Science, Technology, and Social Media

Data loss can happen to your users whose data is stored in the G Suite cloud on Google Drive. Backing up your Google Drive data is extremely important and allows recovering data in the event of accidental or intentional data loss due to human error or due to security threats like ransomware. Let’s take a look at the best backup ...

Apple announced a $2.5 billion plan to help combat the housing crisis in California, according to a Monday press release from the tech giant. The Silicon Valley staple is one of many, including Facebook and Google, taking steps to address the state’s housing shortage that came in part after the tech giants invaded the area, bringing thousands of jobs and ...

Hackers targeted multiple government officials in U.S.-allied countries through the Facebook-owned WhatsApp, according to people familiar with the messaging app’s investigation. The perpetrators, who used WhatsApp to take over 1,400 users’ phones between April 2019 and May 2019, hacked a “significant” number of high-profile government and military officials’ phones across 20 countries, people familiar with the WhatsApp investigation said, according ...

Google said it mistakenly disapproved a video advertisement about radical climate-change ideals by Capital Research Center. “This ad was mistakenly disapproved because it linked to an article about the terrorist Ted Kacyzinski,” a Google spokesperson told the Daily Caller News Foundation. CRC President Scott Walter told the DCNF that a Google representative originally told him a video that is critical ...

All drones used by the Interior Department that were manufactured in China or were made with Chinese parts will be grounded, the department announced Wednesday. The department will ground more than 800 drones until its review of potential national security risks is completed, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing Interior Department Secretary David Bernhardt. “Secretary Bernhardt is reviewing the Department ...

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey decided Wednesday to ban all political ads heading into the 2020 election even as his counterpart at Facebook defended a move to exempt politicians from fact checks. Dorsey noted in a long thread that politicians’ ability to use Twitter to target audiences through ads is different from advertising on broadcast TV or other television platforms. Politicians ...

The Trump administration tossed a curveball Friday at Amazon and awarded a $10 billion cloud contract the company was expecting to land to one of the tech titan’s biggest competitors, Microsoft. The decision came as a shock to Amazon, which had long been considered a front-runner for the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI. It came after President Donald Trump, ...

The hole in the ozone layer shrank to its smallest size since scientists began recording it, NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Monday. The ozone layer hole, which roughly sits above Antarctica, experienced massive retraction in September and October due to “abnormal” weather patterns in the upper atmosphere, resulting in its smallest size since scientists began observing ...

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg pushed back Thursday against critics who believe his company’s new advertisement policies will allow politicians to lie and misinform voters ahead of the election. Zuckerberg defended the new ad policy, which largely exempts politicians from Facebook’s fact checkers, during an interview with The Washington Post, telling reporters that Americans probably don’t want a company being the ...

Some environmentally conscious Californians are resorting to using gasoline power as the state’s power utility employs roving blackouts to avoid potential wildfires. Tesla warned its customers Wednesday to be aware of the problems and fully energize their vehicles instead of relying on half-power. Two electric vehicle owners in the state say they are not taking any chances and will rely ...

Iranian hackers have been trying to get into the email accounts of at least one presidential campaign, multiple American journalists and current and former U.S. government officials according to Microsoft. The hackers have support from Iran’s government and made over 2,700 attempts to identify email accounts of various individuals, a Friday Microsoft report says. Microsoft did not name the targeted ...

Attorney General William Barr sent a letter to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg on Thursday asking him to halt a privacy program that could potentially hide criminal evidence by encrypting messages. Barr’s letter says that while encryption is important, Facebook must take necessary steps to ensure that such a program does not hurt law enforcements’ efforts to catch criminals who operate ...

Facebook plans to exempt opinion content and political advocacy organizations from the social media giant’s independent fact checking efforts, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday, citing anonymous sources. The company plans to also allow publishers of information found to be false to appeal directly to Facebook, sources told TheWSJ, adjusting previous operating procedure that restricted brands and individuals to appealing ...

The Trump administration is urging the Supreme Court to stay out of a years-long copyright dispute between tech giants Google and Oracle.  Oracle says Google impermissibly copied its computer code to build its Android operation system, which services over 2 billion smartphones.  Google is facing a damages award that could total $8 billion. The Trump administration urged the Supreme Court ...

SpaceX’s Starship and Super Heavy launch vehicle is a fully, rapidly reusable transportation system designed to carry both crew and cargo to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars, and anywhere else in the solar system. On Saturday, September 28 at the SpaceX launch facility in Cameron County, Texas, SpaceX Chief Engineer and CEO Elon Musk will provide an update on the ...