Files from Tom Li
Google Maps to show toll fees, Pinterest bans misinformation on climate change; BlackBerry is warning people of a new type of social engineering attack.
That’s all the tech news that’s trending right now, welcome to Hashtag Trending. It’s Thursday, April 7th, and I’m your host, Samira Balsara.
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Google maps will begin accounting for toll prices with the upcoming update. The beloved atlas will soon calculate how much a drive will cost based on locally sourced information from more than 2,000 roads across the U.S., India, Japan and Indonesia. This will help users understand how much they’ll need to pay for a shortcut on a tolled road. Of Course, Google will still show a toll-free option and have tolled roads turned off completely. Also, Google Maps will soon be showing traffic lights and stop signs, as well as enhanced building outlines. The update will begin rolling out to users in the coming weeks.
Image sharing platform Pinterest has announced that it plans to ban climate change misinformation and conspiracy theories. In a news post, the company announced that it will ban “content that denies the existence or impact of climate change”, as well as content that misrepresents scientific data and harmful content about natural disasters. The same rule applies to its advertisers as well; the platform now prohibits advertisers from spreading misinformation on the topic. The company says it’s been actively combating misinformation since 2017, and has partnered with organizations such as the Climate Disinformation Coalition to further its cause.
BlackBerry is warning people of a new and annoying smartphone attack. Prompt bombing is an emerging social engineering scheme. It involves the attacker sending an absurd number of the same notifications that need to be swiped away, or sending something embarrassing to cause the user to panic. The goal is to get the user to enter their login information on spoofed sites and to confirm a two-factor authentication attempt by the hacker, leading to a data breach. Protection against this type of attack is flimsy, but BlackBerry recommends users limit the rate at which their devices can be promoted to do something. Users should also take care to review a notification received in the dead of night, or leave it until morning for when they’re more awake.
A drone show organization assembled 300 drones into QR codes that sent scanners to Rick Astleys’ Never Gonna Give You Up music video. The lit-up drones flew over the night sky in Dallas, performing a beautiful and creative take on the internet fad called Rick Roll, in which the viewer is directed to the aforementioned video without prior warning. Sky Element Drone Shows, the company behind the stunt, said that the idea came from its marketing guru for April Fool’s day. The drones hovered over a patch of night sky for nearly 20 minutes and pranked a massive crowd of curious onlookers.
That’s all the tech news that’s trending right now. Hashtag Trending is a part of the ITWC Podcast network. Add us to your Alexa Flash briefings or your Google Home daily briefing. Make sure to sign up for our Daily IT Wire newsletter to get all the news that matters directly in your inbox every day. Also, catch the next episode of Hashtag Tendances, our weekly Hashtag Trending episode in French, which drops every Thursday morning. If you have a suggestion or a tip, drop us a line in the comments or via email. Thank you for listening, I’m Samira Balsara.