America’s FBI “wants to gather more information from social media,” reports Engadget. Friday, it issued a call for contracts for a new social media monitoring tool. According to a request-for-proposals (RFP), it’s looking for an “early alerting tool” that would help it monitor terrorist groups, domestic threats, criminal activity and the like. The tool would…

“They can’t stop us all.” …read more Source:: CNet

At least 170 local or state government systems in America have been hit with ransomware, and the French Interior Ministry received reports of 560 incidents just in 2018, according to Phys.org. (Though the French ministry also notes that most incidents aren’t reported.) But when a government system is hit by ransomware, do they have a…

“Light-to-moderate” alcohol consumption can help reduce your risk of Alzheimer’s disease. An anonymous reader quotes the Washington Post: A study presented Sunday at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference in Los Angeles found that combining five lifestyle habits — including eating healthier, exercising regularly and refraining from smoking — can reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s by…

Generally speaking, home automation isn’t as cheap or as easy as most people would like. There are too many incompatible protocols, and more often than not, getting everything talking requires you to begrudgingly sign up for some “cloud” service that you didn’t ask for. If you’re an Apple aficionado, there can be even more hoops…

Prime Day starts next week, but there are already some notable sales on wearables. …read more Source:: CNet

The Minecraft team has released “a handy video to illustrate exactly what to expect from the Minecraft Earth beta” on the Minecraft blog. “We’ve even included actual moving images from said beta (with an impossibly upbeat, yet beautifully pedagogical voice-over by Stephen Scott of the Minecraft Earth Design Team, as a fun bonus!)” The closed…

A growing number of deals available now, more coming Monday. Your best bets: The Fire TV Stick for $15, Echo for $50 and Facebook Portal for $80. …read more Source:: CNet

The Verge recently profiled “a small group of merchants who travel the backroads of America searching clearance aisles and dying chains for goods to sell on Amazon. “Some live out of RVs and vans, moving from town to town, only stopping long enough to pick the stores clean and ship their wares to Amazon’s fulfillment…

IQ test scores have been increasing for 100 years, reports a senior journalist at BBC Future. He also writes that there’s evidence “that we may have already reached the end of this era — with the rise in IQs stalling and even reversing.” But this raises an even larger question: did a century of increasing…