11+ mon, 2+ week ago (455+ words) Remember what you searched for in 2024? Google does. Google has released its annual "Year in Search," rounding up 2024's top trending searches. It shows terms that saw the highest spike in traffic compared to last year. Sports " particularly soccer and cricket " dominated overall search trends, led by queries for Copa Am'rica, the UEFA European Championship and ICC Men's T20 World Cup. Meanwhile, the U.S. election led news-specific searches worldwide. Queries about excessive heat and this year's Olympic Games followed. U.S. President-elect Donald Trump topped searches in Google's people category this year " followed by Catherine, Princess of Wales, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and Algerian boxer Imane Khelif. What did you Google in 2024? From the elections to Copa Am'rica, here's what search trends show Google released its annual "Year in Search" on Tuesday, rounding up the top trending queries entered into its namesake search engine…...

10+ mon, 2+ week ago (769+ words) A student uses a cell phone after unlocking the pouch that secures it from use during the school day at Bayside Academy, Aug. 16, 2024, in San Mateo, Calif. (Lea Suzuki/San Francisco Chronicle via AP, File) Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders gives the State of the State address to a joint session of the Arkansas General Assembly on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2025, at the state Capitol in Little Rock, Ark. (Thomas Metthe/Arkansas Democrat-Gazette via AP) At least eight states have enacted such bans over the past two years, and proposals are being considered in several more states this year. Here is a look at the push by states for such bans. The push for cellphone bans has been driven by concerns about the impact screen time has on children's mental health and complaints from teachers that cellphones have become a constant distraction in…...

8+ mon, 5+ day ago (731+ words) A magazine journalist's account of being added to a group chat of U.S. national security officials coordinating plans for airstrikes has raised questions about how highly sensitive information is supposed to be handled. Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg detailed a discussion that happened over the Signal messaging app hours before the strikes. The National Security Council has since said the text chain "appears to be authentic." Signal is an app that can be used for direct messaging and group chats as well as phone and video calls. It uses end-to-end encryption and touts the privacy of its service. Experts agree it is more secure than conventional texting. But it could be hacked. Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg detailed a discussion that happened over the Signal messaging app hours before strikes on Iran-backed Houthi-rebels in Yemen ordered by U.S. President Donald Trump. The National Security…...

11+ mon, 2+ week ago (450+ words) Remember what you searched for in 2024? Google does. Google has released its annual "Year in Search," rounding up 2024's top trending searches. It shows terms that saw the highest spike in traffic compared to last year. Sports " particularly soccer and cricket " dominated overall search trends, led by queries for Copa Am'rica, the UEFA European Championship and ICC Men's T20 World Cup. Meanwhile, the U.S. election led news-specific searches worldwide. Queries about excessive heat and this year's Olympic Games followed. U.S. President-elect Donald Trump topped searches in Google's people category this year " followed by Catherine, Princess of Wales, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and Algerian boxer Imane Khelif. Remember what you searched for on Google? Here's what 2024 trends reveal Google released its annual "Year in Search" on Tuesday, rounding up the top trending queries entered into its namesake search engine in 2024. The results show terms…...

7+ mon, 3+ week ago (125+ words) The Pentagon's acting inspector general has announced that he will review Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's use of the Signal messaging app to convey plans for a military strike against Houthi militants in Yemen. The review will also look at other defense officials use of the the publicly available encrypted app, which is not able to handle classified material and is not part of the Defense Department's secure communications network. Pentagon's watchdog to review Hegseth's use of Signal app to convey plans for Houthi strike The review will also look at other defense officials' use of the publicly available encrypted app, which is not able to handle classified material and is not part of the Defense Department's secure communications network....

2+ mon, 3+ week ago (501+ words) There has been concern about the cables being targeted in a Red Sea campaign by Yemen's Houthi rebels, which the rebels describe as an effort to pressure Israel to end its war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip. But the Houthis have denied attacking the lines in the past. Microsoft announced via a status website that the Mideast "may experience increased latency due to undersea fiber cuts in the Red Sea." The Redmond, Washington-based firm did not immediately elaborate, though it said that internet traffic not moving through the Middle East "is not impacted." NetBlocks, which monitors internet access, said "a series of subsea cable outages in the Red Sea has degraded internet connectivity in multiple countries," which it said included India and Pakistan. It blamed "failures affecting the SMW4 and IMEWE cable systems near Jeddah, Saudi Arabia." The South East…...

5+ mon, 3+ week ago (838+ words) Las fallas, que comenzaron a finales del a'o pasado y continuaron hasta 2025, fueron la se'al de un sofisticado ciberataque que podr'a haber permitido a los hackers infiltrarse en un tel'fono sin un solo clic del usuario. Los atacantes no dejaron pistas sobre sus identidades, pero los investigadores de la firma de ciberseguridad iVerify notaron que las v'ctimas ten'an algo en com'n: trabajaban en campos de inter's para el gobierno de China y hab'an sido objetivo de hackers chinos en el pasado. Esto muestra cu'n vulnerables son los dispositivos m'viles y las aplicaciones y el riesgo de que las vulnerablidades puedan exponer informaci'n sensible o dejar los intereses estadounidenses abiertos a ciberataques, dicen esos expertos. "El mundo est' en una crisis de seguridad m'vil en este momento, explic' Rocky Cole, ex experto en ciberseguridad de la Agencia de Seguridad Nacional y…...

2+ mon, 3+ week ago (533+ words) Nepal's crackdown on social media companies, which led to protests and police killing at least 19 people, is part of a yearslong decline of internet freedoms around the world as even democracies seek to curtail online speech. The Himalayan country's government said last week it was blocking several social media platforms including Facebook, X and YouTube because the companies failed to comply with a requirement that they register with the government. The ban was lifted Tuesday a day after the deadly protests. Like neighboring countries, Nepal's government have been asking the companies to appoint a liaison in the country. Officials are calling for laws to to monitor social media and ensure both the users and operators are responsible and accountable for what they share. But the move has been criticized as a tool for censorship and punishing opponents who voice their…...

10+ mon, 1+ week ago (1398+ words) Starting in 2017, when the Chinese social video app merged with its competitor Musical.ly, TikTok has grown from a niche teen app into a global trendsetter. While, of course, also emerging as a potential national security threat, according to U.S. officials. On April 24, President Joe Biden signed legislation requiring TikTok parent ByteDance to sell to a U.S. owner within a year or to shut down. TikTok and its China-based parent company, ByteDance, filed a lawsuit against the U.S., claiming the security concerns were overblown and the law should be struck down because it violates the First Amendment. The Supreme Court on Friday unanimously upheld the federal law banning TikTok beginning Jan. 19 unless it's sold by ByteDance. Here's how TikTok came to this juncture: ByteDance is founded in China by entrepreneur Zhang Yimin. Its first hit product is Toutiao, a personalized news aggregator for…...

3+ mon, 1+ week ago (798+ words) Jamel Bishop is seeing a big change in his classrooms as he begins his senior year at Doss High School in Louisville, Kentucky, where cellphones are now banned during instructional time. In previous years, students often weren't paying attention and wasted class time by repeating questions, the teenager said. Now, teachers can provide "more one-on-one time for the students who actually need it." Kentucky is one of 17 states and the District of Columbia starting this school year with new restrictions, bringing the total to 35 states with laws or rules limiting phones and other electronic devices in school. This change has come remarkably quickly: Florida became the first state to pass such a law in 2023. Both Democrats and Republicans have taken up the cause, reflecting a growing consensus that phones are bad for kids' mental health and take their focus away…...