Enlarge / A man walks with an umbrella outside of AT&T corporate headquarters on March 13, 2020, in Dallas, Texas. (credit: Getty Images | Ronald Martinez) AT&T lost 617,000 customers from DirecTV and its other TV businesses in the final quarter of 2020, capping a year in which it lost nearly 3 million customers in the category, AT&T reported today. …
Former SEC Chairman Calls For an Agency Investigation Into Online Stock Trading Platforms
Arthur Levitt Jr., a former chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, writes at Bloomberg Opinion: They say history occurs first as tragedy, then as farce — I fear we’re about to see that in U.S. financial markets. Two decades ago, U.S. financial markets were riding all-time records. Day traders were using chat rooms to swap what they thought …
10-year-old Sudo Bug Lets Linux Users Gain Root-Level Access
A major vulnerability impacting a large chunk of the Linux ecosystem has been patched today in Sudo, an app that allows admins to delegate limited root access to other users. From a report: The vulnerability, which received a CVE identifier of CVE-2021-3156, but is more commonly known as “Baron Samedit,” was discovered by security auditing firm Qualys two weeks ago …
Nintendo Sued by European Gamers Hampered by Broken Controllers
Nintendo faces a complaint from BEUC, a European consumer group, over what it calls “systematic problems” with the controllers for the company’s popular Switch games console. BEUC said it filed a complaint with the European Union and national consumer protection organizations after evidence from users showed that in 88% of cases, “the game controllers broke within the first two years.” …
Social Media Damages Teenagers’ Mental Health, Report Says
Teenagers’ mental health is being damaged by heavy social media use, a report has found. From a report: Research from the Education Policy Institute and The Prince’s Trust said wellbeing and self-esteem were similar in all children of primary school age. Boys and girls’ wellbeing is affected at the age of 14, but girls’ mental health drops more after that, …
Google Spells Out Consequences of Apple’s Privacy Push and IDFA Changes
Apple has prioritized user privacy over targeted advertising, and Google is spelling out today what that means for itself as well as game and app developers. From a report: Apple is advocating its App Tracking Transparency (ATT) policy, which will require developers to ask for permission when they use personal data from other companies’ apps and websites for advertising purposes, …
TiVo Says People Want Ads
If the folks who are responsible for beaming content to your eyeballs are to be believed, streamers are thirsty for more ads of all things. From a report: A survey of 4,526 adults in the U.S. and Canada published by TiVo today claims that a whopping 79% of the survey’s respondents reported wanting to use a free and ad-supported service …
TikTok To Shed Hundreds of India Workers After National Security Ban
TikTok has announced that it will lay off hundreds of workers in India, [Editor’s note: the link may be paywalled; alternative source] seven months after the Chinese-owned video app was banned from what was once its biggest international market on national security grounds. From a report: The company, whose parent is Chinese tech group ByteDance, said in a statement on …
AMC Spikes 260% as Day Traders Ignite Shorted Stocks like GameStop, BlackBerry, and Bed Bath & Beyond
AMC shares skyrocketed as much as 260% in premarket trading on Wednesday as day traders piled into heavily shorted stocks for a third consecutive day. From a report: Frenzied buying also drove GameStop shares up as much as 147%, BlackBerry up 31%, and Bed Bath & Beyond up 27%. Amateur investors have gathered, most notably on Reddit forum r/wallstreet bets, …
Chromecast, Fire TV Stick, or Roku: What’s the best streaming stick for ~$50?
It’s a good time to be in the market for an affordable streaming stick, like Amazon’s Fire TV Stick 4K media streamer. [credit: Jeff Dunn ] In 2021, as we all continue to spend more time in front of screens than anyone anticipated, most of us have a short list of requirements for a modern streaming stick. We just want a device that’s …