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Communication and Technology news
Auspex International is the new Cambridge Analytica
2018-07-13

The company was founded and is run by former Cambridge Analytica staff. That’s because Auspex was founded and is run by former Cambridge Analytica staff. Their new data analysis company claims to be “ethically based” and offers “boutique geopolitical consultancy” services, reports...

AI is finding out when the person using your account isn’t you
2018-07-13

A few months ago, security researchers at 4iQ uncovered a 41-gigabyte file being sold on the dark web that contained 1.4 billion username and password combinations from online services such as Netflix, Last.FM, LinkedIn, MySpace, Zoosk, YouPorn, Minecraft, Runescape, and others. Unfortunately, this is something that...

When life gives you lemons, make a video of it rolling down a hill and get 4M views on Twitter
2018-07-13

When life handed Mike Saskasegawa a lemon, he did what anyone would do: made a video of it rolling down a hill. For context, Mike was walking home from after a run and saw a lemon rolling down a hill. He grabbed his smartphone and began to film it as it continued its journey down the street, along a sidewalk near his...

Facebook walks an uncomfortable line on fake news, and Alex Jones isn’t helping
2018-07-12

In a Twitter clash with CNN media reporter Oliver Darcy, Facebook essentially admitted today that it doesn’t believe in shutting down pages on the site that repeatedly promote fake news. Darcy had asked why the company didn’t shut down the page for InfoWars, the conspiracy-laden media platform helmed by...

A Business Insider columnist writes a bad column, and resigns over it
2018-07-12

Columnist Daniella Greenbaum announced her resignation on Twitter after a controversial post she had authored was taken down. A weird thing that seems to keep happening lately is the tendency of center-right writers to misconstrue editing for censorship. The job of a columnist is not to simply yell their opinions in...

Facebook’s ‘trustworthy’ news is mostly Anderson Cooper and Fox News
2018-07-12

Facebook this week unveiled the schedule for its funded news shows, and it could use a little diversity — the entire slate is dominated by two shows. I really hope you like Anderson Cooper and/or Fox News, because both of those combined take up about 80 percent of the schedule — Fox News in particular is on every...

Embarrassment can make you a better designer
2018-07-12

The human brain is a formidable machine. Get yourself doing the same task over-and-over-and-over, and your brain will start shaping itself around that task. If you’re an interface designer, chances are you’ll build a special eye for type sizes, alignment, color tones. If you’re focused in UX, your brain will...

Is Silicon Valley doomed to become the next Detroit?
2018-07-12

The moral and economic decline of Detroit’s elite offers an important cautionary tale for Silicon Valley. There was a time when California’s Santa Clara Valley, bucolic home to orchards and vineyards, was known as “the valley of heart’s delight.” The same area was later dubbed...

Users might not trust Facebook, but people love working there
2018-07-12

According to employee reviews on Indeed, salary and perks are just a small part of why they love to work at these companies. Facebook’s privacy and fake news woes notwithstanding, the social network giant topped the list of best workplaces as rated by Indeed’s latest survey.Read...

Uber lays off 100 self-driving car test drivers
2018-07-12

The move comes after the fatal Uber crash in Arizona earlier this year. The layoffs affect self-driving car test drivers in Pittsburgh and comes in the wake of the fatal Uber self-driving car collision in Arizona earlier this year, reports CNBC. The move follows the layoffs of 300 safety drivers in that state earlier...

Microsoft might move jobs abroad due to U.S. immigration policies
2018-07-12

“In the world of technology, you better stand behind your people because your people are your most valuable asset.” The company’s president and chief legal officer Brad Smith told CNBC that Microsoft doesn’t want to move jobs overseas, but may have to if it can’t hire the skilled...

Google X’s ambitious Loon and Wing projects graduate into independent companies
2018-07-12

Loon and Wing, two of Google X’s moonshot projects, “graduated” yesterday to become full companies under the Alphabet banner. Loon was an ambitious Google X project to establish a network of balloons in the stratosphere to relay internet connectivity to people in remote regions. Meanwhile, Wing saw the use of...

Yes, you’re losing Twitter followers. No, it’s not because you’re an asshole (probably).
2018-07-12

Twitter today announced it’d be removing locked accounts from users’ follower counts. If you’ve noticed a precipitous drop in follower counts today, it’s not you — it’s your followers. Reports surfaced earlier this week that Twitter had suspended a multitude of fake accounts in the months of May and June...

Google’s Loon and Wing are real Alphabet companies now
2018-07-11

The two projects, part of the Google X innovation initiative, are now freestanding “Other Bets” companies.  Another pair of Google’s “moonshots” is graduating from the experimental stage into full-fledged companies.Read Full Story

What if your coffee table was also a robot?
2018-07-11

It’s not as wild as it sounds. According to one designer, autonomous furniture could vastly improve the way disabled people get around their homes. Life hacks aren’t just for the productivity-obsessed. They’re a necessary part of life for differently-abled people navigating a world that was not...

Donald Trump’s Twitter following is dropping bigly—and he’s not alone
2018-07-11

Twitter shut down many accounts that had previously been locked because of unconventional behavior. President Trump likes to tout his massive Twitter following as a sign of his influence. But thanks to a big-time ongoing purge by Twitter of shady users, Trump’s following is going down, by a lot.Read Full Story ...

Facebook is teaching AI to talk you through directions
2018-07-11

Facebook is developing a “Talk the Walk” AI capable of giving walking directions without knowing a user’s location. What it is: A team comprised of a researcher from the University of Montreal in Canada and Facebook Artificial Intelligence Research (FAIR) scientists recently published a white paper describing a...

Facebook will let you use AR to ‘try on’ items in ads
2018-07-11

Facebook is rolling out a new ad format that uses augmented reality to encourage you to sample some of the products on display. The details: The ads appear similar to every other Facebook ad out there, appearing as a promoted tile on your Newsfeed — except they have a “Tap to Try it On” option (presumably with...

The Sustainable Development Goals are slipping out of reach
2018-07-11

The world is isn’t making progress on the UN’s 17 benchmarks for a more just and environmentally sound society–and the U.S. has abdicated any leadership. You very likely do not need a comprehensive data set to tell you that by the measures of social fairness and sustainability, the world is not...

Facebook taught bots to navigate New York City using natural language
2018-07-11

Talk the Walk features two bots–a tourist and a guide–communicating in natural language, with the guide helping the tourist find a specific location in New York. Imagine a tourist and a guide exchanging texts as the visitor tries to find the Manhattan coffee shop where she’s meeting a friend. Text...

#BlackLivesMatter turns 5 this week
2018-07-11

The #BlackLivesMatter hashtag has been used nearly 30 million times. And its hashtag has become one of the most successful of all political and social issue hashtags on Twitter since its inception, a study by Pew Research has found. As of May 1, 2018, the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag has been used nearly 30 million times...

How to get Michael Bierut to design your logo for free
2018-07-11

Cozy up to a blog called McMansion Hell, for starters. You may not have heard of it, but the San Francisco-based nonprofit organization Electronic Frontier Foundation is basically like the ACLU, but for digital rights like privacy and free speech. Since 1990, EFF has helped fight for things like the right to repair...

XMotors denies receiving stolen Apple car project data
2018-07-11

An ex-Apple employee is alleged to have stolen hardware and software secrets from Apple shortly before resigning, with plans to move back to China to work for XMotors. The Chinese-owned electric vehicle company has denied receiving data about Apple’s Project Titan car project from a former Apple employee who...

Target has a secret app for superfans, and it looks like Instagram
2018-07-11

The invite-only app lets members collaborate with Target designers–and see their ideas in stores. I’m looking at an app, and I could swear it’s Instagram. I see large square photos in an endless feed. Avatars appear in round circles. You can tap a heart to like something. Inside any post, there...

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