Tim Johnsen

Facebook tests feature similar to Snapchat Stories for Messenger

'Messenger Day' allows users to share photos and videos that disappear in 24 hours.<p>Facebook has been keen on borrowing features from Snapchat as of late and it's testing yet another one in Poland. The so-called "Messenger Day" tool allows Facebook Messenger users to share a collection of photos and …

Live-streaming pioneer Meerkat has been pulled from the App Store

Meerkat, which last year kicked off the modern mobile live-streaming craze now led by Facebook and Twitter, has been removed from the iOS App Store. Ben Rubin, CEO of Meerkat maker Life On Air, broke the news on Twitter earlier today, calling it a "bittersweet" moment given his company's new …

Former Twitter C.E.O. Dick Costolo Has Dreams of Being a Fitness Guru

At the very least, he is just about ready to debut his new fitness start-up, Chorus.<p><b>Dick Costolo,</b> the affable former C.E.O. of Twitter, was well into his 84th burpee when the beads of sweat that clung to his forehead finally succumbed to gravity and fell to the floor, cannonballing into a small …

Ah, finally got my Emacs setup just how I like it. https://t.co/Ybru09YVOC

Google app adds incognito mode, native YouTube playback, and renames Now cards to ‘the feed’

Similar to Chrome, an update to the Google app for iOS today adds a new incognito mode that prevents search or browsing history from being saved. Other features include native playback of YouTube videos, improved iOS 10 compatibility, and performance improvements that reduce crash rates by 50%.<p>The …

Animated Short “Voyager” Imagines the Spacecraft’s Return to Earth

In 1977, Voyagers 1 and 2 were sent hurtling off into space on missions to explore our solar system and beyond, carrying 12-inch, gold-plated copper …

Facebook has built a world-class, murderous, Doom-playing AI

Researchers from Facebook have built a highly efficient piece of artificial intelligence (AI), programmed to slaughter anything in its path.<p>Luckily, it can only play "Doom".<p>A team from the social network blasted its way to glory this week in a contest to build programs capable of autonomously …

Snapchat is just 'Snap' now

Snapchat is losing the "chat."<p>The company has been renamed Snap Inc., the <i>Wall Street Journal</i> reported late Friday night. Cleaner, right?<p>That's not all: The company will also release video-recording sunglasses called Spectacles this fall. They contain a 115-degree-angle lens that will allow the …

Snapchat releases first hardware product, Spectacles

WSJ Magazine<p>Evan Spiegel, CEO of the newly christened Snap Inc., wearing Spectacles. “We’re going to take a slow approach to rolling them out,” he says of the device, which records up to 10 seconds of video at the tap of a button. PHOTO: KARL LAGERFELD FOR WSJ. MAGAZINE<p>In an unmarked building on a …

How Dropbox securely stores your passwords

It’s universally acknowledged that it’s a bad idea to store plain-text passwords. If a database containing plain-text passwords is compromised, user …

Artworks 2015

It's had to believe it's been exactly three years since I left Chicago behind to start my new career in design at Flipboard here in Palo Alto. I've learned more than I ever could have imagined and have helped design a product I love to use everyday. As I move on to my next gig at SAP, I'd like to thank the exceptionally talented and wonderful group of people I've been able to work with and learn from along the way. While the logo on my notebook shows wear and tear, I'm excited about the future of the company and can't wait to see what they do to evolve the magazine in our digital age.

Apple’s iMessage App Store already has over 1,650 apps, majority are sticker packs

In just over a week, Apple’s iMessage App Store has grown to over 1,650 applications and sticker packs – more than the original iPhone had at launch as well as the 1,000 total that were ready for iPad at the time of its debut, but far less than the 3,500+ the Watch App Store arrived with last year. …

"Spaces or tabs?" "Semicolons." @aisamanra https://t.co/QmiH4t79gN

S.S. SHIPIT https://t.co/I796R3VQ9U

Changing from one startup job to another. https://t.co/EYv4ZXsRiG

Yahoo is expected to confirm a massive data breach, impacting hundreds of millions of users

A hacker named “Peace” is bringing chaos to the internet giant just as its sale to Verizon is pending.<p>Yahoo is poised to confirm a massive data breach of its service, according to several sources close to the situation. The company was the victim of hacking that has exposed several hundred million …

Millions of riders. Billions of trips. And we’re only getting started.

Transit 4.0 Is Now Live<p>Transit App launched in 2012. Now, it’s the biggest public transportation app in the US. (If you check the app store …

The Epic Story of Dropbox’s Exodus From the Amazon Cloud Empire

If you’re one of 500 million people who use Dropbox, it’s just a folder on your computer desktop that lets you easily store files on the Internet, …

43 million passwords hacked in Last.fm breach

Crikey: 43,570,999 user accounts were breached in a hack of Last.fm that occurred in March of 2012, according to a report from LeakedSource. Three months after the breach, in June of 2012, Last.fm issued the following statement:<p>“We are currently investigating the leak of some Last.fm user …

The newer, more accurate direction indicator in Google Maps is going live for all users

Last month a few Google Maps users started seeing a new display style for the direction indicator, that little arrow that shows which way your device …

WhatsApp now allows you to ping someone even through a muted group chat

Need to get someone's attention in a crowded WhatsApp group chat? Now you can @ them.<p>Tagging your friend this way makes them get a notification of your message on their phones, even in a group chat that they've muted.<p>It's similar to Facebook and in chatrooms like Slack's approach, where typing @ …