Facebook Inc.-owned Instagram today announced that it’s expanding its testing of removing public “like” counts globally after launching a trial in select countries earlier this year. The idea behind removing like counts, announced at Facebook’s annual developer conference in April, is ostensibly to assist with mental health and bullying. Removing like counts, Instagram argues, removes pressure on some ...

Password manager software provider 1Password has $200 million in new funding today to invest in product and go-to-market programs to expand its enterprise presence globally. The Series A round, the first time the company formally known as AgileBits Inc. has taken outside funding in its 14-year history, was led by Accel. It included Slack Fund, WndrCo, ...

Open-source hosting and repository service GitHub Inc., acquired by Microsoft Corp. for $7.5 billion in October 2018, today announced a series of new security products at its annual GitHub Universe event in San Francisco. Leading the announcements is GitHub Security Lab, a new service that brings together security researchers, maintainers, and companies across the industry who share a ...

Mexican state-owned petroleum company Petróleos Mexicanos, known as Pemex, has been targeted in a ransomware attack whose perpetrators are demanding a ransom of 565 bitcoin, worth $4.93 million. The attack, which forced the company to shut down much of its computer network including payment systems, struck on Sunday. According to Reuters, the Ryuk ransomware was used ...

Oculus Chief Technology Officer John Carmack is stepping down from the position he has held since 2013 to spend time working on artificial intelligence. Although he won’t have a formal role in the company, Carmack (pictured) will remain somewhat involved, taking on a new position of “consulting CTO” instead. He made the announcement today on Facebook. Carmack, ...

Smart home speaker sales surged in the third quarter and Amazon.com Inc. increased its lead in the market. According to figures today from Canalys, in the quarter overall smart speaker sales grew 44.9% from the same quarter in 2018. Amazon held a 36.6% share of the market, up from 31.9% a year ago. Amazon smart ...

Online cybersecurity career development startup Cybrary Inc. today said it has raised $15 million in new funding to accelerate the growth of the company’s online workforce development platform. The Series B round was led by BuildGroup and included Arthur Ventures and Gula Tech Adventures. As part of the deal, Gray Hall, managing director of BuildGroup, and Ron Gula, ...

Container security startup Aqua Security Software Ltd. today revealed that it has acquired cloud security-as-a-service startup CloudSploit LLC for an undisclosed price. Founded in 2015 and based in the Washington D.C. area, CloudSploit’s SaaS platform offers open-source and hosted automated security and configuration monitoring software for Amazon Web Services Inc. and Microsoft Corp. Azure cloud environments. ...

ASP.NET hosting provider SmarterASP.NET was struck with ransomware on Saturday, continuing to affect customer sites into today. The company, with more than 440,000 customers, didn’t provide many details as to the form of the attack. But it said in an announcement to customers that “your hosting account was under attack and hackers have encrypted all your ...

Cryptocurrency startup Bakkt LLC, founded by New York Stock Exchange owner Intercontinental Exchange Inc. today entered the bitcoin institutional custody business after obtaining approval from the New York Department of Financial Services. The service, an extension of the company’s Bakkt Warehouse, offers bitcoin custodial services to institutional investors. A custodial service involves an entity holding a client’s property, ...