Viral tweet prompts discrimination probe into Goldman Sachs

What just happened? Angry tweets from veteran programmer David Heinemeier Hansson, creator of Ruby on Rails and co-founder of Basecamp, went viral yesterday after alleging that the algorithm making credit decisions for the Apple Card, backed by Goldman Sachs, is making inherently sexist decisions. The tweets have prompted the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) to investigate.

At what point do we decide that decisions taken by machine learning algorithms are inherently discriminatory, if in fact they can be? It’s a question that is


Adobe defends Photoshop for iPad after receiving a wave of poor reviews

What just happened? Adobe's newly released Photoshop for iPad has been battered with negative reviews, mostly for not mirroring the full Photoshop feature set available for desktop PCs. The company thinks it made the right call, but failed to communicate the fact that it's going to take a while before professionals will be able to migrate their workflows to a tablet.

Earlier this week, Adobe took the stage at its MAX Conference to announce the much-awaited Photoshop for iPad , which is the company's adaptation of


Instagram will begin hiding likes in the US next week

A hot potato: The beginning of the end for Instagram’s ever-ticking ‘like’ counter begins next week, with a small portion of US users to see the feature disappear. Will it drain the anxiety from the platform? Are the days of the influencer nearly over? Nothing quite so dramatic, most likely, but changes to the way social media works are certainly inbound.

At a recent event , Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri said: “we will make decisions that hurt the business if they’re good


Stadia app available on Google Play Store ahead of imminent launch

What just happened? There are only 10 more days until Google flips the switch on Stadia and people can start playing — so long as they have a pre-order invite code. In preparation for the event the Play Store has made available the Android version of the Stadia app.

The launch of Google's Stadia game streaming service is right around the corner. For those itching to get on and start playing the second it goes live, the Stadia app for Android devices was just added to the Google Play Store

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Electric vehicle sales outpace manual transmission for the first time

What just happened? In the automotive world, manual transmission cars and electric vehicles (EVs) are both considered niche products right now. But interestingly, after a decade on the market, EV sales have finally outpaced stick-shift cars for the first time in the US – though that’s still not saying much.

In a tiny sign-of-the-times, electric vehicle sales have for the first time exceeded sales of manual transmission cars, accounting for 1.9% and 1.1% respectively


Apple plans to fix Siri bug that stored encrypted macOS emails in plaintext

Apple has always been known as one of the most privacy-focused tech giants, but no company is perfect. IT Specialist Bob Gendler on Wednesday published a Medium blog post that claims Apple's encrypted email technology is perhaps not as encrypted as you might think.

While investigating the link between macOS and Siri -- particularly, the contact and information suggestion features of the latter -- Gendler found a process called "suggestd," and a "Suggestions" folder. Suggestions was stored inside the easily-accessible, "

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European antitrust chief: Google's auction-based solution for shopping results isn't working

In brief: After being fined for its anticompetitive practices in search, Google spun off a small part of its business and implemented an auction-based system for shopping comparison services to help them feature more prominently in search results. However, it has done so little to create a level playing field that the EU may soon ask for significant changes.

When Margrethe Vestager was appointed vice president of digital policy for the European Commission earlier this year, it was clear that tech giants would be in her crosshairs. Two years ago,


Silk Road drug dealer pleads guilty to laundering more than $19 million in Bitcoin

Why it matters: A 61-year-old from Ohio pled guilty this week to money laundering charges stemming from his participation in moving narcotics on the dark web. He claimed he earned the Bitcoins from mining and trading but police didn't buy it.

Authorities in July announced the arrest of Hugh Brian Haney and charged him with money laundering. The complaint alleges that Haney was a high-ranking member of Pharmville, a prominent vendor on the dark web marketplace Silk Road. He allegedly generated more than $1


Early Black Friday deals: Save on top noise cancelling headphones from Bose, Sony, and Beats

Some of the top noise cancelling wireless headphones from Bose, Sony, and Beats went on sale this week. Other top deals include the Ring Video Doorbell bundles with Echo Show 5, MacBook Air and Pro discounts and Dell's XPS 8930 desktops.

We've also rounded up all the best tech deals available this week that are still live on laptops, monitors, networking, electronics


Vulnerability discovered in Ring doorbells that leaked network credentials

In a nutshell: Many users love the peace of mind that Ring video doorbells provide. However, what good is home security if the device providing it makes your home network vulnerable? The doorbells apparently come with an exploitable weakness that allows hackers to intercept the user's network credentials. Fortunately, it was not easy to pull off.

Romanian cybersecurity firm Bitdefender has found a venerability in Ring doorbells that allowed it to intercept the WiFi credentials of the device's network. It discovered the security hole on Amazon's

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