 California says all city buses have to be emission free by 2040
On the heels of a dire government report published last month about climate change and its devastating impacts, many cities and states are scrambling to find ways to curb the greenhouse gas emissions that threaten their air quality, not to mention their economies. As is often the case, California is leading the charge, yesterday becoming […]
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Tony Hawk goes mobile
For three years, Tony Hawk has been conspicuously absent from the video store shelves. For most game developers, that's little more than a blip between titles. When your name and face are attached to 16 titles in 15 years, however, everyone starts to notice when you're gone. "It's usually the first topic of discussion with […]
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Workers protest outside Minnesota Amazon warehouse
Yesterday afternoon, Somali-American workers marched outside of Amazon's Shakopee, Minnesota fulfillment center, chanting "hear our voice." Estimates of the exact number of marches vary from source to source, but The Minneapolis Star Tribune puts it at around 100. It's a fairly familiar refrain for the company, after years of reports about questionable working conditions. Some […]
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 Last-minute gift ideas - CNET
Your holiday celebration is right around the corner, and you still don't have the gifts you need? Don't worry -- it's easier than ever to do some last-minute shopping.
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 Tesla Model 3 Modded To Run Ubuntu
140Mandak262Jamuna writes: CleanTechnica is reporting that someone hacked the infotainment system of a Tesla Model 3 and got root access and installed Linux distribution Ubuntu. Redditor trsohmers is able to show an Ubuntu command shell running alongside the Tesla OS. Since Tesla supports a browser that allows you to visit any site, could this be leveraged into remote hacks? It could also mean that if Tesla sells a long-range version of the Model 3, but limits it via software, people might try t
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NASA's Hubble Telescope Discovers An 'Evaporating' Planet
Researchers at the University of Geneva Switzerland have used NASA's Hubble telescope to find an exoplanet that's evaporating. The exoplanet, GJ 3470b, shows signs of losing hydrogen in its atmosphere, causing it to shrink. USA Today reports: The study is part of exploration into "hot Neptunes," planets that are the size of Neptune, sit very close to their star, and have atmospheres as hot at 1,700 degrees Fahrenheit, says NASA. Finding a "hot Neptune" is rare because they sit so close to their
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Experts Urge US To Continue Support For Nuclear Fusion Research
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Scientific American: A panel of 19 scientists drawn from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine recommended yesterday that the Department of Energy should continue an international experiment on nuclear fusion energy and then develop its own plan for a "compact power plant." A panel of 19 scientists drawn from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine recommended yesterday that the Department of Energy should conti
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Number of Streaming Shows Overtakes Basic Cable, Broadcast For First Time
schwit1 shares a report from Variety: Streaming services snatched their biggest piece of the TV pie ever in 2018. According to FX's annual report on the number of scripted originals on TV, the number of streaming shows has surpassed the number of basic cable and broadcast shows for the first time ever. Out of 495 scripted originals that aired in 2018, 160 of them did so on a streaming platform. That is compared to 146 on broadcast and 144 on basic cable. Pay cable accounted for the remaining 45
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Cloudflare Under Fire For Allegedly Providing DDoS Protection For Terrorist Websites
Cloudflare is facing accusations that it's providing cybersecurity protection for at least seven terrorist organizations. "On Friday, HuffPost reported that it has reviewed numerous websites run by terrorist organizations and confirmed with four national security and counter-extremism experts that the sites are under the protection of Cloudflare's cybersecurity services," reports Gizmodo.
"Among Cloudflare's millions of customers are several groups that are on the State Department's list of
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Porn Sites Collect More User Data Than Netflix Or Hulu
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Quartz: The biggest and perhaps best source of data about what people like to watch on the internet and what they would pay for doesn't come from streaming giants like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, or Hulu. It comes from porn. While consuming porn is typically a private and personal affair, porn sites still track your every move: What content you choose, which moments you pause, which parts you repeat. By mining this data to a deeper degree than other stre
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T-Mobile, Sprint Merger Will Reportedly Be Cleared By US National Security Panel
According to CNBC, T-Mobile and Sprint are expecting their merger to be approved by a U.S. national security panel as early as next week, after their respective parent companies said they would consider dropping Huawei. From the report: U.S. government officials have been pressuring T-Mobile's German majority owner, Deutsche Telekom, to stop using Huawei equipment, the sources said, over concerns that Huawei is effectively controlled by the Chinese state and its network equipment may contain "ba
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Apple is producing new content about Snoopy and other Peanuts characters
Apple has signed a deal with DHX Media that will see the Canadian broadcaster producing new shows, specials and short films about Snoopy, Charlie Brown and the rest of the Peanuts gang. That includes exclusive short-form content for Apple starring astronaut Snoopy, aimed at getting kids excited about STEM. Peanuts was created by Charles Schulz, […]
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Apple Will Update iPhones In China To Avoid a Ban On Sales
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: Apple said it would update the software of iPhones in China (Warning: source paywalled; alternative source) to try to resolve a legal dispute that threatens to stop the company from selling older iPhones in the country. Apple and its longtime chip supplier, Qualcomm, have been fighting in court over Apple's use of Qualcomm's technology. On Nov. 30, a Chinese court ruled Apple must immediately stop selling seven older iPhone models in C
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Facebook restructures Building 8, separating projects into Reality Labs and Portal groups
Facebook is restructuring its experimental hardware efforts and giving its moonshot projects a home within its AR/VR research division. The restructuring, reported by Business Insider (paywalled), didn’t result in any layoffs but did see some shifts of teams as the old Building 8 group rebranded to Portal and some projects moved to the former Oculus […]
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Propel raises $12.8M for its free app to manage government benefits
Propel, maker of the Fresh EBT app for managing food stamps and other benefits, announced today that it has raised $12.8 million in Series A funding. Fresh EBT (the EBT stands for the Electronics Transfer Benefit card, which is how food stamp participants receive their benefits) allows users to check their food stamp/SNAP balance and […]
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Nintendo Warns It Won't Make More Retro NES and SNES Consoles
Nintendo's Reggie Fils-Aime warned that the NES Classic and SNES Classic will sell in the Americas through the holidays, but will be "gone" once they sell out. Engadget reports: If you want to walk down memory lane after that, you'll have to take advantage of the games that come with Switch Online. You might also want to tamp down your hopes for a Nintendo 64 Classic. Fils-Aime added that the existing systems are the "extent of our classic program." That wouldn't be completely surprising given t
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Discord Store To Offer Developers 90 Percent of Game Revenues
DarkRookie2 shares a report from Ars Technica: Discord has announced that it will start taking a reduced, 10-percent cut from game revenues generated on its online store starting next year, one-upping the Epic Games Store and its recently announced 12-percent cut on the Epic Games Store. The move comes alongside a coming expansion of the Discord Games Store, which launched earlier this year with a tightly curated selection of games that now includes roughly 100 titles. The coming "self-serve pub
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What Are Silicon Valley's Highest-Paying Tech Jobs?
An anonymous reader writes: Job-search site Indeed crunched its Silicon Valley hiring numbers for 2018, looking at tech job searches, salaries, and employers, and found that engineers who combine tech skills with business skills as directors of product management earn the most, with an average salary of US $186,766. Last year, the gig came in as number two, at $173,556. Also climbing up the ranks, and now in the number two spot with an average annual salary of $181,100, is senior reliability eng
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'donald' debuts at No. 23 on worst passwords of 2018 list
Almost 10 percent of people on the interwebs used at least one of the 25 worst passwords on SplashData’s annual list, which was released this week. And nearly three percent of you are still using “123456,” the worst password of the entire ranking. The eighth annual list of worst passwords of the year is based […]
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Regular Windows 10 Users Who Manually Look For Updates May End Up Downloading Beta Code, Microsoft Says
In addition to relying on Windows Insiders, employees, and willing participants for testing updates, Microsoft is pushing patches before they are known to be stable to regular users too if they opt to click the "check for updates" button on their own, the company said. From a report: In a blog post by Michael Fortin, Corporate Vice President for Windows, it is made clear that home users are intentionally being given updates that are not necessarily ready for deployment. Many power users are fami
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Google agrees not to sell facial recognition tech, citing abuse potential
In recent months, pressure has been mounting for major tech firms to develop strong policies regarding facial recognition. Microsoft has helped lead the way on that front, promising to put in place stricter policies, calling for greater regulation and asking fellow companies to follow suit. Hidden toward the end of a blog post about using […]
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Lime continues to battle San Francisco's electric scooter decision
Electric scooter and bike-share company Lime is not giving up on San Francisco. This afternoon, Lime plans to protest on the steps of SF City Hall to petition the city’s scooter selection process. “We are calling the SFMTA to expand equitable transportation options throughout the City by allowing more choice and greater options, by requiring […]
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Boeing 737 Passenger Jet Damaged in Possible Midair Drone Hit
Grupo Aeromexico SAB is investigating whether a drone slammed into a Boeing Co. 737 jetliner as the aircraft approached its destination in Tijuana, Mexico, on the U.S. border. From a report: Images on local media showed considerable damage to the nose of the 737-800, which was operating Wednesday as Flight 773 from Guadalajara. In a cabin recording, crew members can be heard saying they heard a "pretty loud bang" and asking the control tower to check if the nose was damaged. The collision happen
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Disney's invested in educational gaming app Kahoot, now at a $376M valuation
When Kahoot, the startup that operates a popular platform for user-generated educational gaming, raised $15 million in October of this year, we mentioned that Disney had a stake in the company by way of the Disney Accelerator, and it had an option to become a larger shareholder if it exercised its warrants. Now with some […]
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In Booming Job Market, Workers Are 'Ghosting' Their Employers
A notorious millennial dating practice is starting to creep into the workplace: ghosting. Employers are noticing with increasing frequency that workers are leaving their jobs by simply not showing up and cutting off contact with their companies [Editor's note: the link may be paywalled; syndicated source]. From a report: "A number of contacts said that they had been 'ghosted,' a situation in which a worker stops coming to work without notice and then is impossible to contact," the Federal Reserv
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Niantic reportedly raising $200M at $3.9B valuation
Pokemon GO creator Niantic is raising a $200 million Series C at a valuation of $3.9 billion, according to a report from Katie Roof at the WSJ. The round is expected to be led by IVP with participation from Samsung and aXiomatic Gaming. The upcoming raise would bring the company’s total funding to $425 million, according to […]
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A New Engine Could Bring Back Supersonic Air-Travel
An anonymous reader shares a report (may be paywalled): Every morning, time once was, a giant roar from Heathrow Airport would announce the departure of flight BA001 to New York. The roar was caused by the injection into the aircraft's four afterburners of the fuel which provided the extra thrust that it needed to take off. Soon afterwards, the pilot lit the afterburners again -- this time to accelerate his charge beyond the speed of sound for the three-and-a-half hour trip to JFK. The plane was
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Pimcore closes $3.5M for its open-source data platform to expand in the US
Pimcore, an open-source platform for data and customer experience management which has emerged out of Austria, has closed $3.5 million in a Series A funding led by German Auctus Capital Partners AG. The funding will be used for its U.S. expansion. Pimcore is aimed at any channel, device or industry that wants to manage its […]
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Goldex raises $1M for its marketplace app for 'ethical' physical gold trading
Goldex, a trading app that claims to power so-called ‘ethical pricing’ for retail gold investments, says it has now raised over £1M ($1.25M) in a pre-series A round led by a group of angels and institutional investors. Amongst those participating in the round are Prepaid Financial Services (a European payment card issuer); Gaël de Boissard, […]
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Facebook Says A Bug May Have Exposed The Unposted Photos Of Millions Of Users
A day after hosting a pop-up store in New York City's Bryant Park to explain how privacy is the "foundation of the company," Facebook disclosed that a security flaw potentially exposed the public and private photos of as many as 6.8 million users to developers. From a report: On Friday, the Menlo Park, California-based company said in a blog post that it discovered a bug in late September that gave third-party developers the ability to access users' photos, including those that had been uploaded
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Nvidia's limited China connections
Another round of followups on Nvidia, and then some short news analysis. TechCrunch is experimenting with new content forms. This is a rough draft of something new – provide your feedback directly to the author (Danny at danny@techcrunch.com) if you like or hate something here. Nvidia / TSMC questions Following up on my analyses this […]
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Robinhood said to not be properly insured to offer checking & savings
Robinhood’s new high-interest, zero-fee checking and savings feature seems to be too good to be true. Users’ money may not be fully protected. The CEO of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation, a non-profit membership corporation that insures stock brokerages, tells TechCrunch its insurance would not apply to checking and savings accounts the way Robinhood claims. “Robinhood […]
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Hiding in Plain Sight: The YouTubers' Crowdfunding Piracy
Some YouTube channels are publishing full-length episodes of TV shows, rights of which they obviously do not own, and on top of this, they are trying to crowdfund their piracy efforts by asking viewers to donate some cash. From a report: YouTube creators asking for money is nothing new, be it through the site's built-in membership features or third-party services such as Patreon. But trying to profit off someone else's intellectual property isn't the same as asking for support on an original vid
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The new Palm is almost the MP3 player I want
The iPod Classic still looms larger as my favorite gadget of all time. Sure, plenty have lapped the device in terms of technology, while any lingering concerns about not owning the music I listen to have faded for the ubiquity of Spotify, but the iPod lives on in the perfect sweet spot for my own […]
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Facebook open sources PyText NLP framework
Facebook AI Research is open sourcing some of the conversational AI tech it is using to power its Portal video chat display and M suggestions on Facebook Messenger. The company announced today that its PyTorch-based PyText NLP framework is now available to developers. Natural language processing deals with how systems parse human language and are […]
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Chinese Hackers Breach US Navy Contractors
Chinese hackers are breaching Navy contractors to steal everything from ship-maintenance data to missile plans, triggering a top-to-bottom review of cyber vulnerabilities, WSJ reported Friday, citing officials and experts. From the report: A series of incidents in the past 18 months has pointed out the service's weaknesses, highlighting what some officials have described as some of the most debilitating cyber campaigns linked to Beijing. Cyberattacks affect all branches of the armed forces but c
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Starbucks adding delivery services to more than 2,000 stores via Uber Eats
Starbucks is expanding its partnership with Uber Eats to more than 2,000 stores in the United States next year, about a quarter of all of the company’s locations in the country. The relationship bolsters Uber’s mission for its on-demand food delivery service, Eats. Uber has said it plans to cover more than 70 percent of […]
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GE's digital future looking murkier with move to spin off Industrial IoT biz
When I visited the GE Global Research Center in Niskayuna, New York in April 2017, I thought I saw a company that was working hard to avoid disruption, but perhaps the leafy campus, the labs and experimental projects hid much larger problems inside the company. Yesterday GE announced that it is spinning out its Industrial IoT […]
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We Might Not Have Enough Materials for All the Solar Panels and Wind Turbines We Need, an Analysis Finds
An anonymous reader writes: Plenty of high-tech electronic components, like solar panels, rechargeable batteries, and complex circuits require specific rare metals. These can include magnetic neodymium, electronic indium, and silver, along with lesser-known metals like praseodymium, dysprosium, and terbium. These metals are mined in large quantities in countries around the world, and they make their way into the supply chains of all sorts of electronics and renewables companies.
A group of r
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Last call for Polish pitch-offs
I'm heading back to Europe to hang out in Wroclaw and Warsaw so it’s last call for pitch-off applications. I'll be at a Wroclaw event, called In-Ference, which is happening on December 17; you can submit to pitch here. The team will notify you if you have been chosen. The winner will receive a table at TC […]
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9 smart gifts for a smarter home
Smart home items make great gifts and what follows are some of the best. From faster Wifi to smart meat thermometers, there’s something here for everyone on your list. I use everything listed here and can attest to their quality. That’s important to me. I’m not going to recommend something I do not use. Throughout […]
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Influential Apple analyst cuts iPhone shipment estimates
TF International Securities Apple analyst extraordinaire Ming-Chi Kuo delivered a less than stellar iPhone forecast this week with the straightforwardly titled note, "2019 iPhone shipments likely to be under 190 million units." The letter puts the number of Apple handsets well below previous analyst predictions of 212 million for next year. Kuo is largely regarded […]
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Imax is Shutting Down Its VR Business, Closing Remaining Three VR Centers in Q1
Imax is making its exit from virtual reality (VR) official: The company notified shareholders with a SEC filing this week that it will close down its remaining three VR centers, and write off "certain VR content investments." From a report: A company spokesperson confirmed the planned closures and shared the following statement with Variety: "With the launch of the IMAX VR centre pilot program our intention was to test a variety of different concepts and locations to determine which approaches w
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This drone shrinks to fit
Researchers at the University of Zurich and EPFL have created a robot that shrinks to fit through gaps, a feature that could make it perfect for search and rescue missions. The researchers initially created a drone that could assess man-made gaps and squeeze through in seconds using only one camera. This extra feature — a […]
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Facebook bug exposed up to 6.8M users' unposted photos to apps
Reset the “days since the last Facebook privacy scandal” counter, as Facebook has just revealed a Photo API bug gave app developers too much access to the photos of up to 5.6 million users. The bug allowed apps users had approved to pull their timeline photos to also receive their Facebook Stories, Marketplace photos, and […]
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WordPress Plugs Bug that Led to Google Indexing Some User Passwords
A week after releasing v5.0 major update, WordPress has pushed the first security patch for its popular CMS service. ZDNet: Released hours ago, WordPress version 5.0.1 fixes seven security vulnerabilities (some of which allow site takeover) but also plugs a pretty serious privacy leak. The latter was found by the authors of the popular Yoast SEO plugin, who discovered that in some cases the activation screen for new users could end up being indexed by Google. With specially crafted Google search
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