L.A. Times Tech Blog

Software maker CrowdStrike Holdings Inc. soared in its trading debut Wednesday after raising $612 million in one of the biggest-ever initial public offerings for a cybersecurity company. Shares opened at $63.50 and rose as high as $67 — up as much as 97% from their $34 IPO price. The shares ended...

Santa Monica’s Bird Rides Inc. acquired the San Francisco electric scooter company Scoot for an undisclosed sum Wednesday. The deal marks the first major step toward consolidation in the burgeoning scooter rental sector. For Bird, it represents a chance to relaunch its service in the traffic-clogged...

The Justice Department’s antitrust chief came out swinging against Google and Amazon on Tuesday, calling big technology companies “digital gatekeepers” that may struggle to defend themselves by arguing their products are free or really cheap. Makan Delrahim, who recently launched an investigation...

On the site of a former World War II garrison where the U.S. Army trained local troops — and later firebombed tunnels to drive out occupying Japanese soldiers — the Philippines has built a shining symbol of its modern ambitions, a master-planned commercial district billed as one of the safest in...

Google has warned the Trump administration that pushing ahead with sweeping export restrictions on Huawei would risk compromising U.S. national security, as the American technology giant seeks to continue doing business with the blacklisted Chinese tech titan. Senior executives at Google are pushing...

Facial recognition’s first blanket ban arrived in May, when San Francisco became the only city in the nation to bar police and other agencies from using the technology. Now the powerful software, which uses machine learning algorithms to automatically track human faces in digital footage and match...

YouTube’s campaign against hateful and racist videos is claiming some unintended victims: researchers and advocates working to expose racist hatemongers. A video published by the Southern Poverty Law Center was among those taken down after the company announced plans Wednesday to remove more videos...

Google is making another acquisition for its cloud-computing business that competes with Amazon.com Inc. Each deal it does is a reminder of Google’s failures so far in this lucrative field and a potential warning sign to the software specialists that have thrived in the last decade. Alphabet Inc.,...

Amid a fresh torrent of criticism for inconsistent enforcement of its rules prohibiting hate speech and harassment, YouTube announced plans Wednesday to take down some hateful content, including videos endorsing white supremacy and Holocaust denial. The new rules, which YouTube outlined in a blog...

When the iTunes Music store debuted 16 years ago, digital music meant buying a CD and uploading it to a computer or illegally downloading a song from a file-sharing service. Apple changed all that by charging customers 99 cents for a song they could take with them wherever they went. Over time,...

Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg's personal security chief faces accusations of sexual misconduct and making racist and homophobic comments, according to a report Thursday by a business news site. In a detailed article, Business Insider cited legal letters reportedly written by former employees...

Hours after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi addressed a conference Wednesday, a distorted video of the California Democrat’s conversation began spreading across the internet. The manipulated clip, slowed to make Pelosi sound as if she were slurring her words, racked up millions of views on Facebook...

Qualcomm violated antitrust law by using its key position in the semiconductor industry to reduce competition and impose excessive licensing fees on cellphone makers, a federal judge has ruled. Shares of the San Diego-based company fell 11% in pre-market trading in New York after U.S. District...

Huawei Technologies Co. said Tuesday that it’s working on its own operating system for its mobile handsets and will consider rivals to Google’s Android after the U.S. blacklisted the Chinese company, threatening its partnerships with chip, component and software suppliers. The Chinese telecom equipment...

Although Facebook Inc. doesn’t sell robots, its researchers use plenty of them — and the company said its machines are getting a lot smarter a lot faster. The social media giant announced Friday that its engineers, working with computer scientists from New York University, have reduced the time...