This week, a bipartisan bill was introduced in the Senate, which aims to break up Google's ad division. As reported in The Verge, the bill would induce Google's parent company "to divest majorities of its digital advertising business. Google’s advertising marketplace rakes in billions each quarter for the company, pulling in $54 billion across Search, YouTube, and its ad networks in the first quarter of this year alone.
President Joe Biden recently visited Cincinnati to meet with manufacturers, according to WCPO. WCPO later reported that additive manufacturing, known more colloquially as 3D printing, was the focus of the visit.
As we pointed out in our previous post on the subject, 3D printers are automated manufacturing devices capable of producing a variety of objects based on digitally uploaded diagrams.
"We all know the feeling. You're scrolling through your phone, and there it is. An ad that you can tie back to a recent conversation with a friend." Thus begins a recent article from Kim Komando, a radio show host who focuses on technology. Advertisers have used user meta-data for a long time to market their products, but they're not the only ones who may be tracking you.
In some lighter news from from this week, Link NKY recently reported that the city of Covington in northern Kentucky will not impose a curfew on app-based electric scooters. The scooters, produced primarily by companies Bird and Lime, have become a prominent feature in tri-state metro areas over the past few years.
We begin our post today with some grim local news. WCPO reported today that Goshen Local School District's school board president has resigned after video surfaced of him attempting to meet up with an 11-year old girl. You can click the link above to get the details of the story; it wouldn't be responsible for us to belabor it here.
Mitchell Clark, a news writer for The Verge, reported yesterday that Google was thinking of bringing back their Wallet app on Android smart devices. Wallet apps, like Apple Wallet, allow device users to centralize all of their electronic payment methods (i.e. credit and debit cards) as well as transport passes, merchant rewards programs and even government-issued ID documents onto a single device.
Yesterday, Wired magazine published an article about a potentially game changing development in cybersecurity. Dubbed Pipedream by cybersecurity firm Dragos, this new threat is a malware program designed to attack oil refineries, power grids, water systems and other forms of major infrastructure.
If you've ever looked up a business on Google's main search engine or on Google Maps, you may have encountered this problem: the business's actual operating hours don't correspond to what you found online. Anyone who's been frustrated by this shortcoming in Google's information may be able to rest easy soon.
On March 29th, USA Today published a story, which was later reprinted in The Cincinnati Enquirer, about Verizon Wireless customers receiving spam from their own numbers. "Verizon said it is working to block spam texts some customers say they have received from their own numbers," Brett Molina reports.
On Tuesday, we discussed the importance of protecting your proprietary source code. A group called Lapsus$ recently attacked Samsung and Nvidia's source codes. It seems they've struck again, this time against Microsoft's.
Microsoft published a summary of the incident on their security blog on March 22nd.