In the latest Bulldog technology wrapup:

  • Sites help couples crowdfund honeymoons
  • Amazon is ramping up its voice-controlled devices
  • Apple and FBI stake out their positions on iPhone privacy
  • The Pentagon wants “good” hackers

The details:

  • Crowdfunding sites now fund honeymoons

Before they say “I do,” soon-to-be newlyweds are increasingly going online to ask, “Will you pay for our honeymoon?”

Crowdfunding websites such as Honeyfund, GoFundMe and Honeymoon Wishes make it easy to raise cash from family and friends for a post-wedding getaway. The sites charge fees for their services — as much as 10 percent of the total collected — but people are warming up to the idea, despite the cost.

As couples increasingly live together first and marry later, they already have toasters and towels, so traditional gift registries don’t make as much sense. Honeymoon registries also provide a polite way of hinting to guests to give money instead, without breaking wedding etiquette.

“I didn’t feel right saying, ‘Hey, give me cash,'” says Nicole DePinto, who raised $2,900 on GoFundMe for an Icelandic honeymoon with her husband Anthony in December.

Sites that help couples raise cash for honeymoons have seen their popularity soar recently. Honeyfund users, for example, raised $90 million last year, a 50 percent jump from the year before, says co-founder and CEO Sara Margulis.

Last year, 22 percent of people using the Knot, a wedding planning site, said they also used honeymoon registries, according to a survey of 6,500 customers. That’s the same as the year before, but up from 17 percent in 2013 and 13 percent in 2012.

  • Amazon amplifies its Alexa line of voice-controlled devices

Amazon.com is introducing two devices designed to amplify the role its voice-controlled assistant Alexa plays in people’s homes and lives.

The products unveiled Thursday are echoes of Amazon’s Echo, a cylinder-shaped speaker with Internet-connected microphones that became Alexa’s first major showcase when it debuted in late 2014. Set these gadgets up and they’ll listen for your voice and respond to commands — for instance, to read the morning’s headlines.

Both new devices, called the Amazon Tap and Echo Dot, cost less than the $180 Echo and offer slightly different features in an attempt to plant Amazon’s Internet-connected microphones in more homes and other places.

In doing so, Amazon hopes to outmaneuver rivals Google and Apple in their battle to build hubs in “smart” homes that are being furnished with appliances, electronics and other accoutrements that connect to the Internet.

Alexa is competing against other voice-controlled services such as Apple’s Siri, Microsoft’s Cortana and Google’s search engine that are built into the operating systems of smartphones and other devices that do more than the Echo.

  • Apple, FBI stake out conflicting positions before Congress

The U.S. government calls it a “vicious guard dog” that hurts national security. Apple says it’s critical to protecting consumer privacy against increasingly sophisticated hackers.

As the debate over built-in iPhone encryption has deadlocked in the courts, law enforcement and the world’s second-largest cellphone maker agreed on one point Tuesday: It’s now up to Congress to set boundaries in a long-simmering fight over who can legally access your digital life.

“We’re asking Apple to take the vicious guard dog away and let us pick the lock,” FBIDirector James Comey told a House judiciary panel Tuesday, referring to a locked iPhone tied to the deadly December shooting in San Bernardino, California.

“The FBI is asking Apple to weaken the security of our products,” Apple general counsel Bruce Sewell countered later that afternoon.

Tuesday’s hearing shifted attention from the courts — where judges in the last month have issued significant but conflicting opinions — to Congress, where both sides say the broader policy debate belongs.

It also provided an extraordinary public forum for the Obama administration and AppleInc. to stake out competing positions that could have sweeping ramifications. Apple’srecent opposition to bypassing security features for the government has pushed that dispute from tech circles into the mainstream.

The strong positions articulated Tuesday make clear the deep divide between Silicon Valley and the government, even as the administration advocates open dialogue and resolution.

“Is it the right thing to make our society overall less safe in order to solve crime?” Sewell asked. “That’s the issue that we’re wrestling with.”

  • Pentagon seeks a few good computer hackers to test security

The Pentagon is looking for a few good computer hackers.

Screened high-tech specialists will be brought in to try to breach the Defense Department’s public Internet pages in a pilot program aimed at finding and fixing cybersecurity vulnerabilities.

According to the Pentagon, it is the first time the federal government has undertaken a program with outsiders attempting to breach the networks. Large companies have done similar things.

Defense officials laid out the broad outlines of the plan Wednesday, but had few details on how it will work, what Pentagon systems would be tested and how the hackers would be compensated.

Called “Hack the Pentagon,” the program will begin next month. Department officials and lawyers still must work through a number of legal issues involving the authorization of so-called “white-hat hackers” to breach active Pentagon websites.