Duncan Riley
Latest from Duncan Riley
Waymo offers free rides in Arizona as its self-driving cars move into beta testing
Waymo Inc., Google parent Alphabet Inc.’s self-driving car division, has opened up a new testing program in Phoenix to the general public. Starting as of today, anyone in the Phoenix metropolitan area, including Gilbert, Tempe, Mesa and Chandler, can apply to join the “Early Riders” testing program. Should their application be successful, they will be provided free ...
Webroot antivirus update identifies Windows system files as malware
Webroot Inc. antivirus software users are not having a great day. A malware signature update pushed out by the company resulted in the software identifying key Windows system files as being malware. News of the problem emerged on Twitter Monday afternoon when users complained that Webroot was labeling key Windows files as W32.Trojan.Gen, generic-Trojan-infected files and ...
Atlassian’s HipChat hacked with user data and content stolen
HipChat, Atlassian Corp. PLC’s group chat platform, was hacked over the weekend and the hackers got a significant amount of data, including group chat logs. The notification of the hack came from HipChat Chief Security Officer Ganesh Krishnan, who in a blog post said a hacker obtained access to one of HipChat’s servers from a vulnerability ...
Report: Amazon now has a self-driving vehicle team
Amazon.com Inc. has established an in-house team to consider ways the e-commerce giant can make use of self-driving vehicle technology, according to a report published by The Wall Street Journal. The team, said to consist of around a dozen employees, was established a year ago with a focus on how driverless-vehicle technology could assist Amazon with ...
Vigilante bot takes the good fight to Mirai by securing vulnerable IoT devices
A mysterious Internet of Things bot first identified in October is now believed to be the work of a vigilante hacker who is attempting to block infections from nefarious bots such as the notorious Mirai. According to Waylon Grange at Symantec Corp., the Hajime bot, which was first believed to be an undeveloped bot that ...
Russian man receives record sentence for credit card hacking
The son of a Russian lawmaker who was convicted in August on 38 counts related to his hacking of point-of-sale computers to steal and sell credit card numbers on the darknet has received a record sentence for his crimes. Thirty-two-year-old Roman Valerevich Seleznev (pictured), the son of Valery Seleznev, a member of the Russian Parliament, was ...
Stealth AI chip maker founded by ex-Google engineers raises $10.3M
A stealth startup founded by a number of Google Inc. veterans who may be working on next-generation artificial intelligence-based computer chips has raised $10.3 million in venture capital funding, according to one report. CNBC stumbled across the funding round for the company known as Groq Inc. via Securities and Exchange Commission filings from October and ...
Smart payments card startup Plastc files for bankruptcy having blown $9M from crowdsourcing campaign
Despite raising $9 million in a crowdfunding campaign, smart payments card startup Plastc Inc. has filed for bankruptcy after not managing to deliver even one card. The company, founded in 2013, was attempting to build the Plastc Card, a credit card-shaped smart card that in conjunction with an app could store credit, debit, gift, loyalty and ...
Machine learning data management startup SafeGraph raises $16M
San Francisco-based machine learning data management startup SafeGraph Inc. has raised a $16 million funding round led by IDG Ventures USA that included more than 100 high-profile individual investors. Among the investors in the unusual Series A round are Peter Thiel, Adam D’Angelo, Romesh Wadhwani, Eric Cantor, KT zu Guttenberg, Prince Turki Al Saud, Jack Dangermond, ...
Banking problems prompt Chinese bitcoin exchange OKCoin to suspend wire transfers
Leading Chinese bitcoin exchange OKCoin has suspended incoming U.S. dollar wire transfers, sending a shudder through the cryptocurrency community days after Hong Kong-based bitcoin exchange Bitfinex (BTXNA Inc.) suspended all wire transfers. In an email to customers, the exchange said the move to suspend U.S. dollar wire transfers was temporary because of issues with “intermediary banks,” adding: ...