This Week in Tech

Samsung Phones Are Spontaneously Texting Users’ Photos to Random Contacts Without Their Permission – This Week in Tech – 07/08/2018

Samsung Phones Are Spontaneously Texting Users’ Photos to Random Contacts Without Their Permission

Bad news for Samsung phone owners: some devices are randomly sending your camera roll photos to your contacts without permission. As first spotted by Android Central and later covered by Gizmodo, users are complaining about the issue on Reddit and the company’s official forums. One user says his phone sent all his photos to his girlfriend. The messages are being sent through Samsung’s default texting app Samsung Messages. According to reports, the Messages app does not even show users that files have been sent; many just find out after they get a response from the recipient of the random photos sent to them…


Elon Musk Making “Kid-Sized Submarine” to Rescue Teens in Thailand Cave

Elon Musk tweeted on Saturday that a team of SpaceX engineers is hours away from completing work on a “tiny kid-sized submarine” that could be used to extract 12 teenagers and preteens who are stranded with their soccer coach in a flooded cave in Thailand. Musk has had a team of engineers working on the problem for the last couple of days and has been keeping the world updated on the work via Twitter…


AT&T Promised Lower Prices After Time Warner Merger—it’s Raising Them Instead

AT&T is raising the base price of its DirecTV Now streaming service by $5 per month, despite promising in court that its acquisition of Time Warner Inc. would lower TV prices…


London Police Chief ‘Completely Comfortable’ Using Facial Recognition With 98 Percent False Positive Rate

The head of London’s Metropolitan Police force has defended the organization’s ongoing trials of automated facial recognition systems, despite legal challenges and criticisms that the technology is “almost entirely inaccurate.”…


Over 800 Cryptocurrencies Are Now Dead as Bitcoin Is 70 Percent Off Its Record High

Cryptocurrency projects have been popping up left, right and center in the past 18 months, but over 800 of those are now dead, adding to comparisons between the current digital coin market and the dotcom bubble in 2000…


YouTuber in Row Over Copyright Infringement of His Own Song

Paul Davids thought he had seen it all when it came to YouTube’s copyright protection system…


Uganda Just Rolled Out a 5-Cent Daily Tax to Access Social Media. People Aren’t Happy

(KAMPALA, Uganda) — A new tax on social media has taken effect in Uganda, angering many who see the revenue measure as an attack on free speech…