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Communication and Technology news
Apple poaches top Waymo engineer to catch up in the self-driving car race
2018-06-15

Jaime Waydo is headed to Waymo. Apple has reportedly hired one of Waymo’s top engineers to work on its secretive self-driving car project Titan. According to The Information, the tech company poached former Waymo head of systems engineering Jaime Waydo, whose role at Waymo was focused on making sure software...

Apple Maps outage gave people an excuse to stop using Apple Maps
2018-06-15

Early today, Apple Maps went down for everyone. The outages lasted for a few hours, meaning there were probably at least few people lost out there. For those poor souls, we ask one question: why on earth are you still using Apple Maps? No really, I’m genuinely curious. Google Maps is free, more detailed, and you...

Facebook execs are meeting Trump’s reelection campaign manager today
2018-06-15

As well as with other GOP leaders to discuss alleged conservative bias. Four Facebook executives will meet with House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), RNC chair Ronna McDaniel, and Trump reelection campaign manager Brad Parscale, reports Axios. The meeting is being held to discuss alleged censoring of...

Google’s 2018 diversity annual report by the numbers
2018-06-15

Just 2.5% of its workforce is black, 3.6% Latinx, and 0.3% Native American. The company has released its latest yearly diversity report. The report shows that, overall, the company is still majority white and male, however, it has made small improvements in the past year. Here are the report’s major stats for...

Instagram no longer snitches when you screenshot Stories
2018-06-15

You can go back to recklessly screenshotting your friends’ embarrassing Stories. Several months after Instagram introduced a feature to notify users anytime someone has screengrabbed their Story, the Facebook subsidiary has revealed the functionality is no longer in effect. Instagram has stopped sending screenshot...

Facebook’s top policy and comms exec is stepping down after 10 years
2018-06-14

One of Mark Zuckerberg’s closest confidantes is leaving the company. Elliot Schrage, Facebook’s longtime VP of global communication and public policy, is stepping down from his post, according to Recode. Schrage has been at the company for 10 years. He will reportedly stay on until a replacement is...

It sure looks like Google is trying to make Pixelbooks run Windows
2018-06-14

A few months ago, we reported that Google might be working on a way to dual boot operating systems on its Pixelbook, thanks to mysterious references to ‘Alt OS’ in a firmware development branch. Now there’s even more evidence pointing towards the ability to run Windows somewhere down the line. What’s new? As...

Snap’s new developer program tries to avoid Facebook’s privacy pitfalls
2018-06-14

Snap’s new API program is deliberate in not giving developers too much user data. Today, Snap introduced a suite of new tools for developers. Called Snap Kit, this API program allows developers to feed into Snap’s offerings; they can implement Snap’s login for their own apps as well as integrate...

This “carbon removal marketplace” will make buying offsets easier
2018-06-14

As companies like Lyft start to invest to make up for their carbon footprints, the world of offset buying needs more transparency and accountability. On his small family farm in Petaluma, California, Don Gilardi hopes to begin spreading compost over his pastures next year as a way to fight climate change. The...

Fewer young people are using Facebook to get the news
2018-06-14

The number of people using Facebook as a news source is down by 9% overall from 2017 highs and down a whopping 20% among younger audiences. The number of people using Facebook as a news source is down by 9% overall from 2017 highs and down a whopping 20% among younger audiences, a Reuters Institute survey has found....

Man wins right to sue Google over search results he claims are defamatory
2018-06-13

An Australian man is allowed to sue Google for the role he says it played in defaming him, at least according to a ruling from Australia’s High Court. Milorad “Michael” Trkulja says a photograph of him appears when one searches for “Melbourne criminal underworld.” Trkulja, who was shot in the back in 2004,...

Please do not send Neil Patrick Harris birthday gifts, Twitter
2018-06-13

The TV star posted an address for a UPS Store box on Twitter, soliciting birthday gifts. What could go wrong? After starting off the week annoyingly, Neil Patrick Harris decided on Wednesday to double down, committing full-bore to obnoxiousness.Read Full Story

Twitter wants to send you personalized news notifications
2018-06-13

Twitter today announced an upcoming addition to its suite of mobile notifications. Namely, it will soon offer users personalized news updates, generated based on their interests. Currently, Twitter offers news notifications, for those who want to be kept up-to-date on what’s happening around the world. Now the...

Twitter is taking a new pass at making the news come to you
2018-06-13

The company has big plans to make following news easier. But it will have to make sure that its new features aren’t beset by old problems. Throughout this decade, Twitter has been a uniquely powerful way to keep up with the world’s news on a moment-by-moment basis. But that’s not the same thing as...

Google’s Translate app now works offline for 59 languages
2018-06-13

Google yesterday announced an update to its Translate app which brings offline support for 59 languages to iOS and Android devices. What’s new: Prior to this update, Translate users suffered from limited translation functionality when their device wasn’t connected to the internet. Now, with improved offline...

A cheap Surface computer could help Microsoft win back the education market from Google
2018-06-13

Microsoft’s Surface computers are the pinnacle of the PC world, but with the cheapest Surface Pro starting at $800 (sans keyboard or pencil, I should add), they really are bloody expensive. That might soon change, as rumors suggest Redmond is working on a cheaper Surface laptop, which will allow it to compete in the...

Facebook’s data should be a public resource
2018-06-13

Vess Popov, an expert in big data and psychometrics, spoke at Brain Bar in Budapest on the future of data. In his talk he shared his concern that platforms like Facebook are becoming more closed off. Their research is more secretive than ever and less of it is making its way to the scientific community and the general...

Facebook confirms it tracks your mouse movements on the screen
2018-06-13

Sadly, to the surprise of no one. The tech company most likely to morph into Big Brother has confirmed that, yep, it tracks users’ mouse movements on the screen in an effort to collect more data about that user, reports India Today. Facebook made the admission in a 225-page document in which it answered...

Your Google Translate app just got much smarter offline
2018-06-13

NMT is an artificial intelligence technology that allows software to better learn over time to produce more natural translations. That’s because the company has added neural machine translation (NMT) to the offline version of the app, reports Cult of Mac. NMT is an artificial intelligence technology that allows...

Everyone can relax. Trump just proclaimed the nuclear threat from North Korea over
2018-06-13

Maybe Trump’s bromance trailer had a bigger impact on Kim than we all realized. Trump made the bold proclamation on Twitter after landing back in America from his historic summit with Kim Jong-un in Singapore. The news is sure to be a relief to millions of Japanese, South Korean, and American citizens who have...

Kim Kardashian is lobbying Jack Dorsey to add edit button to Twitter
2018-06-13

Fresh off convincing President Trump to commute the sentence of Alice Marie Johnson, a 63-year-old first-time nonviolent drug offender given a life sentence without parole in 1996, Kim Kardashian is now working on a challenge that’s vexed social media addicts for years—getting Twitter to add an edit...

Sega wants to crowdfund a Sonic the Hedgehog toaster
2018-06-13

I don’t remember ever stumbling down the stairs for breakfast and thinking, “this toast could really use a burned-in representation of a hedgehog on methamphetamine,” but that’s not to say you haven’t. And if you have, you’re in luck. Sega announced today — on the official Sonic the Hedgehog Twitter...

British Army used Facebook ads to target teens on exam results day
2018-06-12

The military’s social strategy appears to have been aiming ads at kids who might be leaving school. Ah, the ol’ emotional manipulation of advertising. Used to be, brands would just hope that Cadillac ad would hit you in the panicked throes of a midlife crisis. Or you’d see that Gatorade poster as...

This Spanish soccer app just admitted to spying on fans to track illegal streams
2018-06-12

The app uses microphones and GPS to track illegal streams of soccer games. Most apps and websites deny that they spy on their users, brushing off ads that mirror IRL conversations as targeted advertising or paranoia. Now, at least one app has ‘fessed up. The La Líga app, which is the official streaming app...

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