Twitter’s expansion to 280 characters is rolling out publicly today to all users in supported languages, including English. The company had first announced the controversial plan to move beyond its traditional 140 characters back in September, noting at the time how a longer character count allowed users to express more of their thoughts without running out of room to tweet. The… Read More
As video becomes increasingly important to the media business (to the point where it’s become a cliché), a startup called Vidrovr aims to help publishers find the most relevant videos to go along with their content. So if I’m writing an article about, say, controversial comments from a tech CEO, I could use Vidrovr to search for footage of other times that the CEO discussed the… Read More
Legal representatives of the UK government faced a raft of questions today from judges sitting in the European Court of Human Rights hearing a challenge to intelligence agencies’ bulk collection practices brought by a coalition of civil and human rights campaigners. Read More
Parrot, the original household drone company, recently released the Bebop 2 Power, an upgraded version of the Bebop 2 with a better camera, better controls, and more battery life. This fierce flier can swoop for up to sixty minutes with the included batteries and a first-person view is available using Parrot’s VR glasses and a cellphone. I was quite please with the drone’s… Read More
At Uber’s all-hands meeting today, CEO Dara Khosrowshahi announced the transportation company’s new “cultural norms,” which includes values like “We build globally, we live locally” and “We do the right thing. Period.” In a LinkedIn post this morning, Khosrowshahi noted that Uber’s old value of “toe-stepping,” for example, was… Read More
If you do a search for Amazon S3 breaches due to customer error of leaving the data unencrypted, you’ll see a long list that includes a DoD contractor, Verizon (the owner of this publication) and Accenture, among the more high profile examples. Today, AWS announced a new set of five tools designed to protect customers from themselves and ensure (to the extent possible) that the data in S3… Read More
Apple is soft-launching direct, person-to-person payments in an iMessage today with the Apple Pay Cash beta. The feature, which was announced earlier this year, allows you to send and receive cash inside the Messages app on iPhones. The program is launching in public beta today on iOS 11.2 beta 2, and you can opt in using the iOS Public Beta program here. Once you’ve updated,… Read More
Micro-investment service, Acorns, which automatically invests small amounts from its customers’ bank accounts into investment funds, has bought Vault, a Portland-based developer of retirement fund investment services. Vault’s application lets its users set aside part of their paychecks into retirement funds. The deal is a solid compliment to Acorns’ own investment app, which… Read More
Founder turned investor Hayley Barna is now a general partner with the early-stage venture firm First Round Capital. The appointment comes roughly one-and-a-half years after Barna — who cofounded the seven-year-old Birchbox, a start-up that mails monthly packages of beauty samples to subscribers — joined First Round as a venture partner.
Barna is based in New York and focused… Read More
Google is preparing to soon launch a new mobile app called Files Go that will allow Android users to better manage the files on their phone, transfer those files easily – even when offline – as well as free up storage space on their devices as needed. The app will become available to users worldwide in early December. Files Go was first spotted by 9to5Google on the Play Store, where… Read More
As it looks to expand the global footprint of its internet-enabled digital advertising and informational kiosks, New York-based Intersection has raised $150 million in a new round of financing. Read More
Facebook Messenger is coming to businesses’ own websites. The social network announced today the launch of a new customer chat plugin into closed beta, which will allow customers to talk directly with businesses on their websites using Messenger, and continue those conversations across web, mobile and tablet devices. While there are already plenty of customer support and chat plugins… Read More
MyMusicTaste, a Seoul-headquartered service that lets fans campaign to bring their favorite artists to their city, plans to double the concerts it organizes next year after raising an $11 million Series C. Read More
Netflix is launching its first project with Wanted creator Mark Millar, since acquiring Millarworld, the publishing company he owns and operates with Lucy Millar. The plan is to develop TV, films and even kids’ shows based on Millarworld properties, but the first thing Netflix will release from the team is actually a comic, to be sold both in digital and print formats, called… Read More
Instagram is moving forward with the rollout of its branded content tool, which allows celebrities and other popular users to identify posts that are paid for by advertisers. The company first introduced the tool in June, then made it available to more accounts in August while also establishing a policy requiring that all branded content be published using the tool. Instagram is using the tool… Read More
Waymo recently hosted a number of journalists at its private Castle testing compound, and treated us to rides with no safety driver behind the wheel – now, the former Google self-driving car company is going farther still, however, launching public road tests of its autonomous Chrysler Pacifica minivans with no safety driver on board. The tests aren’t limited to one or two… Read More
Waymo is firming up some of its plans around its initial go-to-market strategy for its autonomous driving technology. The company has talked about a number of potential applications of self-driving that it might explore in terms of future products, including last mile transit in partnership with cities, consumer vehicle autonomy and even trucking, but at Web Summit today, Waymo CEO John… Read More
Today is not a good news day for Ethereum. A vulnerability found within a popular wallet has frozen potentially hundreds of millions of dollars of the crypto currency in a second setback in recent months. Parity Technologies, the company behind widely used wallet service Parity, today disclosed an issue that could enable the contents of a wallet to be wiped. The issue affects multi-sig… Read More
Google announced today it will soon roll out a new feature to Google Search, followed by Google Maps, that will show you the estimated wait times for area restaurants. The addition is an expansion on Google’s existing feature which shows businesses’ busy times, but with a tweak that helps diners better decide where and when they want to eat. For over a couple of years now, Google… Read More
Adobe likes to talk about its public cloud partnerships with Microsoft and others, but it doesn’t often talk about its private cloud strategy. It’s no secret that there are plenty of good reasons for using a private data center and Adobe manages a few of these around the globe. For most businesses, opting for a private cloud comes down to cost, but for Adobe’s Advertising… Read More
