In these days of anti-tech ire, it’s a popular cocktail hour topic: How much is Facebook making off my data? Last year, I spent a month trying to find out, hawking my personal data on blockchain-based marketplaces. I came away with $0.003. On Monday, when Senator Mark Warner (D-Virginia) announced a proposal to force tech companies to tell users the value of their data, he was slightly more generous, ballparking the average at $5 a month. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices...
Jun 27, 2019•6 min
Consumers are hungry for data. To give it to them, mobile carriers say they need access to more of the wireless spectrum that carries cellular data, broadcast programming, and all other wireless signals. Carriers complain that the parts of the spectrum reserved for smartphone use are increasingly crowded, at least in urban areas. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Jun 26, 2019•6 min
Every stranger’s face hides a secret, but the smiles in this crowd conceal a big one: These people do not exist. They were generated by machine learning algorithms, for the purposes of probing whether AI-made faces can pass as real. (Call it a Turing beauty contest. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Jun 26, 2019•2 min
San Francisco said goodbye to e-cigarettes, an airplane maker went all-electric, and a Minnesota cop was awarded money because of her snooping colleagues. Here's the news you need to know, in two minutes or less. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Jun 25, 2019•2 min
On Tuesday the San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to suspend the sale and delivery of electronic cigarettes until the products are approved by the Food and Drug Administration. The legislation, which still requires a second vote and the mayor’s signature, would go into effect seven months after being passed, giving e-cigarette makers until early next year to win approval from the FDA. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices...
Jun 24, 2019•8 min
Alphabet, Google’s parent company, faced an onslaught of 14 independent shareholder proposals during its annual meeting on Wednesday, most criticizing the concentration of power in the hands of a few executives and all demanding some kind of structural change to make the company more accountable—to workers, shareholders, Chinese dissidents, or prospective neighbors of Google’s planned campus in San Jose. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices...
Jun 20, 2019•5 min
One evening in April, a California law enforcement officer was browsing Facebook when she saw a post from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children with a picture of a missing child. The officer took a screenshot of the image, which she later fed into a tool created by nonprofit Thorn to help investigators find underage sex-trafficking victims. The tool, called Spotlight, uses text- and image-processing algorithms to match faces and other clues in online sex ads with other evidence....
Jun 20, 2019•8 min
Near the end of 2017, on a Dominican Republic beach with his family, Facebook executive David Marcus wrestled with a question he’d been pondering since his previous job as president of PayPal. How would you build the internet of money? A friction-free global digital currency would be a boon for the many people with mobile phones but no access to banking. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Jun 19, 2019•15 min
Huawei may be feeling the sting of US efforts to rein in the Chinese telecom giant. In April, Huawei reported a 39 percent increase in first-quarter revenue, despite US efforts to dissuade allies from doing business with the firm. But the company now expects its revenue to decline to $100 billion this year from $107 billion last year, founder and CEO Ren Zhengfei said during an event Monday. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices...
Jun 19, 2019•3 min
Presidential campaigns get compared to a lot of things. A marathon. A film. A battleship. An iceberg. An "MRI of the soul." More recently, the metaphor of choice has been the tech startup. Even amid a growing backlash to Big Tech, evoking a no-nonsense startup retains some appeal, with its suggestion of scrappy agility, innovation, and single-minded focus. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Jun 18, 2019•9 min
Since the Trump administration blocked sales by US companies to Chinese telecom giant Huawei last month, the world has waited for Beijing to retaliate. Previously, the trade conflict between the US and China centered on escalating tariffs. While tariffs make things more expensive; they don't cut off supplies entirely. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Jun 18, 2019•5 min
Nine states and the District of Columbia filed suit Tuesday to block T-Mobile and Sprint's planned $26.5 billion merger, complicating the companies’ path to completing the deal. The merger would cut the number of major wireless carriers in the US from four to three, but the two companies have argued the deal would help consumers by enabling the companies to expand coverage and build a nationwide 5G network more quickly than they would be able to on their own. Learn about your ad choices: dovetai...
Jun 17, 2019•5 min
In March, Matt Bratlien saw something odd in the spacious suburb of Silver Firs, north of Seattle. A six-wheeled robot with the Amazon Prime logo on its sky-blue carapace was driving up and down the sidewalks and curbs, watched by a company representative. “I was surprised, excited, and very curious,” says Bratlien, a partner at Net-Tech, an IT services company in nearby Bellevue. Tom Simonite covers artificial intelligence for WIRED. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices...
Jun 17, 2019•9 min
If you believe you may have stumbled into a cryptocurrency conference (godspeed, my friend), there are a few telltale signs. First, look for the live bulls and the yellow Lambos. But if they’ve fallen victim to cost-cutting or newfound modesty, then look for a procession of cream-colored cowboy hats. They belong to a retinue of lobbyists and legislators from Wyoming, preaching the virtues of their state as a mecca for blockchain. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices...
Jun 14, 2019•9 min
The operators of the only bitcoin mine in Missoula County, Montana, thought they were doing everything right. They set up shop in an abandoned mill on the edge of town, made a plan to recycle the computers when they conked out, and contracted with a nearby dam for cheap renewable power. Sure, it might be a warehouse full of energy-intensive computers and cooling systems, designed to churn out digital money day and night. But it would be a low-carbon, low-impact operation all the same. Learn abou...
Jun 14, 2019•7 min
The way Alexi Robichaux tells it, his online executive coaching company BetterUp didn’t start because he was a bummed-out, burned-out mid-level manager on a vision quest. Sure, he spent nine months of post-employment with self-improvement books, sports psychology, life coaching, executive coaching, and all sorts of other precision-guided gazes at his own navel. But that wasn’t what did it. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices...
Jun 13, 2019•9 min
Russia has millions of internet users. But if you want them to use your search engine, network on your social media platform, or use your messenger to share their favorite memes, then Russia wants you to know one thing: You have to play by its data-sharing rules. Tinder is the most recent platform to get the message. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Jun 13, 2019•9 min
Rumblings about the role of Big Tech in American society have coalesced into a storm long coming, with revelations that the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission are contemplating sweeping antitrust investigations of Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Apple. WIRED Opinion About Zachary Karabell is a WIRED contributor and president of River Twice Research. At any point in the past few years, these companies could have acted preemptively to head off the storm. Learn about your ad choic...
Jun 12, 2019•7 min
For years, the US government stood by as big tech companies like Facebook and Google growth hacked and gobbled up competitors on their way to dominance, with barely a mention of “anticompetitive” concerns. But that lax attitude is changing. Word continued to leak this week about possible antitrust investigations by the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission, who reportedly divvied up companies like a couple might divide household chores. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org...
Jun 12, 2019•7 min
The chatter about 5G is everywhere. It’s a worldwide race. It’s a security challenge. It’s a geopolitical battle between the United States and China. By some accounts, 5G is already here; by others, true 5G is still years away. There is more than a kernel of truth in this rhetorical excess. That’s because the next generation of essential infrastructure in this country will be built using wireless technology. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices...
Jun 11, 2019•7 min
Amazon isn’t exactly the most stylish place to shop for clothes. Most of its top-selling women’s fashion items are simple pieces: easy dresses, spandex workout gear, socks, and underwear—a lot of it from brands you’ve probably never heard of. But that doesn’t mean Amazon isn’t a powerhouse for apparel sales. As traditional department stores have declined, Amazon has become one of the most popular clothing retailers in the US, especially among millennials. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.pr...
Jun 11, 2019•6 min
Just when it seemed that things couldn't get much worse for Huawei, it may soon not be able to sell phones with the world’s most popular social networks. Facebook will reportedly no longer allow the Chinese telecom giant to preinstall Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram apps on its phones. According to Reuters, if you already have a Huawei phone you should be able to continue receiving updates to Facebook-owned apps. The change will only affect new phones. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx...
Jun 10, 2019•3 min
On Monday the House Judiciary committee announced a bipartisan antitrust probe that has Apple, Google, Facebook, and Amazon in its crosshairs. The news followed reports that the Federal Trade Commission is examining Amazon’s power over online retailing. Tom Simonite covers artificial intelligence for WIRED. Amazon’s founder and CEO Jeff Bezos appeared untroubled by that attention at a company conference in Las Vegas Thursday. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices...
Jun 10, 2019•4 min
YouTube has a child exploitation problem. In February, the platform disabled comments on millions of videos including children 13 and younger after WIRED UK revealed that pedophiles had used the feature to identify videos featuring snippets of nude or sparsely clothed children. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Jun 07, 2019•8 min
In May 2019, WIRED joined the One Free Press Coalition, a united group of pre-eminent editors and publishers using their global reach and social platforms to spotlight journalists under attack worldwide. Today, the coalition is issuing the fourth monthly “10 Most Urgent” list of journalists whose press freedoms are being suppressed or whose cases are seeking justice. Jamal Khashoggi, the murdered columnist for The Washington Post, remains atop the list following no independent U.N. Learn about y...
Jun 07, 2019•5 min
Amazon’s Alexa is ready to broaden its one-track mind. The virtual assistant can deliver weather forecasts and traffic updates, and tap more than 90,000 additional functions, or “skills,” contributed by outside developers. The catch is that you can generally do only one of those bounteous things at a time. Tom Simonite covers artificial intelligence for WIRED. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Jun 06, 2019•6 min
Last week, the Canadian social media company Kik---and an array of prominent backers in the crypto world---launched a $5 million campaign to fund an impending legal battle with the Securities and Exchange Commission. CEO Ted Livingston said the fight, which centers on Kik’s $100 million initial coin offering in 2017, was worth funding because it could have wide implications for blockchain startups, many of which used ICOs to fund their fledgling ventures. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.pr...
Jun 06, 2019•4 min
As tech giants and lobbying groups race to defang California’s landmark consumer privacy law before it takes effect next year, lawmakers on the other side of the country are considering a bill that's even more drastic. The New York Privacy Act, introduced last month by state senator Kevin Thomas, would give residents there more control over their data than in any other state. It would also require businesses to put their customers’ privacy before their own profits. Learn about your ad choices: d...
Jun 05, 2019•10 min
It is unclear how many people died when Chinese troops cleared pro-democracy protests from Beijing’s Tiananmen Square 30 years ago this week. Local authorities said it was 241. A cursory search of the web or social media will show that human rights organizations estimate a death toll many times higher—unless you’re in China. Tom Simonite covers artificial intelligence for WIRED. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Jun 04, 2019•9 min
Many Americans think Big Tech and Silicon Valley have too much power and need to be reigned in. Six weeks ago, it was hard to believe Washington had the political will to do much about that. Facebook had just said it would take a charge of up to $5 billion for an expected Federal Trade Commission fine related to its role in the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The reaction: Facebook’s stock stock jumped 6 percent to its highest price in nine months. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-c...
Jun 04, 2019•6 min
