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Amazon may have opened its automated convenience store a year late, but it looks like it's been a pretty big success. From a report: Recode learned that the company plans on opening six more of its Amazon Go stores in 2018. It's not clear where these stores will be located, though Recode reports that more locations are likely in Seattle, and Amazon is in talks with the developer of The Grove in Los Angeles. Amazon Go is billed as the convenience store of the future. There are no checkout lines; you can simply walk in, grab what you want, and leave. You scan in with a smartphone app, and then an AI tracks what you take from the shelves and automatically charges you for them.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Recode: Uber is beginning to roll out a cheaper version of its ride-sharing UberPool service, called Express Pool. The service, which was being tested in Boston and San Francisco, is now available in Los Angeles, San Diego and Denver, and will launch in Miami, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., tomorrow. The idea is that Express Pool, which requires riders to walk a little to meet their driver -- and then again to their destination after being dropped off -- will make shared rides more efficient. If it works, it should both increase the number of rides that drivers can give and also make those shared trips faster for passengers. The new service tests a thesis Uber has long had: Lower prices means higher utilization, and higher utilization means more money -- both for drivers and for Uber. Also that road congestion is bad and the solution is to share more rides. Those are the same theories that sparked the creation of the original UberPool service, which requires a little less walking. But the hope is that this will make it easier to match more passengers and therefore lose less money on each shared ride.

theodp writes: While Google suggests that parents and educators are to blame for why kids can't code, Allen Downey, Professor at Olin College argues that learning to program is getting harder . Downey writes: The fundamental problem is that the barrier between using a computer and programming a computer is getting higher. When I got a Commodore 64 (in 1982, I think) this barrier was non-existent. When you turned on the computer, it loaded and ran a software development environment (SDE). In order to do anything, you had to type at least one line of code, even if all it did was another program (like Archon). Since then, three changes have made it incrementally harder for users to become programmers:
1. Computer retailers stopped installing development environments by default. As a result, anyone learning to program has to start by installing an SDE -- and that's a bigger barrier than you might expect. Many users have never installed anything, don't know how to, or might not be allowed to. Installing software is easier now than it used to be, but it is still error prone and can be frustrating. If someone just wants to learn to program, they shouldn't have to learn system administration first.
2. User interfaces shifted from command-line interfaces (CLIs) to graphical user interfaces (GUIs). GUIs are generally easier to use, but they hide information from users about what's really happening. When users really don't need to know, hiding information can be a good thing. The problem is that GUIs hide a lot of information programmers need to know. So when a user decides to become a programmer, they are suddenly confronted with all the information that's been hidden from them. If someone just wants to learn to program, they shouldn't have to learn operating system concepts first.
3. Cloud computing has taken information hiding to a whole new level. People using web applications often have only a vague idea of where their data is stored and what applications they can use to access it. Many users, especially on mobile devices, don't distinguish between operating systems, applications, web browsers, and web applications. When they upload and download data, they are often confused about where is it coming from and where it is going. When they install something, they are often confused about what is being installed where. For someone who grew up with a Commodore 64, learning to program was hard enough. For someone growing up with a cloud-connected mobile device, it is much harder. theodp continues: So, with the Feds budgeting $200 million a year for K-12 CS at the behest of U.S. tech leaders, can't the tech giants at least put a BASIC on every phone/tablet/laptop for kids?

Google is rolling out tappable, visual stories that incorporate text, images, and videos in the style made popular by Snapchat. "It started widely testing the multimedia format, called AMP stories, today (Feb. 13) in an effort to help publishers engage more with readers on mobile," reports Quartz. Google announced the feature in a developer blog post. From the report: Users can now find Google stories in search results -- in a box called "visual stories" -- when they search on mobile at g.co/ampstories for the names of publishers that have begun using the format, such as CNN, Conde Nast, Hearst, Mashable, Meredith, Mic, Vox Media, and the Washington Post brands. Google worked with those publishers to develop the format. Desktop users can also get a taste of stories through Google's Accelerate Mobile Pages site. When a user selects a story, like Cosmopolitan magazine's piece on apple cider vinegar, it displays in a full-screen, slideshow format, similar to those on Snapchat and Instagram.

The multimedia format is part of Google's Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) project, a competitor to Facebook's Instant Articles that helps load pages faster on mobile devices. Like AMP, the AMP story format is open-sourced, so anyone can use it. However, Google is reportedly only displaying stories from a select group of publishers, including those it partnered with on the development, on its own site at the moment. The company said it plans to bring AMP stories to more Google products in the future, and expand the ways they appear in Google search.

According to new estimates by eMarketer, Facebook users in the 12- to 17-year-old demographic declined by 9.9 percent in 2017, or about 1.4 million total users. That's almost three times more than the digital measurement firm expected. There were roughly 12.1 million U.S. Facebook users in the 12- to 17-year-old demographic by the end of the year. Recode reports: There are likely multiple reasons for the decline. Facebook has been losing its "cool" factor for years, and young people have more options than ever for staying in touch with friends and family. Facebook also serves as a digital record keeper -- but many young people don't seem to care about saving their life online, at least not publicly. That explains why Snapchat and Instagram, which offer features for sharing photos and videos that disappear, are growing in popularity among this demographic. Overall, eMarketer found Facebook lost about 2.8 million U.S. users under 25 last year. The research firm released Facebook usage estimates for 2018 on Monday, and expects that Facebook will lose about 2.1 million users in the U.S. under the age of 25 this year.

According to a new study by Uber and Stanford economists, male Uber drivers get paid 7 percent more than their female counterparts in the U.S. "That's surprising, because Uber's driver assignments and pay are gender-blind, meaning a driver's gender isn't considered when matching riders or assigning fares," reports Recode. "Rather, pay has to do with trip length, distance and whether it's happening during surge-price hours or not." From the report: There are more male drivers -- women make up 27 percent of Uber drivers in the U.S. -- and male drivers tend to work longer hours. However, on an hourly rate, women still make less, according to the data, which measured trips by 1.8 million drivers from 2015 to 2017. According to the study, discrimination on the customer side isn't the reason for the pay gap, either. So why are female Uber drivers paid less than men? The study points to three reasons that make the gap disappear:

When and where: The times and places female Uber drivers work seem to be less profitable. That could be fewer overnight shifts, shifts with shorter wait times or surge-price shifts than men.
Driver experience: Drivers who've been with Uber longer get paid more, on account of knowing which routes and times tend to pay more. In general, men work for Uber longer than women so they are more experienced. The attrition rate after six months is 77 percent for women and 65 percent for men.
Speed: Male Uber drivers conduct more trips per hour than women, meaning they're actually driving faster, according to the data. More trips mean more money. About 50 percent of the earnings gap is explained away by differences in driving speed.

Recode highlights the presentations each side gave on Day 1 in the Waymo v. Uber trial: Alphabet's self-driving arm, Waymo, and Uber gave their opening statements in front of a jury on Monday, commencing the courtroom phase of what has already been a messy legal battle. The day was entirely about opening arguments, but both Uber's and Waymo's strategy centers largely on one thing: Our opponent stooped to the levels they did because they were afraid we would beat them. Uber claims Waymo's lawsuit is baseless and is only suing because they were upset they were losing top talent at a time when competing companies began gaining ground. Waymo claims Uber was worried about getting beat in the self-driving car race so it stole Waymo's trade secrets when it hired one of its former executives. If Uber loses the case, it could have to pay out millions of dollars in damages and potentially stall its self-driving efforts. For Waymo, losing the case will have largely reputational risks. Alphabet rarely, if ever, sues over any issues with people or other companies, which means this litigation carries a lot of weight.

Uber as the defense doesn't have to prove anything, just cast enough doubt on Waymo's claims. Waymo has to prove both motivation on the part of Uber to intentionally steal trade secrets, and that the information Uber stole was proprietary. "That was quite the story," Uber attorney Bill Carmody said in his opening statement. "I want to tell you right up front. It didn't happen, there's no conspiracy, there's no cheating, period end of story." It'll be up to the jury to determine if Waymo has presented enough evidence to prove that not only did Uber steal trade secrets, that the company was using them in their current self-driving technology. Painting Waymo as a company that was growing increasingly concerned over losing top engineers to Uber -- in addition to harboring personal grievances against Levandowski -- could help the ride-hail company convince the jury that Waymo had ulterior motives with its lawsuit. Recode has a detailed list in their report of all the evidence Uber and Waymo presented against one another, as well as their strategies going forward.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Recode: At least 1.4 million people on Twitter engaged with content created by Russian trolls during the 2016 presidential election, the company revealed on Wednesday. That's more than double the amount that Twitter initially identified -- and perhaps still just a fraction of the full universe of users who may have witnessed Kremlin propaganda over that period. In announcing the new data in a blog post, Twitter also said it had notified all 1.4 million affected users that they saw election disinformation. That fulfilled a pledge that the company previously made to members of Congress who are investigating Russia's tactics on social media. Notified users included those that followed one of the roughly 3,000 accounts belonging to the Internet Research Agency, the troll army tied to the Russian government, as well as users who retweeted, replied, liked or mentioned those IRA accounts in their tweets. But Twitter did not alert users who merely saw Russian troll tweets in their feeds but did not interact with the content. Nor did it reach out to users who saw tweets from the roughly 50,000 Russian bots that tweeted election-related content around November 2016.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bitcoin News: In information released to shareholders this week, Coinbase revealed that it recorded turnover of $1 billion last year, which works out at an astonishing $2.74 million a day or $2,000 a minute. As America's largest bitcoin broker, Coinbase claims the lion's share of the money that's pouring into the crypto space at a dizzying rate. 2017 was a bumper year for all crypto exchanges, which reported record numbers across the board: new signups, new staff hired, new trading pairs, and new revenue. Those revenue streams have turned into a torrent that has caused Coinbase' coffers to swell. Recode reports that the company's revenue exceeded $1 billion last year, most of it derived from the trading fees it levies. These vary from between 0.25% and 1%. and quickly add up: in the past 24 hours, 36,000 BTC were traded on Coinbase, accounting for more than 15% of the total market. Coinbase isn't the world's largest exchange (and is technically a broker rather than a conventional exchange -- that duty falls to its GDAX subsidiary) but it's the best known and carries great weight in the cryptocurrency industry.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Google CEO Sundar Pichai responded today to the firing of employee James Damore over his controversial memo on workplace diversity, stating that while he does not regret the decision, he regrets that people misunderstood it as a politically motivated event. Speaking in a live conversation with journalist and Recode co-founder Kara Swisher, MSNBC host Ari Melber, and YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki in San Francisco, Pichai said that the decision to fire Damore was about ensuring women at Google felt like the company was committed to creating a welcoming environment.

"I regret that people misunderstand that we may have made this for a political belief one way or another," Pichai said. "It's important for the women at Google, and all the people at Google, that we want to make a inclusive environment." When pressed by Swisher on the issue of regret, Pichai stated more definitively, "I don't regret it." Wojcicki, who has spoken publicly about how Damore's memo affected her personally, followed up with, "I think it was the right decision."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Recode: Facebook is doing a very un-Facebooky thing: It's going to start declaring that some news sources you see in your Facebook feed are better than others, and act accordingly. But Facebook being Facebook, it's going about it in the most Facebooky way possible: It's going to rely on users -- not the super-smart people who work at Facebook -- to figure out which of those sources are better. Mark Zuckerberg says the move is part of an effort to prioritize "news that is trustworthy, informative, and local," within the network and suggests that there will be more announcements to come. The one he describes today will prioritize what kind of news sources pop up in your Facebook News Feed, and will reward ones that Facebook thinks are "broadly trusted," based on user polls, so it can "build a sense of common ground." Facebook is also using today's news to refine last week's roll-out: Zuckerberg says the previously announced changes will reduce the amount of news stories people see in their feed to 4 percent, down from 5 percent.

Amazon is boosting the price of its monthly Prime membership fees for new and existing members by nearly 20%. The online retailer said Friday its annual membership fee of $99 will not change. From a report: The increase comes less than two years after Amazon first introduced the monthly payment option as a way to attract new Prime members who either couldn't afford the annual membership of $99, which is not increasing, or didn't want to commit to using the service continuously. Prime is the engine at the center of the Amazon commerce machine -- Prime members buy from Amazon more frequently than non-Prime members and also spend more, hence why Amazon introduced the monthly option to lure new members. So if the company is raising the fee, you can bet that it discovered the current $10.99 was just not sustainable.

A leading lobbying group for Amazon, Facebook, Google, Netflix, Twitter and other tech giants said Friday that it would be joining the coming legal crusade to restore the U.S. government's net neutrality rules. From a report: The Washington, D.C.-based Internet Association specifically plans to join a lawsuit as an intervening party, aiding the challenge to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai's vote in December to repeal regulations that required internet providers like AT&T and Comcast to treat all web traffic equally, its leader confirmed to Recode. Technically, the Internet Association isn't filing its own lawsuit. That task will fall to companies like Etsy, public advocates like Free Press and state attorneys general, all of which plan to contend they are most directly harmed by Pai's decision, as Recode first reported this week. As an intervener, though, the Internet Association still will play a crucial role, filing legal arguments in the coming case. And in formally participating, tech giants will have the right to appeal a judge's decision later if Silicon Valley comes out on the losing end. "The final version of Chairman Pai's rule, as expected, dismantles popular net neutrality protections for consumers," said the group's chief, Michael Beckerman, in a statement. "This rule defies the will of a bipartisan majority of Americans and fails to preserve a free and open internet."

Long-time Slashdot reader cold fjord writes: As seething discontent has boiled over in Iran leading to mass protests, protesters have taken to the streets and social media to register their discontent... The government has been closing schools and shutting down transportation.

Now, as mass protests in Iran go into their third day there are reports that internet access is being cut in cities with protests occurring. Social media has been a tool for documenting the protests and brutal crackdowns against them. Iran previously cut off internet access during the Green Movement protests following the 2009 elections. At the same time the Iranian government is cutting internet access they have called on Telegram, reportedly used by more than 40 million Iranians, to close the channels used by protesters. Telegram is now closing channels used by the protesters while Telegram itself may be shut down in Iran.

According to Recode, "Softbank and its co-investors have successfully acquired at least 13 percent of Uber, a major victory for Uber's new CEO and one that will give billions of dollars in cash to some of the company's earliest investors and employees." Recode highlights the far-reaching consequences: Uber's board of directors, which had devolved into a power struggle between Uber's former CEO, Travis Kalanick, and its largest investor, Benchmark, will now likely be calmer. Benchmark is expected to drop its lawsuit against him. And Uber will enact governance reforms that disempower the two warring factions and increase the size of the board to a massive 17 people.

A lot of people are now very rich. While we have yet to learn which investors have cashed out for the price of about $33 a share, Thursday's result is the reward for years of drama at a company that nevertheless saw astronomical growth since its founding in 2009. Uber's earliest employees who sold are now millionaires, and venture firms could see billions of dollars flow into their bank accounts.

Uber now has a powerful strategic partner in SoftBank, the Japanese telecom giant that is investing hundreds of billions of dollars in technology. SoftBank, which is heavily invested in other ride-hailing companies around the globe, could help Uber strike more partnership deals, especially in Asia. SoftBank will occupy two seats on the company's board and will now be an extremely influential player in decisions at Uber.

The deal nevertheless sharply discounts Uber's value, which last year was estimated at almost $70 billion. SoftBank and its co-investors are acquiring some of the company at a valuation of $48 billion. While a 30 percent discount is not unusual in a transaction like this, it does reflect some concerns about how the company can move forward after a year of upheavel that has not totally abated.

Facebook has rolled out a new tool to help some users figure out if they interacted with Russian propaganda during the 2016 U.S. presidential election. "The social giant's tool -- available here, through its Help Center -- specifically allows users to see if they followed or 'Liked' any pages and accounts set up by Kremlin-backed trolls on either Facebook or Instagram," reports Recode. From the report: Over the course of the 2016 election, Facebook estimates that roughly 140 million users may have seen Russian propaganda in their News Feeds or on Instagram. Much of that content sought to sow social and political unrest around divisive issues like race, religion and LGBT rights. But only a small slice of those 140 million affected users can actually take advantage of Facebook's new tool, which it first previewed in November. That's because the portal only aids those who directly followed one of the accounts or pages set up by Russian sources on Instagram and Facebook. It does not help users who may have simply seen Kremlin-sponsored content because their friends "Liked" it and it subsequently appeared in their own News Feeds. Facebook's new service also doesn't allow users to check if they saw some of the roughly 3,000 election-timed ads purchased by Russia's notorious trolls, known as the Internet Research Agency. About 10 million users saw those ads around the election, the company previously has said.

According to Recode, Walmart's startup incubator is experimenting with a cashier-less store concept called Project Kepler, which "aims to reimagine the in-store shopping experience with the help of technologies like computer vision." The goal is reportedly the "creation of physical stores that would operate without checkout lines or cashiers -- in a similar fashion to Amazon's futuristic Amazon Go store." From the report: The Project Kepler project focused on the future of in-store shopping is being led by Mike Hanrahan, the co-founder and former chief technology officer for Jet.com, multiple sources tell Recode. It is located in Hoboken, N.J., where Jet is based. A Project Kepler job listing for a "computer vision engineer" says that the role will involve creating a "best-in-class consumer experience in the physical retail space." Amazon's Go concept uses a combination of sensors and cameras to track what each store shopper takes off of shelves so it can automatically bill them for their purchase without their having to stop to pay on the way out. The store's launch has been severely delayed, however, with reports that the technology did not work well when the store was crowded. Walmart is envisioning a similar system that would potentially eliminate the need for cashiers in stores outfitted with the technology. Walmart has more than two million employees worldwide, many of whom work at checkout.

If someone uploads a photo of your face to Facebook, the company usually knows that it's you thanks to facial recognition technology. Now Facebook won't just know it's you -- it'll tell you about the photo, too. From a report: Facebook is expanding its use of facial recognition technology and will now alert people that a friend, or a friend of a friend, uploaded a photo of them, even if they haven't been tagged in the picture. If anyone uploads a profile picture that includes your face, Facebook will alert you of that, too. "We're doing this to prevent people from impersonating others on Facebook," the company wrote on its blog Tuesday.

Facebook is cracking down on a new type of clickbait: Posts that ask people to "Like" or share or comment to goose engagement numbers, what Facebook is calling "engagement bait." Their solution? Demote the posts considered to be "engagement bait." Recode reports: Facebook has decided it doesn't like publishers gaming the system this way, and claims users don't like it either."People have told us that they dislike spammy posts on Facebook that goad them into interacting with likes, shares, comments, and other actions," the company wrote on its blog. So starting Monday, posts that Facebook considers to be engagement bait will be pushed down in News Feed. Beginning in a few weeks, publishers and Pages that continue to utilize this tactic will see their reach diminished for all of their posts.

The judge in the $1.9 billion civil suit between Google-parent company Alphabet's self-driving car unit Waymo and Uber released the letter of a disgruntled former employee -- former Uber security officer Richard Jacobs -- on Friday, laying bare a number of explosive allegations against the ride-hailing company that include corporate espionage, unlawful surveillance, illegal wiretapping, bribery of foreign officials, and illicit hacking. From a report: The letter read: "This program, formerly known as the Strategic Services Group, under Nick Gicinto, collected intelligence and conducted unauthorized surveillance, including unauthorized recording of private conversations against executives from competitor firms, such as DiDi Chuxing and against its own employees and contractors at the Autonomous Technologies Group in Pittsburgh." Jacobs testified in court and walked back some of the allegations made in the letter, which was written by his attorney, Clayton Halunen. Days later, Uber's new chief legal officer Tony West issued a directive to employees to stop surveilling individuals, which Recode first reported. In a separate note to staff Khosrowshahi (current CEO of Uber) said the letter detailed enough to "merit serious concern." While Jacobs, Padilla (Uber's general counsel) and other employees addressed some of the claims made within the letter -- confirming the use of Wickr for business-related communications -- the letter itself had not been made public before Friday evening. The document prepared by Jacobs' attorney also claimed Uber was using some of these surveillance tactics on Alphabet's self-driving arm, Waymo. However, during his testimony, Jacobs walked that allegation back.

Facebook is going to start running pre-roll ads on its "Watch" videos next year. While you won't see your News Feed full of video ads, you will start to see pre-rolls, which will run for up to six seconds, on videos in Facebook's "Watch" hub. Recode reports: Facebook launched its Watch hub earlier this year, using "mid-roll" ads (another ad format Facebook tried to avoid for a long time). The fact that they have added pre-rolls -- the format used around the web and the one advertisers are most comfortable with -- should be read as an admission that the mid-roll ads aren't generating significant revenue for Facebook or the publishers putting video into Watch. Speaking of those mid-roll ads: Facebook now says they won't appear until later in videos and they'll only run on longer videos. It says the ads (it calls them "ad breaks") can't run until a minute into a video, and they can only run if the video is at least three minutes long. At first, the ads could run after 20 seconds and on videos as short as 90 seconds.

Facebook is going to start running pre-roll ads on its "Watch" videos next year. While you won't see your News Feed full of video ads, you will start to see pre-rolls, which will run for up to six seconds, on videos in Facebook's "Watch" hub. Recode reports: Facebook launched its Watch hub earlier this year, using "mid-roll" ads (another ad format Facebook tried to avoid for a long time). The fact that they have added pre-rolls -- the format used around the web and the one advertisers are most comfortable with -- should be read as an admission that the mid-roll ads aren't generating significant revenue for Facebook or the publishers putting video into Watch. Speaking of those mid-roll ads: Facebook now says they won't appear until later in videos and they'll only run on longer videos. It says the ads (it calls them "ad breaks") can't run until a minute into a video, and they can only run if the video is at least three minutes long. At first, the ads could run after 20 seconds and on videos as short as 90 seconds.

The Federal Communications Commission voted on Thursday to dismantle landmark rules regulating the businesses that connect consumers to the internet, granting broadband companies power to potentially reshape Americans' online experiences. The agency scrapped so-called net neutrality regulations that prohibited broadband providers from blocking websites or charging for higher-quality service or certain content. The federal government will also no longer regulate high-speed internet delivery as if it were a utility, like phone services. From a report: Under the leadership of Chairman Ajit Pai -- and with only the backing of the agency's Republican members -- the repeal newly frees telecom companies from federal regulation, unravels a signature accomplishment of the Obama administration and shifts the responsibility of overseeing the web to another federal agency that some critics see as too weak to be effective. In practice, it means the U.S. government no longer will have rules on its books that require internet providers to treat all web traffic equally. The likes of AT&T and Verizon will be limited in some ways -- they can face penalties if they try to undermine their rivals, for example -- but they won't be subject to preemptive, bright-line restrictions on how they manage their networks. Meanwhile, the FCC's repeal will open the door for broadband providers to charge third parties, like tech giants, for faster delivery of their web content.

Michael K. Powell, a former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, writing for Recode: With an ounce of reflection, one knows that none of this will come to pass, and the imagined doom will join the failed catastrophic predictions of Y2K and massive snow storms that fizzle to mere dustings -- all too common in Washington, D.C. Sadly, rational debate, like Elvis, has left the building. The vibrant and open internet that Americans cherish isn't going anywhere. In the days, weeks and years following this vote, Americans will be merrily shopping online for the holidays, posting pictures on Instagram, vigorously voicing political views on Facebook and asking Alexa the score of the game. Startups and small business will continue to hatch and flourish, and students will be online, studiously taking courses. Time will prove that the FCC did not destroy the internet, and our digital lives will go on just as they have for years. This confidence rests on the fact that ISPs highly value the open internet and the principles of net neutrality, much more than some animated activists would have you think. Why? For one, because it's a better way of making money than a closed internet.

Apple is close to acquiring Shazam, one of the most recognized services for music recognition. While the exact amount is unknown, the service may be purchased by Apple for around $400 million. PhoneDog reports: Apple is close to acquiring Shazam, say sources speaking to TechCrunch. The deal will reportedly be signed this week and could be announced as early as next Monday. A report from Recode echoes the news of Apple acquiring Shazam, adding that Shazam will likely be valued at around $400 million. Apple -- and other companies -- already offer a music recognition service, but Apple must see something in Shazam's services that it thinks can help improve its own music recognition if it's going to drop nearly half a billion dollars on this deal. Shazam is able to identify TV shows, films, and advertisements in addition to music, so perhaps Apple sees some benefit to these abilities, too.

schwit1 shares a Recode report: The story that appeared in Quartz this November seemed shocking enough on its own: Google had quietly tracked the location of its Android users, even those who had turned off such monitoring on their smartphones. But missing from the news site's report was another eyebrow-raising detail: Some of its evidence, while accurate, appears to have been furnished by one of Google's fiercest foes: Oracle. For the past year, the software and cloud computing giant has mounted a cloak-and-dagger, take-no-prisoners lobbying campaign against Google, perhaps hoping to cause the company intense political and financial pain at a time when the two tech giants are also warring in federal court over allegations of stolen computer code. Since 2010, Oracle has accused Google of copying Java and using key portions of it in the making of Android. Google, for its part, has fought those claims vigorously. More recently, though, their standoff has intensified. And as a sign of the worsening rift between them, this summer Oracle tried to sell reporters on a story about the privacy pitfalls of Android, two sources confirmed to Recode.

Tony Romm, writing for Recode: FCC Chairman Ajit Pai thinks everyone from Cher to Twitter has it wrong when they say that his efforts to roll back the U.S. government's existing net neutrality rules will spell the death of the web. Instead, Pai said during an event in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday that tech giants could pose the greatest threat by discriminating against viewpoints on the internet. "They might cloak their advocacy in the public interest," he said, "but the real interest of these internet giants is in using the regulatory process to cement their dominance in the internet economy." The surprising rebuke came as Pai forged ahead with his plan to end the net neutrality protections adopted by the Federal Communications Commission under former President Barack Obama. Those rules subject broadband providers like AT&T, Charter, Comcast and Verizon to utility-style regulation, all in a bid to stop them from blocking access to web pages, slowing down connections or prioritizing some content over others. [...] He didn't spare tech companies from that criticism, either. Companies like Facebook, Google and Twitter -- speaking through their main Washington, D.C.-based trade group, the Internet Association -- have urged Pai to stand down. In response, Pai sought to make an example of Twitter. He specifically raised the fact that the company at one point prevented a Republican congresswoman from promoting a tweet about abortion, only to change its mind amid a public backlash. "Now look: I love Twitter," Pai began. "But let's not kid ourselves; when it comes to a free and open Internet, Twitter is a part of the problem. The company has a viewpoint and uses that viewpoint to discriminate."

Yesterday, it was reported that Uber concealed a massive cyberattack that exposed 57 million people's data. Recode reports that at least five states -- Illinois, Massachusetts, Missouri, New York and Connecticut -- would investigate the matter. From the report: Meanwhile, Uber must contend with the possible threat of a new probe at the Federal Trade Commission. The agency, which acts as the U.S. government's top privacy and security watchdog, penalized Uber for its privacy and security practices just this August. But it may not have known that Uber had suffered a major security breach in 2016, even as they investigated the company at the same time for other, unrelated security missteps. For now, the agency merely said it's "closely evaluating the serious issues raised." And some affected customers are similarly taking action. On Wednesday -- hours after the breach became public -- an Uber user filed a lawsuit accusing the company of negligence and deceptive business practices. The plaintiff, Alejandro Flores, is seeking to represent a class of affected riders and drivers alike.

For one thing, 48 states maintain some version of a law that requires companies that suffer a data breach to communicate what happened to consumers. In most cases, companies must disclose a security incident if hackers steal very sensitive customer data -- such as driver's license numbers, which happened with Uber in late 2016. To that end, the attorneys general in Illinois, Connecticut and New York have said they are probing the breach at Uber -- perhaps with an eye on whether the company skirted state laws. The top prosecutors in other major states, like Pennsylvania and Florida, did not immediately respond to emails on Wednesday seeking comment. California's AG declined to comment.

An anonymous reader shares a report: After almost a decade, Google's parent company Alphabet is getting closer to fulfilling its promise of rolling out cars that can take anyone anywhere without a driver behind the wheel. Alphabet's self-driving car company, Waymo, is introducing truly driverless cars to public roads for the first time, the company's CEO John Krafcik announced today at the Web Summit conference. That means there won't have to be a person sitting in the driver's seat, waiting to take over, and that the car's computer system will complete all parts of the driving task -- though for now, only in some of the company's cars in Phoenix, Ariz. While this move is still geographically limited, it marks the beginnings of Alphabet's driverless future finally becoming a reality. No other company has succeeded in operating a fleet of fully driverless cars on public roads.

A reader shares a report: Next week, Amazon will start delivering packages straight into Americans' homes, using a smart lock and camera device called Amazon Key. But will anyone bother paying for what seems like an invasive service? Most wouldn't. About 58 percent of people who have Amazon Prime definitely would not buy Amazon Key, according to a SurveyMonkey poll done on behalf of Recode. That's only slightly less than the 61 percent of all U.S. adults who wouldn't buy the product, suggesting it's broadly unattractive, regardless of whether people are Amazon customers. Among Prime subscribers, only 5 percent said they would definitely buy Amazon Key. Of all U.S. shoppers, even less -- 4 percent -- said they would. Nearly 60 percent of the respondents have Prime subscriptions.

In a new order dated Nov. 2, Judge William Alsup said that Alphabet's self-driving arm Waymo cannot pursue one of the nine trade secrets it had accused Uber of misappropriating. The company had already been ordered to narrow its more than 120 trade secrets down to nine. Recode reports: The judge said, among other things, that the expert opinion that Alphabet used to assert this claim was unreliable. While the other eight trade secrets remain intact, it's worth mentioning this was the same expert that Waymo relied on to substantiate those claims. "Waymo's case continues to shrink," an Uber spokesperson said. "After dropping their patent claims, this week Waymo lost one of the trade secrets they claimed was most important, had their damages expert excluded, and saw an entire defendant removed from the case -- and all this before the trial has even started." An Alphabet spokesperson said the document did provide additional evidence to bolster its remaining claims. Additionally, Alphabet's case for the monetary damages it wanted -- more than $1 billion for a single trade secret -- will rest squarely on its own arguments. In a yet-unsealed document, the judge said that Alphabet could not call on its damages expert during the trial.

Tripp Mickle, reporting for the Wall Street Journal: Apple departed from its traditional preview strategy for what it bills as its most important new iPhone in years, prioritizing early access to the iPhone X for YouTube personalities and celebrities over most technology columnists who traditionally review its new products. Apple provided the iPhone X to a small number of traditional testers for about a week, while limiting most others, The Wall Street Journal included, to a single day with the device before reviews could be published (alternative source). About a half-dozen personalities on Alphabet's YouTube video service were granted time with the device before its release. The change in strategy meant the iPhone X, which hits stores Friday, got less testing than most of its predecessors before reviews could be published. Crash reviewers largely echoed those sentiments, adding the caveat that they could discover issues after they spend more time with the device. Most pledged full reviews for later in the week. The review strategy is "unusual," said Jan Dawson, an analyst with Jackdaw Research. "It's possible Apple wanted some reviews out early and those would be the more enthusiastic ones." He said YouTube reviewers tend to be more positive when given early access to devices, and that most reviews aren't overly negative. "Unless Apple felt like there would be some bad elements in the reviews, why would you hold back?" Mr. Dawson asked. "Why would you be selective about who gets it first?"

SoftBank could commit as much as $880 billion to tech investments in the coming years, a gargantuan, unprecedented amount of cash that would amount to a seismic shift in tech-sector finance. From a report: "The Vision Fund was just the first step, 10 trillion yen ($88 billion) is simply not enough," CEO Masayoshi Son said in an interview with The Nikkei Asian Review that was published late Thursday. "We will briskly expand the scale. Vision Funds 2, 3 and 4 will be established every two to three years." Son's comment confirms a Recode report that his Vision Fund -- which is sinking $100 billion into the technology sector worldwide -- was only the first in a series of investments that he plans to make in young companies. "We are creating a mechanism to increase our funding ability from 10 trillion yen to 20 trillion yen to 100 trillion yen," Son told the outlet. That comes out to about $880 billion. Companies that SoftBank either completely owns or has major or minor stakes in include Vodafone Japan, Yahoo! Japan, India's Snapdeal, India's Ola, Sprint Corporation, and India's Flipkart. The company is expected to become a major stake holder in Uber as soon as next week.

Google and the country's biggest brick-and-mortar retailers have one main problem in common: Amazon. Now both sides are acting like they are serious about working together to do something about it. From a report: On Thursday, Target and Google announced that they are expanding what was a years-old delivery partnership from a small experiment in a handful of cities to the entire continental U.S. The expansion will allow Target to become a retail partner in Google's voice-shopping initiative, which lets owners of the Google Home "smart" speaker order items through voice commands like owners of the Echo can do from Amazon. The announcement comes seven weeks after Walmart inked a similar deal with Google to offer hundreds of thousands of products through the service. Other big-box retailers like Home Depot are also on board. Voice commerce was the core of these recent announcements, and it may someday become popular for types of shopping like reordering household staples. But that's not what is most interesting here to me. Instead, it's the promise that Target is also beginning to work with Google "to create innovative digital experiences using ... other cutting-edge technologies to elevate Target's strength in style areas such as home, apparel and beauty."

The biggest Netflix-related news today is that the company is raising its streaming videos prices, from $9.99 a month to $10.99. But there is another interesting nugget of information to consider: Netflix still has 3.7 million DVD subscribers in the U.S. who get their discs delivered through the mail for the same $7.99 a month it had previously cost. Recode reports: That's down 17 percent from a year ago, and is much smaller than Netflix's nearly 52 million domestic streaming subscribers, but it's still sizable. Netflix first separated out its DVD and streaming subscription services in July 2011, charging $7.99 each ($15.98 for both). Streaming was originally an added bonus for DVD subscribers at no extra cost. Are you one of the 3.7 million Netflix users who still get DVDs sent in the mail? If so, what's keeping you from embracing the digital age and streaming movies via the internet?

An anonymous reader quotes Recode: Facebook has shared some details about the Russian-operated profiles it discovered on its platform with Google, as the search giant -- with the rest of the tech industry -- continues to probe the extent to which Kremlin-backed misinformation spread through their websites during the 2016 U.S. presidential election. It is unclear if Google has found any suspicious ads or other content after evaluating Facebook's data, an exchange of intel confirmed to Recode today by three sources familiar with the matter. At the very least, Google's investigation appears to be much broader in scope than a similar one by Twitter, which had drawn the ire of Congress for appearing to be incomplete. A Google spokesperson declined to comment for this story, as did a Facebook rep.

For now, though, Google is slated to deliver a private briefing to U.S. lawmakers studying Russia's political tactics in the coming weeks, additional sources told Recode. A date does not appear to have been set. And the search-and-advertising giant has been asked to join Facebook and Twitter at two upcoming hearings in the House and Senate where the industry will face questions -- out in the open -- about its safeguards against Russian political interference in the future.

From a report: President Donald Trump will issue a new directive Monday to supercharge the U.S. government's support for science, tech, engineering and mathematics, including coding education, three sources familiar with the White House's thinking told Recode. To start, Trump is set to sign a presidential memorandum at the White House later today that tasks the Department of Education to devote at least $200 million of its grant funds each year to so-called STEM fields, as the administration seeks to train workers for high-demand computer-science jobs of the future. And on Tuesday, Trump's daughter and advisor, Ivanka, is expected to head to Detroit, where she will join business leaders for an event unveiling a series of private-sector commitments -- from Amazon, Facebook, Google, GM, Quicken Loans and others -- meant to boost U.S. coding and computer-science classes and programs, the sources said.

Johana Bhuiyan, writing for Recode: Transport for London, the taxi regulating service in London, announced today that it would not be renewing Uber's license to operate because of concerns over the company's "lack of corporate responsibility" in relation to public safety issues. The ride-hail company, which launched in London in 2012, is appealing the TfL's decision and will be allowed to continue to operate until a court makes a decision on that appeal. That process could take months. London is a significant market for Uber: The company says there are 40,000 drivers and 3.5 million riders on its platform in London. And like New York City, it is one of the most regulated markets where Uber operates. Unlike most markets across the U.S., Uber drivers in London and New York City are required to participate in government administered background checks.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Facebook will turn over copies of political ads purchased by Russian sources to congressional lawmakers, who are investigating the country's potential interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Initially, Facebook had only released those ads -- 3,000 of them, valued at about $100,000 -- to Robert Mueller, the former FBI director who is spearheading the government's probe into Russia's actions. Facebook had withheld those details from House and Senate leaders, citing privacy concerns. But the move drew sharp rebukes from the likes of Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, who has charged in recent days that Facebook may not have done enough to scan its systems for potential Russian influence and to ensure that such foreign purchases -- otherwise illegal under U.S. law -- don't happen again. "After an extensive legal and policy review, today we are announcing that we will also share these ads with congressional investigators," wrote Colin Stretch, the company's general counsel. "We believe it is vitally important that government authorities have the information they need to deliver to the public a full assessment of what happened in the 2016 election."

The Trump administration said on Tuesday it plans to scrap a program that allows about 800,000 undocumented immigrants who came to the US as children to stay and work in the country, shrugging off criticism from within the president's own party and prominent business figures. From a report: The Trump administration is essentially leaving Congress a six-month window of time to try to save it. The legal shield is known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, and since its enactment in 2012, it has allowed roughly 800,000 undocumented young adults to live in the United States and obtain work authorizations every two years. [...] In practice, implementation is complicated. Those previously approved under DACA, with the permission to work in the United States, can continue to work without interruption until those approvals expire. And those who have already applied for protection or are seeking renewals will still have their applications considered by the U.S. government. For those whose permits are set to expire before March 5, 2018, though, the U.S. government will also allow them to renew their DACA status -- provided their applications are received before Oct. 5, 2017. Currently, there are about 201,000 young adults whose authorizations are set to expire this year, officials at the Department of Homeland Security explained Tuesday.

Tech giants like Apple, Facebook and Google are no doubt going to blast the Trump administration's decision: Last week, those executives joined more than 400 other business leaders in calling on the president to preserve DACA. Apple CEO Tim Cook, who previously (and privately) pressed Trump on the issue, said on Sunday that 250 of his "co-workers" would be affected by the change. Microsoft indicated that about 27 workers spanning fields like finance and sales would be hurt from Trump's move. Zuckerberg said, "This is a sad day for our country. The decision to end DACA is not just wrong. It is particularly cruel to offer young people the American Dream, encourage them to come out of the shadows and trust our government, and then punish them for it."

Amazon and Microsoft announced on Wednesday that they've been working on a partnership to allow their respective voice assistants, Alexa and Cortana, to speak to one another. From a report: Starting later this year, owners of Amazon Echos and other Alexa-powered devices will be able to say: "Alexa, open Cortana" to start querying Microsoft's voice assistant. Owners of devices running Microsoft's Windows 10 operating system will be able to summon Alexa via Cortana in a similar manner. Why would customers want that -- especially with the relatively clunky nature of the necessary voice command? The companies say that each voice assistant has its strengths -- features like Microsoft Outlook and Exchange email integration for Cortana and smart-home controls or shopping for Alexa -- and that customers of both companies would benefit from an integration. It's not clear if the two assistants will share voice data in an effort to make each digital assistant smarter. But there is the hope that someday these artificial agents are intelligent enough to route requests to the best virtual assistant for the task without a specific "Alexa" or "Cortana" command.

Kara Swisher, reporting for Recode: The board of Uber has voted and wants Expedia Dara Khosrowshahi to be its next CEO. But here is a shocking twist for those who have had to endure this awful, messy and convoluted process: He has not been officially offered the job as of 15 minutes ago, said sources. Still, most expect him to take it and he appears to be the one person dueling factions of the board can agree on. Unknown until now, Khosrowshahi was the third candidate -- after Hewlett Packard Enterprise CEO Meg Whitman and former General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt. Khosrowshahi is considered the "truce" choice for the board, which has been riven by ugly infighting between ousted CEO Travis Kalanick and one of its major investors, Benchmark. Benchmark had backed Whitman, while Kalanick had backed Immelt. Sources said that going into this morning, after Immelt withdrew his name from contention when it was clear he would not win the job, Whitman had the upper hand in the race for the job. But she also wanted a number of things -- including less involvement by ousted Uber CEO Travis Kalanick and more board control -- that became too problematic for the directors, said sources.

Today comScore released its 2017 US Mobile App Report, which among other things, lists the top mobile apps in the nation. From a report: Between smartphones and tablets, Americans spend more than half of their digital media consumption time -- 57 percent -- in apps, according to the report. That's about the same as a year ago -- evidence that the dramatic shift to mobile has now leveled out in the U.S. These are the winners, according to comScore, as measured by their penetration of the U.S. mobile app audience: Facebook (81 percent), YouTube (71 percent), Facebook Messenger (68 percent), Google Search (61 percent), Google Maps (57 percent), Instagram (50 percent), Snapchat (50 percent), Google Play (47 percent), Gmail (44 percent), and Pandora (41 percent). 8 out of 10 apps here are owned by Facebook and Google.

Apple is officially open for business in Hollywood. From a report: The company is telling content makers it wants to spend $1 billion on its own stuff over the next year. That's music to studios' ears, and a tune they have been expecting for some time -- especially after Apple hired two top Sony TV executives in June. We still don't know what Apple wants to do with that content: The Wall Street Journal says Apple wants to make up to 10 "Game of Thrones" -- or "House of Cards"-scale shows, but that's not enough to launch a full-scale subscription service.

Amazon, Facebook, Google and Netflix -- along with their telecom industry foes -- have not committed to sending their chief executives to testify before the U.S. Congress in September on the future of net neutrality. From a report: Not a single one of those companies told the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee, which is convening the hearing, that they would send their leaders to Washington, D.C., in the coming weeks, even at a time when the Trump administration is preparing to kill the open internet rules currently on the government's books. The panel initially asked those four tech giants, as well as AT&T, Charter, Comcast and Verizon, to indicate their plans for attendance by July 31. Now, the committee is pushing back its deadline indefinitely, as it continues its quest to engage the country's tech and telecom business leaders on net neutrality. "The committee has been engaging in productive conversations with all parties and will extend the deadline for response in order to allow for those discussions to continue," a spokesman said.

Kara Swisher, reporting for Recode: Warring factions within factions, conflicting back-channeling, intense media scrutiny, questionable foreign influences and a capricious leader whose jarring moves leave everyone in a state of perpetual uncertainly. The Trump administration, right? Well, yes, but also Uber, as it nears its much anticipated decision on who will be its next CEO. And, according to sources, that top leader is not going to be a woman, as the board of the car-hailing company struggles to move forward. To add to the drama: Some directors worry that its former CEO Travis Kalanick -- who was ousted -- is trying to game the outcome in his favor, after he told several people that he was "Steve Jobs-ing it." It is a reference to the late leader of Apple, who was fired from the company, only to later return in triumph.

turkeydance shared a new article from Recode about Elon Musk: He's been warning people about AI for years, and today called it the "biggest risk we face as a civilization" when he spoke at the National Governors Association Summer Meeting in Rhode Island. Musk then called on the government to proactively regulate artificial intelligence before things advance too far... "Normally the way regulations are set up is a while bunch of bad things happen, there's a public outcry, and after many years a regulatory agency is set up to regulate that industry," he continued. "It takes forever. That, in the past, has been bad but not something which represented a fundamental risk to the existence of civilization. AI is a fundamental risk to the existence of human civilization"... Musk has even said that his desire to colonize Mars is, in part, a backup plan for if AI takes over on Earth.
Several governors asked Musk how to regulate the emerging AI industry, to which he suggested learning as much as possible about artificial intelligence. Musk also warned that society won't know how to react "until people see robots going down the street killing people... I think by the time we are reactive in AI regulation, it's too late."

From a report on The Verge: Companies and organizations that rely on an open internet rallied on Wednesday for a "day of action" on net neutrality, and America's biggest internet service providers have responded with arrogance and contempt for their customers. Comcast's David Cohen called arguments in favor of FCC regulation "scare tactics" and "hysteria." Beyond the dismissive rhetoric, ISPs are coincidentally united today in calling for Congress to act -- and that's because they've paid handsomely to control what Congress does. There's one thing Republicans and Democrats can agree on, and that's taking money from ISPs. The telecommunications industry was the most powerful lobbying force of the 20th century, and that power endures. It's no secret that lobbyists in Washington write many of the laws, and the telecom industry spends a lot of money to make sure lawmakers use them. We've already seen net neutrality legislation written by the ISPs, and it's filled with loopholes. It's not just in Congress -- companies like AT&T have deep influence over local and state broadband laws, and write those policies, too. Some pro-net neutrality advocates are also arguing today that Congress should act, and there are some good reasons for that. Laws can be stickier than the judgements of regulatory agencies, and if you want to make net neutrality the law of the land that's a job for Congress. But there's a reason the ISPs are all saying the same thing, and it's because they're very confident they will defeat the interests of consumers and constituents. They've already done it this year under the Republican-controlled government. Further reading: 10M+ web users saw yesterday's net neutrality protest -- but rules are still getting scrapped.

From a report on The Verge: Companies and organizations that rely on an open internet rallied on Wednesday for a "day of action" on net neutrality, and America's biggest internet service providers have responded with arrogance and contempt for their customers. Comcast's David Cohen called arguments in favor of FCC regulation "scare tactics" and "hysteria." Beyond the dismissive rhetoric, ISPs are coincidentally united today in calling for Congress to act -- and that's because they've paid handsomely to control what Congress does. There's one thing Republicans and Democrats can agree on, and that's taking money from ISPs. The telecommunications industry was the most powerful lobbying force of the 20th century, and that power endures. It's no secret that lobbyists in Washington write many of the laws, and the telecom industry spends a lot of money to make sure lawmakers use them. We've already seen net neutrality legislation written by the ISPs, and it's filled with loopholes. It's not just in Congress -- companies like AT&T have deep influence over local and state broadband laws, and write those policies, too. Some pro-net neutrality advocates are also arguing today that Congress should act, and there are some good reasons for that. Laws can be stickier than the judgements of regulatory agencies, and if you want to make net neutrality the law of the land that's a job for Congress. But there's a reason the ISPs are all saying the same thing, and it's because they're very confident they will defeat the interests of consumers and constituents. They've already done it this year under the Republican-controlled government. Further reading: 10M+ web users saw yesterday's net neutrality protest -- but rules are still getting scrapped.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Recode: Someday soon, more U.S. households will be subscribers of Amazon Prime than cable or satellite TV, according to recent estimates of Amazon's popular shipping and entertainment service. According to estimates from Morningstar, nearly 79 million U.S. households now have an Amazon Prime membership*, up from around 66 million at the end of last year. That compares to a projected 90 million U.S. households that will pay for cable or satellite TV this year, according to S&P Global. According to these estimates, more U.S. households may have an Amazon Prime subscription than a pay TV subscription as soon as next year. The implication here is not that Amazon's Prime Video service is more popular than TV; the main reason most people subscribe to Amazon Prime is still the fast delivery of products.