Any sitting CEO’s book about his own company is likely to be a bit of a disappointment. It’s no surprise then that Satya Nadella’s Hit Refresh, which officially launched at Microsoft’s Ignite conference today and which is now available from your favorite purveyors of physical and digital books, isn’t the most satisfying read. Read More
HTC on Friday basically sold a huge portion of itself to Google, which is clearly hoping to use the company’s talent for hardware in its own push for self-branded devices. It’s the end of an era for a major company that has been a friend to Google and Android for a decade — perfect timing for a little retrospective on HTC’s many and varied devices. Read More
WhatsApp has been widely blocked in mainland China by the country’s government, with text messaging as well as photo and video sharing not currently functional. However, WhatsApp had previously been blocked in the country and saw those blocks lifted within a few days, so it’s unclear how long the chat app may remain inaccessible. Read More
Zögern sich. Roughly translated (and boy, do we mean roughly), that’s procrastinators rejoice. Why all the excitement? Early-stage startup entrepreneurs now have an extra week to complete their applications and compete in Disrupt Berlin’s Startup Battlefield. Applications will now remain open until October 2 at 5 pm PT. Still, this is no time to dawdle. Read More
President Donald Trump will soon direct the Department of Education to commit $200 million every year to K-12 computer science education, which Code.org is marking as a victory for its nonprofit organization. As Recode reported earlier today, Trump’s memorandum calls on the Department of Education to commit at least $200 million of its grant funds to STEM education.… Read More
Last week, Uber’s legal team told Judge William Alsup that Waymo was seeking $2.6 billion for an allegedly stolen trade secret related to the company’s autonomous vehicle efforts. Over the weekend, Waymo filed a document with the court noting that the correct figure was actually $1.859 billion. It’s not clear why this seemingly important detail was left uncorrected for… Read More
Pinterest today announced a partnership with Target to integrate its visual search technology known as Lens into Target’s apps, and later its desktop website. The deal, which represents the first time the company has integrated Lens into a retailer’s app, will allow Target shoppers to snap a photo of any product, and then find similar items available for sale at Target. The… Read More
A UK court has reaffirmed the power for state agents to use sweeping counterterrorism legislation to require travelers hand over the passwords for their digital devices for their contents to be searched at borders. Read More
Today’s public release of macOS High Sierra brings with it some key updates to Safari — including the ability to disable cross-site cookie tracking and turn off autoplaying ads. Arriving alongside those features is a less publicized new addition to Apple’s proprietary browser: data collection. The company is using its newly implemented differential privacy technology to… Read More
According to Emilio Ferrara, a USC Information Sciences Institute researcher, not all Twitter bots are born bad. He should know. Ferrara created a “large-scale experiment designed to analyze the spread of information on social networks” and found that “good” tweets spread just as quickly as bad tweets. Further, they confirmed something the we already know: that… Read More
Uber has been steadily releasing a series of updates to its driver-side product as part of its ‘180 Days of Change’ campaign, which kicked off with the introduction of in-app tipping. One of those changes, introduced in late August, allowed drivers to set up to six ‘Driver Destinations‘ per day, up from just two previously. Now, it’s reverting that change in four… Read More
YouTube today introduced a series of new tools for marketers, one of the more notable being “Director Mix,” a technology that allows a company to create thousands of video ads tailored for different audiences all using a single creative asset. That is, the advertiser could upload a number of different voiceovers, backgrounds, and copy, and the system will then automatically… Read More
The latest version of macOS just went live on the Mac App Store as a free download. Apple’s other operating system has taken a bit of a backseat to its mobile counterpart in recent years, and High Sierra’s no exception. That’s due in part to the bonanza features in iOS 11 and the fact that macOS 10.13 is a pretty unsexy update, mostly focused on infrastructural… Read More
With all of the new features packed into iOS 11, High Sierra is something of a disappointment. It’s a bit like getting socks and underwear for Christmas. You know it’s necessary and you’ll be happier six months from now when you don’t have to walk around with your toes poking out of holes, but for now, you wish there were a few more video games and action figures mixed… Read More
Jopwell, the recruiting startup focused on diversity, has raised a $7.5 million Series A round led by Cue Ball Capital, bringing its total funding up to $11.75 million. Founded by Porter Braswell and Ryan Williams, Jopwell has an impressive group of investors, including Magic Johnson Enterprises, Andreessen Horowitz, Kapor Capital and Joe Montana. Read More
Snapchat’s latest augmented reality feature is another implementation of the tech that applies to the world, rather than the faces found in frame when you take a picture. They’re called ‘Sky Filters,’ and they can automatically detect sky in your images, and repaint them with totally different atmospheric looks. The new filters are rolling out live starting today on… Read More
The Venice, Calif.-based company Gem is bringing blockchain technology to a broader set of applications through work the company is conducting with the Centers for Disease Control and the European technology services company, Tieto. Read More
Apple is switching the default provider of its web searches from Siri, Search inside iOS (formerly called Spotlight) and Spotlight on the Mac. So, for instance, if Siri falls back to a web search on iOS when you ask it a question, you’re now going to get Google results instead of Bing. Updated below with a statement from Microsoft. Consistency is Apple’s main motivation given… Read More
Held at Moscone Center in San Francisco earlier this month, Mobile World Congress Americas was a pretty uninspiring show, but a few interesting startups stood out among the rows and rows of mobile companies. Nanoport was among the more interesting exhibits on the floor, offering up an array of different smartphone technologies aimed at rethinking the way we interact with our devices. The… Read More
