Tech Soha

Are we losing privacy in our own neighborhoods? The increasing popularity of doorbell camera systems and other camera surveillance means more and more cameras are watching us when we leave our street and wherever we go. Even police departments are using some systems to add eyes to their force. A DFW Landfill is Nearing Capacity, Closure Expected in 3 Years Felicia Duran is one of many people who likes the convenience of seeing who is at her door without actually opening the door. "We just felt it was a little more convenient than a standard alarm," Duran said. Denton Construction Delayed a Year Now 90% Complete It's also allowed her to see some strange things. "So I was able to open the app and look and see in the camera there was a strange man with his goat in my grass," Duran said. Man Arrested in Disappearance of His Wife, Remains Found But ultimately for her and it's about security. "I feel that not only the safety of myself a...

Consumers may think they’re avoiding the crush this holiday season by shopping online, unaware that as they’re trying to get through the digital doors, so too are hordes of bots. And they’re throwing elbows,  NBC News reports . Up to 97 percent of all online traffic to retailer login pages this holiday shopping week comes from bots, largely operated by organized gangs of cybercriminals, according to estimates by cybersecurity firm Radware. UN Chief Warns of 'Point of No Return' on Climate Change The bots fill out online forms and navigate retail sites faster than a real person can, and try to swiftly purchase limited supply gifts before you’ve even filled up your cart. The items are then sold for a higher price on third-party sites. The cyber thieves also crack into accounts, drain accounts of rewards and other digital currency, conduct credit card fraud, and more, said Ron Winward, a Radware spokesman. Photo Credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images from NBC 5 Dallas-F...

Online shoppers, beware. Scammers could be going after your money this holiday season as you try to take advantage of online deals. Suspicious Companies May Be Exploiting Student Visa Program According to the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center, scammers stole $184 million from people online during last year's holiday shopping season. "The criminals are getting smarter," Professor Ahmad Banafa, a cybersecurity expert at San Jose State University, said. Banafa says online shopping scams come in different forms, but some of the most popular ones are fake websites and phishing emails that may look like they belong to a legitimate company but are actually tricks designed to have online shoppers hand over their personal information to scammers. "Number one is don't click on any links in the email or open any attachments from retailers," Banafa said. "Retailers will never send you an attachment." And if a deal sounds too good to be true...

A forum organized by Ross Perot Jr. eyed the future of air travel and how people can one day go to work or home in air taxis as easily as calling an Uber . A mockup of a future flying machine called Nexus was on display. It's being developed by Hurst-based Bell. Concepts Revealed for Dallas Uber 'Skyports' "It basically flies like a helicopter and an airplane all in one aircraft," said Bell's Vice President of Innovation Scott Drennan. And incredibly, it may one day fly without a pilot. Bell Unveils 'Flying Taxi' Coming to DFW Perot, a pilot himself with an interest in future air travel, organized the conference at his Westlake ranch. "You have 150 of the top thinkers in the world and top manufacturers in the world building these new aircraft and really leading this revolution that's occurring in the world," Perot said. Vision 2020: Future of Mobility With Toyota Leader Perot's Hillwood property company is partne...

Dallas County Commissioners took steps Tuesday to remedy the $36 million spent on court and jail software that does not work. "It is a frustrating mess," Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins said. Father, Football Coach on Loss of 16-Year-Old Allen Student The money went to Tech Share, an entity created to provide software solutions to large Texas counties. So far, Tech Share software is working in Dallas County Juvenile Courts and two other applications. Women Arrested in Traffic Stop After Bodies Found in Plano "They're working. The users are satisfied, very satisfied, with what has been produced. So I would say no, don't throw out things that are working," County Commissioner Theresa Daniel said. Tech Share received around $30 million for adult court software and another $6.5 million for jail software that does not operate properly. Price, Interim Chief Testify on Day 1 of Fitzgerald Hearing Jenkins has been a Tech Share critic for years...

In an effort to cease the promotion of vape culture with related deaths on the rise, Apple has announced that it will no long offer vape-related apps for iPhones. On Friday the tech giant removed 181 vape apps from the app store and will not allow any more in the future. Before that, there were apps that let users check vape news, share vaping photos and even control the temperature of vape pens. Yovanovitch: Trump Attacks Leading to Crisis in US Diplomacy The removal of these apps is something that tech watchers and doctors call a good move. More than one in four high school students, or 27.5%, reported using e-cigarettes in the previous 30 days, according to the preliminary results for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s annual National Youth Tobacco Survey. “There’s no upside for supporting vaping, given what the current research is saying,” said Dr. Matt Cabott, a San Jose State social media professor. “Apple does not want to have anything to do with thi...

NASA is developing a plane that may pave the way for greener air travel. The NASA X-57 Maxwell plane--referred to as the X-Plane--is an all-electric experimental aircraft. Instead of fuel-powered turbine engines, the X-Plane gets its juice from lithium ion battery packs. Click Here or Email Your Photos to isee@nbcla.com It can perhaps best be described as a Tesla with wings. Brent Cobleigh, NASA Flight Demonstrations and Capabilities Project Manager, said the X-Plane serves as a glimpse into the future. Smoke and Fire From Above: Wildfire Images From Space "To see the era of the Jetsons be something that’s potentially real is pretty exciting," Cobleigh said. The X-Plane is currently in its Modification II configuration, and is one of three all-electric configurations being used to develop certification standards for electric aircraft markets. Two Disney Employees Among Those Arrested in Child Pornography Sting Each of the lithium ion battery packs used i...

A self-driving Uber car that struck and killed an Arizona woman was not able to recognize that pedestrians jaywalk, the National Traffic Safety Board revealed in documents released earlier this week. Elaine Herzberg, 49, died after she was hit in March 2018 by a Volvo SUV, which had an operator in the driver's seat and was traveling at about 40 miles per hour in autonomous mode at night in Tempe, NBC News reports . Behold! 2019 Christmas Tree Arrives at Rockefeller Center The fatal accident came as a result of this automated Uber not having "the capability to classify an object as a pedestrian unless that object was near a crosswalk," one of the NTSB documents said. Because the car could not recognize Herzberg as a pedestrian or person — instead alternating between classifications of "vehicle, bicycle, and an other" — it could not correctly predict her path and concluded it needed to brake just 1.3 seconds before it struck her as she wheeled her bicycle...

New software is urgently needed for iPhones and iPads released in or before 2012. The update is needed before Sunday or the devices will stop working correctly. Photo Credit: Getty Images from NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth - Tech News https://ift.tt/34sNZc1

In April 2018, California authorities revealed that they’d used a novel investigative technique to arrest a man they called the Golden State Killer, a serial murderer who’d escaped capture for decades. For the first time, police had submitted DNA from a crime scene into a consumer DNA database, where information about distant relatives helped them identify a suspect, NBC News reported . The announcement kindled a revolution in forensics that has since helped solve more than 50 rapes and homicides in 29 states. But earlier this year, GEDmatch, that online database changed its privacy policy to restrict law enforcement searches, and since then, these cold cases have become much harder to crack. The change is allowing some criminals who could be identified and caught to remain undetected and unpunished, authorities say. Photo Credit: Getty Images from NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth - Tech News https://ift.tt/2Jjf4q5

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., ramped up her criticism of Facebook this weekend, taking aim at the company's policy on political advertising and for having "contributed" to media job losses, NBC News reports . One of the leading 2020 Democratic candidates, Warren's weekend of prodding Facebook comes amid continued scrutiny of the tech giant, which she has called to be broken up. US Pulling Out of Northern Syria; Full Withdrawal Possible On Saturday, Warren tweeted that her campaign "intentionally" published a Facebook ad with false claims to "see if it'd be approved." The ad said Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg had endorsed President Donald Trump's reelection campaign. Warren posted the ad amid criticism the company has faced about its decision to allow politicians to run ads containing falsehoods. Hunter Biden to Step Down From Chinese Board Last month, Facebook’s vice president of global affairs and communications Nick Clegg ...

A Massachusetts man has admitted to sending the CEO of a popular dating site threatening letters that he claimed contained deadly substances, federal prosecutors said Thursday. Liam MacLeod, 47, was sentenced to probation on Thursday after pleading guilty to sending nine letters to the CEO of OKCupid.com in Dallas between September and December 2017, the office of U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts Andrew Lelling said in a statement. Fla. Businessmen Who Helped Giuliani in Ukraine Arrested Each of the letters contained threatening communications or suspicious substances, prosecutors said. Two of the letters contained substances that MacLeod described as anthrax or AIDS-infected blood. MacLeod had been banned from OkCupid, The Salem News reported in February, when MacLeod was initially charged. Video Shows Errol Spence Jr. Ferrari Crash in Dallas "Greetings from Beverly," read one handwritten letter from MacLeod which he said contained anthrax, acc...

As of this fall, competitive video gaming, or esports, is an official school activity in the Dallas Independent School District. The initial hope was that as many as 20 schools would be able to field teams. But the interest level was far more than school trustees anticipated. So far, there are 64 official esports teams spread out amongst the district’s middle and high schools. Strong Cold Front On The Way "I love games," said Eduardo Perez, a senior at Skyline High School who is president of the school’s gaming club and a participant on the school’s new esports team. "If you get to know me that is one of the first things you will figure out – I’m really passionate about games." Perez acknowledges there are still people, especially people from previous generations, who will scoff at the thought of referring to playing video games as a sport. Neighbors Facing Fine After Homeless Set Up Camp But he is not alone in making the argument that the world has c...

Your friends’ lives are not as fabulous as you think they are. That is the message from a team of researchers at the University of Texas at Dallas, who tracked the social media habits of more than 700 students on the Richardson campus. Judge Says She Couldn't Refuse Convicted Ex-Cop a Hug The study looked at passive browsing of social media — what you’re doing when you just thumb through your feed, lurking and looking at others’ activities — and how that correlates with "poorer well-being." "For those who are just passively browsing this content, they are getting kind of a skewed perception of how other people are living which may, in turn, have a negative impact on their mental health," said Kaitlyn Burnell, a psychological sciences doctoral student at UT Dallas. Man Faces Murder Charge in Death of Toddler Found in Landfill Burnell and her colleague, Justin Vollet, Ph.D., a postdoctoral research associate at UT Dallas, found that people are far ...

The rush is on to fight so-called “deepfakes”—videos and audio altered to make a person falsely appear to say something that they did not. California has passed a ban that makes it illegal to share such videos within two months before an election. Analysts have said that deepfakes will be used as political weapons ahead of next year’s elections. Retrial for Man in California Warehouse Fire That Killed 36 “It’s hard enough to be informed, to make wise decisions about candidates and political issues,” said social media expert and San Jose State Communications Professor Dr. Matt Cabot. “But with deepfake technology it makes it vastly more complicated.” The new law targets people distributing altered video and audio to injure the candidate’s reputation or sway voters. Deputy Pulls Over Speeding Car, Ends Up Delivering a Baby The candidate can seek damages if they can prove it was shared with malice up to 60 days before an election. “I think consumers need to be more careful...

The name says it all: TechCrunch Disrupt is a conference for entrepreneurs looking to bring disruptive change to an industry, using all the tools of Silicon Valley. In past years, the San Francisco edition of the Disrupt conference has seen a flurry of activity around nascent fields of technology: virtual and augmented reality, robotics, and the smart home. But this year, on the show's opening day, many entrepreneurs seemed more focused on mature industries: those that, in one way or another, have been left behind by the furious pace of innovation that has taken hold in the age of apps. Retrial for Man in California Warehouse Fire That Killed 36 As always, the conference program featured celebrity appearances, including one by actor Will Smith and director Ang Lee, who spoke about the bleeding edge of filmmaking: realistic digital humans and blisteringly high frame rates used in the 3D action thriller "Gemini Man." Golden State Warriors star Stephen Curry took the...

TikTok announced Thursday that it is banning all political ads, a move that sets it apart from other social media platforms that have become destinations for political ad dollars, NBC News reports . TikTok is a smartphone app in which users can capture short videos of themselves, usually lip syncing or dancing to popular songs. The app has attracted a large following of mostly younger users in recent years. Blake Chandlee, TikTok's vice president of global business solutions, wrote in a blog post that the company has chosen not to allow ads on its platform from any politicians or candidates at the federal, state or local levels, as well as advocacy or issue ads. Chandlee said the company wants to stay true to retain "the app's light-hearted and irreverent felling that makes it such a fun place to spend time." Photo Credit: Avishek Das/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images from NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth - Tech News https://ift.tt/31J2DLb

A 76-year-old woman was tricked into giving $125,000 to a man who pretended to be in a romantic relationship with her, New Jersey police said. The victim, who was not identified, believed she was in an “online dating relationship” with a man whom she met on the app OurTime. The man allegedly asked her to pay him $125,000 to cover fees to enter the United States, become a resident and continue his relationship with her, the Evesham Police Department said. Pope Decries World's Indifference to Migrants and Refugees The woman secured a loan through her bank and gave the man access to an account where she deposited the money. Evesham investigators tracked the suspect down using ATM cameras. Sulaimon Kadelu, 30, of Old Bridge Township, was charged with 2nd-degree theft and 2nd-degree money laundering. Navy Sailor Dies After Fall on USS Nimitz in California OurTime did not respond to a request for comment. Earlier this year, the Federal Trade Commission warned consumers t...

Officials from the Better Business Bureau announced the results of a startling new study that shows that email scams have cost organizations more than $3 billion since 2016. The scams, known as Business Email Compromise (BEC) scams, are a type of email phishing scam that targets people who pay bills for businesses, government entities, and non-profit organizations, according to the Bureau. READ: Whistleblower's Complaint Involving Trump, IG's Letter In the scams, a person poses as a reliable source and uses a spoofed (similar to the way that phone marketing scams can use software to disguise their true phone numbers as ones from a person’s area code) or hacked email account to send messages to employees asking them to wire money, buy gift cards, or share private information for a seemingly plausible reason. That type of fraud has more than tripled over the last three years, according to the bureau, with nearly 60,000 complaints of BEC scams received by the bureau durin...

Instagram will be rolling out new policies to combat ads that promote weight loss products, especially for users who are known to be minors. Instagram users under the age of 18 will no longer see posts promoting weight loss products or cosmetic surgery when the posts direct customers to purchase a product, including when posts provide a discount code or a price (Instagram does not allow direct links in posts). The site may remove a post altogether if it includes unrealistic claims about a diet or weight loss product clearly promoted for sale. Instagram’s policies never allowed such promotions, but a call for further action was prompted after an influx of influencers and celebrities such as the Kardashians and Jenners caused critics to speak out. Emma Collins, Instagram’s public policy manager, said in a written statement that the company is working to “reduce the pressure that people can feel sometimes as a result of social media.” She said Instagram wants to be a “positive place f...