Chinese space station Tiangong-2 is about to burn up over the Pacific
The final hours for China’s Tiangong-2 space station are at hand, as the 8-ton piece of hardware will fall to earth, or rather sea, some time in the next 20… Read more »
Category: Government
How Carl Pope helped drive a $500 million pledge to push the U.S. “Beyond Carbon” (Part 2)
Billionaire businessman and philanthropist Michael Bloomberg recently pledged to rapidly spend $500 million in a bid to push the U.S. “Beyond Carbon,” aiming to end this country’s use of coal… Read more »
How US national security agencies hold the internet hostage
Team Telecom, a shadowy US national security unit tasked with protecting America’s telecommunications systems, is delaying plans by Google, Facebook and other tech companies for the next generation of international… Read more »
FaceApp gets federal attention as Sen. Schumer raises alarm on data use
It’s been hard to get away from FaceApp over the last few days, whether it’s your friends posting weird selfies using the app’s aging and other filters, or the brief… Read more »
Facebook’s regulation dodge: Let us, or China will
Facebook is leaning on fears of China exporting its authoritarian social values to counter arguments that it should be broken up or slowed down. Its top executives have each claimed… Read more »
Highlights from Facebook’s Libra Senate hearing
Facebook will only build its own Calibra cryptocurrency wallet into Messenger and Whatsapp, and will refuse to embed competing wallets, the head of Calibra David Marcus told the Senate Banking… Read more »
What to expect from tomorrow’s antitrust hearing featuring big tech
Tomorrow, representatives from Facebook, Google, Amazon and Apple will testify before Congress in the second hearing organized as part of the House Judiciary Committee’s antitrust investigation into the world’s largest… Read more »
W(hy)TF are Japan and South Korea in a trade war?
Another week, another trade war. And unlike most trade wars these days, this one didn’t originate from the confines of the Rose Garden with the Marine One whirlybird in the… Read more »
As FTC cracks down, data ethics is now a strategic business weapon
Daniel Wu Contributor Dan Wu is a privacy counsel and legal engineer at Immuta. He holds a JD from Harvard University, and is a PhD candidate for Social Policy and… Read more »
Minimum investment for EB-5 investor green card expected to more than double
While not a startup visa, the EB-5 investor green card offers many entrepreneurs a path to a green card by investing money and creating jobs in the U.S. Under the… Read more »
TrickBot malware learns how to spam, ensnares 250M email addresses
Old bot, new tricks. TrickBot, a financially motivated malware in wide circulation, has been observed infecting victims’ computers to steal email passwords and address books to spread malicious emails from… Read more »
FEC says political campaigns can now get discounted cybersecurity help
In a long awaited decision, the Federal Elections Commission will now allow political campaigns to appoint cybersecurity helpers to protect political campaigns from cyberthreats and malicious attackers. The FEC, which… Read more »
India’s Android antitrust case against Google may have some holes
India ordered an investigation into Google’s alleged abuse of Android’s dominance in the country to hurt local rivals in April. A document made public by the local antitrust watchdog has… Read more »
FCC proposal would let it punish international robocallers
While the FCC and Congress hammer out new rules to (hopefully) banish robocalls forever, there are some short-term solutions that can help in the meantime — and one may arrive… Read more »
NASA picks a dozen science and tech projects to bring to the surface of the Moon
With the Artemis mission scheduled to put boots on lunar regolith as soon as 2024, NASA has a lot of launching to do — and you can be sure none… Read more »
India reportedly wants to build its own WhatsApp for government communications
India may have plans to follow France’s footsteps in building a chat app and requiring government employees to use it for official communications. The New Delhi government is said to… Read more »
NSA improperly collected Americans’ phone records for a second time, documents reveal
Newly released documents reveal the National Security Agency improperly collected Americans’ call records for a second time, just months after the agency was forced to purge hundreds of millions of… Read more »
UK law review eyes abusive trends like deepfaked porn and cyber flashing
The UK government has announced the next phase of a review of the law around the making and sharing of non-consensual intimate images, with ministers saying they want to ensure… Read more »
This robot crawls along wind turbine blades looking for invisible flaws
Wind turbines are a great source of clean power, but their apparent simplicity — just a big thing that spins — belie complex systems that wear down like any other,… Read more »
LTE flaws let hackers ‘easily’ spoof presidential alerts
Security vulnerabilities in LTE can allow hackers to “easily” spoof presidential alerts sent to mobile phones in the event of a national emergency. Using off-the-shelf equipment and open-source software, a… Read more »
Facebook adds new limits to address the spread of hate speech in Sri Lanka and Myanmar
As Facebook grapples with the spread of hate speech on its platform, it is introducing changes that limit the spread of messages in two countries where it has come under… Read more »
Risks and rewards of digital therapeutics in treating mental disorders
Madeline Stein & Michael Stein Contributor Share on Twitter Madeline Stein is a first year Doctorate student at Saybrook University studying Applied Psychophysiology within the College of Integrative Medicine and… Read more »
GoTenna is ramping up public sector mesh networking with a $24M C round
GoTenna is best known for its outdoors-oriented consumer products that let you text and share locations between smartphones off the grid. But the company has found that government work —… Read more »
After Equifax breach, US watchdog says agencies aren’t properly verifying identities
A federal watchdog says the government should stop relying on the credit agencies to verify the identifies of those using government services. In a report out this week, the the… Read more »
Days after pledging to expand internet, Ethiopia’s government shuts it off
Days after Ethiopian ICT officials made public pledges to improve net access, the government began playing on-again, off-again with the internet — shutting it down (almost completely) to coincide with… Read more »
Where is the EU going on tech and competition policy?
Huge technology policy questions are looming for whoever takes the top jobs at the European Union in the coming months. Decisions that could radically reshape tech business models, reconfigure the… Read more »
Every secure messaging app needs a self-destruct button
The growing presence of encrypted communications apps makes a lot of communities safer and stronger. But the possibility of physical device seizure and government coercion is growing as well, which… Read more »
SEC expands its war on cryptocurrency companies with a lawsuit against Kik
The Securities and Exchange Commission has sued Kik Interactive for the $100 million token sale the company announced two years ago. It’s an expansion of legal actions that began last… Read more »
China lays out official stance on trade talks with U.S.
On Sunday, China released a comprehensive white paper to formalize its positions on trade negotiations with the U.S. The set of statements come as the trade war escalates and Beijing… Read more »
Dissecting what Lyft’s IPO means for Uber and the future of mobility
Extra Crunch offers members the opportunity to tune into conference calls led and moderated by the TechCrunch writers you read every day. This week, TechCrunch’s Kirsten Korosec and Kate Clark… Read more »