It seems like every day we get closer to being able to do anything and everything through Facebook. The latest step is ordering food for delivery via the social network behemoth. That's right, the company is now testing new feature that allows both web and mobile app users to look up nearby restaurants and place an order, all without leaving Facebook.
The networking needs of modern homes are no longer as simple as they were just years ago. That's thanks to the proliferation of connected devices, including smart home products, as well as the variety of Internet technologies snaking their way into our houses. Sometimes, the generic networking equipment from service providers are no longer enough. That is why Linksys continually puts out new routers, like its latest tri-band MU-MIMO EA9300, as well as its first ever cable modem router.
Facebook is once again planning to adjust your News Feed, this time to reduce the number of links you see that lead to spammy and/or advertisement-filled websites. The move aims to improve the quality of content that users see, eliminating things that Facebook decides are 'sensational,' 'misleading,' or 'spammy.' In their place will be links to things that Facebook considers more informative. The change is beginning to roll out to users starting today.
If you've been following the Nuggs for Carter saga on Twitter (and let's be honest: it's been hard to ignore), then you might like to know that it appears to be done today. The whole ordeal kicked off when Carter Wilkerson asked Wendy's how many retweets he'd need to win a free year of chicken nuggets. Wendy's reply offered a magic number of 18 million, sparking one of the biggest social media stories of the year thus far.
It seems that the fight for net neutrality is back on, and just like last time, John Oliver is trying to rally people to the cause. In a segment during Sunday's episode of Last Week Tonight, Oliver lambasted the new FCC chairman Ajit Pai as he looks to rollback Obama-era net neutrality protections. With the FCC now accepting comments from the public on the matter, it seems John Oliver saw a chance to strike.
Gone are the days when homes had at most one or two connected devices. Excluding the growing army of smart home devices, each household would have at least one main computer, two or more smartphones, one "family use" tablet, and maybe more. As that number continues to rise, home owners are faced with tasks and challenges no different from network administrators. To make those tasks less daunting, Comcast is launching its new Xfinity xFi, a veritable command center for managing your home Wi-Fi network.
In front of a Senate hearing committee SpaceX confirmed this week their plans to create a global internet provider service using space satellites. This service would not be free, but would assist in the FCC's goal of covering the United States with at least 25 megabits per second (“Mbps”) broadband service. SpaceX is not "giving the world internet" for free - as some news sources have misunderstood and reported - instead, they're planning to profit from a service that's sorely needed by the planet.
Some Google Docs users were hit with a very convincing, very real-looking phishing email today that some, unfortunately, fell for. The email claimed that someone had shared a document with the Google user, who would then click on the link and be taken to a real Google page to select their Gmail account. Choosing the account, though, led to a fishy page that requested access to the user's account, and it only got worse from there.
Fake news, meet real news. Social media has recently come under fire for its role in the spread of fake news, and various networks have tried to address the problem in different ways. Twitter seems to have opted to fight fake news by increasing the amount of its real news content. That will be via a soon to be announced partnership with Bloomberg, which, among other things, is expected ti bring in the ad revenues Twitter is in dire need of.
If falling for an email phishing scam is on your list of embarrassments as a tech user, you can now feel a little better, as two titans in the industry have been confirmed to have recently fallen for the same type of security mishap: none other than Facebook and Google. Last month it was reported that the US Department of Justice had arrested and charged Lithuanian man for a phishing scheme that had two tech companies on the hook for $100 million, and now they've been named.
Streaming set-top-boxes and sticks are available widely on websites like eBay, and many of them are preinstalled with 'piracy add-ons' that make it easy to watch content outside the bounds of legal sites. A particularly popular example is the Amazon Fire Stick jailbroken with Kodi installed, which is itself used to access illegally-provided TV shows and movies through various repos. One Dutch seller of these products was recently the subject of a legal matter that made its way to the EU, which has now ruled that the sale of such devices is illegal.
Twitter today released a letter to shareholders documenting the progress it made in Q1 2017. Unfortunately for Twitter, the letter doesn't hold many surprises for those who have been following its business side for a while now. The good news is that things like daily active users are up year-over-year, but the bad news is that Twitter is still having a hard time making money from those users.
