Qualcomm saves itself from a $1 billion fine, Lastpass was hacked again, and BlackBerry patent sale has gone sour.
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That’s all the tech news that’s trending right now, welcome to Hashtag Trending. It’s Wednesday, August 31, and I’m your host, Samira Balsara.
It turns out that Qualcomm won’t have to pay the European Union a $1 billion fine. In court, the company successfully argued that the fine and trial was illegally applied. The fine was originally determined because the European Commission believed that Qualcomm, a supplier of smartphone electronics, used antitrust tactics to secure an exclusivity deal with Apple, shutting out smaller competitors. In its appeal, Qualcomm argued that it wasn’t clear that Apple was damaged by the deal. Europe’s General Court agreed that the initial trial had procedural irregularities that affected Qualcomm’s right to defense.
Lastpass has had several security incidents and it’s just as scary everytime it happens. Recently, the password manager was breached once again. According to the Lastpass CEO, the hackers managed to steal its source code through a compromised developer account. They also took some proprietary LastPass technical information. ZDNet reports that LastPass has some 20 million customers. Thankfully, this breach didn’t seem to affect users’ password vaults. But whether the hackers can abuse the stolen information to somehow reveal personal information is anyone’s guess.
The BlackBerry patent sale has hit rough waters. The Globe and Mail reported that the deal is now falling apart after a lead financier abandoned the transaction. The financier, Third Eye Capital, was a part of investors that launched Catapult IP Innovations, which was set to acquire the BlackBerry patents. The deal was first announced in January 2022, but when June rolled around, BlackBerry got tired of waiting and released its exclusivity agreement with Catapult, once again putting it up on the auction block.
A 17-year-old student has created an AI solution that tracks elephants and poachers in real-time. The solution, called ElSa, uses machine learning software that analyzes movement patterns in thermal infrared videos of humans and elephants. Anika Puri, the system’s young creator, said that it’s four times more accurate than the best system available today. It’s relatively inexpensive, too. The ElSa prototype uses a $250 thermal camera and an iPhone 6 to produce real-time, movement-based inferences to identify humans and elephants. For her invention, Puri won the $10,000 Peggy Scripps Award for Science Communication.
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.