TECH

Tesla on Wednesday dropped a lawsuit it filed earlier in the month against California’s Alameda County that claimed its mandated coronavirus shutdowns go against state policy, according to Reuters.

The electric carmaker, fueled by Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk, had been pushing to reopen the factory after local health officials shuttered business to curb the spread of the virus.

Musk had also taken to Twitter to threaten to move the company to Texas or Nevada.

A former Apple contractor who acted as a whistleblower regarding the tech giant's program to listen in on users' Siri recordings has gone public.

In a letter announcing his decision, which The Guardian reports was sent to European data regulators, Thomas le Bonniec said: “It is worrying that Apple (and undoubtedly not just Apple) keeps ignoring and violating fundamental rights and continues their massive collection of data."

“I am extremely concerned that big tech companies are basically wiretapping entire populations despite European citizens being told the EU has one of the strongest data protection laws in the world. Passing a law is not good enough: it needs to be enforced upon privacy offenders," he said.

OAKLAND, Calif. (Reuters) - When a senior living facility in Amarillo, Texas suspected a nurse may have caught the novel coronavirus this month, it had a list within five minutes of staff and residents the nurse could have infected.

High-tech wristbands worn by The Legacy at Town Square’s 35 workers and 49 residents expedited contact tracing, the otherwise pain-staking process of interviewing patients to determine who crossed paths with them.

The nurse tested negative an hour later and Legacy did not have to isolate or test others. But its experience shows how wristbands and other wearables have emerged as tools to automatically record encounters between people at places that can mandate their use.

A total of 420 of Elon Musk's Starlink satellites are now in low Earth orbit, promising new internet-from-space services, but leaving many astronomers aghast.

Cast your eyes up to the night sky in these pollution-free times here in Europe and you may very well see a train of satellites cruising across the stars.

They are visible without any special equipment, a distinct succession of lights against the blackness. These objects are the beginnings of the Starlink constellation, a privately-owned venture from Elon Musk's SpaceX company promising to offer high-quality internet connections from space.

The world's biggest smartphone maker, Samsung Electronics, said Wednesday that net profits in the first quarter were only slightly impacted by the coronavirus pandemic but warned of further falls to come as demand is "significantly" hit by the disease.

reported on Wednesday that net profits fell slightly in the first quarter as the coronavirus pandemic dampened consumer demand, but warned of further falls to come.

Net profits in the January-to-March period were 4.88 trillion won ($4 billion), down 3.1 percent from a year earlier, the company said in a statement.

The January-March performance was "partially due to effects of COVID-19", Samsung said in a statement.