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technology Tag

Over the weekend of July 27th, the city of West Chicago, Illinois played host to the largest steam locomotive in North America. The locomotive, nicknamed "Big Boy," was built in 1941 for the Union Pacific Railroad. It was retired from active service in 1959 with the discontinuation of steam service on American railroads and turned into a display piece in Pomona, California.

We have been following the developments related to Canada's arrest of China’s Huawei Technologies Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou, who faces extradition to the United States on suspicion she violated U.S. trade sanctions against Iran. The Department of Justice officially unsealed charges against the tech giant, the executive, and several subsidiaries, alleging the company stole trade secrets and misled banks about its business...as well as violating U.S. sanctions.

India and Israel are cementing bilateral cooperation in technology with the launch of a $40 million joint research fund. The 'Israel-India Industrial R&D and Technological Innovation Fund', or I4F as the project is formally known, was kicked off at a ceremony in India's capital New Delhi last week.

Axios obtained a memo written by the office of Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, that plans for the government to takeover the internet and regulate digital platforms. From Reason:
To save American trust in "our institutions, democracy, free press, and markets," it suggests, we need unprecedented and undemocratic government intervention into online press and markets, including "comprehensive (GDPR-like) data protection legislation" of the sort enacted in the E.U.

Remember when the FCC repealed net neutrality last December? Net neutrality supporters went into hyperbole-overload. Some even spewed racial slurs at FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and stalked his house. You would've thought the world, or at the least, the internet would end. The FCC's Restoring Internet Freedom Order went into effect today, June 11, and...the internet is still working. The world is still turning.

After having my car keyed during the Bush era for a pro-president bumper sticker, I have avoided those with political slogans. As I live in California, in a veritable sea of soccer mom mobiles, having a distinguishing feature on my Honda is critical. So I chose "Star Trek Valedictorian".

Amazingly, we all didn't die when the FCC voted to rollback the net neutrality rules implemented during President Barack Obama's administration. Those who desperately want those regulations in place have not stopped fighting. Now they have chosen to place pressure on the states to save net neutrality.

No, this isn't an Onion article.  Facebook has a new pilot program aimed at protecting users from having their nude bodies plastered all over Facebook . . . by requiring that you upload a photo of your nude body to Facebook. They will then "hash" your nakedness (turn it into a unique code); once this is done, your hashed image (now code, not a pic of you in all your glory) will then be flagged and refused upload permissions on Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram. Facebook's "intimate safety" pilot is currently only available in Australia. Facebook writes:
We don’t want Facebook to be a place where people fear their intimate images will be shared without their consent. We’re constantly working to prevent this kind of abuse and keep this content out of our community. We recently announced a test that’s a little different from things we’ve tried in the past. Even though this is a small pilot, we want to be clear about how it works.

Russian hackers for the Kremlin have allegedly stolen the U.S.'s cyber defense details after an NSA contractor took home classified documents and uploaded them on his home computer. These documents provide details on how our government agencies get into "foreign computer networks" and how we defend ourselves "against cyberattacks." Experts believe this breach is "one of the most significant security breaches in recent years."

Last month, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) admitted that hackers accessed its network in 2016, but assured everyone that no one anyone's personal information. It turns out the hackers did access at least two people's information: names, Social Security numbers, birthdays.