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October 14, 2020
October 11, 2020 | technology | No Comments
October 10, 2020 | technology | No Comments
Ultimately, the subcommittee concluded that instead of preserving jobs, the Trump administration’s implementation of the Payroll Support Program “significantly weakened the Program’s impact on job preservation.”
The subcommittee’s assessment comes in stark contrast to how the program has played out for passenger airlines, which received the bulk of the more than $25 billion that was allocated to pay front-line workers. Airline and union leaders say the program saved tens of thousands of jobs until it expired Oct. 1 and have been aggressively pushing to extend it through the end of March.
“The Payroll Support Program has supported hundreds of thousands of aviation industry jobs, kept workers employed and connected to their healthcare, and played a critical role in preserving the U.S. airline industry,” the Treasury Department said in a statement. “Implementation focused first on the largest employers to help stabilize an industry in crisis and support as many jobs as
October 9, 2020 | technology | No Comments
President Donald Trump released a video message on Twitter on Thursday discussing his health and the treatment he received following his COVID-19 diagnosis.
In the video, Trump stands in the White House grounds. There was immediate speculation that the president was not in fact outside but had used a green screen to produce a false background.
Social media users raised the question of a green screen once Trump tweeted his video yesterday. The claim soon gained traction on Twitter and some prominent people began asking the question. Apparent distortions in the video, like the shadows and the background appearing to be on a loop, prompted the comments.
“I think it’s pretty clearly a green screen. The sharpness of the outline and the lighting. Also it’s a very long way to bring a sick president to shoot something when you have the Rose Garden,” wrote MSNBC host Chris Hayes.
October 8, 2020 | technology | No Comments
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Representative David Cicilline, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee’s antitrust subcommittee, said on Wednesday he would be “comfortable with unwinding” Facebook Inc’s acquisition of Instagram.
The antitrust subcommittee on Tuesday released a report on Big Tech’s abuses of market power but stopped short of naming specific companies or acquisitions that must be broken up.
Cicilline, a Democrat from Rhode Island, told Reuters in an interview that Facebook should not have been allowed to buy Instagram, a deal that the Federal Trade Commission approved in 2012.
“I would be comfortable with unwinding that. I think that’s the right answer,” he said.
Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment. It has said previously that Instagram was insignificant at the time it was purchased and that Facebook built it into the success it has become.
Any effort to unwind the deal would entail the government
October 7, 2020 | technology | No Comments
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House lawmakers have finally revealed the findings of their lengthy antitrust investigation
October 7, 2020 | technology | No Comments
The House Judiciary antitrust subcommittee released its report after investigating Big Tech.
Lawmakers from the US House of Representatives accused Facebook, Amazon, Google and Apple of “abuses of monopoly power” in a 449-page report released Tuesday. The House Judiciary antitrust subcommittee drew its conclusions after a 16-month investigation that culminated in an hours-long hearing with Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Apple’s Tim Cook and Google’s Sundar Pichai in July that featured tense exchanges portending a more critical view of Big Tech.
The report calls for restructuring and several other changes to rein in the companies. One recommendation tries to make it tougher for tech giants to buy up smaller companies that consolidates the industry. A “nondiscrimination requirements” suggestion aims to stop platforms from prioritizing their own products over those of rivals. The subcommittee also calls for the strengthening of antitrust laws and enforcement.
October 7, 2020 | technology | No Comments
Congressional investigators faulted Facebook for gobbling up potential competitors with impunity, and they concluded that Google improperly scraped rivals’ websites and forced its technology on others to reach its pole position in search and advertising. The lawmakers’ report labeled both of those firms as monopolies while faulting the federal government for failing to crack down on them sooner.
Amazon and Apple, meanwhile, exerted their own form of “monopoly power” to protect and grow their corporate footprints. As operators of two major online marketplaces — a world-leading shopping site for Amazon, and a powerful App Store for Apple — the two tech giants for years set rules that essentially put smaller, competing sellers and software developers at a disadvantage, the report found.
The House investigation stopped short of calling on the Trump administration to break up any of the companies. Instead, it proposed the most sweeping overhaul of U.S. antitrust law
October 6, 2020 | technology | No Comments
Democratic lawmakers are calling for the U.S. to rein in the power of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google, as well as overhauling U.S. antitrust law, in a sweeping report on the the dominance of Big Tech.
The 450-page report, released Tuesday by the House Antitrust Subcommittee, details a range of anticompetitive practices, charging the four companies with acting as gatekeepers, stifling competition, charging “exorbitant” fees and eroding democracy.
“Put simply, companies that once were scrappy, underdog startups that challenged the status quo have become the kinds of monopolies we last saw in the era of oil barons and railroad tycoons,” the report said.
The panel calls for sharply curtailing tech companies’ power, including force them to spin off their platforms from their other lines of business. This can be done by either splitting up tech companies or by limiting them to a single industry, according to the report.
Under current
October 4, 2020 | technology | No Comments
Engadget
While scoping out a suspected subterranean lake hiding under the Martian soil, scientists stumbled across not one, not two, but three more of them encircling the original. And they’re not puddles by any means. The research team estimates the largest one to measure up to 19 miles across with the others topping out at a few kilometers apiece. But don’t expect to go swimming on the Red Planet in the near future — we’l have to bore through a kilometer of ice to get to it.
Engadget
The COVID lockdowns have hit the American auto industry hard this year with demand dropping as people stayed home and off the road. However, that apparently is not the case with Tesla which announced last week it had crushed its previous quarterly delivery record by nearly 27,000 vehicles. Over all, the company has shipped some 318,000 automobiles so far in 2020.
Engadget
September 30, 2020 | technology | No Comments
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee’s antitrust subcommittee is expected to release a much-anticipated report into antitrust allegations against four of America’s largest tech companies as soon as Monday, according to a source with direct knowledge of the matter.
The chief executives of four of the world’s largest tech companies, Amazon.com Inc, Facebook Inc, Apple and Alphabet’s Google, testified before the panel in July.
During the hearing, the four CEOs parried a range of accusations that they crippled smaller rivals in their quest for market share. The four companies have a combined market value of about $5 trillion.
The House antitrust subcommittee plans to hold a hearing on Friday on proposals to strengthen antitrust laws and restore online competition as it nears the release of this long-awaited report on
