government News of 10/21/19

Swarm Gets Green Light From FCC For Its 150-Satellite Constellation

Swarm Technologies aims to connect smart devices around the world with a low-bandwidth but ever-present network provided by satellites — and it just got approval from the FCC to do so . Apparently the agency is no longer worried that ...

Every State But Alaska Has Reported Vape Lung Victims, Now Numbering 1,479 Nationwide

A lung condition apparently caused by vaping has been reported in every state but Alaska , the CDC has announced. The total number of suspected and confirmed cases has risen to 1,479, and at least 33 people have died as a result of the affliction. ...

Labor Leaders And Startup Founders Talk How To Build A Sustainable Gig Economy

Over the past few years, gig economy companies and the treatment of their labor force has become a hot button issue for public and private sector debate. At our recent annual Disrupt event in San Francisco, we dug into how founders, companies and ...

This App Waits On Hold For You

DoNotPay helps you get out of parking tickets, cancel forgotten subscriptions, and now it can call you when it’s your turn in a customer service phone queue. The app today is launching “Skip Waiting On Hold”. Just type in the ...

Justice Dept. Says It’S Taken Down ‘World’S Largest’ Child Exploitation Sites On The Dark Web

The Justice Department says it’s dismantled one of the largest child exploitation sites on the dark web. With the help of international partners in the U.K. and South Korea, U.S. prosecutors have brought charges against a South Korean citizen, ...

UK Quietly Ditches Porn Age Checks In Favor Of Wider Online Harms Rules

A controversial UK government scheme to introduce mandatary age checks for accessing online pornography has been dropped — for now. Introduction of the measure, which was intended to protect children from accessing inappropriate content ...

Twitter Says It Will Restrict Users From Retweeting World Leaders Who Break Its Rules

Twitter said it will restrict how users can interact with tweets from world leaders who break its rules. The social media giant said it will not allow users to like, reply, share or retweet the offending tweets, but instead will let users to ...

Google Pixel 4, Pixel 4 XL Not Launching In India

The Pixel 4 and Pixel XL smartphones , that Google just unveiled at a press conference in New York, won’t launch in India, one of the company’s key overseas markets, the Android-maker said on Tuesday. The bottleneck lies in the headline feature ...

Libra Claims 180 Potential Replacements For 7 Mutineers

Attempting to signal its popularity despite high-profile defections from Visa, Stripe, and more , the Facebook-led cryptocurrency Libra Assocation announced that 1,500 organizations have expressed interest in joining the Libra project . 180 of those ...

Why Each Libra Member’S Mutiny Hurts Facebook

There’s a strategic cost to the defection of Visa, Stripe, eBay, and more from the Facebook -led cryptocurrency Libra Association . They’re not just names dropping off a list. Each potentially made Libra more useful, ubiquitous, or ...

Pegging Libra Just To The $ Could Soothe Regulators, a16z Says

What if Libra wasn’t backed by a basket of international currencies, but only the dollar? Regulatory pushback to the Facebook-led cryptocurrency Libra has caused major partners including Visa, MasterCard, PayPal, and eBay to pull out of the ...

Amid Security Concerns, The European Union Puts 5g — And Huawei — Under The Microscope

The European Union is putting under the microscope the rollout of new, high-speed mobile networking technologies known as 5G in a move that could affect the technology’s dominant company — Huawei. Regulators focused on specific ...

Descartes Labs Snaps Up $20m More For Its AI-Based Geospatial Imagery Analytics Platform

Satellite imagery holds a wealth of information that could be useful for industries, science and humanitarian causes, but one big and persistent challenge with it has been a lack of effective ways to tap that disparate data for specific ends. ...

NASA’S New Moon-Bound Spacesuit Is Safer, Smarter, And Much More Comfortable

The next Americans to set foot on the Moon will do so in a brand new spacesuit that’s based on, but hugely improved from, the original Apollo suits that last went up there in the ’70s. With easier entry, better mobility, and improved ...

New Vector Scores $8.5m To Plug More Users Into Its Open, Decentralized Messaging Matrix

New Vector , a European startup founded in 2017 by the creators of an open, decentralized communications standard called Matrix to drive adoption and grow an ecosystem around an alternative messaging protocol for instant messaging and VoIP apps, ...

DHS Cyber Unit Wants To Subpoena ISPs To Identify Vulnerable Systems

Homeland Security’s cybersecurity division is pushing to change the law that would allow it to demand information from internet providers that would identify the owners of vulnerable systems, TechCrunch has learned. Sources familiar with the ...

Silicon Valley’S Competing Philosophies On Tech Ethics With The New Yorker’S Andrew Marantz

“If Silicon Valley is going to keep telling itself the story that the only uses of their technology will be the most optimistic, the most hopeful, the most salubrious, the most prosocial,” New Yorker staff writer Andrew Marantz told me in Part ...

Senate Report Says Russian Election Interference ‘Invariably’ Supported Trump, Recommends National PSA

A bipartisan Senate investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election released today definitively implicates the country in online operations designed specifically to get then-candidate Donald Trump elected. The tactics used were ...

Europe’S Recharged Antitrust Chief Makes Her Five Year Pitch To Be Digital EVP

Europe’s competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager, set for a dual role in the next Commission, faced three hours of questions from members of four committees in the European Parliament this afternoon, as MEPs got their chance to ...

Nadella Warns Government Conference Not To Betray User Trust

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, delivering the keynote at the Microsoft Government Leaders Summit in Washington, DC today, had a message for attendees to maintain user trust in their tools technologies above all else. He said it is essential to earn ...