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Reddit is finally back online after an hours-long desktop outage

Reddit is back online for desktop users after an hours-long outage early Thursday morning. Reddit's status page said it was still investigating some residual issues, so users may still have some trouble accessing the site. 

Twitter finally banned hate speech against religious groups. Will it help?

Twitter will expand its rules to ban hateful conduct made against religious groups, the social network announced Tuesday. The new rules will require the company to remove any tweet which “dehumanizes whole religious groups,” but it's not clear whether it will solve Twitter's hate speech problem. 
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President Trump is no longer allowed to block people on Twitter, court rules

President Donald Trump cannot block critics from viewing his Twitter feed, a federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday. The court said that Trump violated the First Amendment by blocking people on Twitter who were critical of him and his policies and that his account is considered a “public forum.”
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Digital rights group Fight for the Future wants to ban facial recognition

Fight for the Future, a digital rights group, announced a campaign on Tuesday calling for a complete ban on government use of facial recognition surveillance software. The campaign, BanFacialRecognition.com, asks visitors to the site to contact their lawmakers about the issue.
Crisis Response Hub

Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp are finally back online and working properly

After nearly 12 hours, Facebook has finally fixed the bugs and outages affecting Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp users on Wednesday. If you've had trouble accessing pictures or uploading video on the platforms, the outage is the reason why. All three platforms should now be working properly.
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MIT’s tiny walking robot could eventually build other, bigger robots

A mobile motor created by a team at MIT could change the way we view and build robots. The robot consists of five tiny fundamental parts that have the ability to assemble and disassemble into different functional devices -- with the end goal of having it build other, larger robots.
SpaceX

The Pentagon wants to build an itsy-bitsy outpost in space

The U.S. military’s Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) is asking for submissions for a small, free-flying Orbital Outpost that the Department of Defense will use in space. The outpost needs to be capable of space assembly, microgravity experimentation, manufacturing, training, tests, evaluations, and more
electronic health records

Facebook cracks down on fraudulent miracle cures, vaccine misinformation

Facebook said Tuesday that it plans to to fight sensational health claims, supposed miracle cures, and fake health news by de-prioritizing content around those topics in the News Feed. The company said that any exaggerated or misleading health claims about vaccines would be part of the crackdown.
Police surveillance of U.S. citizens' cell phone data has skyrocketed

Chinese border guards are installing a spyware app on tourists’ phones

Border police in Xinjiang, China have begun to install surveillance apps on the phones of travelers that extract emails, texts, contact information, and more. The Chinese-designed app searches phones for content that the country's authorities would view as problematic, such as Islamic extremism.
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Cloudflare outage knocks out major sites and services, including Discord

Cloudfare, an international website and internet hosting platform, experience a worldwide outage earlier Tuesday. Sites and services that are hosted on the platform reported outages in countries around the world. According to Cloudfare’s system status page, service was restored within 30 minutes. 
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Amazon, Google retail rivals throw weight behind antitrust probes of tech giants

The Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA) penned a letter to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on Sunday commending the antitrust probes from the FTC and the Department of Justice.
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Amazon’s biggest sale just got even bigger with a Taylor Swift Prime Day concert

Amazon will celebrate this year's 48-hour long Prime Day sale with a concert headlined by pop music icon Taylor Swift. The Amazon Prime Day Concert will stream live on Amazon Prime Video on July 10 beginning at 6 p.m. PT, and will also feature Dua Lipa, SZA and Becky G.
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Google Maps can now determine how crowded your bus or train will be

Your Google Maps app will now be able to predict how crowded your bus or train will be thanks to a recent update, Google announced Thursday. The crowdedness prediction is based off of ratings by other users and will now appear when you look up transit directions in Google Maps
Hand holding a Twitter phone

Twitter will now label, hide tweets when Trump, other politicians break its rules

Twitter announced Thursday that it will add a notice over politicians' tweets if the social network deems the tweet to violate its rules. While not mentioning President Donald Trump, the move is all but certainly aimed at him and other politicians who use the social network to attack rivals.
Google Maps

A Google Maps detour trapped 100 drivers on a muddy one-lane road

You can't always trust your map app: faulty Google Maps directions led some Aurora, Colo. area drivers to a strange and muddy detour on Sunday. The app seemed to be trying to route them around a crash, but instead ended up causing a separate traffic jam. 
How to Watch Trump State of the Union

Donald Trump says the U.S. government should sue Facebook and Google

President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that the U.S. government "should be suing Google and Facebook and all that." The president also announced that he will be hosting a social media summit in July with leaders of the big tech companies he called out. 
cell phone companies stop robocalls after fcc vote robo calls header

FTC and authorities crack down on companies responsible for 1 billion robocalls

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and law enforcement officials announced a new crackdown against illegal robocalls on Tuesday, targeting companies responsible for over a billion of the annoying calls. 
Electronic Cigarette

San Francisco is now the first city in the U.S. to ban the sale of e-cigarettes

San Francisco has become the first city in the U.S. to ban the sales of e-cigarettes in stores and online. The ban is the first of its kind in the U.S. and does not include regular cigarettes and other tobacco products, or recreational marijuana. If it stands, the ban won't go into effect for several months.
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Instagram CEO says the app doesn’t listen to your conversations

Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri told CBS News' Gail King in a recent interview that Instagram does not listen to its users, even though you may see ads related to products you were talking about with a friend, but never actually searched for.
smartphones are making people grow horns smartphone

Uh…are smartphones really making young people grow horns?

Researchers from the University of the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia have recently found the same sort of bone growth at the base of young adults' necks, which looks like a horn jutting out from the skull. Smartphones could be the culprit.
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This ridiculous GE video shows just how tough troubleshooting smart bulbs can be

A video instructing customers how to get through the 11-step process to factory reset a General Electric smart bulb shows just how ridiculous fixing some connected appliances can be. 
Josh Hawley

A new Senate bill would fundamentally change the internet as we know it

A new bill in the U.S. Senate could cause the internet as we know it to cease to exist by holding major tech companies like Facebook or YouTube liable for anything posted on their platforms. The proposal could destroy social media as we know it, experts said
Xbox One

Hulu and Xbox Live are back online after going down for some users

Hulu and Xbox Live service came back online after going down for several hours on Wednesday afternoon. As of 4:30 p.m. PT, Hulu service appeared to be restored for most users. Xbox Live service began to come back around 4:45 p.m. PT, according to Xbox support.
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Facebook’s content moderators break their silence on terrifying work conditions

The moderators in charge of policing inappropriate content on Facebook have begun to speak out over work conditions that have caused them to fear for their lives and left them unable to enforce Facebook's rules.
YouTube Kids

YouTube could make big changes to children’s content amid federal investigation

YouTube is considering major changes to its recommendation algorithm amid an investigation by the Federal Trade Commission into how it handles videos aimed at children. The changes could include moving children's content to its own app or removing the auto-play feature
Tesla Model 3

Tesla hasn’t made a pickup, so YouTuber Simone Giertz made one out of a Model 3

There’s a new Tesla model in town (sort of). Sick of waiting for Tesla to release an electric pickup truck, YouTuber Simone Giertz decided to make her own — post a fake commercial for it on YouTube. She calls it the "Truckla."
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Hulu chief says Disney is about to give it a serious original content boost

Hulu announced today that more original programming is slated to appear on the streaming service.
youtube to remove more hateful and supremacist content going forward logo phone

Brush up on your makeup skills with YouTube’s new augmented reality feature

YouTube will soon let users try on makeup while watching popular makeup tutorials through augmented realtiy. Known as AR Beauty Try-On, viewers will be able to "try on" the makeup products the online tutorials are showcasing and promoting.