A family member’s hurried Google search for a last-second visa to visit New Zealand recently caused a headache—and provided a timely reminder of why Google faces a landmark US antitrust trial next week. Tapping on the first link took us off to a website that after a few swipes charged $118 for the necessary paperwork….
Mina Hsiang returned to the United States Digital Service, the US government’s rapid digital fix-it squad, on January 26, 2021, when the streets of Washington, DC, had hardly been cleared after Joe Biden’s inauguration. She was one of the group’s founding members but had spent the past few years working for a health care startup….
The number of short-term Airbnbs available in New York City has dropped 70 percent after the city began enforcing a new law requiring short-term rental operators to register their homes. But despite the new requirements, there are still thousands of listings that could be unregistered. The drop, recorded between August 4 and September 5, the…
Tech companies and privacy activists are claiming victory after an eleventh-hour concession by the British government in a long-running battle over end-to-end encryption. The so-called “spy clause” in the UK’s Online Safety Bill, which experts argued would have made end-to-end encryption all but impossible in the country, will no longer be enforced after the government…
The rules “are a blow to its tourism economy and the thousands of New Yorkers and small businesses in the outer boroughs who rely on home sharing and tourism dollars to help make ends meet,” says Theo Yedinsky, global policy director for Airbnb. “The city is sending a clear message to millions of potential visitors…
A place at an Indian Institute of Technology is a golden ticket. There are 23 IITs across India, the country’s most elite technology training institutions: a production line for CEOs. Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai and Flipkart’s founder Sachin Bansal are among their alumni. So are Infosys founder N. R. Narayana Murthy and FedEx CEO Raj…
“America’s education system has been hijacked by one side,” Marissa Streit, PragerU’s CEO, told Time earlier this month. Some of the ads found by MMFA on Facebook and Instagram encourage users to sign petitions to allow PragerU’s materials in schools. Others direct to some of the organization’s videos with accompanying text accusing teachers of promoting…
The surrounding Charlotte County covers 1,323 square miles of territory—about twice the area of Greater London, and four times the size of New York City—with a population of just 26,015. Its location means it’s faster to row a boat to the US than drive almost anywhere else in Canada. It’s far from an anomaly. Nearly…
For months, Etsy has become littered with a new genre of T-shirt: the Donald Trump mug shot. And they’re available in two main styles: Guity AF and Not Guilty. The shirts are adorned with photos of the former US president appearing as if he’d just been booked, but until very recently, they’ve been fakes—most of…
The speed of the prime minister’s about turn, and his unwillingness to act against Facebook, show how important the platform is in Cambodia. More than 10 million of Cambodia’s 16.6 million citizens—or about 92 percent of the people who have access to the internet—use Facebook. Hun Sen, the country’s leader since 1985, has had an…