Facebook Inc. today said it has acquired Spanish cloud gaming company PlayGiga for about €70 million ($78 million) as it looks to expand into the gaming market. Founded in 2013, PlayGiga offers a premium streaming game service that works on both Windows and macOS computers as well as some smart televisions. Customers sign up for a subscription, which ...

Uber Technologies Inc. is expanding its Uber Works temporary labor hire service to Miami, Florida, after launching the service in Chicago in October. The on-demand labor hiring app matches people looking for shift work with companies that need temporary employees. Designed to provide “more clarity” in the temp hiring market, Uber Works allows workers to see all ...

The Lazarus Group, the North Korean-linked hacking group believed to be behind in the spread of the WannaCry ransomware in 2017 and linked to a campaign targeting banks and financial institutions in 2018, is back again. Now it’s targeting Linux systems alongside Windows. The new Lazarus campaign, detailed today by Qihoo 360 Netlab researchers, uses a remote-access Trojan virus dubbed Dacls. First detected in May, ...

A data breach at Canadian clinical laboratory services provider LifeLabs has exposed the records of up to 15 million patients, but in an interesting twist, the company paid those behind the hack for the stolen data to be returned. The hack took place in October and involved customer names, addresses, emails, logins, passwords, date of ...

Skyryse Inc., a Hawthorn, California-based startup building technology for semi-autonomous helicopters, said today it has raised a new $13 million round. The round included previous investors along with Ford Motor Co. Chairman William Clay Ford Jr. Founded in 2016, Skyryse is developing technology that retrofits existing helicopters with technology that makes flying a helicopter easier for pilots. The ...

Amazon.com Inc. is starting to make money offering premium content via Alexa as the e-commerce giant’s smart assistant shifts from its “Alexa Everywhere” phase to a maturing product. According to The Information, Amazon is considering a variety of options going forward for Alexa, including charging for some news and entertainment services. A potential partnership with ...

Israeli artificial intelligence-assisted software development firm Codota Dot Com Ltd. Monday said it has acquired code prediction tool TabNine for an undisclosed sum. Founded in 2018 and based in Canada, TabNine uses deep learning to assist in AI-driven code completion for coders, with support for 23 programming languages across five code editors. TabNine will continue to operate ...

Google LLC has pulled the distribution of the latest version of its Chrome browser for Android after users reported that the update deleted some user data on third-party apps. Chrome 79 was launched last week with a focus on beefed-up security features. Those features included Password Checkup, a service that identified compromised credentials, as well ...

Facebook Inc.-owned Instagram is rolling out new features in an attempt to combat bullying and fake news. The photo-sharing app is tackling alleged online bullying using artificial intelligence to warn users before they post “potentially offensive” captions. An extension on a feature that filtered comments earlier this year, the new feature prompts users with a ...

Visa Inc. is warning that gas stations and gas pumps in the U.S. are being targeted by point-of-sale malware designed to steal credit card credentials. The targeting of gas stations was first detected in the summer when the Visa Payment Fraud Disruption team identified several attacks likely carried out by sophisticated cybercrime groups. The attacks specifically targeted POS systems ...