Science & Technology

GoDaddy's security issues have reared up once again. The cybersecurity blog Krebs on Security reported Saturday that hackers managed to fool employees at the well-known web hosting company into briefly kneecapping a couple of cryptocurrency trading websites. These included Liquid and NiceHash, which confirmed separate attacks over the span of just a few days earlier in November.  The Krebs on Security post gets into all the nitty-gritty technical details, but basically whoever was behind these attacks managed to convince GoDaddy employees to hand over control of Liquid's and NiceHash's domains for some tomfoolery. In NiceHash's case, email traffic was redirected without authorization from the site's managers and user funds had to be frozen for 24 hours. Read more...More about Cybersecurity, Phishing, Godaddy, Cryptocurrency, and Phishing Attacks

On Nov. 17, Twitter ripped off the Stories feature that Snapchat popularized and Instagram popularized even further. Twitter's version is called Fleets and unfortunately, it didn't take long for people to find a way to subvert the 24-hour expiration timer. Twitter user donk_enby posted a thread that went viral over the weekend highlighting a bug in Twitter's back-end that would allow users to view a Fleet well after it should have expired. What's worse is that the user who posted the Fleet wouldn't even see a notification that it had been viewed.  The good news? Twitter is aware of this and confirmed to TechCrunch that a fix would come in short order. Read more...More about Twitter, Social Media, Social Network, Stories, and Social Media Companies

It's been almost four years since since our first "digital" president handed over the presidential Twitter keys to Donald Trump. Barack Obama's transition from the Oval Office in 2017 was the first time many official Twitter accounts (and other social media pages on Instagram, Facebook, Medium, and beyond) were archived. On Twitter, other more generic accounts like "@POTUS" were passed onto Trump.  Of course, Trump has continued to use his personal Twitter as his main communication tool. That will presumably remain active after his one-term presidency, unless he gets himself kicked off the platform. Twitter doesn't have it labeled as a U.S. government account, but it is verified. Read more...More about Twitter, Donald Trump, 2020 Election, Tech, and Social Media Companies

There's something off about Douglas.  He's touted by his creators as the "most realistic real-time autonomous digital human in the world." If that's true, then I don't think the best the world has to offer is quite good enough. Douglas is being developed by Digital Domain, a visual effects titan that has worked on movies including Titanic and the last two Avengers releases, as well as video games like Destiny and Assassin's Creed Odyssey. He's certainly an impressive creation visually, but once conversations get rolling, you can really tell that he's an imposter. Digital Domain modeled Douglas off of its senior director of software R&D, Doug Roble, capturing his facial structure, movements, and mannerisms from all angles, as well as his voice. By creating as realistic a model as possible, the goal of Douglas is to make conversations between humans and machines feel easier and more natural. Read more...More about Digital Assistants, Tech,

Just days after Twitter premiered Fleets, its version of Stories, the company had to scale back on the roll-out to fix some bugs. But even in that short amount of time, one group in particular took advantage of the new feature: reply guys. While this isn't wholly surprising, as reply guys have become just another consequence of being a woman on the internet, it's still alarming. Instead of just replying to a tweet and possibly getting lost in the ether (or muted, or blocked), Fleet-repliers now end up right in the user's DMs.  Some people have already caught onto how Fleet's current system could benefit reply guys. And Rachel E. Greenspan, a reporter for Insider, observed in a tweet, "The reply guys have pivoted to fleet replies at a wild pace." Read more...More about Tech, Twitter, Harassment, Social Media, and Culture

In November 2017, after an absolutely massive, two-month rally, Bitcoin passed $10,000 for the first time. And then, over the next 20 days, it soared even higher, reaching a price of $19,665 and roughly $329 billion in market cap, according to CoinGecko.  The moment felt unreal. How did this new digital asset rise from being an obscure playground for cryptography geeks to something worth hundreds of billions? Even then, unable to categorize it as a currency or commodity, many experts prophesied Bitcoin's demise, comparing it to the Dutch tulip mania of the 1630s, when tulip bulb prices reached exorbitant highs only to collapse. Read more...More about Bitcoin, Tech, and Cryptocurrency Blockchain

Bobacino is a fully automated boba bar equipped with a robotic arm, boba dispenser, tea on tap, and more. Its creators hope to put Bobacinos in malls, airports, and colleges.  Read more...More about Mashable Video, Robot, Boba, Bubble Tea, and Robot Chef

Mark Zuckerberg's drive for profits might end with their deaths.  So argue the more than 200 content moderators who published an open letter Wednesday accusing the Facebook CEO of hypocrisy and a wanton disregard for their health during a raging pandemic. In demanding many return to the office, the moderators insist, both Zuckerberg and the CEOs of content moderation companies CPL and Accenture have taken the psychologically taxing job of content moderation and added the deadly element of coronavirus exposure.  The letter, which was also posted to Facebook's Workplace channels, lays out both a list of grievances and demands. It also highlights Zuckerberg's wealth gains — he has almost doubled his during the pandemic — while noting that content moderators aren't even getting hazard pay.  Read more...More about Facebook, Social Media, Coronavirus, Tech, and Social Media Companies

No video is safe from advertising on YouTube now. On Wednesday, the platform announced an update to its Terms of Service. The big takeaway: The Google-owned mammoth will begin to show advertising on videos that aren’t part of the YouTube Partner Program (YPP). This means that YouTube will show ads on videos where creators wouldn’t even receive a cut of the revenue. Previously, the company would only show ads on videos that could be monetized by the user that uploaded them to their channel. This is honestly wrong. They will be putting ads on our content and not giving us a dime on it? Do better, youtube. Do betterhttps://t.co/fEQ4K18eCk — Mila (@milaplayssims) November 18, 2020 Read more... More about Youtube, Monetization, Tech, Social Media Companies, and Big Tech Companies