Facebook Working On Burying Those Lousy Memories
San Jose, Calif. — Don’t go breaking my heart, Facebook. It’s a sentiment shared by people like 48-year-old San Jose resident Beth Burkley, who gets caught off guard when she sees reminders of her ex pop up on social media. “I have a couple of ex boyfriends that I’m still friends with on Facebook. We keep in touch,” she said. “Then there are others who I hope if I ever run into them again, it’s (with) the front end of my car,” she...
It Might Not Help To Have Workers Change Passwords
Most office drones have had to deal with a job that requires them to keep changing their passwords like clockwork, maybe every six months or so. The longstanding IT security practice is based on the idea that flushing out old passwords will cut off access for bad guys who may have figured them out. But according to the Federal Trade Commission’s chief technologist, Lorrie Cranor, the strategy has some major holes. “Unless there is...
Virtual Reality, Driverless Cars To Grow in 2016
Virtual reality, connected cars, e-sports, the on-demand economy — all are becoming important elements in the economy, and all are poised for rapid growth in 2016 — along with some challenges. And then there’s Snapchat Inc., based in Venice, Calif., and one of the most highly valued companies currently competing in the latest venture-capital-juiced start-up cycle, which many believe is way overheated. Snapchat The popular disappearing...
Oracle Ordered by the FTC To Repair Flawed Software
Washington — Oracle, one of the nation’s largest tech companies, is settling federal charges that it misled consumers about the security of its software, which is installed on roughly 850 million computers around the world. The company won’t be paying a fine, and it isn’t admitting to any wrongdoing or fault in its settlement with the Federal Trade Commission. But Oracle will be required to tell consumers explicitly if they have...
Yahoo Shuts Users Out of E-Mail
Yahoo confirmed reports that it is preventing some Yahoo Mail users from seeing their e-mails until they turn off their ad-blocking software. Users started complaining about two weeks ago on social media and ad-blocking forums that a message prompting them to disable ad-blocking software appeared when they tried to view their e-mail. On Monday, a company spokeswoman said the notices were a limited experiment. “At Yahoo, we are...
