Japanese IT giant GMO Internet Inc. is walking away from the cryptocurrency industry, announcing that will no longer develop, manufacture or sell bitcoin mining hardware. The decision, while directly related to the precipitous drop in the price of bitcoin this year, was specifically attributed to GMO Internet being forced to record a massive loss in its cryptocurrency ...

Facebook Inc.-owned photo sharing app Instagram has been forced to backtrack after “accidentally” releasing a new version that did away with scrolling and replaced it with a Tinder-like horizontal swipe feature. Instagram users were presented with the horizontal swipe feature for a brief time on Thursday morning before it was rolled back with instructions to users ...

The U.S. Internal Revenue Service is investigating ways to use social media to find tax cheats. First spotted today by QZ.com, a “Social Media Research Request” was filed by the IRS’ National Office of Procurement on the Federal Business Opportunities website Dec. 18 for “information or tools available in the marketplace” to allow them to search ...

LinkedIn Inc. founder Reid Hoffman today apologized for funding a company that ran a “misinformation campaign” against a Republican candidate that involved the use of fake Russian bots. The campaign was run by a company called American Engagement Technologies through a project called New Knowledge. That project used social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter to boost ...

The ghost of mismanagement past continues to haunt Uber Technologies Inc. as a former test driver accused the company of firing him after he complained about safety concerns. Speaking to Business Insider Monday, Ryan Kelley, who worked for Uber until January, said that he felt as if he wasn’t allowed to take bathroom breaks the month ...

With Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. expected to release its latest flagship Galaxy S10 phones in less than two months, leaks and rumors continue to abound — and the latest is a surprise. Samsung has long been expected to debut the Infinity O camera with the new phones, a front-facing camera that sits in the screen ...

Leading Chinese cryptocurrency hardware maker and miner Bitmain Technologies Inc. is cutting up to 50 percent of its staff as the cryptocurrency crash that started in January continues to affect major players in the industry. The up to 50 percent figure was first reported on social media Dec. 23, but at the time, Bitmain said only that it ...

In what sounds like a plot in a bad Adam Sandler film, a security company has discovered a brand of hot tubs that can be easily hacked. Described in excruciating details over the weekend by security researchers at Pen Test Partners Ltd., the vulnerability relates to the Balboa Water App, a mobile app used for controlling around ...

Smartphone use is causing declining levels of healthy eyesight among children, according to the Japanese Government. The finding comes from the country’s Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry. It found that the eye health of younger children in particular is rapidly declining. Students who earned a healthy eyesight rating of 1.0 on the Japanese system ...

Wall Street banks are backing away from introducing cryptocurrency related products after the precipitous decline in their value this year, according to a report from Bloomberg. Multiple leading firms had either announced or were rumored to be entering the market earlier in the year, but few have come to fruition. The report said that “while ...