Ransomware, malicious software designed to block access to a computer system until a sum of money is paid, is rapidly on the rise, with some even calling it an epidemic. But just how many people do pay up when they are infected by ransomware? To be precise, it’s 38 percent, according to a study undertaken by security firm ...

Electric car maker Tesla Inc. will launch its first “semi-truck” in September, Chief Executive Elon Musk announced Thursday. The announcement was made on Twitter, with Musk giving no further details of the truck other than saying that his team “has done an amazing job. Seriously next level.” In addition, Musk said in another tweet that ...

General Motors Co. is planning to expand its workforce dedicated to developing self-driving car technology by as many as 1,100 people over the next five years, according to a documents the company filed to receive tax credits from the State of California. In the filing, GM said it intends to invest $14 million in a new research ...

Despite or perhaps because of lackluster sales, Apple Inc. is doubling down on its smartwatch by looking to add diabetes-focused blood sugar level testing to future models. According to sources quoted by CNBC, Apple has hired a small team of biomedical engineers to “work at a nondescript office in Palo Alto, California, miles from corporate ...

Updated with opening price Thursday. Yext Inc. went public today, seeing its shares pop about 26 percent from an initial offering price of $11 a share, already up from a previous price range of $8 to $10 a share. The New York-based online business management software company raised about $115.5 million on the sale of 10.5 million ...

Crafty prisoners tasked with recycling computer parts not only managed to hide some of the parts they were tasked with processing but managed to put together two computers using those parts to hack the prison itself. The tale worthy of a Hollywood movie comes from the Marion Correctional Institution in Marion, Ohio, where it was ...

Google Inc. has added WebVR support to Google Cardboard and launched a new home for experimental virtual reality experiences. WebVR is an application programming interface launched by Google and the Mozilla Foundation in 2016 that offers a framework to deliver virtual reality experiences in a browser. Added to Google’s Chrome browser in February, the platform allows ...

Google Inc. has been forced to make changes to its Google Now service and Home smart speaker after Burger King released an advertisement that intentionally triggered the service on Android-powered devices. The 15-second television ad features someone dressed as a Burger King employee stating that 15 seconds isn’t long enough to explain the “fresh ingredients” ...

In a backflip worthy of a gold medal in an Olympic diving competition, the Russian government has announced it may legalize bitcoin next year after previously trying to ban it. The news of the potential move to legalize bitcoin came from Russian Deputy Finance Minister Aleksey Moiseev, who said that monitoring cryptocurrencies could be an ...

A Californian computer engineer has been arrested on an allegation that he stole proprietary stock trading software from his employer. Thirty-one-year-old Zheng Quan Zhang from Santa Clara was arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation on one count of theft of trade secrets on the basis that he stole more than 3 million files of confidential data and computer ...