Stories by Nancy Weil

2014: The year in quotes

From rattled airline passengers who fear the coming of smartphones to jurors who don't know a smartphone from a tablet, here are some of the colorful quotes from IT news in 2014.

Symantec identifies sophisticated, stealthy 'Regin' malware

Symantec researchers have identified a particularly sophisticated piece of malware, called "Regin" that was likely developed by a nation state and has been used to spy on governments, infrastructure operators, businesses, researchers and individuals since at least 2008.

Privacy group files FTC complaint over Facebook's 'emotional contagion' study

Facebook "purposefully messed with people's minds" in a "secretive and non-consensual" study on nearly 700,000 users whose emotions were intentionally manipulated when the company altered their news feeds for research purposes, a digital privacy rights group charges in a complaint filed with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.

Rumors confirmed: AT&T plans to buy DirecTV

AT&T plans to acquire DirecTV for about US$50 billion, it announced Sunday, laying to rest days of reports based on anonymous sources that such a deal was in the offing.

Guardian, Post win Pulitzers for NSA spying coverage

The Washington Post and the U.S. edition of the Guardian newspaper have each won a public service Pulitzer Prize for reporting on the leaks by Edward Snowden that revealed the extent of surveillance on ordinary citizens.

Increasing malware sophistication vexes lawmakers, industry

The failure of U.S. financial institutions and retailers to implement more robust cybersecurity measures, such as the smart-card technology widely used in Europe, was questioned and criticized by members of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee at a hearing Tuesday.

The year in tech quotes

With 2013 coming to an end, we took our annual look back at quotes from news stories over the last 12 months. Here are a handful that stuck with us through the year:

US judge dismisses Apple patents lawsuit against Motorola

A U.S. federal judge Friday ruled that Apple cannot seek an injunction against Motorola Mobility in its smartphone patents lawsuit, tossing out the case "with prejudice," meaning that neither side can refile, although the ruling could be appealed.

Scott Thompson out as Yahoo CEO

Embattled Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson has left the company, Yahoo has announced, after more than a week of controversy over questions about embellishments to his resume.

Lockheed Martin acknowledges 'significant' cyberattack

Lockheed Martin Saturday night acknowledged that it its information systems network had been the target of a "significant and tenacious attack," but said that its security team detected the intrusion "almost immediately and took aggressive actions to protect all systems and data."

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