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The president accuses the online retail giant of scamming the US Postal Service. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2GI341k

Cancer-fighting robots, hacked tax returns, dumping old PCs and more: Tech Q&A Is there anything that I can do to stop the annoying robocalls promising me free cruises, vacations, and scams?

The company says a Model X vehicle involved in a fatal crash in the US was in Autopilot mode. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2uznZPj

Uber is closing the doors on its on-demand package delivery service, RUSH, in New York City, San Francisco and Chicago, TechCrunch has learned. In an email to users, Uber said it plans to close RUSH operations June 30, 2018. “At Uber, we believe in making big bold bets, and while ending UberRUSH comes with some sadness, we will continue our mission of building reliable technology that serves people and cities all over the world,” Uber’s NYC RUSH team wrote to customers. Uber has since confirmed the wind-down. “We’re winding down UberRUSH deliveries and ending services by the end of June,” an Uber spokesperson told TechCrunch. “We’re thankful for our partners and hope the next three months will allow them to make arrangements for their delivery needs. We’re already applying a lot of the lessons we learned together to our UberEats food delivery business in over 200 global markets across more than 100,000 restaurants.” With UberRUSH, which I forgot still existed, people can request d

By SHEERA FRENKEL and NELLIE BOWLES from NYT Technology https://ift.tt/2pSfdXH

A company called Clipisode is today launching a new service that’s essentially a “talk show in a box,” as founder Brian Alvey describes it. Similar to how Anchor now allows anyone to build a professional podcast using simple mobile and web tools, Clipisode does this for video content. With Clipisode, you can record a video that can be shared across any platform – social media, the web, text messages – and collect video responses that can then be integrated into the “show” and overlaid with professional graphics. The video responses feature is something more akin to a video voicemail-based call-in feature. Here’s how it works. The content creator will first use Clipisode to record their video, and receive the link to share the video across social media, the web, or privately through email, text messaging, etc. When the viewer or guest clicks the link, they can respond to the question the show’s “host” posed. For example, a reporter could ask for viewers’ thoughts on an issue or a

Whenever you are doing something online that requires you to present an official ID like a passport or driver’s license to complete the transaction, it presents risk to both parties. Consumers want to know they are secure and brands want to know the person is using valid credentials. That’s where Veriff comes in. Kaarel Kotkas, CEO and founder of the company, says the goal is to be “the Stripe of identity .” What he means is he wants to provide developers with the ability to embed identity verification into any application or website, as easily as you can use Stripe to add payments. The company, which was originally launched in Estonia in 2015, is a recent graduate of the Y Combinator winter class. When you undertake any activity on the web or a mobile app that requires a valid ID, if Veriff is running under the hood, you can submit an ID such as a driver’s license. It uses a secret sauce to determine that the ID being presented is an officially issued one and that it belongs to the

In January, Facebook announced that it would be changing its feed algorithm to promote users’ well-being over time spent browsing content. That’s a relatively new approach for a company whose ethos once centered around “move fast, break things.” It wasn’t all that long ago (approximately a year and a half before the algorithm change) that Facebook VP Andrew “Boz” Bosworth, published an internal memo called “The Ugly,” which was circulated throughout the company. In it, Boz made it clear to employees that connecting people (i.e. growth) is the main focus at Facebook, at all costs. Buzzfeed first published the memo, which said: Maybe it costs a life by exposing someone to bullies. Maybe someone dies in a terrorist attack coordinated on our tools. And still we connect people. The ugly truth is that we believe in connecting people so deeply that anything that allows us to connect more people more often is *de facto* good. It is perhaps the only area where the metrics do tell the t

ClearVoice recently launched a new feature to give freelancers a better way to show off their work and get new jobs. CV Portfolios offer an easier alternative to personal websites that are often sparsely populated , out-of-date or otherwise neglected. Thanks a technology that the company is calling VoiceGraph, writers no longer have to keep the pages updated themselves. Instead, co-founder and CEO Joe Griffin said VoiceGraph indexes stories from the top publishers online (about 250,000 currently) and matches them to their authors. It also aggregates metrics around social sharing and connecting to the authors’ own social media accounts. “At the end of the day, what we want to do here is give freelancers very robust tools that make it as simple as possible to address one of the biggest hurdles freelancers were having: creating a portfolio and maintaining it,” Griffin said. So for example, you can visit my CV Portfolio to see many of my latest TechCrunch articles. Granted, that’s

Air Force pilot snaps amazing Northern Lights pictures A U.S. Air Force pilot has captured incredible close-up pictures of the Northern Lights from the cockpit of his plane.

Inside HQ Trivia: The booming business of mobile trivia It's the smartphone trend that has people dropping what they're doing in the middle of the day, all for a chance to earn some cold hard cash.

Under Armour: 150 million MyFitnessPal accounts were hacked Under Armour announced a hack of its MyFitnessPal exercise application, saying that as many as 150 million user accounts were compromised. The breached data includes names, email addresses, and passwords but no financial data.

Leaked Facebook 'ugly truth' memo about the social network’s growth sparks controversy A leaked Facebook memo from an outspoken senior executive that details the risks associated with the social network’s pursuit of growth has sparked controversy.

Nift , which is giving local businesses a new way to promote themselves, has raised $16.5 million in Series A funding. The businesses that work with Nift (the name is short for “neighborhood gift”) can give special gift cards to their best customers. Those customers enter their codes on the Nift website, answer a few questions and can then choose from two free gifts from other local businesses. Founder and CEO Elery Pfeffer suggested that this can help smaller businesses stay competitive against Amazon, while avoiding some of the pitfalls of promoting themselves through discount sites like Groupon. For one thing, Pfeffer argued that the person receiving the Nift is “somebody else’s best customer — this is not a bargain hunter motivated by a deal.” “They’re getting a gift they weren’t expecting,” he said. “We make the selection for them, so there’s no self-selecting bargain hunting going on. That’s what makes the whole thing work.” The idea is that businesses get new customers in ex

The latest update to macOS provides support for external graphics card. Apple announced this would hit the OS last June at WWDC and now it’s finally here. The update allows Mac users to increase the graphical processing power through an external graphics card connected through Thunderbolt 3. Perviously users had to buy an eGPU dev kit from Apple or employ unofficial means to enable external graphics cards, which meant Apple wouldn’t bail them out if something happened. The additional horsepower isn’t needed for general use, but the added graphics cards supercharge Macs for VR, rendering and gaming. Only a handful of eGPUs are compatible with macOS so choose carefully before adding one to your rig. The feature comes from the  High Sierra 10.13.4 Combo Update which also adds Business Chat in Messages, a new iTunes and a super handy feature to Safari in which users can jump to the right-most open tab by using Command+9. from Apple – TechCrunch https://ift.tt/2GpiyUr

By KEVIN ROOSE from NYT Technology https://ift.tt/2E7z0qg

By J. D. BIERSDORFER from NYT Technology https://ift.tt/2pSZBmE

The actress fails to convince judges that a character in the game was based on her. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2E77Wrg

Boeing's WannaCry run-in is a reminder to patch your systems WannaCry is making headlines again, and this time it hit a major target: Boeing.

The firm denies it believes that growth at all costs is "good" even if it leads to deaths. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2IfBLZc

By JACK NICAS from NYT Technology https://ift.tt/2pRtgvP

Shares in Baidu's iQiyi streaming platform fell below their opening price on Wall Street's Nasdaq. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2GqGXJq

Roam, a San Francisco-based robotics startup, has just debuted a lower body robotic exoskeleton aimed firmly at skiers. The company’s first product doesn’t stray too far from nearby Ekso Bionics , where CEO and founder Tim Swift worked perviously. Though the simply titled Robotic Ski Exoskeleton trades warehouse work and mobility assistance for the admittedly more exhilarating world of downhill skiing. The product is essentially a pair of braces that strap on the wearers thighs connecting to ski boots on one side, and a small backpack on the other. The braces are absorb shock, provide support and generally make you look like some crazy cyborg sent back from the future to punish snow. A combination of built-in sensors and software adjust the system’s fabric and air actuators, providing additional support to the quadriceps. That all happens automatically, though users can also opt to control the thing manually, as well. In spite of only announcing this week, the company says its “fi

Online political advertising that uses big data to target individuals - how influential is it? from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2uxxOwR

Apple didn’t livestream this morning’s education event at Lane Tech High School in Chicago, so reading along live was the next best thing. Thankfully, for those who weren’t crammed into the auditorium seating with the rest of us, the whole shebang is now online and viewable through Apple’s site . The event was, as expected, focused entirely on Apple’s education play, as the company looks to reassert itself in school in the wake of the massive success of Chromebooks. Tim Cook and company took a deep dive into the software solutions aimed helping teachers streamline the in-class iPad usage, along with the various ways in which mainstream Apple apps like Clips and Garage Band are being used in the class. And then, of course, there are those new, cheap, iPads . from Apple – TechCrunch https://ift.tt/2DZGxaJ

By STEVE LOHR from NYT Technology https://nyti.ms/2pQT7nM

Navy Littoral Combat Ship to operate swarms of drones The U.S. Navy's Littoral Combat Ship will now have the ability to operate surface and undersea drones to improve effectiveness, particularly when it comes to destroying mines, surveying enemy waters and launching attacks.

Tim Cook took a break from criticizing Facebook   on Tuesday to present the next step in Apple’s big education plans . But the CEO is back at it. Sitting down with MSNBC and Recode at a town hall event , Cook was once again asked about consumer privacy in the wake of fallout over Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica quagmire. Cook interviews that while he believed self-regulation is best in the case of these tech giants, “I think we’re beyond that.” Asked what he would do, were he in Zuckerberg’s position, he added, simply, “I wouldn’t be in this situation.” The executive has never shied away from criticizing Facebook, of course. In 2015, he indirectly criticized the approach of internet companies like Google and Facebook, stating “They’re gobbling up everything they can learn about you and trying to monetize it. We think that’s wrong. And it’s not the kind of company that Apple wants to be.” Just this weekend, he echoed that statement, with a more direct jab at Facebook, following the C

Camera to return to owner years after being dropped in ocean A camera that washed up on a beach in Taiwan will be returned to its owner more than two years after the device was dropped during a scuba diving excursion off a Japanese island.

New Air Force tanker coming later this year, to improve and expand attack missions The U.S. Air Force is getting the new, high-tech KC-46A refueling tanker later this year. The next-generation plane will mark the beginning of replacing an aging fleet, as well as expand the Air Force's ability to enable attack and ISR missions, according to officials.

Hulu has added the live, linear version of the CW to its Hulu with Live TV platform. Hulu has had a deal with the CW to offer streaming on-demand content from the network, but this is the first time that the CW will be available live on Hulu. The company first launched Hulu with Live TV in the summer of 2017, offering more than 50 channels for $39.99/month, complete with access to Hulu’s on-demand content library and 50 hours of DVR storage. The service launched with some competition from YouTube, which launched a similar offering called YouTube TV in April 2017. According to a report from January, Hulu with Live TV has around 450,000 subscribers, while YouTube TV has 300,000 subscribers. Live CW on Hulu is not available everywhere, but will be on Hulu with Live TV in the following markets: Philadelphia, San Francisco, Atlanta, Tampa, Detroit, Seattle, Sacramento, Pittsburgh. The company says it’s rolling out live CW to more markets soon. from Startups – TechCrunch https

The upcoming Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act , in addition to making Microsoft move to reduce obscenity on its platform , has hit erotica authors on Amazon. After many authors saw their rankings stripped on the Kindle store, essentially reducing their availability and visibility, while forcing others in the romance category to recategorize or get dinged as well. The Digital Reader followed the changes this week, reporting that “I have seen numerous reports on Facebook, KBoards, and elsewhere that Amazon has adopted a new policy where some romance titles, most notably those titles that Amazon has identified as erotica, have been removed from the Kindle Store best-seller list.” Amazon’s changes began on March 22. Delisting titles from the Amazon Kindle store essentially buries them completely, leading to massive revenue loss for indie authors. One author received a note from KDP – Kindle Direct Publishing – discussing the changes: I’m following up concerning some of your books mis

Apple has updated iOS, MacOS and tvOS to let people know when their personal data will be collected. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2J5zcdu

A racial slur GIF slipped into GIPHY’s sticker library earlier this month, prompting Instagram and Snapchat to drop their GIPHY integrations . Now Instagram is reactivating after GIPHY confirmed its reviewed its GIF library four times and will preemptively review any new GIFs it adds. Snapchat said it had nothing to share right now about whether it’s going to reactivate GIPHY. “We’ve been in close contact with GIPHY throughout this process and we’re confident that they have put measures in place to ensure that Instagram users have a good experience” an Instagram spokesperson told TechCrunch. GIPHY told TechCrunch in a statement that “To anyone who was affected: we’re sorry. We take full responsibility for this recent event and under no circumstances does GIPHY condone or support this kind of content . . . We have also finished a full investigation into our content moderations systems and processes and have made specific changes to our process to ensure soemthing like this does not

Atlanta still battling effects of ransomware attack, expert says hack should be national 'wakeup call' A week after a ransomware cyberattack paralyzed the City of Atlanta’s computer system, some services are still tied up.

Apple just released an iOS update for your iPhone and iPad. 11.3 introduces a ton of bug fixes but also a bunch of new features. If you forgot about Animjois, today is your lucky day as Apple is adding four new Animojis — a dragon, a bear, a lion and a skull. But that’s not all. Apple already shared a preview of iOS 11.3 a couple of months ago. There’s a big ARKit update to ARKit 1.5 . It can recognize more objects and surfaces. And iOS 11.3 is also the battery update we’ve all been waiting for. There’s some new info in the settings about the status of your battery. It tells you the overall capacity and if it’s time to change your battery. You can also choose to disable Apple’s controversial decision to throttle performance with old batteries. Apple says it’s a beta feature for now. Apple is also introducing a new feature in the Health app. You can now centralize all your health records in the app. It’s only limited to a handful of clinics for now. Apple is adding customer supp

Cubigo , a tech startup aimed at addressing the senior living market, recently closed a $4.5 million Series A round led by Urbain Vandeurzen with participation from Transvision. Cubigo is also rolling out its services in five senior living communities in Florida, California and Ohio. Across those five communities, Cubigo’s platform will reach 100,000 residents. To help fuel its mission to modernize the senior living industry, Cubigo has partnered with Lyft around transportation and has become an Apple mobility partner. “Senior care is a $400 billion industry that remains untouched by technology we carry in our pockets every day,” Cubigo CEO Geert Houben said in a statement. “With our new apps built for iPad and iPhone, we see an opportunity to radically streamline processes at independent- and assisted-living residences, which is a huge relief for staff members. Most importantly, however, Cubigo is easy-to-use technology that gives seniors independence over their daily activities.

Data for 136,000 Facebook users still not deleted by Cambridge Analytica, report says Some of the data that Cambridge Analytica harvested from Facebook is still circulating, despite what both companies have said, according to a British investigative report.

The UK government says online content portability is still subject to Brexit negotiations. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2IdoOyZ

A blockchain company called Coinfirm has announced a partnership with PKO BP, a major Polish bank, to provide blockchain-based document verification using a tool called Trudatum . The project is a an actual implementation of one of the primary benefits of blockchain-based tools, namely its ability to permanently and immutably store data. This announcement brings blockchain implementations out of the realm of proof-of-concept and into the real world. “Every document recorded in the blockchain (e.g. proof of a transaction, or bank’s terms and conditions for a given product) will be issued in the form of irreversible abbreviation or hash signed with the bank’s private key. This will allow a client to verify remotely if the files he received from a business partner or from the bank are true, or if a modification of the document was attempted,” wrote the Coinfirm team. Coinfirm founders Paweł Kuskowski, Pawel Aleksander, and Maciej Ziółkowski have experience in cryptocurrency and bankin

Food security is one of the grand problems facing the planet this century. The UN has estimated that food supplies need to increase by 50% to cover the population growth expected over the coming decades, while climate change is expected to cut crop yields by a quarter. Nearly a billion people today lack sufficient food. Those are raw statistics, but Justin Kolbeck saw them viscerally personified every day as a U.S. diplomat in Afghanistan, where food security is a perennial concern. “…Things were so bad that people were smuggling meat over the Pakistan border,” he said, despite the incredible danger along that heavily guarded dividing line. Kolbeck eventually returned to the U.S., where he met Arye Elfenbeim, who was studying for an MD/PhD in cardiology. Elfenbeim’s research looked at how the heart could regrow functional muscle tissue lost in a heart attack. As he worked on his residency though, he realized that some of the fields he was working on, including tissue engineering, st

Atlanta still battling effects of ransomware attack, experts says hack should be national 'wakeup call' A week after a ransomware cyberattack paralyzed the City of Atlanta’s computer system, some services are still tied up.

People who have only a landline from BT will have their monthly line rental fee cut from Sunday. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2GmSSb9

What? Facebook keeps videos that you never posted Back in the early days of Facebook, video chat wasn't really a thing.

Marines' ultra-powerful heavily-armed mega-drone will devastate enemies of the US Armed to the teeth with an array of powerful, destructive weapons, an incredible thinking drone- one that can conduct missions on its own without a human - may soon hit the skies to keep Marines safe.

Trump goes after Amazon again, says it's 'causing tremendous loss to the US' President Donald Trump has gone after Amazon again, tweeting it is "causing tremendous loss to the U.S." after a Wednesday media report suggested the President was "obsessed" with the Jeff Bezos-led company.

Newly released files detail election-swinging efforts by the consultancy and other linked firms. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2uwXjP2

The latest video game craze is hard to stop playing but not addictive says a researcher. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2E3li7W

As well as its tax record, President Trump launches into Amazon for destroying retail jobs. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2IeX65d

Snap Inc is laying off around 100 employees within the advertising and sales department, according to CNBC . This is the second reported round of layoffs this month, with the company laying off around 100 people from the engineering department in early March. Chief Strategy Officer Imran Khan told CNBC the following: Over the past two years our company has grown a tremendous amount. Late last year we asked senior leaders across Snap to look closely at their teams to ensure they had the right resources and organizations to support their missions. As a result, new structures have been put in place for Content, Engineering, Sales and many other parts of Snap. These changes reflect our view that tighter integration and closer collaboration between our teams is a critical component of sustainably growing our business. While this process has required us to make some really tough decisions, we believe that rigorously ensuring our team structure always aligns with our goals will make us st

Apple Watch 4 may get a significant overhaul, reports say The first major redesign of the Apple Watch could be coming later this year, according to media reports.

By J. D. BIERSDORFER from NYT Technology https://ift.tt/2J2BERO

Women working at Facebook in the UK get nearly half the amount of bonus pay as male colleagues. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2E2xGoT

Michigan saw a historic amount of snowfall in 2018. And it’s not done. It’s snowing as I write this and it snowed nearly every day since I took delivery of this burgundy 2018 Lincoln Navigator. Excuse the dirty car shown in the photos. That’s life in the Midwest: half the year it’s impossible to keep cars clean of salt and grime and, to me, that’s the best time to review a vehicle. I’m happy to report the new Navigator is a comfortable refuge from the snowy winter. I spent a week in the 2018 Navigator running from Flint, Michigan to Ann Arbor to Detroit. I filled up the 23-gallon tank enough to know to take it easy on the lively 3.5L EcoBoost V6. The 2018 Lincoln Navigator is luxurious and confident — but thirsty. This is a luxury SUV. It’s not a sport truck and it’s not high-tech paradise, though it can play the part of both. The new Navigator was clearly built to be as comfortable as possible, and along the way Lincoln constructed one of the best luxury SUVs on the market. Revie