CNN – Social Media/Technology

By Sara Ashley O’Brien, CNN Business Microsoft’s nearly $70 billion deal to buy Activision Blizzard could make it a leader in gaming. But it also risks creating a new headache for the tech giant in a key part of its operations: corporate culture. For months, Activision Blizzard has been under pressure to overhaul its workplace

By Rachel Metz, CNN Business Jeremy Bailenson has studied virtual reality for decades. But it wasn’t until last year that the Stanford professor felt the technology was good enough that he could actually teach a class in VR. Over the summer and again in the fall, Bailenson, the founding director of Stanford’s Virtual Human Interaction

By Michelle Toh, CNN Business Apple has once again become the top-selling smartphone brand in top market China, along with the rest of the world. That’s according to findings from two separate research reports, which come just before the tech giant is set to release its earnings for the most recent quarter on Thursday. A

By Sara Ashley O’Brien, CNN Business Workers at an Amazon warehouse in Staten Island have shown enough support to hold a union election, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) confirmed on Wednesday. For months, a grassroots group called Amazon Labor Union led by former Amazon employee Chris Smalls has worked to collect signatures from employees

By Laura He, CNN Business China’s top cybersecurity regulator is vowing to crack down on “illegal” online content as part of a campaign to clean up the internet ahead of the Beijing Winter Olympics and one of the country’s most important annual holidays. The Cyberspace Administration of China announced Tuesday that its month-long internet “purification”

By Brian Fung, CNN Business A bipartisan group of attorneys general sued Google on Monday, alleging that the technology giant has used “dark patterns” and deceptive practices to track users’ physical location even when those users have made efforts to block Google from doing so. The parallel lawsuits by the District of Columbia, Texas, Indiana

By Rachel Metz, CNN Business Facebook has long bet that artificial intelligence can help it with the difficult task of moderating posts from its billions of users. Now its parent company is taking a step that could move it closer to that elusive goal: building its first supercomputer. Meta on Monday announced its new AI

By Angus Watson, Jill Disis and Yong Xiong, CNN Business Australia has accused WeChat of taking down Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s account and redirecting his followers to a site that claims to provide information for Chinese Australians. The removal of the account was first confirmed Monday by James Paterson, chairman of Australia’s Parliamentary Joint Committee

By Kara Fox, CNN In the west of Ireland lies a medieval market town, its roots steeped in legend. Beyond the labyrinth of narrow streets of the center are the chimney stacks of housing developments that still puff coal and peat. Past those homes, on the outskirts of Ennis, is an unremarkable but huge plot

By Jackie Wattles and Pete Muntean, CNN Potentially abysmal air travel interruptions were narrowly avoided this week when wireless carriers made a last-minute change to their planned 5G rollout in response to fears that new cell service towers could interfere with a key component on passenger jets that allows them to safely land in low

By Samantha Murphy Kelly, CNN Business Many mobile device users in the United States now have access to blazing-fast internet speeds stemming from the rollout of Verizon and AT&T’s new C-band 5G networks earlier this week. While telecom companies have rolled out 5G networks to various locations across the country over the last few years,

By Sara Ashley O’Brien, CNN Business Workers at an Activision Blizzard-owned game studio announced plans on Friday to form what would be the first union at the troubled gaming company. A group of quality assurance workers at Raven Software who largely work on the wildly popular “Call of Duty” series said they have garnered enough

By Clare Duffy, CNN Business Twitter on Thursday began rolling out a feature that will let some users set NFTs that they own as their profile picture to signal their investment in the emerging digital art space. The move makes Twitter one of the best-known tech platforms so far to launch a feature for the

By Jackie Wattles, Pete Muntean and Gregory Wallace, CNN The attempt to roll out amped up mobile service across the United States has been a bit of a mess. The aviation industry and transportation regulators are worried about new 5G antennas interfering with a key type of aircraft altimeter that’s essential for landing planes in

By Samantha Murphy Kelly, CNN Business The next-generation of wireless technology is now even faster for 5G users in some parts of the country. Telecom companies have rolled out 5G networks to various locations across the United States over the last few years, delivering an experience that’s arguably only a notch above what 4G offers.

By Jordan Valinsky, CNN Business The CEO of Better.com, best known for firing 900 employees over Zoom just before Christmas, is coming back to work. Vishal Garg is returning to his “full-time duties” as CEO, according to a letter sent to employees Tuesday from the company’s board of directors. The letter noted that Garg used

By Diksha Madhok, CNN Business Microsoft’s blockbuster purchase of video game developer Activision Blizzard could pose a serious threat for Sony. Shares of the maker of the PlayStation console, a major rival to Microsoft’s Xbox, plummeted nearly 13% in Tokyo on Wednesday after Microsoft announced the nearly $70 billion deal. That was the worst plunge

By Pete Muntean, CNN Business AT&T and Verizon announced Tuesday that they would delay activating 5G on some towers around certain airports. The wireless technology’s rollout near major airports had been scheduled for Wednesday, but airlines warned of dire consequences for transportation and the economy. AT&T made the announcement as it works with the aviation

By Jennifer Korn and Clare Duffy, CNN Business Microsoft on Tuesday announced plans to acquire Activision Blizzard in a blockbuster deal worth nearly $70 billion. It’s one of the biggest acquisitions in the tech industry in recent years, one that will boost Microsoft’s standing in the growing gaming industry but could be complicated by recent

By Sara Ashley O’Brien, CNN Business The parents of Austin McEwen, one of the six victims killed after a tornado pummeled an Amazon warehouse in Edwardsville, Illinois, last month, said Monday during a press conference that they are suing Amazon over the alleged wrongful death of their son. McEwen’s parents allege that the e-commerce giant,

By Pete Muntean and Gregory Wallace, CNN Business Executives from the largest US airlines asked the Biden administration for “immediate intervention” in the planned rollout of 5G technology near major airports on Wednesday, warning of dire consequences for transportation and the economy. The representatives of 10 carriers asked the administration in a letter obtained by

By Sara Ashley O’Brien, CNN Business Elizabeth Holmes, the former CEO of Theranos who was convicted earlier this month on four out of 11 federal fraud and conspiracy charges, will not be sentenced until September 26, according to a new filing. The prosecution and defense had proposed September 12 for a sentencing hearing in a

By Clare Duffy, CNN Business A group of more than 80 fact-checking organizations from around the world has called YouTube “one of the major conduits of online disinformation and misinformation worldwide” and wants the platform to do more to address the problem. In an open letter to YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki published Wednesday, the group