Facebook is working on a new app that it hopes could win back the attention of teens while capitalizing on its recently-attained major label music licenses. Facebook is building a standalone product where users can record and share videos of themselves lip syncing or dancing to popular songs, according to information from current and former […]
Daily Archives: October 24, 2018
Facebook wants to make YouTube-style monologue videos the new way for politicians to talk straight with their constituency. Today, Facebook launches Candidate Info, featuring thousands of direct-to-camera vertical videos where federal, state and local candidates introduce themselves and explain their top policy priority, qualifications and biggest goal if they win office. Elizabeth Warren (D – […]
Facebook launches Candidate Info where politicians pitch on camera
“Yeah! Well of course we’re working on it” Facebook’s head of augmented reality Ficus Kirkpatrick told me when I asked him if Facebook was building an AR glasses at TechCrunch’s AR/VR event in LA. “We are building hardware products. We’re going forward on this . . . We want to see those glasses come into […]
Facebook confirms it’s building augmented reality glasses
Chinese AI company Mobvoi has consistently been one of the best also-rans in the smartwatch game, which remains dominated by Apple. Today, it launched a sequel to its 2016 TicWatch, which was a viral hit raising over $2 million on Kickstarter, and it unveiled a cheaper take on Apple’s AirPods. The new TicWatch C2 was outed at a […]
Mobvoi launches new $200 smartwatch and $130 AirPods alternative
Italy's Autorità garante della concorrenza e del mercato, roughly equivalent to this America's FTC, has fined Apple and Samsung a total of $15 million for the companies' practice of forcing updates on consumers that may slow or break their devices. The amount may be a drop in the bucket, but it's a signal that governments won't always let this type of behavior fly.
Italian consumer watchdog hands down €15M in fines to Apple ...
Facebook will let friends learn about you by streaming clips of your favorite songs from your profile in a throwback to MySpace Music. You’ll be able to choose tracks to add to a revamped Music section of your profile that now actually plays songs instead of just showing what artists you Like, and you can […]
MySpace reborn! Facebook will let you pin song clips to ...
Researchers at the University of Maryland A. James Clark School of Engineering have been working on the so-called Robo Raven for years. The ongoing project resulted in the first flying drone with independent wing movement, a feature that made these U of M UAV’s closer to birds than ever before. Now Lena Johnson, a Ph.D. […]
Quoth the Robo-Raven, “Recharge me!”
In a speech discussing ethics and the Internet, the inventor of the World Wide Web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, has tasked the technology industry and its coder army with paying continuous attention to the world their software is consuming as they go about connecting humanity through technology. Coding must mean consciously grappling with ethical choices in […]
Tim Berners-Lee on the huge sociotechnical design challenge
For obvious reasons, Facebook’s looking to up political advertising transparency ahead of the midterms. Back in May, the social network introduced Ad Archive, a searchable database of political ads in the U.S. It’s following up the feature with a new Ad Archive Report, a weekly snapshot of political spending. The survey offerings a breakdown of […]
Facebook’s Ad Archive Report highlights top political spenders
At Disrupt SF, CEO Brynn Putnam demoed and launched Mirror, a smart gadget that sits on your wall and offers virtual fitness classes. The $1500 device can be paired with a monthly subscription to let the user browse fitness classes, mark their progress, and follow along with other Mirror users. The idea here is that […]