Congressman Calls For Racketeering Probe Into Big Tech

Even before I saw this story, I was thinking that the moves by Google and Apple against Parler smelled of racketeering.

Well, sure enough, one congressman is calling for a racketeering investigation against the Big Tech companies.

From The Epoch Times:

A top Republican in the House of Representatives on Sunday called for a racketeering probe into large technology companies who over the weekend took action against Parler, a social media website.

“This is clearly a violation of antitrust, civil rights, the RICO statute. There should be a racketeering investigation on all the people that coordinated this attack on not only a company but on all of those like us, like me, like you, Maria,” Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), the ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee, told Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures” host Maria Bartiromo.

After Twitter banned President Donald Trump and some other users, Parler saw its traffic explode. Soon, though, Google announced it had removed Parler from its online store, a move followed by Apple. Then, Amazon announced it was suspending Parler from its web hosting services.

Parler CEO John Matze told The Epoch Times his company is prepared to take legal action, but in the meantime authorities should investigate the possibly-coordinated actions, Nunes argued.

Since Amazon is suspending Parler, I have cancelled my Amazon Prime Membership effective immediately.

To read more, go here. 

Apple Has Been Secretly Looking At Your Boobs

Do you have an iPhone, or know someone who does, and you sent him/her pictures of your, um, boobs? 

If so, you may want to read a report from Fox News. Apple has been secretly looking at your boobs.

They wrote:

It turns out Apple has been categorizing your pictures for around a year now — and yep, this means all of those sexy photos you’ve either taken or received on your iPhone. 

The revelation came about after someone posted on Twitter about discovering the feature when she typed “brassiere” into the Photos app search bar of her smartphone. 

“Attention all girls,” Twitter user @ellieeewbu wrote. “Go to your photos and type in the ‘Brassiere’ why are apple saving these and made it a folder!!??!!?” (sic). 

The puzzling tweet has already been retweeted more than 12,000 times and is raising a few eyebrows.

 To read more, go here.

Ginza's Fancy Elevators

Above, the Apple store in Ginza (left, background) has one of the more
interesting elevators shown in the article. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Rocket News 24 has an interesting article about the Ginza shopping district of Tokyo. But it is not an article one might expect.

It is about the elevators.

They start out the article with:

The Ginza area of Tokyo is by far the ritziest of all of Japan’s districts. With stores such as Chanel, Cartier and Bulgari (not to mention an extremely overpriced bar staffed by former and current porn stars), you’re going to have to have a lot of yen in your pockets if you want to do more than window shop and people watch. Yes, there are exceptions and cheap eats to be found nestled amongst the luxury items, but overall, Ginza is dominated by fancy things. Just look at the elevators…

I think I've only been in one elevator in Ginza, and that was going to a French restaurant in an upper floor of the building right next door to the Wako Department Store. I didn't find the elevator unusual, but then it wasn't at any of the fancy and ritzy stores in the shopping district.

But the examples of the elevators found in Ginza are interesting to see, and the article has plenty of pictures of them.

To view them, go here.

Amazon Unveils New Kindle Fire Tablets

Amazon.com, Inc. has unveiled new Kindle tablet computers to compete with Apple's iPads.

Fox News reports:

Amazon.com Inc. unveiled four new Kindle Fire models on Thursday, including ones with larger screens, as the online retailer steps up competition with Apple Inc. ahead of the holiday shopping season. 

Amazon unveiled the larger Kindle Fire amid expectations of a smaller iPad from Apple.
The larger Fires will have screens that measure 8.6 inches diagonally, compared with 9.7 inches for the iPad. The original Fire had 7-inch screens. The speculation on the mini iPad is that it'll have a 7.85-inch screen. Apple isn't commenting, but it has an event scheduled next week, during which it is expected to at least announce a new iPhone. 

Amazon is hoping to make a dent in a tablet computer market dominated by Apple's iPad. Amazon has been selling lower-priced tablets at thin, if any, profit margins to boost sales of digital items from its online store. As a result, it has been able to compete with the iPad on price.

These Kindle Fire tablets will come in handy for Japan travelers to access the Kindle edition of The Monster Movie Fan's Guide To Japan.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2012/09/06/amazon-unveils-new-kindle-fire-including-larger-hd-model/#ixzz25p9Iw1Y4