CNN – Social Media/Technology

By Jackie Wattles, CNN Business Pete Davidson will become the latest celebrity to fly to space with Jeff Bezos’ rocket company, Blue Origin, in a brief, suborbital flight slated for later this month. The company announced Monday morning that Davidson, the Saturday Night Live Star who’s become a pillar of entertainment intrigue amid his relationship

By Sara Ashley O’Brien, CNN Business Fridge No More, a startup that offered fast delivery with no fee regardless of size order, told employees this week that it was shutting down after a deal with a potential buyer fell through. The closure was the second in the span of a week by an ultra-fast delivery

By Rishi Iyengar, CNN Business Big tech platforms have joined the global backlash against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, with Facebook, Google, Twitter, Spotify, Netflix and others placing at least partial restrictions on Russian content — if not exiting (or getting themselves blocked) altogether. In the past week, however, the severing of Russia from

By Brian Fung, CNN House lawmakers who spent much of 2019 and 2020 probing Amazon for possible antitrust violations now accuse the tech giant of lying to Congress and want the Justice Department to investigate “potentially criminal conduct” from the company and some of its executives. In a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland dated

By Sara Ashley O’Brien, CNN Business Tinder wants to help people surface red flags about potential dates through quick and affordable criminal background checks. Beginning this week, Tinder users will see a background check tool integrated into the popular dating app’s Safety Center. The new option is part of a partnership between Tinder’s parent company,

By Rishi Iyengar, CNN Business Spotify and Discord experienced disruptions to their services on Tuesday. Several Spotify users reported being automatically logged out of their accounts. “Something’s not quite right, and we’re looking into it,” the company tweeted. At roughly the same time, messaging platform Discord reported a partial outage. “We’re aware of an issue

By Jennifer Korn Google on Tuesday announced it has agreed to buy cybersecurity firm Mandiant for around $5.4 billion, one of the largest acquisitions in the tech giant’s history and a big bet that helping companies better address cyber threats can bolster its cloud computing business. “The acquisition of Mandiant will complement Google Cloud’s existing

By Samantha Murphy Kelly, CNN Business At its first product event of the year on Tuesday, Apple unveiled an upgraded iPad Air, a new desktop computer and a powerful new Mac chip. But the standout product was a new budget iPhone with access to 5G networks. Apple’s new iPhone SE, only the third version since

By Rishi Iyengar, CNN Business Like much else about the country, Russia’s internet has long straddled East and West. Russian citizens, unlike their Chinese counterparts, have been able to access US tech platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Google, though they have been subject to censorship and restrictions — the defining feature of China’s internet

By Rachel Metz, CNN Business In mid-February, privacy and digital rights activists were buzzing about a recent victory: Earlier in the month, the Internal Revenue Service said it would back away from a controversial plan to force taxpayers to use facial-recognition software before they could log in to its website. “This has definitely been a

By Sara Ashley O’Brien, CNN Business WeWork said Monday that it is planning to divest its operations in Russia, one week after its CEO said the real estate company’s “assets do incredibly well” there and he didn’t think it would need to pull out of the country. “Together with our colleagues, members, and landlords, we

By Anna Cooban, CNN Business Netflix and TikTok are suspending all or part of their services in Russia, adding to a long list of companies boycotting the country over its war in Ukraine. Netflix said on Sunday that it would stop streaming its content in Russia, though it did not specify what would happen to

By Brian Fung, CNN Business Google has suspended all advertising in Russia, the company confirmed to CNN Friday. “In light of the extraordinary circumstances, we’re pausing Google ads in Russia,” the company said in a statement. “The situation is evolving quickly, and we will continue to share updates when appropriate.” The decision covers all Google’s

By Clare Duffy and Brian Fung, CNN Business When Russia moved to “partially restrict” Facebook access in the country last week, drawing the social network deeper into an international conflict, it prompted a defiant response from the company’s most visible representative on the world stage. Not Mark Zuckerberg, but Nick Clegg. “Yesterday, Russian authorities ordered

By Jackie Wattles, CNN Business Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos, will no longer deliver Russian-made rocket engines to the United States, Roscosmos head Dmitry Rogozin said on state television, ending a decades-long relationship between US and Russian rocket makers. “Today we have made a decision to halt the deliveries of rocket engines produced by NPO Energomash

By Rishi Iyengar, CNN Business Google is giving its employees one more month of being fully remote before requiring them back in the office at least three days a week. The tech giant will “end the voluntary WFH period” on April 4 that it gave its employees at the start of the coronavirus pandemic in

By Sara Ashley O’Brien, CNN Business First, Amazon killed traditional bookstores. Then it opened its own. Now, Amazon is doing away with its bookstores. The e-commerce giant confirmed Wednesday that it is closing 68 retail locations, including all of its Amazon Books stores, as part of a broader shift in its bricks-and-mortar retail strategy. In

By Brian Fung, CNN Business Over the past week, Ukraine’s government has pressured major tech platforms to rethink how they operate with Russia, and it has been pretty successful. Social media companies have reduced the reach of Russian state-backed media outlets, for example, and Apple has stopped selling its products and limited some services in