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Communication and Technology news
Google’s Tez app for India now pays your utility bills with one tap
2018-02-20

Google has updated its Tez payments app for users in India with the ability to pull up your bills from a number of local service providers and settle them with just a tap. The company announced that the new functionality was in the works back in December 2017, when it announced that Tez was set to cross 12 million...

Zuckerberg says he wants us to spend less time on Facebook. Maybe he means it
2018-02-19

During an earnings call in late January, Mark Zuckerberg surprised everyone by saying people spending less time on Facebook is a good thing. Moreover, time spent on Facebook will likely continue to decrease as the company implements further changes to the platform over the next year. It was a startling remark by the...

TNW’s Big Spam: 88.9% of you love GIFs that make your eyes bleed
2018-02-19

Happy Monday. Per your request, we brought back the seizure-inducing GIF to our newsletter… freaks. Top trending tech news: 🏠 AirBnB is investing in new tech to crack down on sex-trafficking (Thomson Reuters Foundation)⚖️ A federal court ruled embedding a tweet can be copyright...

Chris Hughes Got Lucky With Facebook, Now He Wants Everyone To Have A Shot
2018-02-19

Hughes made hundreds of millions from Facebook. In his new book, “Fair Shot: Rethinking Inequality and How We Earn,” he advocates for a form of basic income to pull Americans out of poverty. When Facebook had its IPO in 2012 and raised $104 billion, Chris Hughes walked away with $500 million. As...

Facebook plans to thwart election ad fraud with postcards
2018-02-19

In an effort to prevent foreign actors from surreptitiously manipulating audiences with ads concerning US elections, Facebook will send postcards in the mail to verify advertisers’ presence in the country, reports Reuters. Katie Harbath, Facebook’s global director of policy programs, said that the plan will go...

How to bring Google’s ‘View Image’ button back to search results
2018-02-19

After inking a deal with Getty Images, Google decided last week to remove the ‘View image’ button from its search results that would directly open the file in a new tab. Thankfully, there’s a way around this. Simply install this browser extension in Chrome or Opera, and you’ll see the button back where was...

What will smart speakers be like in 2023?
2018-02-18

The past year has been great for the smart speaker industry. Smart speakers, the voice-activated, home-based devices that allow you to make searches, play music, and even purchase items, skyrocketed in popularity in 2017, with sales more than tripling. Brands like Amazon Echo, Google Home, and Sonos One have become...

Why indie ecommerce will keep getting sucked up by the likes of Walmart and IKEA
2018-02-17

In the early 1980’s, a Danish drummer placed an ad in a California newspaper looking for jam buddies and face-melting thrash metal was born. Over the course of the decade, Metallica built a genre and the world’s most passionate fan base with raw, gritty rock n’ roll. But suddenly the band’s sound changed. It...

Facebook is desperate for engagement and spamming users via their 2FA numbers
2018-02-17

Facebook is feeling lonely these days.  The social media behemoth has seen a decline in traffic in recent weeks along with millions of users leaving its platform, and it appears to be taking rather drastic measures to win them back. Specifically, spamming the hell out of them in a most unfortunate...

Labor Review Board lawyer says fired Googler James Damore has no case
2018-02-16

Google did not violate the law when it fired engineer James Damore for circulating a controversial memo inside the company, according to the National Labor Review Board’s general counsel Jayme L Sophir. Last year, Damore shared a document which questioned Google’s effort to create a diverse culture while...

Google and 911 are teaming up to pinpoint your location more accurately
2018-02-16

Google recently tested new tech to help 911 dispatchers find callers more quickly and more accurately. 80 percent of the calls made with Google’s tech were more accurate than calls made via cell phone carriers. Retrieving data from the phone itself (rather than the carrier) allows Google to get a read on location....

This is how regulation affects Airbnb in San Francisco, report says
2018-02-16

A wave of regulations have forced home-sharing sites to eject certain types of rentals across all platforms. Now a new report from the San Francisco Chronicle shows that when San Francisco cracked down on short-term rentals, FlipKey and Expedia-owned HomeAway took the biggest hits. Using data from HostingCompliance,...

Google Images just made downloading photos more annoying
2018-02-16

Google Images is pretty much the default way of finding photos around the internet, but the company just made a small but signficant change to how you access images. Google removed the ‘View Image’ button that allowed you to easily see a photo at its full size. Basically, it means you now need to click through to...

Google makes 911 faster, more reliable in new Android update
2018-02-16

Google recently tested new tech to help 911 dispatchers find callers more quickly and more accurately. 80 percent of the calls made with Google’s tech were more accurate than calls made via cell phone carriers. Retrieving data from the phone itself (rather than the carrier) allows Google to get a read on location....

This Old House Is Being Remade Into A Springboard For Minority Women In Tech
2018-02-16

In a rapidly gentrifying, historically black Boston neighborhood, two designers purchased an old Victorian and will establish it as [G]Code House–a co-living, co-working space for young women of color. Last summer, Carolle Nau, a designer and creative director at the tech and business incubator SkyLab Boston,...

People Are Posting Fake Stories Of Racially-Driven Attacks At “Black Panther” Screenings
2018-02-16

Internet trolls are in full effect, but there’s just that pesky little problem of Google Reverse Image Search–and having common sense. Because we just can’t have nice things, there’s a gaggle of trolls claiming false attacks at Black Panther screenings.Read Full Story

Grab could be the next ride-hail competitor to buy a piece of Uber
2018-02-16

Rumor has it that Uber is gearing up to sell its Southeast Asia business to regional competitor Grab, according to CNBC. As a part of the purported deal, Uber would get a stake in Grab. At the Dealbook conference in November 2017, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi noted that he thought the company was “over...

Austin is the first city in Texas to make paid sick leave mandatory
2018-02-16

If you’ve ever been a waitress or worked in a video store or made lattes at a coffeeshop, you know that sick days—at least paid ones—are a luxury. The city of Austin has just made a bold move to change that. On Friday, the Austin City Council voted 9-2 to make paid sick leave a … Continue...

Facebook just took down two Instagram posts linked to Vladimir Putin’s main rival
2018-02-16

Facebook-owned Instagram has complied with the Kremlin’s request to take down a post that was angering the Russian government. The post was related to Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s allegations of bribery involving a Putin-friendly oligarch and a top government official. Navalny, Vladimir...

Walmart is looking to buy a huge stake in India’s Flipkart
2018-02-16

The U.S. retail giant is in talks to buy more than 40% of Indian e-commerce firm Flipkart, reports Reuters. Flipkart is currently valued around $12 billion, so the proposed take could cost Walmart north of $5 billion. If the deal finalizes, it would give both Flipkart and Walmart some much-needed muscle against Amazon...

Apple says all new iOS apps must accommodate the iPhone X’s notch
2018-02-16

If you’re building a new iOS app this year, you’ll have to ensure that it fully supports the iPhone X’s Super Retina Display – which means that it’ll have to accommodate the notch, reports 9to5Mac. The rule comes into effect from April 2018 and concerns apps submitted from then onwards; Apple will also...

Gmail Go is almost identical to the original Android app, but half the size
2018-02-16

Google’s Gmail Go is now available in the Play store for Android devices, bringing most of the functionality of the original app, while shaving off half the file size. It’s part of the company’s Go suite of apps, which are designed to work well on low-end phones with low memory and storage. That, in turn, is...

Russia’s election propaganda weaponized these mainstream news outlets
2018-02-16

Breitbart News tops a list of otherwise “mainstream” news sites most linked to by troll accounts managed by Russian propagandists during the 2016 U.S. election, according to research just released by Jonathan Albright, research director at Columbia Journalism School’s Tow Center for Digital...

When school shootings are broadcast on Snapchat, the effects reverberate
2018-02-15

On Wednesday afternoon, some of the terrified teenagers of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, used social media to bear witness to the recurring tragedy of our time: a mass shooting. These children, who've grown up with smartphones at the ready, did what comes naturally to them and shared...

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