Tech News Today for June 27, 2017

Tech News for Tuesday June 27, 2017

After a lenghty seven year probe, the European Commission has fined Google 2.42 billion euros, around $2.7 billion dollars, for promoting its own Google Shopping ads in what it deemed to be an abuse of its own dominance for search. Google also faces a 90 day deadline for ending the anti-competitive practices before facing additional penalties up to 5% of Alphabet’s average daily worldwide earnings for each day it's unchanged beyond that deadline. Read more at bbc.com.

While Wannacry ransomware is still wreaking international havoc, new ransomware is shutting down businesses globally and it might be worse than WannaCry. People all over the world are reporting that a cyber-attack is causing systems to shut down, wreaking havoc along the way. The Verge says the attack has affected airlines, banks, and utilities, including operations at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant where they've been forced to switch to manual monitoring. Interpol says it is closely monitoring the situation. Read more at theverge.com.

Facebook says the social network has officially hit two billion users. That's one quarter of the world's population that uses Facebook every month. The company is 13 years old and hit its first billion users only five years ago. Facebook has more users than any other social media service. YouTube only has 1.5 billion, WeChat has 889 million, Twitter has 328 million, and Snapchat only has 255 million. Read more at newsroom.fb.com.

Facial recognition technology promises a lot of cool technological applications, but it's easy to see how it can go in the other direction entirely. In China, that technology is being utilized in public areas like subways, streets and airports to identify people who might break the law and persuade them from doing so. A jaywalker, for example, can be identified as a repeat offender, and their name flashed on the crosswalk screen, convincing that person to never cross illegally again. Read more at wsj.com.

Megan Morrone is out today, so Kerry Davis of Engadget will be cohosting with Jason Howell today. They are joined by by Matt McFarland of CNN to talk about the Drive.AI roof-mounted system for self-driving cars. Tech News Today streams live weekdays at 4PM Pacific, 7PM Eastern at twit.tv/live. Subscribe to the show and get it on-demand at twit.tv/tnt.