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Communication and Technology news
WhatsApp introduces stickers at last
2018-10-26

WhatsApp is super late introducing stickers on its messaging platform, but hey, at least they’re available now. There are already a bunch of free sticker packs available, and you’ll recognize some of them from Facebook Messenger (no surprise there). The company noted that third parties can also create sticker...

This city is angling to build the East Coast’s next innovation hub
2018-10-26

How geography, a new subway stop, and aggressive planning are combining to make Somerville, Massachusetts’s Union Square the northeast’s next promising tech hub. Kendall Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts, represents a near-perfect marriage of technology, science, and capitalism. Butting right up against...

NYPD strangely mentions mail bombs in a statement about a Brooklyn car crash
2018-10-25

“There was no criminality” when a driver crashed into a father and son in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, the NYPD told Fast Company. After a father and son were struck crossing the street in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, this morning by a driver who appeared to run a red light, the NYPD reportedly told Gothamist no...

Nameless Network, RYOT, and WP Narrative and the future of digital entertainment
2018-10-25

Working with and around Facebook, Google, and Twitter’s algorithms to win in digital entertainment. “We have over 10 million followers on Facebook, Instagram” and other social platforms, Nameless Network CEO Kareem Rahma told a crowd at the Fast Company Innovation Festival on Wednesday....

9.4 million may have been hit in Cathay Pacific data breach
2018-10-25

The breach happened in March, but was only made public on Wednesday. Cathay Pacific gave 9.4 million of its passengers a little souvenir to remember their trip on the airline—a data breach. The Hong Kong-based airline has admitted that the personal details of 9.4 million passengers were inappropriately...

Watch Chip Bergh and Stephanie Ruhle live at the Fast Company Innovation Festival
2018-10-25

A conversation with Levi Strauss & Co.’s president and CEO. Whether he’s plotting a way to end gun violence or spearheading a major turnaround of an iconic brand like Levi Strauss & Co., Chip Bergh is an American original. Now we’re about to find out how original he is...

This McKinsey study of 300 companies reveals what every business needs to know about design for 2019
2018-10-25

In a sweeping study of 2 million pieces of financial data and 100,000 design actions over five years, McKinsey finds that design-led companies had 32% more revenue and 56% higher total returns to shareholders compared with other companies. For years, the design community has been working to build the case that...

War is memes. Just “don’t be a victim like the Americans”
2018-10-25

LikeWar author P.W. Singer on how Taylor Swift, Facebook, Trump, and others helped turn us into accidental soldiers in the battles of the future. One weekend in June 2009, Twitter was preparing an upgrade that would take the service offline for a few hours, when the U.S. State Department called. Delay the upgrade,...

When does a Super Bowl commercial become a political act?
2018-10-25

Big game ads have addressed politics and social issues, but Amy Schumer’s boycott adds a new element to just showing up. Taking a stand on a social or political issue isn’t anything new in advertising, and the biggest American ad show of them all—the Superbowl—is no exception. In 2017, we...

Facebook fined 0.001% of its 2017 revenue for Cambridge Analytica scandal
2018-10-25

One of 2018’s biggest revelations was that Facebook completely failed its users when it allowed Cambridge Analytica to access personal data without their consent. For this massive privacy breach, Facebook has been fined a whopping… £500,000? The measly fine — which amounts to around €565,000 or $645,000 —...

Full moon patents: US Navy tube drones and Facebook doppelgängers
2018-10-25

Ugh, the Gregorian calendar is so boring. That’s why we’re disrupting monthly series with a lunar cycle-based series about the best patents of the last synodic month, picked by the PatentYogi team. Get ready when that moon gets gibbous, y’all. This October-ish roundup lands on the beautiful Hunter’s Moon!...

Twitter’s bot purge led to a 9M drop in users last quarter
2018-10-25

Twitter’s just announced its quarterly earnings, in which it revealed its user base has shrunk by nine million monthly users over the last quarter. This is a good thing. That’s because the company’s been purging bots from its platform, a mission it’s been on  since July. The initial exercise saw Twitter...

Twitter’s Q3 earnings by the numbers
2018-10-25

Stock soars as Twitter handily beats expectations. Twitter has released its Q3 earnings report and it’s smashed financial experts’ estimates. Here’s how Twitters Q3 numbers break down:Read Full Story

The 3 most over-hyped design trends of today
2018-10-25

At the Fast Company Innovation Festival, three designers shared the design trends they think are the most overrated in 2018. It’s easy for a trend to turn into a cliché–popular ideas have a way of becoming ridiculous when taken too far. At the Fast Company Innovation Festival, Co.Design editor...

Facebook fined £500,000 by U.K. for Cambridge Analytica scandal
2018-10-25

The fine is the maximum allowed by law. The U.K.’s privacy watchdog, the Information Commissioner’s Office, has fined Facebook the maximum amount for failing to safeguard user’s data that was compromised in the Cambridge Analytica scandal, reports CNBC. The £500,000 (about $644,600) fine was...

How to review and delete your Google search history
2018-10-25

Welcome to TNW Basics, a collection of tips, tricks, guides, and advice on how to easily get the most out of your gadgets, apps, and connected services. Google’s search service is great at helping you find stuff across the web, but all your queries also help the company build a profile of you it can use to target...

Facebook now lets you add music to your profile and Stories
2018-10-24

Facebook today announced it was offering several new ways for users to incorporate music into their on-site identities — and in doing so, is starting to look very much like MySpace. The company plans to add the ability to listen to music on Stories and Profiles. Starting today, users will be able to use music in...

Google makes it easier to view and purge your search history
2018-10-24

Sometimes you want to delete your footprint. If you’ve ever gotten discouraged trying to find exactly where in Google’s menus to view and edit your search history, Google hears you.Read Full Story

Here are Twitter’s new experiments in driving conversation
2018-10-24

Twitter wants to make it easier for users to talk to each other—and it’s investigating ways to do that, from color-coded tweets to custom status messages. Twitter has a passionate population of users, but many people are intimidated or just turned off by the service. Beyond issues relating to bots,...

New Models is the intellectual Drudge Report for critical theory
2018-10-24

If you’re looking for fresh content at the intersection of art, culture, and theory, one site is railing against the Facebook algorithm. This past summer, the Drudge Report surpassed the New York Times to become the sixth most trafficked U.S. media publication on the internet. The ubiquitous website...

These fierce bags preserve an Indian city’s ancient craft
2018-10-24

Embroidery was once a mainstay of artisans in Lucknow, India. Afshan Durrani, the founder and designer behind Complete Unknown, wants to keep it that way. In the 17th century, when India was ruled by Mughal sultans, artisan communities sprung up in the northern city of Lucknow to create beautiful things for the royal...

Meet the 23-year-old engineering detective behind the biggest leaks in tech
2018-10-24

You see it all the time — Facebook’s latest feature leaks to the public, and everyone knows about it before Zuckerberg has said a word. But where do these leaks come from? Meet Jane Wong, a 23-year-old studying product engineering at Hong Kong University. Her hobbies include travel, photography… as well as...

Apple’s Tim Cook warns of threat from growing “data industrial complex”
2018-10-24

It was as bleak as the prophetic warning Eisenhower gave about the military-industrial complex in 1961. Apple’s Tim Cook was the first CEO of a private company to give the keynote speech at the annual International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners (ICDPPC) in Brussels. Cook touched on a...

Alibaba wins copyright case against cryptocurrency knock-off
2018-10-24

The Chinese internet shopping Goliath, Alibaba, has overcome its previous struggles to win a trademark infringement case against a cryptocurrency that was blatantly sponging off its recognizable name. Alibaba has won a preliminary injunction against Alibabacoin Foundation (ABBC) for trademark infringement, MarketWatch...

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