Google Cloud held its annual customer conference, Google Cloud Next, this week in San Francisco. It had a couple of purposes. For starters it could introduce customers to new CEO Thomas Kurian for the first time since his hiring at the end of last year. And secondly, and perhaps more importantly, it could demonstrate that…
London Metropolitan police has arrested WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in London. He has been holed up in the Embassy of Ecuador in London since 2012 in order to avoid a warrant against him. Ecuador withdrew Assange’s diplomatic asylum earlier today leading to his arrest. In a video statement, Ecuador president Lenín Moreno announced the withdrawal…
The development of the algorithm that made it possible to create the first image ever of a black hole was led by computer scientist Katie Bouman while she was still a graduate student at MIT. Bouman shared a photo on Facebook of herself reacting as the historical picture was processing. The algorithm, which Bouman named…
Democratic lawmakers have proposed a bill to address the algorithmic biases lurking under the surface of tech’s biggest platforms. The bill, known as the Algorithmic Accountability Act, was introduced by Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR), Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Representative Yvette Clarke (D-NY) will sponsor parallel legislation in the House. The bill is well timed. Over…
It’s not every day that you read a headline with both Google and Microsoft. Google is announcing today that its managed database service Cloud SQL will soon support Microsoft SQL Server. The company showed a sneak preview at its Google Cloud Next conference. The message is clear — if your company uses Microsoft SQL Server database,…
Yesterday, the opening keynote for Google’s Cloud Next conference was packed with news, from Google’s hybrid cloud platform Anthos to Google’s new product to turn a container into a URL. At 9 AM PT, 12 PM ET, 5 PM GMT, Google is opening day 2 of its conference with the product innovation keynote. Later at…
A highly capable malware reportedly used in a failed plot to blow up a Saudi petrochemical plant has now been linked to a second compromised facility. FireEye researchers say the unnamed “critical infrastructure” facility was the latest victim of the powerful Triton malware, the umbrella term for a series of malicious custom components used to…
Expanse, a six-year-old, San Francisco-based company that helps its clients understand and monitor what it calls their “global internet attack surface,” has received a $70 million vote of confidence from its earlier backers, as well as some notable individual investors. Previous investor TPG Growth led the Series C round, with participation from other earlier investors…
Some of the first users of autonomous taxis are senior citizens living in a massive retirement community in Florida. It’s there, in a 40-square-mile area known as The Villages, that autonomous driving startup Voyage has planted its flag. Once the door-to-door self-driving taxi service is fully operational, all 125,000 residents will have the ability to summon…
The European Parliament’s civil liberties committee (Libe) voted yesterday to back proposed legislation for a one-hour takedown rule for online terrorist content which critics argue will force websites to filter uploads. MEPs on the committee also backed big penalties for service providers that systematically and persistently fail to abide by the law — agreeing they…
