Apple faced public scrutiny when viral videos surfaced showing a glaring bug with Apple’s FaceTime feature that allowed the caller to hear conversations and even see video from the person being called before that person accepted or rejected the call. The bug appears to only appear during group chats (chats with more than 2 people), …
When designing intellectual property laws, the struggle inherent in legislating is designing a law that will ensure that creators and inventors have adequate incentives to continue revealing new knowledge to the public while also not overly limiting the public’s ability to interact with prior works or express their own useful ideas. This balance has been …
With the recent introduction of 230 new emojis for 2019, which brings the total number of emojis up to 3,053, consumers are presented with a seemingly limitless selection of emojis applicable to any given situation. With 3,053 options to choose from, and increasingly capable screen displays, emojis are becoming both more visually nuanced and increasingly …
Political firebrand and House Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Ed Markey released the Green New Deal (“GND”) in early February 2019. Spurred by recent findings from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that suggest humans have less than a decade to reverse course on climate change before it will be too late to prevent …
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and an Uber subsidiary have asked a Washington federal judge to invalidate Seattle’s ordinance letting ride hailing app-based drivers unionize. The allege the city’s law violates federal antitrust law by allowing independent contractors to unionize and fix prices. In 2015, Seattle became the first city to allow Uber and Lyft …
Facial recognition technology has experienced a boom this past year. Amazon launched Amazon Rekognition, which has been used in cities like Orlando, FL, to scan faces in public and flag criminal matches against its database. A handful of retailers have also begun using facial recognition cameras in their stores to primarily monitor shoplifting and stealing, …
In 2019, most of us still use keys to lock up the protected contents of our house and car. In contrast, our personal devices, often where we store our most guarded information, are only protected by an iris, or a fingerprint. Recently, the federal district court of the Northern District of California was faced with …
This past February 14th marked the one-year anniversary of one of the deadliest school shootings in the nation’s history. Despite being the subject of several 911 calls, and two separate tips to the FBI, the 19-year-old shooter, armed with a rifle, left 17 dead at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Since this …
Huawei Devices USA (Huawei), a Chinese-based smartphone super-corporation, has recently been hit with a 10-count indictment by the Department of Justice. Per the indictment, Huawei instructed its employees in the United States to steal valuable corporate trade secrets and various forms of intellectual property from American competitors. One allegation is that the company offered bonuses …
Reports emerged on February 14 that Facebook and the FTC were nearing a settlement over the Cambridge Analytica data breach and the social media company’s privacy policies. It is anticipated that Facebook will ultimately agree to pay a multi-billion dollar fine – “the largest the [FTC] has ever imposed on a technology company.” However, Facebook’s …
