Geek News

John Giannandrea, Google’s former head of search and artificial intelligence, is joining Apple. The hire, first reported by The New York Times , comes one day after the executive announced he was stepping down from his role at Google, itself a surprise move amid a broader executive reshuffle that now makes much more sense in hindsight. Giannandrea, a machine learning expert who joined Google back in 2010, is a huge get for Apple, which has struggled for years to make progress in fast-moving and increasingly important AI fields like computer vision and natural language processing. Giannandrea will report directly to CEO Tim Cook as the leader of “machine learning and AI strategy,” according to the Times . Both Facebook and Google, and to... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "https://ift.tt/2Io7Pu8"

THE KING OF FIGHTERS '97 GLOBAL MATCH is Now Available on Steam! KOF ’97 is the final entry in the Orochi Saga, the original storyline of the KOF series, which is still played by enthusiastic fans around the world. KOF ’97 makes a return with new features such as online matchmaking, a new gallery mode, and custom menu BGM settings! via Steam RSS News Feed "https://ift.tt/2GRRSPz"

Entertainment There's something for everyone. April showers bring you plenty of time to stay safe, dry, and warm inside with a good book while you wait for warmer weather to get here. via Popular Science "https://ift.tt/2H6YgQP"

Facebook says it has suspended 70 Facebook accounts, 138 Facebook pages, and 65 Instagram accounts controlled by the Internet Research Agency. Chief security officer Alex Stamos announced the news today, posting a handful of sample ads and pages that it says were run by the Russia-linked disinformation outfit. “The IRA has consistently used inauthentic accounts to deceive and manipulate people,” writes Stamos. “It’s why we remove every account we find that is linked to the organization — whether linked to activity in the US, Russia or elsewhere.” Facebook has also removed any ads linked to these accounts. According to Stamos, finding the pages took “months of work” by Facebook. Around 95 percent of the pages with language-specific... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "https://ift.tt/2q4qDqu"

As Twitter users searched for news about today’s shooting at YouTube headquarters , hackers were actively compromising a verified employee account to spread misinformation. In the midst of the attack, an unknown hoaxer hijacked a verified Twitter account belonging to Vadim Lavrusik, a product manager at YouTube, and used the high-profile account to implicate a YouTube broadcaster in the shooting. The account hijacking seems to have taken place while Lavrusik and his colleagues were still near the scene of the attack: Lavrusik reported himself safe at 2:36pm PT, and the hoax tweets began posting just 20 minutes later. “PLEASE HELP ME FIND MY FRIEND I LOST HIM IN THE SHOOTING,” one fake tweet read, linking to a picture of Keemstar, a... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "https://ift.tt/2EhX61F"

Facebook has no plans to extend the user privacy protections put in place by the far-reaching General Data Protection Regulation , or GDPR, law to users of its social network around the globe, according to Reuters . CEO Mark Zuckerberg told the news agency in an interview that Facebook would like to make such privacy guarantees “in spirit,” but would make exceptions. Zuckerberg declined to explain those exceptions, according to Reuters . “We’re still nailing down details on this, but it should directionally be, in spirit, the whole thing,” Zuckerberg said of which GDPR protections Facebook would not apply worldwide. He added that many of the protections provided by the GDPR are already part of his company’s privacy settings, including the... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "https://ift.tt/2H8QYMm"

Snapchat has allowed Giphy back onto its platform after it was removed when users found a racist GIF on the database earlier this month, Snapchat parent company Snap Inc. confirmed to The Verge . Instagram and Snapchat had both pulled Giphy from their platforms, but Instagram reinstated Giphy last week, with stricter moderation. Snapchat confirmed today that it would bring Giphy back since it has upgraded its moderation. The GIF initially appeared when users searched “crime” on the Giphy database, and it showed a white announcer celebrating the death of people of color while using a racial slur. Giphy has since apologized for the slip-up, and the company says it has combed through its database several times to detect any other problematic... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "https://ift.tt/2JhhOTh"

Technology Maybe you could fight zombies from a self-driving vehicle, too. Once cars drive themselves, how will their bored human passengers spend their time—and fight off motion sickness? via Popular Science "https://ift.tt/2GuW7RM"

Health Although pasta science points to it being healthier than other processed carbs, there's not much else to say about it. The cream-soaked, free-bread-basket excesses of fancy “Italian” dining of the past few decades have given pasta a bad name—one that Big Pasta has invested serious money… via Popular Science "https://ift.tt/2JhHzmu"

Spotify’s initial public offering today was both a success and a tepid forecast for the future of music streaming. The company’s shares closed today at $149.60 , up 12 percent from the initial reference price of $132, but down from a high of $165.90 when shares debuted on the New York Stock Exchange this morning. That gives the Swedish company a market valuation of around $26.6 billion. According to Reuters , Spotify shares slid from the opening high due to lackluster confidence in Spotify’s business model, which itself is a symbol of the future economics of the music industry. Spotify’s unique IPO approach, called a direct listing and one typical of smaller companies in industries like biotech, involves selling shares direct to the... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "https://ift.tt/2uM7u2c"

Facebook now lets you bulk remove third-party apps, and any and all posts those apps may have published on your behalf, a welcome privacy change that should make it easier to strip access to your profile from services you no longer use. The change, precipitated by the ongoing Cambridge Analytica data privacy scandal , is part of a series of sudden changes Facebook is making to mitigate fallout from the revelation that third-party developers have had generous access to users’ data and could use it in ways Facebook had little to no control over. Facebook confirmed the bulk removal option to TechCrunch today, after The Next Web ’s Matt Navarra publicly commented on the policy change on Twitter . Now, when you go to the Apps portion of your... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "https://ift.tt/2GvKaeN"

Police have responded to multiple 911 calls at YouTube headquarters in San Bruno, CA. Vladim Lavrusik, a product manager at the company, tweeted that there is an active shooter on campus . The San Bruno Police Department instructed people to stay away from 901 Cherry Ave., where the company is located. Multiple 911 calls have been received from inside the building, according to a report from local news station KRON . As one of the most-visited services on the web, YouTube is under constant scrutiny for its policy decisions over content moderation, monetization, and other issues. Developing ... Active shooter at YouTube HQ. Heard shots and saw people running while at my desk. Now barricaded inside a room with coworkers. — Vadim Lavrusik... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "https://ift.tt/2q4lb7d"

Following in the steps of a DC-based security robot that ran into a water fountain is a Russian postal drone that crashed into a building mere seconds after its inaugural liftoff, as reported by Reuters . The test, which occurred in the Siberian city of Ulan-Ude, was meant to carry a package to a nearby village in order to demonstrate a new way to deliver mail. Video captured by Reuters shows the drone taking off from a launchpad, with the package emblazoned with the Russian Post’s blue-and-white logo. Everything seems initially fine, and then it can be seen tipping sideways. It’s the beginning of a r/nononono moment. It then careens at full speed into a three-story residential brick building. There’s an audible “GAH!” from someone in the... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "https://ift.tt/2EhAGgX"

When Carrie Wade first heard the news that Apple was proposing emoji to represent people with disabilities, she felt happy — then immediately curious about what sorts of emoji Apple had come up with. Wade has cerebral palsy and works at the American Association of People with Disabilities. To finally have emoji made specifically for people like her felt like an important step forward. “Of course there are going to be people who say this is inconsequential and it doesn’t matter,” Wade tells The Verge . “But this is one of those instances of small-scale media representation that is there now and wasn’t there before. That kind of progress is always a good thing.” She was also “pleasantly surprised” to see the service dog emoji. Apple s... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "https://ift.tt/2q2nUyN"

Facebook is now expanding a test it started last year to all US users, and the result will be more background information and a useful overview of the publishers and articles you see appear in your News Feed — after the meaningful stuff from friends and family , of course. “We’re making it easy for people to view context about an article, including the publisher’s Wikipedia entry, related articles on the same topic, information about how many times the article has been shared on Facebook, where [it has] been shared, as well as an option to follow the publisher’s page,” the company said in a blog post . To see these details, tap the “about this article” bubble that’s located between an article’s image and headline. Facebook will also note... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "https://ift.tt/2Jgjxbb"

Play This War of Mine for FREE until Sunday at 1PM Pacific Time. You can also pickup This War of Mine at 70% off the regular price!* If you already have Steam installed, click here to install or play This War of Mine. If you don't have Steam, you can download it here . *Discount offer ends Monday at 10AM Pacific Time via Steam RSS News Feed "https://ift.tt/2JbTP7X"

Entertainment "But by the time 2001 A.D. rolls around, things may be more fantastic than the picture shows." An astronaut lost in space... moon cities... a voyage to Jupiter. And take a look, too, behind the scenes of the new movie. via Popular Science "https://ift.tt/2H6NV7b"

Save 50% on ELEX during this week's Midweek Madness*! *Offer ends Friday at 10AM Pacific Time via Steam RSS News Feed "https://ift.tt/2IncLzq"

Today's Deal: Save 15% on Full Metal Furies !* Look for the deals each day on the front page of Steam. Or follow us on twitter or Facebook for instant notifications wherever you are! *Offer ends Thursday at 10AM Pacific Time via Steam RSS News Feed "https://ift.tt/2pYzXgz"

A couple days ago, Cloudflare launched its own DNS service at 1.1.1.1, promising that consumers would enjoy greater privacy and potentially faster internet if they switched over from their ISP’s default. Now, those speed differences might not be significant or noticeable enough to the point of making the switch full-time. (We’re talking milliseconds here.) But it doesn’t take many steps to test out a new DNS, so it’s probably worth a quick try if you’re curious or sold on Cloudflare’s privacy measures. The Domain Name System (DNS) is what converts domain names into IP addresses. And the best way to change your DNS is by adjusting your router’s settings. This automatically makes any devices joining your Wi-Fi network use the new DNS... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "https://ift.tt/2GNEyvH"

Minit is Now Available on Steam! Minit is a peculiar little adventure played sixty seconds at a time. via Steam RSS News Feed "https://ift.tt/2uIIdpF"

For months, Seoul resident Ye-won Oh monitored cryptocurrency markets voraciously, refreshing her phone practically every minute of every day. In early 2017, she invested $40,000 in Ethereum, which has become wildly popular in South Korea. Like many young Koreans living through Korea’s difficult economy, she came to see her investment as “the only way out.” The 20-something has an impressive resume: a senior role at a flourishing startup, a college degree from overseas, and work experience at some of Korea’s most enviable firms. But she and her husband can’t afford housing in a city where the average deposit for an apartment rental is more than $400,000 . “People like us, people just starting our careers and college students, it’s really... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "https://ift.tt/2H80gs6"

Science Why humans stink at finding falsehoods. Research from cognitive psychology shows that people are naturally poor fact-checkers and it is very difficult for us to compare things we read or hear to what we… via Popular Science "https://ift.tt/2GSzkyC"

Soon, there could be a number of indie operating systems for your smartwatch, sprouting from an open-source code project launched last week. Indie developers making budget smartwatches can now use starting code from Project OpenWatch to craft their Android-based operating systems. The OpenWatch project is live as of last week. It was released by Blocks, the same company behind the forthcoming Blocks modular smartwatch . Blocks’ head of engineering, Karl Taylor, said that the project is meant to “open up the smartwatch OS space to the open source community in a bid to loosen the stranglehold on the industry by other, essentially proprietary operating system.” He named Google’s Wear OS (formerly Android Wear) and Apple’s watchOS as the two... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "https://ift.tt/2pZ5lL0"

Panera Bread issued a statement to Fox News this week saying it resolved a data breach that exposed the personal information of “thousands” of customer records. However, according to KrebsOnSecurity , the company was first alerted to the issue by security researcher Dylan Houlihan eight months ago but initially dismissed it as a likely scam. The breach shows customer data available in plain text and appears to include records for any customer who signed up to order food via Panera’s website, panerabread.com. Revealed information includes individuals’ names, emails, physical addresses, birthdays, and the last four digits of the credit card used. The formatting, which uses incremental unique identifiers, makes the data easy to scrape.... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "https://ift.tt/2IoTnll"

Motorola’s popular and inexpensive G series of phones is due for an update, and rumors increasingly point toward some new models arriving very soon. The latest leaks suggest the forthcoming Moto G6 could be released next month alongside two additional versions: a G6 Play and a G6 Plus. Pages on Fry’s website, which have since been pulled, indicated the phones would be released in the middle of the May. They’ll likely be announced sometime before that. The Moto G6 is expected to sit in the middle of the pack. It’ll have a 5.7-inch display with an 18:9 aspect ratio, a resolution slightly above 1080p, 32GB of storage, a fingerprint reader on the front, and a dual-camera system on the back. According to AndroidHeadlines , it’ll run on a... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "https://ift.tt/2GyOPsp"

The Weeknd’s latest project, My Dear Melancholy, pulled in over 26 million streams in its first 24 hours on Apple Music, with the lead song “Call Out My Name” pulling in 6 million of those streams, the company tells The Verge . That in itself isn’t a record, but Apple Music’s numbers did beat out the single’s performance on Spotify, which pulled in nearly 3.5 million streams in the same period — the largest debut of 2018 on the service — according to Republic Records. To be clear: Spotify has over 120 million more users, had two exclusive music videos from the EP, and it was where The Weeknd pointed his fans to stream the album on social media. And this isn’t an anomaly either: this is the third time Apple Music has outperformed Spotify... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "https://ift.tt/2H6XnI1"

Amazon Music has tens of millions of active subscribers, the company tells The Verge . While analysts have often pointed to research that indicates it’s the third-largest company for on-demand streaming music (behind Spotify and Apple Music), Amazon has remained mum on confirming numbers . Amazon has two tiers of music subscription: Prime Music (free for Prime subscribers) and Music Unlimited , which has monthly fees ranging from $3.99 to $14.99 depending on the number of devices, users, and if you’re already an Amazon Prime member. While Prime Music offers around 2 million songs ad-free, Music Unlimited provides more songs, greater control, and it’s cheaper than competitors’ $9.99 monthly fee for a single account. Amazon launched Music... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "https://ift.tt/2uI1ibL"