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Snapchat recently began rolling out its redesigned Discover page. It now displays images and headline previews of the content inside Discover channels and Live stories on the Stories page. It previously displayed only logos for publishers or events on those sites. Publishers now can include an image...

Microsoft on Monday announced an agreement to buy LinkedIn, the world's largest professional social media network, for $26.2 billion in cash. The acquisition furthers Microsoft's effort to extend the breadth of its content portfolio and to integrate its offerings into its platform of cloud services....

Huawei says it is working hard to overtake Apple's iPhone and Samsung's Galaxy line in the worldwide smartphone market. If you were to ask anyone over the last eight years if that were possible, you would have heard a resounding "no." The marketplace is changing, though, and anything is now possible...

In the five years since the U.S. government put a clear emphasis on utilizing cloud technology, federal procurement offices have engaged in seemingly endless tinkering of contracting vehicles to promote cloud adoption. The core element of virtually every type of federal cloud procurement contract is...

Yahoo reportedly has notified potential buyers that it plans to auction off about 3,000 patents and will be accepting bids until mid-June. The intellectual property for sale includes patents for its original search technology. The patents "cover strategic areas such as search, e-commerce and online...

Apple is planning a major overhaul of its App Store, including the introduction of a new subscription model for developers and the implementation of a paid search ad program, SVP Phil Schiller indicated in interviews ahead of the company's Worldwide Developer Conference in San Francisco next week. T...

Facing growing pressure from labor unions and regulators across the U.S. and key overseas markets, Uber on Monday introduced a series of new apps and benefits for its core group of drivers. The goal is to make their working hours more productive and profitable. Among the new apps are Driver Destinat...

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear Google's appeal of a lower court ruling in a suit alleging the company used deceptive practices in the sale and placement of advertising through its AdWords program between 2004 and 2008. Google, a unit of Alphabet, sought to overturn the 9th U.S. Ci...

Yahoo last week published the text of three National Security Letters it received from the FBI in 2013. The letters demand the names, addresses, length of service, and electronic communications transactional records -- existing transaction and activity logs and all email header information -- of the...

Facebook on Wednesday introduced DeepText, an artificial intelligence-fueled text analytics engine. "Text is a prevalent form of communication on Facebook," wrote Facebook software engineers Ahmad Abdulkader, Aparna Lakshmiratan and Joy Zhang in a post describing its capabilities. "Understanding the...

Uber has nailed down a record $3.5 billion investment from the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund -- the largest-ever investment in a closely held technology firm. The investment is part of a deal that will allow Uber to expand its Middle East operations. Yasir Al Rumayyan, managing director of th...

Digital rights and free speech advocates are up in arms over Tuesday's announcement of an agreement between the European Commission and four leading U.S. social media firms -- Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Microsoft -- on a Code of Conduct designed to crack down on hate speech. The companies have a...

Microsoft on Tuesday announced plans to sell 1,500 mobile technology patents to China-based Xiaomi, in a deal that will expand both companies' access to new markets. Microsoft's office apps will gain a stronger foothold in China, while Xiaomi's smartphones will gain a stronger global presence. The ...

At least 419 million people around the world are blocking advertising on their smartphones, according to a report PageFair released Tuesday. Most of those people -- 408 million of them -- are using ad-blocking browsers, notes the report. The use of ad blockers doubled in 2015, and the use of mobile ...

Antiquated IT systems are soaking up federal technology dollars and creating risks for both bureaucrats and citizens, the GAO reported last week. More than 75 percent of the federal IT budget in 2015 went toward the operation and maintenance of nearly obsolete legacy systems that use outdated softwa...