Insights

Communication and Technology news
Qualcomm’s new smartwatch chip is here, but where is the flagship watch?
2018-09-11

Google and Qualcomm are almost ready to take on the Apple Watch, but a couple things are still missing. Back in May, Qualcomm said it was working on a new smartwatch chip, telling Wareable that it would reveal the upgrade in the fall alongside a new lead smartwatch. And on Monday, Qualcomm made good on half of that...

Facebook has a new weapon in the fight against memes—it really needs it
2018-09-11

A new machine learning tool called Rosetta was trained on more than a billion Facebook and Instagram images, and is now extracting meaning from text embedded in memes. We all love memes, and most of us have probably helped spread them–passing on that cute photo with the ironic text to our many friends on...

Apple will livestream its iPhone event on Twitter for the first time
2018-09-11

Apple has had a weird relationship with Twitter. It’s had an account since 2011, but never set a profile picture until September 2, 2016. A few days later, the company sent out its first few tweet – accidentally leaking the iPhone 7 in the process, about an hour before the event livestream. It then deleted those...

Alphabet’s Loon used 7 balloons for 621 miles of internet connectivity
2018-09-11

The milestone is the latest demonstration of the project’s ability to bring internet to far-flung locales. Bringing internet connectivity to remote or underserved areas has been a goal of major tech companies for some time. Although Facebook shut its program down, it had planned on doing so with large...

Study: Even those who get their news via social media don’t trust it
2018-09-11

A Pew study published this week shows at least two-thirds of the country gets some of their news from social media, but by and large they still don’t trust it to be accurate. Pew’s study validates what you probably already suspected based on your friends’ activities: Two-thirds of the country gets its news from...

Now cord cutters can get NFL Redzone by itself, but there’s a catch
2018-09-11

The $5 per month service no longer requires Verizon, but still requires a small screen. This year, you don’t need Verizon Wireless to watch football on your phone, and that’s also true of NFL Redzone. The league’s whiparound coverage, which shows every touchdown during day games on Sundays, is now...

How Google’s using AI and big data to make travel better
2018-09-11

Since its acquisition of ITA Matrix Software eight years ago, Google has been quietly rolling out new tools for travelers. Its progress has been even more notable over the past months and weeks as it began unveiling tools to help predict flight delays, plan trips, and manage itineraries—among other things. These...

Nike, Kaepernick, and the messy world of branding in the Trump era
2018-09-11

There are some who believe that anything done by a corporation is automatically tainted, but isn’t any ally a good ally? Nike’s latest “Just Do It” campaign set Twitter ablaze as soon as it went public. The ad prominently displays Colin Kaepernick’s face and this tagline:...

The curious case of the YouTuber and the notchless Pixel
2018-09-11

We know now that Google is releasing its new Pixel phones on October 9. The company will mostly release two phones on that date: the Pixel 3 and the Pixel 3 XL. But there is a crazy conspiracy theory floating around that there might be a third Pixel or, Google is playing us on with a bigger con. The Pixel 3 XL leaks...

Uber just hired its first chief marketing officer
2018-09-11

And she’s a 22-year veteran from Coca-Cola. Her name is Rebecca Messina, and prior to joining Uber she has been global CMO at drinks company Beam Suntory since 2016, reports CNBC. Prior to that Messina was a 22-year veteran at Coca-Cola, where she was a senior VP in its ventures and emerging brands team. As...

We ranked LinkedIn execs on how ‘LinkedIn’ their LinkedIn profile pics are
2018-09-11

Look, LinkedIn sucks. You know it, I know it, even humans grown in huge Matrix-style vats somehow intrinsically grasp that LinkedIn. Is. Not. A Good. Thing. But, like with other Bad Things (think bros, country music fans, and nazis), LinkedIn has its own particular and peculiar aesthetic. This is perfectly...

Alibaba has Russia in its sights
2018-09-11

The Chinese giant wants part of Russia’s expanding online user base. The Chinese e-commerce giant has teamed up with a number of Russian firms to launch a new e-commerce platform joint venture in Russia, reports CNBC. Alibaba will work with the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), mobile operator MegaFon, and...

Google’s AI to detect toxic comments can be easily fooled with ‘love’
2018-09-11

A group of researchers has found that simple changes in sentences and its structure can fool Google’s perspective AI, made for detecting toxic comments and hate speech. These methods involve inserting typos, spaces between words or add innocuous words to the original sentence. The AI project, which was started...

Copyright takedown notices are completely Baroque-en
2018-09-11

Johann Christian Bach died about 300 years ago. As with any great classical composer, his legacy endures, and today his work is reinterpreted by a new generation of musicians and performers. James Rhodes is one of them. The accomplished British-born performer posted a clip of him playing a Bach composition to his...

Google may announce two new Pixelbooks in October, including a Surface clone
2018-09-11

We already know Google has a new Pixel phones on the way October 9, but it’s pretty clear by now that’s not the only hardware it has coming up. Namely, it now seems Google is set to reveal two new Pixelbooks We first heard about a Pixel Books back in July, but today’s rumors come courtesy of two separate leaks....

AI guru Fei Fei Li set to leave Google this year
2018-09-10

A Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) student newspaper yesterday reported that the dean of the school’s computer science department, Andrew Moore, was leaving the school for an unknown opportunity. As it turns out, it’s actually one he knows quite well: He’s returning to his former job as head of Google Cloud’s...

Upcoming Android watches will get a big battery boost thanks to new Qualcomm chip
2018-09-10

Smartwatches were once the Next Big Thing of tech, but after a few years on the market, their adoption has been somewhat underwhelming – especially among the Android crowd. The biggest reason for this is possibly lackluster battery life, but that may soon start to change thanks to Qualcomm’s latest wearable...

A new use for Google Maps: calculating a city’s carbon footprint
2018-09-10

The Environmental Insights Explorer calculates emissions from buildings, car trips, and public transport to illustrate how a city’s sustainability efforts are faring. Looking at a city’s Google Maps data, in combination with other data, a new tool from Google can estimate the carbon footprint of all of...

Leaked photos show new budget iPhone looks just like the old premium iPhone
2018-09-10

Leaks are getting harder and harder to contain. Not only has Google’s Pixel been endlessly glimpsed and analyzed, it appears that Apple has been bitten by the leaky bug too. We previously reported on Apple’s entry-level mobile, but we didn’t know exactly what the devices would look like (apart from, you know,...

Leaked photos show new budget iPhone looks just like old premium iPhone
2018-09-10

Leaks are getting harder and harder to contain. Not only has Google’s Pixel been endlessly glimpsed and analyzed, it appears that Apple has been bitten by the leaky bug too. We previously reported on Apple’s entry-level mobile, but we didn’t know exactly what the devices would look like (apart from, you know,...

A virtual global travel pass
2018-09-10

Google Earth VR allows users to tour the globe without leaving home. The Product Google Earth VR enables users to teleport virtually anywhere in the world. The free desktop application, which works with an HTC Vive or Oculus Rift headset, compiles satellite and aerial imagery to reconstruct a simulated globe that is...

Brewing leather in a lab
2018-09-10

How Modern Meadow uses biofabrication to create a leatherlike material called Zoa. Suzanne Lee was a fashion designer in the early ’90s when she discovered in a lab that biofabrication processes could produce leatherlike materials via yeast fermentation. She spent the next 10 years experimenting with giant vats...

Sundar Pichai Q&A
2018-09-10

The CEO discusses the seamless approach to tech gadgetry that makes Google our Design Company of the Year. We all remember the face-plant that was Google Glass. Or the time when, in an infamous fit of over-engineering, Google tested 41 shades of the color blue on ad links to find the most profitable hue. Since then,...

A new platform for more civil civic discourse
2018-09-10

Moot, which was created in Dublin, is an AI-powered platform that helps citizens communicate with elected officials. In an era of rising populism, with extremism and distrust warping civic dialogue, a group of Irish designers and researchers are harnessing technology to help reverse the erosion of faith in public...

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