Social media platforms are being urged to be far more transparent about how their services operate and to make “anonymised high-level data” available to researchers so the technology’s effects on users — and especially on children and teens — can be better understood. The calls have been made in a report by the UK parliament’s […]
View More Social media should have “duty of care” towards kids, UK MPs urgeCategory: mobile technology
China continues 5G push despite economic slowdown and Huawei setbacks
China will fast-track the issuance of commercial licenses for 5G as part of a national plan to boost consumer spending, said a notice published this week by the National Development and Reform Commission. The move appears to be multifaceted, for 5G plays a key role in China’s bid to lead the global technology race and one […]
View More China continues 5G push despite economic slowdown and Huawei setbacksDespite promises to stop, US cell carriers are still selling your real-time phone location data
Last year, four of the largest U.S. cell carriers were caught selling and sending real-time location data of their customers to shady companies that sold it on to big spenders, who would use the data to track anyone “within seconds” for whatever reason they wanted. At first, a little-known company LocationSmart was obtaining (and leaking) […]
View More Despite promises to stop, US cell carriers are still selling your real-time phone location dataVerizon and T-Mobile call out AT&T over fake 5G labels
AT&T recently started a shady marketing tactic that labeled its 4G network as a 5G network. Now, rivals Verizon and T-Mobile are not having any of it. In an open letter, in which AT&T is not named directly, Verizon says in part “the potential to over-hype and under-deliver on the 5G promise is a temptation […]
View More Verizon and T-Mobile call out AT&T over fake 5G labelsAT&T is lying to customers with 5G marketing
After a recent update some AT&T phones now have a 5G E icon. This icon replaces the one indicated the phone is running on a 4G network. But here’s the thing: The phone is still on a 4G network. AT&T has played these games before, too. This nonsense is a marketing ploy by AT&T. The […]
View More AT&T is lying to customers with 5G marketingMeet Shuttle, the company that’s building a booking agent for spaceflight
Avery Haskell says he first knew he wanted to be an astronaut ever since he was a boy growing up in Houston near NASA’s Johnson Space Center. The 24 year-old Stanford graduate who counts Stephen Hawking and Carl Sagan as his heroes, grew up in an entrepreneurial family. In the early days of the Internet […]
View More Meet Shuttle, the company that’s building a booking agent for spaceflightSIM swap hacker caught in Florida
Florida police have arrested a 25-year-old named Ricky Joseph Handschumacher. The young man is suspected of grand theft and money laundering. Handschumacher used SIM swapping techniques to steal thousands in Bitcoin and to “drain bank accounts,” according to security researcher Brian Krebs. Handschumacher’s scam was simple: He called telecom operators and asked them to swap […]
View More SIM swap hacker caught in FloridaApp marketing platform AppLovinlaunches mobile application publishing studio, Lion Studios
Selling much more than breadsticks and calamari, app marketing platform AppLovin has launched a new application publishing studio to allow developers (of primarily mobile games) to concentrate on building great apps while AppLovin takes care of everything else. The company declined to comment on how much it charges, or what kind of equity it may […]
View More App marketing platform AppLovinlaunches mobile application publishing studio, Lion StudiosSafaricom rolls out Bonga social networking platform to augment M-Pesa
Jake Bright Contributor Jake Bright is a writer and author in New York City. He is co-author of The Next Africa. More posts by this contributor Business solutions firm Africa’s Talking closes $8.6M round led by IFC Uber and Taxify are going head-to-head to digitize Africa’s two-wheeled taxis When it comes to monetizing digital social […]
View More Safaricom rolls out Bonga social networking platform to augment M-PesaParticle brings an LTE cellular model to market for networked devices working off of 2G and 3G
Particle, a developer of networking hardware and software for connected devices, has released an LTE-enabled module for product developers. The new device specifically targets folks whose devices were reliant on retiring 2G and 3G networks, according to the company, and includes built-in cloud and SIM support. Even as big telecom companies and vendors move ahead […]
View More Particle brings an LTE cellular model to market for networked devices working off of 2G and 3GOscar Health raises $165 million at reported $3B valuation
Oscar Health, the startup run by Josh Kushner (yes, brother of Jared), has raised $165 million at a reported valuation of $3.2 billion, CNBC’s Christina Farr reports. The funding comes from Alphabet’s Capital G investment company and Verily life sciences corporation, Founders Fund and others. Oscar’s goal is to outpace existing industry-leading insurers, including UnitedHealth […]
View More Oscar Health raises $165 million at reported $3B valuationThe un-lonely planet
It used to be easy to get lost. Pick up your passport, board an airplane, and zoom, you were gone, disconnected, all on your own, until and unless you stopped by an Internet cafe or an international phone booth. Nowadays my T-Mobile plan gives me free data roaming in more than a hundred countries, and even those without, like Vietnam, where I write this, tend to have near-ubiquitous… Read More