Facebook finally has a better solution to freebooting — the common practice of stealing video and uploading it to one’s Facebook Page to reap the engagement and audience growth. This way if an infringing video includes a new mid-roll ad break Facebook is testing, the revenue will be sent to the content’s owner instead of the uploader who stole it. Read More
Amazon reported first-quarter earnings after the bell on Thursday. The company shattered earnings expectations, reporting $1.48 per share, when Wall Street was expecting $1.12. Net income stood at $724 million. Read More
GoPro posted earnings in line with analyst expectations today, reporting a non-GAAP loss of 44 cents per share on revenues of $218.6 million. That is an improvement from a loss of 63 cents per share and revenues of $183.5 million in the year-ago quarter. Read More
Alphabet’s advertising business seems to be following the same pattern these days — but its operations beyond that look like they are beginning to grow into strong businesses in their own right. The company reported its first-quarter earnings today that outperformed what Wall Street expected, with its advertising business once again continuing to generate an enormous amount of money. Read More
If you’ve spent any time on the internet over the past several years, you’re no doubt familiar with the “fail whale” that plagued Twitter in its formative years. Users would log in, only to be shown a graphic of a whale with the message: “Twitter is over capacity.” Twitter’s fail whale problem came down to scalability, which is the same issue… Read More
Snapchat will no longer show that annoying white border around old photos that you share from Memories. Previously, if you shared a photo from Memories that was more than 24 hours old it would have a white border around the image. The border ended up annoying users who didn’t want their snaps altered, sometimes to the point where they would decide not to share the old content at all. Read More
Slowly but surely, we’re getting hints about the next iPhone from multiple leaks. Today’s new image from @OnLeaks shows that the next iPhone could feature wireless charging. In this iPhone schematic, it’s easy to spot a rounded surface at the back of the device, indicating that there should be a conductive surface to charge the device. I know what you’re thinking… Read More
If I had to give companies looking to enter the smartwatch space in 2017 one piece of advice, it would be, simply: don’t. Failing point one, due to investor pressure or the spirit of a long dead financial partner’s ghost visiting you in the night, seriously consider building your own operating system for the thing. It sounds like a few extra steps and a whole lot of trouble, but… Read More
Yesterday the FCC’s chairman, Ajit Pai, put existing net neutrality rules on notice, saying that the agency would continue to protect consumers — but with a lighter touch. Just how he plans to do that, however, is an open question. The notice of proposed rulemaking released today is full of questions: some reasonable, some rhetorical and some desperate. And you get to answer them. Read More
Life isn’t fair. Work’s not fair. Tech isn’t fair. So it’s no surprise that unfairness or mistreatment is the most frequently cited reason for leaving a job in tech, according to the Kapor Center for Social Impact’s Tech Leavers Study. Read More
Google is today launching an update for iOS users that will make it easier to find media content — like TV shows, movies and songs — on various streaming services and content marketplaces, including iTunes, Hulu, Amazon Video, Google Play, YouTube, Spotify and others. The feature, which is still rolling out, will show you the icons for the services where the content… Read More
Amazon is iterating quickly with the Amazon Echo as the company just announced the Amazon Echo Look, which is essentially an Echo with a camera. What is Apple’s answer? All we have is yet another rumor that Apple is working on a sort of connected speaker with a brain. This time, Sonny Dickson is back with a couple of tweets. He usually shares iPhone leaks, so this isn’t necessarily… Read More
Google Classroom is opening up even further: After allowing anyone to join classes last month, expanding the learner side of the equation beyond just those with G Suite for Education accounts, Google is now opening Classroom class creation to anyone with a personal Google account, too. This means anyone can create and organize a class on the platform, which allows educators to set up and… Read More
Facebook is aggressively pursuing the international and developing world markets Snapchat hasn’t prioritized. Facebook Lite recently hit 200 million users, and Instagram just rolled out offline mode for Android. Now after launching Messenger Lite for Android in five countries in October, it’s expanding to 150 more, including Vietnam, Nigeria, Peru, Turkey, Germany, Japan and the… Read More
This rumor has been going on for years, but 2017 might be the year of peer-to-peer Apple Pay. According to a new report from Recode, the company could be launching a new Apple Pay feature later this year so that you can send money to other people using the service. While you all know and use Apple Pay if you have an iPhone and live in one of the countries where it works, Apple Pay has always… Read More
Anyone who has a Touch Bar MacBook Pro knows the awful truth of using it: a beautiful machine that sacrificed functionality for aesthetics. Now you’re going to need a dongle for everything: HDMI, SD cards, regular old USB 3.0 Type-A and a DisplayPort — which is the exact port selection being offered by the Arc Hub from Bourge Design. Read More
Google’s virtual reality sketching/painting/modeling Tilt Brush program has amassed a following amongst novice VR users as well as artists looking to explore virtual reality as a new medium. Starting today, you’ll be able to peer into the 3D virtual reality canvases of other Tilt Brush users on the web while also gaining the ability to share your own work online. Read More
Google has long said that it wants to open up its Assistant to a broader ecosystem of hardware companies and developers. Today it’s taking a major step in this direction with the launch of the Google Assistant SDK, which allows developers to build the Assistant’s smarts into their own hardware prototypes. Read More
Few saw the Chromebook coming. When it launched half a decade ago, the category was broadly maligned for its limited feature set, middling hardware specs and operation that required an always-on internet connection to work properly. But things change in five years. Read More
Facebook made its most direct statements about how the platform has been used to spread misinformation in a report released today by its security team. The report acknowledges how actors created a coordinated campaign on the platform to spread misinformation during the 2016 U.S. election, and explains measures Facebook is taking to combat it. “Our mission is to give people the power to… Read More
