Insights

Communication and Technology news
TNW’s Big Spam: UFOs are never a coincidence
2018-05-02

Wednesday. Here we are. Top trending tech news: 😮 Facebook Messenger is getting a sleek new design (TNW) 👍 Facebook now lets anyone create an AR experience (TNW) 😎 FTC to host a cryptocurrency scam workshop (Hard Fork) What we’re talking about: Facebook is finally giving users the option to clear their...

The Justice Teams Network Will Help Victims Of Police Violence
2018-05-02

The organization, cofounder Black Lives Matters’ Patrisse Cullors, will help the families of people killed by the police or who die in jail–with legal advice, counseling, and fundraising. Within an hour after Sahleem Tindle was shot in the back and killed by a BART police officer in Oakland, California,...

Exclusive: Uber’s New Air Taxi Boss Built Flying Cars For Larry Page
2018-05-02

We chat with aeronautical engineer Eric Allison, who’s leading Uber Elevate’s audacious plan to get flying car service airborne by 2023. No longer a total figment of science fiction, flying taxis are attracting big investment from dozens of companies. One star player is Zee.Aero, a division of Google...

Facebook commits to political bias review and civil rights audit
2018-05-02

The social media giant is bringing in two outside advisors to review and audit whether the company has any bias against conservative views and what impacts the social media network has on underrepresented communities and communities of color, reports Axios. The review and audit are being carried out in response to...

LG’s new G7 ThinQ bets all its chips on AI and hi-fi audio
2018-05-02

LG is set to unveil its latest handset in just a few hours from now, but VentureBeat’s already spilled the beans on the new G7 ThinQ, which boasts some impressive hardware, as well as a couple of interesting AI and audio features. As we’ve seen in leaks earlier, there’s a dedicated hardware button below the...

There’s a bright spot for brands in Snapchat’s gloomy earnings report
2018-05-02

Earlier this year, Snapchat started offering creators data and analytics on metrics like unique viewers, time spent watching, audience demographics, and more. It was one of the first indicators that Snap was finally working harder to court creators and brands. During Snap’s earnings call today, the...

Controversial biotech CEO found dead in flotation tank
2018-05-02

Aaron Traywick, the 28-year-old founder of biotech startup Ascendance Biomedical, was found floating face down in a sensory deprivation tank in Washington, D.C., on Sunday, reports the Daily Mail. While police are still investigating his death, they say no foul play is suspected so far. Traywick was something of a...

Instagram should focus on quality, not quantity, in fixing its Explore tab
2018-05-02

At Facebook’s F8 conference yesterday, the company noted that it’d soon update Instagram with a revamped Explore tab to make it easier to discover fresh content that you might enjoy. The refreshed version of Explore will bring a list of topics to the top of the screen, such as ‘animals’, and ‘photography’;...

Facebook takes on Tinder with its new dating service
2018-05-02

In one of the highlights of today’s F8 conference, Facebook announced it was entering the online dating space with new features. These new features, built into Facebook’s existing app, would use information from your profile to match you with potential paramours based on mutual interests and friends. During his F8...

Instagram and WhatsApp are both getting group video calls soon
2018-05-02

At its F8 conference yesterday, Facebook announced that it’s bringing group video chats to both Instagram and WhatsApp in future updates. On Instagram, you’ll soon find a new camera icon in your Direct conversation screens; tapping it will initiate an instant video call, and you can minimize it to continue...

Facebook says it wants to do right by news organizations
2018-05-02

Back in January, Facebook announced that it would henceforth de-emphasize posts from brands and publishers in users’ news feeds in favor of ones from friends and family. Media organizations—which have long been dependent on Facebook for traffic, albeit more than a trifle embarassed by that...

Facebook is finally giving users the option to clear their history
2018-05-01

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO, today announced the site would introduce a feature which will grant users a measure of control over their data — specifically, giving them control over how much information from their history is shared without third-party apps. The feature, appropriately named “Clear History,” will...

Oculus Go will outsell all other quality VR headsets this year: analyst
2018-05-01

Facebook’s brand-new standalone virtual reality headset, the Oculus Go, will outsell all other VR gear, except for dirt-cheap headsets based on Google’s low-end Cardboard, this year. That’s according to a report out this afternoon from SuperData Research. Facebook began selling the Oculus Go...

Facebook Messenger is getting a clean new design. Here’s what it looks like
2018-05-01

Facebook Messenger is the second most popular messaging app in the world , behind another Facebook property, WhatsApp. But while WhatsApp has remained relatively clean and minimal, Messenger’s features can make the app overwhelming. So much so, that some people have turned to the pared-down Messenger Lite instead....

Here’s How Instagram Will Use AI To Take On Its Bullying Problem
2018-05-01

With new machine-learning tools, the social network says it will automatically detect and filter out insulting, racist, and other bullying comments at scale. Instagram is rolling out a comment-filtering technology today that will automatically hide bullying comments on the social network.Read Full Story

Post-Cambridge Analytica, Facebook doesn’t want to desert academia
2018-05-01

The political targeting firm Cambridge Analytica may be synonymous with Facebook’s current mess, but it got the Facebook profiles it misused through a middleman, academic Alexsandr Kogan. Kogen has recently said he’s been scapegoated by both Facebook and Cambridge Analytica, but the fact remains that...

Facebook really wants us to know election ads will be transparent
2018-05-01

Facebook wants people to trust its efforts to protect elections this year in the United States and other countries. It has already talked about its new requirements around political-ads transparency, and today it doubled down on messaging how much information will be available about such advertising. During his...

Match Group stock plummets after Facebook shows love for dating
2018-05-01

Investors are ghosting Match Group after Facebook announced a scheme to invade its space. At its F8 conference today, the social networking giant said it plans to launch a dating feature that will help people find love on Facebook. Shares in Match Group—which owns OKCupid and Tinder, in addition to...

Facebook has paid out $6 million in bug bounties
2018-05-01

Here at F8, Facebook’s outgoing chief security officer, Alex Stamos, is giving a talk on how the company does security. One part of the recipe is offering cash payments to people who identify bugs, which expedites discovery and increases the chances that those who discover vulnerabilities will help Facebook...

Facebook will let you build immersive 3D “memories” from old photos
2018-05-01

We all have memories of things that live on only through old photos. Now, Facebook wants to let us live those memories again–in 3D and in virtual reality. During F8, the company’s developers conference today, Facebook head of social VR Rachel Franklin described how you’ll be able to upload a group...

Coming soon to Facebook: 3D photos
2018-05-01

One of the last things announced during Facebook’s F8 keynote looked inconsequential but fun: News Feed is going to get “3D photos,” which have a bit of a pseudo-dimensionality effect as you scroll through them. This reminds of a feature introduced by Lytro’s light-field camera in 2013. If...

Facebook’s dating service won’t exactly be Tinder
2018-05-01

Facebook plans to add a dating feature to its app in the months to come, but don’t expect to swipe right or left just yet. Instead of putting profile pictures first, the dating feature will ask users to “unlock” nearby events and interest groups, at which point they can browse the profiles of...

To make your feed more civil, Facebook is adding a dash of Reddit
2018-05-01

If your family, friends, and random acqaintances are squabbling in your Facebook comments—about politics or any other topic—the company thinks it has a solution. At F8, Facebook chief product office Chris Cox just announced that Facebook will begin full rollout of up-voting and down-voting for comments,...

This Startup Wants To Help You Use Facebook To Find A Mentor
2018-05-01

Ten Thousand Coffees partners with Facebook with the goal of making professional connections. Dave Wilkin, the founder of Ten Thousand Coffees, has a pretty lofty goal: for every single company in the world to offer mentoring and networking for all their employees. But right now, most of us don’t have a shot...

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