Technology

An ex-engineer for Google’s self-driving car unit has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for trade secret theft shortly before he joined Uber. US District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco said Anthony Levandowski had carried out the “biggest trade secret crime I have ever seen”. Levandowski loaded more …

New security and privacy features introduced on Facebook Messenger will give users more control, the company says. App Lock, one of the features, lets users add another layer of security to private messages and helps prevent other people from accessing them, Facebook said in a statement. It also said that …

When the Covid-19 pandemic made face masks an everyday essential, Japanese startup Donut Robotics spotted an opportunity. They created a smart mask – a high-tech upgrade to standard face coverings, designed to make communication and social distancing easier. In conjunction with an app, the C-Face Smart mask can transcribe dictation, …

NASA has launched its new Mars rover, Perseverance, on a six-month journey to the Red Planet as part of an ambitious, long-range project to bring the first Martian rock samples back to Earth to be analysed for evidence of ancient life, reports AP. The biggest, most sophisticated Mars rover ever …

US tech giant Microsoft has confirmed that it is continuing talks to purchase the US operations of Chinese-owned video-sharing app TikTok. Microsoft boss Satya Nadella had a conversation with President Donald Trump about the acquisition on Sunday, the tech firm said. Microsoft stressed that it “fully appreciates the importance” of …

World’s biggest tech company’s heads have appeared before Washington lawmakers to defend their firms against claims they abuse their power to quash competitors. Amazon boss Jeff Bezos said the world “needs large” firms, while the heads of Facebook, Apple and Google argued their companies had spurred innovation. The appearance comes …

Hackers targeted the accounts of 130 people, some of its most high-profile users, and were able to reset the passwords of 45 of those accounts, said Twitter. “We’re embarrassed, we’re disappointed, and more than anything, we’re sorry. We know that we must work to regain your trust, and we will …

Mobile providers of the UK are being banned from buying new Huawei 5G equipment after 31 December, and they must also remove all the Chinese firm’s 5G kit from their networks by 2027. Digital Secretary Oliver Dowden told the House of Commons of the decision. It follows sanctions imposed by …

Scientists of the University of Southern California and Dornsife College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences said they may have found the beginnings of a path toward increasing human lifespan. Journal of Gerontology: Biological Sciences published the research on Friday that shows the drug mifepristone can extend the lives of two …

Variant of the genes responsible for the coronavirus disease was passed on to humans by the Neanderthals, which is very common in Bangladeshis, according to a new study. This piece of the genome, which spans six genes on Chromosome 3, has had a puzzling journey through human history, the study …