Justice has filed complaints in two landmark cases calling for temporary restraining orders against five companies and three individuals alleged to have carried hundreds of millions of fraudulent robocalls to American consumers. "This is the first time the DoJ is taki...

The United States Department of Homeland Security last week released a report outlining its plans to combat online counterfeit product sellers. The value of counterfeit goods traded internationally rose from $200 billion in 2005 to $509 billion in 2016, according to DHS. Infringing goods valued at $...

A digital forensic analysis conducted by business advisory firm FTI Consulting concludes with "medium to high confidence" that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos' smartphone was hacked through a malicious file sent from the WhatsApp account of Saudi Arabian crown prince Mohammed bin Salman. The malware was in an...

Uber has launched a pilot program that lets drivers in three California cities set their own fares for airport rides. Drivers can set a fare multiple on Uber's base, time, and distance rates for UberX and UberXL trips. They can increase the fare in 10 percent jumps up to five times Uber's base price...

Google has inked a deal to acquire 6-year-old Ireland-based firm Pointy for $163 million. Pointy provides a $900 box with built-in cellular connectivity, which lets brick-and-mortar retailers list their stock online. It plugs into the retailer's barcode scanner and automatically obtains accurate pro...

Adobe has announced the availability of Adobe Experience Manager as a Cloud Service for B2B and B2C companies of all sizes. The service provides "a globally scalable, agile and secure digital foundation that optimizes marketer and developer workflows across the entire content lifecycle, and connects...

PR companies long have been known for reshaping perceptions to favor their clients. Some now engage in "black PR" -- the calculated spread of disinformation and misinformation online. For example, entrepreneur Peng Kuan Chin's "Content Farm Automatic Collection System" harvests online articles and p...

Facebook has promised to remove certain "misleading manipulated media": videos edited or synthesized in ways not apparent to an average person, which likely would mislead viewers to believe that video subjects said words they did not say; products of artificial intelligence or machine learning that ...

Amazon, Apple, Google and the Zigbee Alliance are teaming up on a new IP-based standard for smart home device connectivity. Connected Home over IP will be an open source project. A working group will define a specific set of networking technologies to enable communication across smart home devices, ...

Amazon third-party sellers will not be able to ship Prime customers' orders using FedEx Ground and FedEx Home, as of Wednesday. "We have seen a drop in the delivery performance of FedEx Ground and FedEx Home ship methods for Seller Fulfilled Prime shipments," Amazon told sellers. The restriction is ...

Google has released an update to its Chrome browser with a slew of new features that are heavy on security. The new version offers improved password protection over earlier versions, real-time phishing protection, and predictive phishing tools. Fifty-one security fixes is high compared with past Chr...

Apple's Intelligent Tracking Prevention feature has made it difficult for online advertisers to use cookies to target Safari users based on their browsing habits. Third-party cookies "serve as the foundation for almost all advertising use cases," noted Jordan Mitchell, head of consumer privacy, iden...

Among the highlights of Amazon Web Services re:Invent are three announcements that strengthen its presence in the enterprise hybrid IT infrastructure market: AWS is teaming with Verizon to deliver 5G edge cloud computing; the first AWS Local Zone is located in Los Angeles; and AWS Outposts are gener...

Amazon Web Services has announced Amazon Braket, a fully managed quantum computing service. Braket will let scientists, researchers and developers experiment with computers from multiple quantum hardware providers -- D-Wave, IonQ or Rigetti -- in one place. Users can build and test their circuits in...

Google plans to launch checking accounts next year. "We're exploring how we can partner with banks and credit unions in the United States to offer smart checking accounts through Google Pay, helping their customers benefit from useful insights and budgeting tools," a spokesperson said. "Our lead par...

Google plans to use performance badges to warn users of slow-loading websites ahead. It will consider historical load latencies first, and later may expand to signal the likelihood that a page will load slowly based on the user's device and network conditions. The criteria will become increasingly s...

UPS has announced the first two revenue-generating residential deliveries of prescribed medicines to consumers. Its drone delivered the prescription medications from a CVS pharmacy in Cary, North Carolina, to a consumer's home, and to a customer in a retirement community. The drone flew autonomously...

Businesses have been using secret scores created by data brokers to determine how much to charge consumers, whether to allow purchase returns, and what level of service to offer, among other things. "Most consumers will never know when they are the victim of a secret surveillance score," noted Laura...