The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) refused Donald Trump's application for a trademark for "Truth Social," the name of his social media company earlier this month. A trademark lawyer in Washington surfaced the filing on Thursday.
Why it matters: The trademark refusal is just the latest setback for the former president's social media app and its parent company, which have been beset by a raft of issues over the past few months.
Google Maps and Search will start clearly labeling results for healthcare facilities that provide abortions, the company announced Thursday.
Why it matters: When users browse Google Search or Maps, they will be able to more clearly tell which facilities provide abortions and which may be a crisis pregnancy center or another place that does not provide abortion.
It's probably the end of the line for another algorithmic stablecoin, fei. Either way, it is almost certainly the end of the road for the decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) that runs it, TribeDAO.
Why it matters: Crypto projects seldom completely disappear, but we're watching a DAO unwind itself in real time right now as the creators of the project propose a plan to break it up. This could end up being something of a historic moment in decentralized finance, as founders pioneer a shutdown.
Sony’s PlayStation 5 is getting a surprise price hike in most of the world due to difficult global economic conditions, the company has announced.
Driving the news: The price for both models – with the disc drive and without –will increase in Europe, the U.K., Japan, Canada and other regions, but not in the U.S.
Box CEO Aaron Levie says his company is seeing strong business, even as his customers struggle to deal with inflation, supply-chain challenges and an uncertain path back to traditional office life.
"Every enterprise on the planet is dealing with some mix of macroeconomic or business-specific challenges," Levie told Axios in an interview following the company's quarterly earnings report Wednesday.
Network infrastructure giant Cloudflare faces pressure from activists to stop providing services to a nearly decade-old website where anonymous users organize the harassment and "doxing" of trans people, in some cases with the goal of driving them to suicide.
The big picture: Many technology providers prefer not to stand as judge of their own customers' behavior or content, but the Trump-era rise of the far right has repeatedly forced Cloudflare and others companies into that position.
Billionaire Marc Lore is fleshing out his plan to build a utopian city called Telosa for 5 million people in the American desert — and he's not the only one with such ambitions.
Why it matters: There are about a dozen projects worldwide to create sustainable, hypermodern cities-from-scratch. While they may never come to fruition, the proposals themselves hint at what the city of the future might look like.
Meta and Twitter have taken down accounts pushing pro-U.S. and pro-Western themes to Middle Eastern and Central Asian audiences, per a new report.
Driving the news: In July and August, both platforms removed the accounts for violating terms of service around manipulation and inauthentic behavior, researchers from the social media analytics group Graphika and the Stanford Internet Observatory write in the report.
Apple confirmed an in-person press event for Sept. 7 at its Cupertino, Calif. headquarters, where the company is expected to introduce new iPhones and Apple Watch models, along with potentially other products.
Why it matters: The success of the iPhone is not only key to Apple's business, but vital for a variety of firms that supply components and for U.S. wireless providers such as AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon.
Google on Wednesday announced three new Fitbit wearables, packing additional sensors along with other software and hardware updates.
Why it matters: With the launch, Google is showing its commitment to continue the Fitbit line of trackers even as it works to incorporate some of Fitbit's technology into other products, such as the forthcoming Pixel Watch.
Twitter security is a huge mess, its former security boss charged in a whistleblower complaint — but huge security messes are all too common in the online world.
What they're saying: "Regulators, media and users of the platform will be shocked when they inevitably learn about Twitter’s severe lack of security basics," Peiter "Mudge" Zatko, who had just been fired as Twitter's security head, wrote in a report he intended to deliver to the company's board in February.
People driving cars that mostly operate themselves can drift into a dangerous state of fatigue, but one leading autonomous vehicle (AV) company has suggestions to keep drivers alert.
Why it matters: Autonomous test vehicles and increasingly automated personal cars are already all over the road, meaning we're all part of a big public beta test with potentially fatal consequences.
