Technology

A cybersecurity attack has shut down one of the largest refined products pipelines in the United States, and a security analyst said it shows that "core elements of our national infrastructure" remain vulnerable to cyberattack.

The attack hit Colonial Pipeline, which carries gasoline, diesel and jet fuel from Texas to New York and moves about 45% of all fuel consumed on the East Coast.

Facebook has almost 2 billion daily users, annual revenue that rivals some countries' gross domestic product, and even its own version of a Supreme Court: the Oversight Board, which the company created to review its toughest decisions on what people can post on its platforms.

This week, the board faced its biggest test to date when it ruled on whether Facebook should let former President Donald Trump back on its social network.

Mackenzie Walton's first Father's Day without her dad was shaping up to be tough. Then the marketing emails hit.

"I saw some 'Don't forget Dad!' messaging and panicked because I hadn't bought him a present, which led to some ugly crying in the bathroom at work when I abruptly remembered why I hadn't been shopping yet," the Cincinnati-based freelance editor told NPR over email.

Massachusetts lawmakers passed one of the first state-wide restrictions of facial recognition as part of a sweeping police reform law.

The new law sets limits on how police use the technology in criminal investigations. It's one of the first attempts to find middle ground when regulating this technology, but not all privacy advocates agree that regulation is the right step.

Democratic state Sen. Sonia Chang-Díaz was one of the leaders behind this push for criminal justice reform.

Twitter wants users to think twice about sending a mean or offensive tweet.

The tech company on Wednesday announced it has released a feature that detects "mean" replies on its service before a user presses send. When a not-very-nice tweet is detected, an automatic prompt reads, "Want to review this before Tweeting?" The user is presented with three choices: tweet, edit, or delete.

This feature, which launched Wednesday, will initially be enabled on accounts with English-language settings. It's unclear when other languages will be added.

Facebook's Oversight Board on Wednesday essentially punted the decision back to the company on whether to eventually allow former President Donald Trump back on Facebook and Instagram. What the social media giant decides in the coming months will likely have major consequences for Trump's political power.

"It could be a make-or-break moment for Trump's political future," said Eric Wilson, a Republican political technologist.

Google is adopting a series of changes to give its employees greater workplace flexibility as the tech giant prepares for an updated, post-pandemic return to normalcy.

Chief Executive Sundar Pichai announced that Google will allow employees to work a hybrid workweek, which would allow some workers to spend three days in the office and two days teleworking. Google is also allowing some workers to request a change of office locations altogether.

Facebook was justified in its decision to suspend then-President Donald Trump after the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, the company's Oversight Board said on Wednesday.

Residents living on the West Coast don't know when the next earthquake will hit. But a new expansion of the U.S. earthquake early warning system gives 50 million people in California, Oregon — and now Washington — seconds to quickly get to safety whenever the next one hits.

Three young men got into a car in Walworth County, Wis., in May 2017. They were set on driving at rapid speeds down a long, cornfield-lined road — and sharing their escapade on social media.

As the 17-year-old behind the wheel accelerated to 123 miles per hour, one of the passengers opened Snapchat.

His parents say their son wanted to capture the experience using an app feature — the controversial "speed filter" — that documents real-life speed, hoping for engagement and attention from followers on the messaging app.

On any given day, half a dozen cranes tower over the "Silicon Slopes" region just south of Salt Lake City erecting glassy office buildings to make more room for Utah's steadily growing tech industry. Companies and the state want that growth to continue, but industry leaders argue that to do so, Utah's image needs some work.

That's why tech lobbyists such as Sunny Washington are pushing for more socially inclusive legislation at the state Capitol. Washington works for the industry's advocacy organization, also called Silicon Slopes.

Facebook's independent Oversight Board on Wednesday is expected to announce its biggest decision yet: whether to uphold or reverse Facebook's indefinite ban on former President Donald Trump.

Epic Games, the maker of the hit video game Fortnite, brought Apple to federal court Monday for the start of what is expected to be a weeks-long blockbuster trial centered on Apple's iron grip of a major slice of the mobile economy.

The lawsuit that prompted the trial is about one app developer, Epic, a $29 billion company based in Cary, N.C., but the outcome could have far-reaching consequences for companies in Silicon Valley and the future of how money moves on smartphones and other devices.

Yahoo and AOL, two of the internet's oldest and best-known brands, will have a new owner. Again.

Verizon announced it is spinning off the properties, which it acquired in separate transactions in 2015 and 2017, to the private equity firm Apollo in a deal valued at $5 billion.

In buying AOL and Yahoo, Verizon was hoping to partake in some of the big advertising dollars that large tech companies such as Facebook and Google were raking in.

After a public outcry, a robotic dog once hailed by the New York Police Department a high-tech crime-fighting sidekick is getting sent back to its owner.

The police canceled a $94,000 contract with the robot's maker Boston Dynamics following a backlash tied to calls to cut the police budget and concerns of police militarization and abuses of force.

The department introduced the public to the "Digidog" in December after acquiring the device in a test program.

Zoë Roth was internet famous before many of us knew what that was.

When she was 4, her dad took a picture of her standing in front of a burning house and a firetruck. She's looking back at the camera knowingly, leaving the viewer to suspect she had something to do with this disaster.

But in reality, the fire scene was part of a training exercise for firefighters in Mebane, N.C., near where Zoë and her father, Dave Roth, lived.

Supply chain disruptions are taking a bite out of Apple, and it may make it harder to get your hands on that shiny new tablet or laptop.

Apple warns it can't make enough iPads and Macs to keep up with demand, thanks to the global shortage in semiconductors that has already disrupted production at almost every major car company, from Ford to VW.

Luca Maestri, Apple's chief financial officer, said late Wednesday that the lack of supply will cut into sales of both these products and lop off between $3 billion to $4 billion of its revenue in the next three months.