Technology readings

Facebook video ad viewability rates are as low as 20 percent, agencies say

Facebook’s metrics woes may be far from over.<p>After fessing up to a string of measurement errors over the past six months, the social media company …

Amazon’s robots are invading Whole Foods

Amazon’s $13.7 billion acquisition of food retailer Whole Foods earlier certainly looked like part of a strategy to make a dent in the food delivery market. Now experts suggest the place it could start innovating the store is in behind the scenes, with warehouse robots.<p>According to Bloomberg, …

Why Would Anyone Fear a Self-Driving Car?

An advocate for the technology argues that the leap of faith it demands is one that Americans have already made.<p>To understand what the world will be like in ten years, it isn’t enough to look back at how different things were a decade ago and presume the differences will be comparable. The pace of …

How Apple’s iPhone changed the world: 10 years in 10 charts

Everything has changed.<p>Apple’s first iPhone was released 10 years ago this week — on June 29, 2007. While it wasn’t the first smartphone, it leapfrogged far beyond the competition and launched the mobile revolution. Few industries or societies have been left unchanged.<p>Here are 10 charts that show …

Why Waymo’s Partnership With Avis Makes Sense

The car rental giant Avis has signed a contract with Alphabet’s driverless car division, Waymo, to service its first big fleet of autonomous vehicles.<p>…

Alphabet Inks Deal for Avis to Manage Self-Driving Car Fleet - Bloomberg

Waymo, the self-driving car unit of Alphabet Inc., has reached an agreement for Avis Budget Group Inc. to manage its fleet of autonomous vehicles. …

Google to Face EU Antitrust Fine as Soon as Tuesday - Bloomberg

Google is set to face a record antitrust fine from the European Union on Tuesday for promoting its own shopping search service over those of smaller …

Apple Is Working With Hertz to Manage Its Self-Driving Car Fleet - Bloomberg

Apple Inc. is leasing a small fleet of cars from Hertz Global Holdings Inc. to test self-driving technology, an agreement that echoes a larger deal …

News apps are making a comeback. More young Americans are paying for news. 2017 is weird.

The United States recently elected an unusual president. And to go with the times, Americans are exhibiting some behaviors in media consumption that are, if not unusual, then at least different from those of people in other countries.<p>That’s one of the recurring findings in a report out Thursday …

The information age is over, welcome to the machine learning age

I first used a computer to do real work in 1985.<p>I was in college in the Twin Cities, and I remember using the DOS version of Word and later upgrading to the first version of Windows. People used to scoff at the massive gray machines in the computer lab, but secretly they suspected something was …

Alexa, What Happens if the Echo Has a Screen? You Get This Review

A week ago, I began testing Amazon’s Echo Show, a new smart speaker that has a touch screen. For due diligence on the device’s capabilities, I ran it through a battery of tests, including its ability to play podcasts, book a restaurant table and list movie showtimes.<p>Halfway through, I started to …

Self-driving cars are safer when they talk to each other

Most current self-driving technology relies on cameras, radar and lidar. These sensory devices serve as eyes for the car, mimicking what a human driver can see. But a University of Michigan public-private partnership called Mcity is testing V2V, or vehicle to vehicle communication, and has found …

In Towns Already Hit by Factory Closings, a New Casualty: Retail Jobs

JOHNSTOWN, Pa. — Dawn Nasewicz comes from a family of steelworkers, with jobs that once dominated the local economy. She found her niche in retail.<p>She manages a store, Ooh La La, that sells prom dresses and embroidered jeans at a local mall. But just as the jobs making automobile springs and rail …

Why the sensors in this car are so intelligent

I was driving on a country road, not thinking too much about the act of driving.<p>This is normal for most of us — it turns out the brain goes into automatic mode, which is a good thing. When is the last time you actually told your foot to move over to the brake on purpose without doing it like it was …

How AI will play a major role in the auto industry

Artificial intelligence (AI) systems, blending data and advanced algorithms to mimic the cognitive functions of the human mind, have begun to simplify and enhance even the simplest aspects of our everyday experiences — and the automotive industry is no exception. A Tractica market intelligence …

Wearable sales to double by 2021, says IDC

The wearables market, outside of smartwatches, is still in its infancy stage. Research firm IDC expects to see its sales double in four years, with smart clothing and hearables expected to be the two new trends.<p>Smartwatches will remain the dominant driver of wearable sales, going from 71.4 million …

Tesla is talking to the music labels about creating its own streaming service

Why not work directly with Spotify, Apple and others? Good question.<p>Put this one in the “You can do that, but why would you want to do that?” file: Tesla is talking to the music industry about creating its own streaming music service.<p>Music industry sources say the carmaker has had talks with all of …

Macedonian Publishers Are Panicking After Facebook Killed Their US Political Pages

Over 30 Facebook pages being run from Macedonia have been removed by Facebook in the past two months.<p>Posted on June 22, 2017, 18:24 GMT<p>BuzzFeed News<p>Two false posts from Facebook pages that the social network removed due to terms-of-service violations.<p>The town of Veles, Macedonia, achieved …

Ebay will now match Amazon’s, Walmart’s and others’ prices on over 50,000 items

As Amazon and Walmart continue their battle to become the world’s largest retailer, another longtime rival in the e-commerce business, eBay, is now stepping up its game as well. The company this morning announced a new Price Match Guarantee for over 50,000 items across its site – promising that it …

Snapchat’s newest feature is also its biggest privacy threat

This detail about Snap Map is frightening<p>Snap Map introduction<p>Earlier this week, Snapchat introduced Snap Map, an opt-in function that allows you to share your location with your friends on a map. Snapchat’s introduction video to Snap Map, seen above, focuses on sharing the location of posted Snaps …

Should you join the charge and buy an electric car?

Green motoring is becoming financially attractive thanks to a drop in leasing prices and lower running costs<p>Is now the time to buy an electric car? Falls in financing costs mean that switching to a zero carbon-emitting vehicle won’t just help the environment, it can be cheaper than buying and …

The End of Car Ownership

Ride sharing and self-driving vehicles will redefine our relationship with cars. Auto makers and startups are already gearing up for the change.<p>By<p>Tim Higgins<p>Tim Higgins<p>The Wall Street Journal<p>Biography<p>@timkhiggins<p>tim.higgins@wsj.com<p>Cars are going to undergo a lot of changes in the coming years.<p>One …

Uber employees are circulating a petition to ask the board to let Travis Kalanick return

Employees have internally and publicly voiced their discontent with Kalanick’s resignation.<p>Uber employees are circulating a petition asking the board to allow Travis Kalanick to stay at the company, according to an email <b>Recode</b> obtained.<p>“Nobody is perfect, but I fundamentally believe he can evolve …

My 400-Person Company Has A Great Work Culture, And We All Work Remotely

FYI, IBM.<p>Here’s a thought experiment: Think of the two cultures of Los Angeles and New York City. Got a mental image of both? Great. Now try to strip out everything geographical—major landmarks, local weather, and so on. What are you left with?<p>When we think of “culture,” so much of that is tied to …

Rigged. Forced into debt. Worked past exhaustion. Left with nothing.

Uber’s toxic culture risks its driverless future, too

So Uber’s blowhard-in-chief Travis Kalanick is finally out, out as CEO — after some of its most prominent investors put the squeeze on him to go (not just take a time out).<p>Scandal after scandal has hammered the company in recent times, culminating in an external investigation into a corporate …

Mark Zuckerberg was Travis Kalanick before we ever knew the name

In post-dot com era Silicon Valley, Zuckerberg was the poster child for all things bro culture. The flip-flop clad, hoodie-wearing savant was thrust into the spotlight in his early 20s, and with his rise to fame came elements of toxic culture we didn’t yet understand: playing fast and loose with …

Can machine learning secure your competitive advantage?

Business dynamics are evolving with every passing second. There is no doubt that the competition in today’s business world is much more intense than it was a decade ago. Companies are fighting to hold on to any advantages.<p>Digitalization and the introduction of machine learning into day-to-day …

Jack Ma: In 30 years people will work `four hours a day and maybe four days a week'

Alibaba founder Jack Ma spent 800 hours traveling around the world last year and plans to increase that to 1,000 in 2017, evangelizing his burgeoning …