Flappy Bird was a veritable phenomenon. It seems ridiculous in hindsight (and, let’s be honest, it kind of did at the time, too), but the exceedingly simplistic title had a momentary stranglehold on the mobile gaming world with its combination of crude 8-bit graphics and dead simple game play, as players tapped the screen frantically to avoid crashing into pipes. The games aesthetic… Read More
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Friday that temporarily halted the admission of refugees, indefinitely banned the admission of refugees from Syria, and stopped citizens of several Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S. The American Civil Liberties Union has already filed a legal challenge to the order. The order is so sweeping that it also includes any green card… Read More
Laws govern the conduct of humans, and sometimes the machines that humans use, such as cars. But what happens when those cars become human-like, as in artificial intelligence that can drive cars? Who is responsible for any laws that are violated by the AI? This article, written by a technologist and a lawyer, examines that future of AI law. Read More
Artificial Intelligence is big. And getting bigger. Enterprises that have experience with machine learning are looking to graduate to Artificial Intelligence based technologies. Enterprises that have yet to build a machine learning expertise are scrambling to understand and devise a machine learning and AI strategy. In the midst of the hype, confusion, paranoia and the risk of left behind,… Read More
Google CEO Sundar Pichai has outlined his disapproval of the impact arising from Trump’s dangerous, inhumane and short-sighted sweeping immigration order, which imposes for at least 90 days a block on entry to the U.S. for citizens (including valid visa holders) from seven countries, blocks indefinitely refugee admittance from Syria and also caps the total number of refugees allowed… Read More
The Trump administration names its manufacturing council, Tesla is suing an ex-employee for reportedly stealing proprietary autopilot information and poaching talent, Samsung Galaxy S8 is reportedly launching in March and Apple is using iCloud to improve Siri. All this on Crunch Report! Read More
Snap — the makers of Snapchat — had confidentially filed for its IPO late last year, but it looks like we’ll be getting a look at the inner guts of the company’s financials and workings as early as late next week. The company will file publicly for its initial public offering late next week, according to a new report from Kara Swisher over at Recode. This is yet… Read More
Over the last eight months, tech companies have slowly been revealing that they’ve received national security letters from the Federal Bureau of Investigation that force the firms to secretly disclose user data to the government. Today, Twitter joined the ranks of Yahoo, Cloudflare and Google by announcing it had received two national security letters, one in 2015 and one in 2016. The… Read More
While other tech leaders glad-hand with The Donald, Mark Zuckerberg is facing him head on. Today the Facebook CEO called out the president for his unAmerican views that demonize immigrants, while also tactfully encouraging the few positive policies and comments Trump has offered on the subject. You should read Zuckerberg’s full Facebook post on the topic embedded at the bottom of this… Read More
The rogue government Twitter account, AltUSNatParkService, which claimed it was being run by current park rangers, says it has now handed off control of its Twitter account to “several activists and journalists who believe they can continue in the same spirit.” The move has led some to question if the account was, in fact, ever operated by disgruntled government employees in the… Read More
For more than 100 years higher education has largely resisted change — and functioned reasonably well without an intense focus on the complex life needs of adult and part-time learners. But like the disruption in the telecom industry, higher ed is poised for its leapfrogging moment. Read More
This week saw numerous acquisitions, three major tech lawsuits and government agencies going rogue on Twitter. These are the biggest stories to catch you up on this week’s tech news. 1. AppDynamics, which helps companies monitor application performance, was supposed to go public this week. But the IPO was called off in favor of a giant $3.7 billion acquisition from Cisco. The IPO… Read More
After an era of cowed silence, noted fair-weather feminist and Facebook demigod Sheryl Sandberg finally spoke up!
Sandberg had not objected to the Trump administration — clearly an affront to her values, the values that have sold more than two million copies of Lean In — but late this week she posted on her platform of choice to decry Trump’s day one expanded global gag rule. Read More
I’m rarely this excited about a wi-fi router. I’ve used Apple gear for years now, replacing Airport after Airport until I found I hit a wall. My house is made of wood, brick, and lathe with a little horsehair and metal sheeting thrown in so I was unable to get good Wi-Fi throughout. I ran powerline Ethernet to the attic and added an Airport Express to speed things up but I was… Read More
This time last year, Amazon made it clear just how big it expected Alexa to be with its first ever Super Bowl commercial, starring Alec Baldwin and Jason Schwartzman, along with a motley crew of celebrity cameos ranging from Dan Marino to Missy Elliot and, of course, its voice controlled speaker. It’s been a heck of a year for the line. Amazon muscled its way connected homes everywhere… Read More
The lawsuit threatening the future of Facebook’s Oculus VR may have just gotten a lot more expensive. Yesterday, in closing statements the legal team representing ZeniMax Media asked the jury in a Dallas courtroom to rule against Oculus VR and award $2 billion in compensation as well as another $2 billion in punitive damages, Polygon reports. The case, which hinges on the claim… Read More
Ohio’s Transportation Research Center (TRC) is getting a new 540-acre facility specifically for testing and researching smart mobility solutions, with on-site plans for a 12-lane intersection and reconfigurable test platform wider than 50 highway lines and as long as 10 football fields. That comes courtesy of a new $45 million grant from Ohio State University, Ohio state funds and… Read More
Dating app Hinge recently pivoted from swiping to “stories,” in order to help people find real relationships. That focus on authenticity, however, seems to stand in contrast to a project the company has been testing: Audrey, a personal assistant who will message your matches for you and schedule your dates.
Audrey’s existence was first spotted by Business Insider, which… Read More
When Donald Trump won the election, many in Silicon Valley were flummoxed: “How could a bigoted billionaire with no government experience and a twitchy Twitter trigger finger win the U.S. presidential election?” It’s quite simple: Trump won precisely because Silicon Valley is so disconnected from the Rust Belt. Read More
Nokia’s got a nice, adorable name picked out for its new voice assistant. MIKA stands for “Multi-purpose Intuitive Knowledge Assistant,” letting engineers and telecom operators access information through voice commands. The system is powered by the company’s cognitive services platform, using “augmented intelligence with automated learning to provide access to… Read More
