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It's a little ironic that Alphabet is putting this much money into Lyft given that back in 2013 Google Venture's largest deal to date was to invest in Uber.

I really think that the whole point of this investment is to send a big "Fuck You !!!" to Uber, in the wake of their IP lawsuite.

Looks like a breaking-up couple that has reached the "throwing your stuff out of the window" and the "I'll cheat on you with the whole football / cheerleaders team" point.

Lyft is the football / cheerleaders team.

It's a little ironic that Alphabet is putting this much money into Lyft given that back in 2013 Google Venture's largest deal to date was to invest in Uber.

You must have missed this article: https://techcrunch.com/2017/10...

They confirmed earlier this year their intent to reboot (pun not intended) the Mac Pro line by releasing a new design for the Mac Pro in 2018 that focuses on modularity. In the meantime, they did a minor spec bump and price drop, while also announcing an iMac Pro model due for release later this year that actually has decent specs for lots of pro work, though it’s obviously lacking in expandability.

(Co)incidentally, Oculus acquired an eye tracking startup almost a year ago.

Why would Zuckerberg ever want us to log out of Facebook to enter a 'virtual reality?'

So we can go on virtual tours of weather-torn 3rd world countries, in hopes that we'll be so grief-stricken, we'll send aid to help, using Facebook, of course.

They can match it back up with
"UK Spy Agency Collected Webcam Images From Yahoo Users With The Help Of NSA, Report Says" Feb 27, 2014
https://techcrunch.com/2014/02...
Collect it all just keeps on giving.

The market demand in the US and Europe is not terribly high for such a beast, but I could easily see, say, China or Korea deciding that having a new platform was of strategic value. Samsung has even tried it already.

In China, for example, if it were announced today that Android and iOS were going to be forbidden starting in 2021, you would have a pretty complete alternative ecosystem by then.

The Chinese and the Russians are developing Sailfish OS for use in domestic markets, presumably because they aren't happy with US developed systems owning their markets.

"Hey Siri" is processed locally on the phone, nothing is sent off they device unless you activate Siri, and the data that is sent is anonymized.

https://techcrunch.com/2015/09...

Yup: Apple would like to remind the FCC that it can't activate imaginary FM radios that iPhones don't have.

Watch the Haters say "Of COURSE they would say that."

Watch.

Yup: Apple would like to remind the FCC that it can't activate imaginary FM radios that iPhones don't have.

I hope Equifax gets buried. Things are off to a good start: San Francisco sues Equifax on behalf of 15 million Californians affected by the breach As reported days ago, there were as many as 50 class action cases pending.

"Placing a TouchID sensor on the back of the phone is a singularly horrible idea from a usability standpoint, and thus would have been instantly, and rightly, rejected by Apple's Product Design team for the iPhone."

You sir, are full of shit. On a modern device that potentially contains a lot of sensitive info, yet is easily stolen, giving the users options to choose from is the way to go. On my S8+ I have the following options. I can have them all available, or ignore them all

1. Facial recognition. Depending on lighting, this does not always work. Once the new iPhone is in the wild, I would not be surprised if this primary feature also fails under certain lighting conditions, or if the user is say, wearing a hat.

2. Finger print scanner on the back. The scanner is well placed as can be. If someone has that much trouble, the still have face recognition and these other two.

Iris scanner. The lighting or wearing a hat problem need not apply here.
3. Disable the whole lot and just use the pin code that all other things default to if there is a problem.

I have a number of reasons for not wanting an iPhone, but having a variety of security options to use or not use was a big selling point for me. That and the audio jack which use for several purposes, none of which involve head phones.

Every year when the new iPhone comes out, I stay out of this conversation, but the new iPhone is a step back in many respects. Oh, and at least I am not spending $1,000 on a phone with rapid charging capapabilites only to have to pay extra for Apples rapid charging power brick. That right there is robbery in the face of Apple admitting the device is already overpriced but they don't because people will buy it anyway. And after all that, they just settled a court case in which they established that an iPhone is expected to fail after the first year, when many people will not even have it paid off yet.

1. Unlike Samsung, who put so little effort into facial recognition you can spoof their system with a photograph, Apple has made their facial recognition nearly foolproof. They have already tested it against photos, lifelike face masks, scarves, hats, helmets, glasses, sunglasses, night, day, even beard-growing, and it has apparently proven robust.

https://arstechnica.com/gadget...

So, there's one S8 "Security" system that isn't...

vs.

https://techcrunch.com/2017/09...

Admittedly, as Craig rather candidly says above, we will have to see how well this ultimately works with millions of people; but it does sound like they have tried to think of things like sunglasses, hats, scarves, beards, etc.

2. I still feel that a rear-mounted fingerprint sensor is an epic fail, usability-wise. Plus, as one poster pointed out, it complicates the design and assembly process for the phone. As I said, Apple's first choice was TouchID built into the Display/Digitizer, but that proved impossible/impractical. And if the video below is to be believed (and it does look pretty legit, as you can see a scrolling display of text on the test-jig screen a fraction of a second after the worker places his finger on the area just under the Apple Logo on the back of the phone), Apple at least produced (and obviously rejected) some prototypes with a rear-mounted Fingerprint Sensor. They did say they analyzed at least 10 different prototypes:

http://www.idownloadblog.com/2...

3. Iris scanner. Poor second choice to facial recognition. Not nearly as much data, which means not nearly as much security. And apparently, that's exactly the case. So now, you have two ineffectual pseudo-Security systems in your S8. Cool!

There is a legal difference though. Apparently here police cannot ask you to unlock the phone by passcode or fingerprint, but showing it your face is perfectly fine.

Yawn - https://techcrunch.com/2017/09...

I also quizzed Federighi about the exact way you “quick disabled” Face ID in tricky scenarios — like being stopped by police, or being asked by a thief to hand over your device.

“On older phones the sequence was to click 5 times [on the power button], but on newer phones like iPhone 8 and iPhone X, if you grip the side buttons on either side and hold them a little while — we’ll take you to the power down [screen]. But that also has the effect of disabling Face ID,” says Federighi. “So, if you were in a case where the thief was asking to hand over your phone — you can just reach into your pocket, squeeze it, and it will disable Face ID. It will do the same thing on iPhone 8 to disable Touch ID.”

This will of course not work when the police asks for your phone. Sure.

I just replaced my two Roku4 with NVIDIA Shield. I was switching from Plex (because Plex is creepy ) to Kodi and couldn't be happier. The Shield's hardware is extremely impressive, the UI is incredibly fast. It makes the Roku4 and Plex feel awful to use. Using a shared db with Kodi solved all my issues of tracking watched status between players. No cost, no accounts, no shady Plex business, a vastly superior device, a fantastic mobile app (again, at no cost) plus the flexibility and huge amount of Add-Ons available for Kodi. There's just no comparison. If you're still using Plex, I'd really consider looking at it. There are of course, like the OP pointed out, cheaper players as well.

Corporations, like Target, can't track users if they have bluetooth disabled. Keeping bluetooth "always on" will make it easier for them to passively track iOS11 shoppers as they travel through their stores (whether they use the app or not).
https://techcrunch.com/2017/09...

The Hyperloop is right there on the ground.
How many people live on the ground?

Is that right? I thought Hyperloop would be buried underground, mitigating at least that problem.

All currencies with a low total value behaves like this... The larger the market the smaller the fluctuations will be.

I think that bitcoin would grow in adaptation if it was easier to get (ATM) and that more places accepted it for purchases.
https://techcrunch.com/2016/03...

The current big drop is because of what happened in China, and we don't know if anything there will be reversed....

I'm planning to buy a few more bitcoins, as soon as it starts to stabilize.. I do know it's a high-risk investment but i do have the option to sell them if i stop seeing a future for it..

Android has been returning more revenue than iOS since 2014. And it's trivial to support previous versions of Android, as opposed to iOS...

- It's not actually very creepy at all. See this article, for example: https://techcrunch.com/2015/09... [techcrunch.com]

It isn't creepy to you. What you're failing to acknowledge is that different people react differently to always-listening tech. For me, personally, it's the first feature I disable when I get new hardware, and there's a certain percentage of users who feel the same way.

- Not sure you have any data to judge how many users have Hey Siri disabled or enabled. I'd be impressed if you did

Of course not, but that number also doesn't really matter, because the total number of units makes even a tiny percentage important. Each iPhone model year is likely to sell well over 200 million units. Even if only 1% of users disable always-listening Siri, that's still 2 million people with the feature disabled. And even if only 1% of those occasionally unlock it with their face while driving, that's still 20,000 people who are now looking at their phone who likely would not have looked at their phone in previous versions. And even if only one tenth of one percent of those people get into fatal car accidents as a result of doing so, that's still 20 fatal car accidents and roughly 22 people dead as a direct result of this unlock mechanism replacing the fingerprint unlock.

And I suspect that those numbers are conservative. You don't get to hide behind statistics when you're talking about such a large pool of users.

- A touch sensor on the back sounds like a more dangerous implementation for driving, not less. Fiddling around on the back of a phone is not a safe thing to do!

I'm in the rare position of regularly using both an iPhone (personal) and a Pixel (work). Because the touch sensor on the back of the Pixel is indented noticeably, it is every bit as easy to use as the one on the front of the iPhone. In fact, if anything, the one on the back of the Pixel might be a little *too* easy to use *accidentally* while picking up the device. The only meaningful difference is which finger you use (because your thumb doesn't typically touch the back of your phone).

Looking at your original comment, I think you meant something different by "unless" from what I'd understood, ie I took it to mean you were assuming novelty, whereas I now think you may have meant "unless Apple can convince a much larger proportion of people to use Hey Siri than has previously been the case (and it's a creepy feature)".

If that's the case, then I think your original arguments fall on three fronts:
- Not sure you have any data to judge how many users have Hey Siri disabled or enabled. I'd be impressed if you did
- It's not actually very creepy at all. See this article, for example: https://techcrunch.com/2015/09...
- A touch sensor on the back sounds like a more dangerous implementation for driving, not less. Fiddling around on the back of a phone is not a safe thing to do!

It won't hurt some of them: https://techcrunch.com/2017/09...

I'm sure they were planning to sell them anyway. Just a coincidence, yes.

Facebook shuts down its Snapchat competitor Lifestage

oh ho ho, that part gets better.

Guess what he did while he was at facebook?

An app that stops working once you turn 22. He turned 21 and his hand started blinking so he decided to run. (Oh, and the project was shut down).

I also pretty much avoid chain restaurants where I guess this type of tech is the most prevalent.

I thought what you thought, and even started writing a comment about that, and then decided to see if I was suffering from confirmation bias. My feeling was that restaurants wouldn't want to depend on cash registers as a service, but I was wrong.

There's still plenty of old school restaurants around banging out orders on cash registers, but they seem to be giving up because you need to have computers in house anyway to support web orders. Web ordering is becoming very common now; virtually nobody is handling it in-house but pizza chains.

I hope you don't run any other Linux distribution
https://techcrunch.com/2016/11...

Even 6 years ago:

Cats and dogs; apples and oranges; Linux and Microsoft. Two of these three things do not go together. Would you believe that Microsoft—yes Microsoft—was the fifth largest contributor to the soon to be released Linux 3.0 kernel? Believe it.

http://www.zdnet.com/article/t...

Because they did with KitKat: https://techcrunch.com/2013/09...

Who gives a shit? On a tech site story about the latest version of what is arguably the most prominent personal computing operating system in the world your first question is about whether they licensed the name from Nabisco just like they did previously with Nestle?

Given the history and the obvious legal ramifications of not doing that one would obviously assume that it is most likely that they did, but in this context is that really what you're interested in? Maybe you'd be better off on some legal/trademark discussion website.

There are several companies attaching plugs to street lamp posts. Potentially every lamp post could be a charge station.
https://www.zap-map.com/lamp-p...
https://techcrunch.com/2017/04...
http://www.independent.co.uk/e...
https://www.fastcompany.com/30...
https://johnbrianshannon.com/2...

It's an easy problem to solve.

wah wah wah

Your beloved Apple dickheads are not infallible

If this site can be trusted, the global smartphone market is some 400 billion dollars annually. The total invested in Essential to date seems to be around 300 million, which is definitely real money, but not necessarily a shocking figure. Something like 30-50 billion of VC funding gets thrown around on a quarterly basis. Andy Rubin has as good a chance as anyone to be able to deliver some value for that money, and he can probably be counted on to be able to put together a good team as well. If Uber can lose billions annually without anyone batting an eye then I don't know why these guys deserve the press, or why the "...without shipping a product" angle was necessary. Are we expecting that they're somehow less likely to do with the additional funding? Is there some part of bringing a smartphone to market that's expected to be quick, cheap, and easy?

Apparently it's a slow news day.

The NFL has a contract with Microsoft to use their Surface tablets on the sidelines. They tout it as a way for the team to get almost real time information on play calling, whether offense or defense. Unfortunately, and directly related to this article, there are those, particularly coaches and quarterbacks, who bemoan the unpredictability of the Surface and its many malfunctions.

Even worse, people were initially calling them iPads or iPad-like which certainly didn't sit well with the marketing crew at Microsoft.

Microsoft can claim all they want their Surface is doing well, but from real world experiences, where timely information is invaluable, or in the case of Consumer Reports where Surface owners report the numerous problems they have, there is only so much spin which can be done to try and spackle over these poorly performing devices.

This is Hulu 2.0.

Funny your mention them. Because I could have sworn Disney just got into a deal with Hulu.

I'm sorry that you hate me (enough to mention me by name, apparently), but facts matter to me.

Tesla's recall rate in 2016 per 1000 vehicles was 936. This places it lower than Mazda, GM, Subaru, Toyota, Nissan, Jaguar / Land Rover, Mitsubishi, Ford, Volvo, BMW, Hyundai, Honda, Chrysler, and Volkswagen (by the end of that list we're up to 1805 recalls per 1000 vehicles). Only three manufacturers had a lower recall rate than Tesla - Porsche, Mercedes, and Kia. Furthermore, Tesla was ranked the most proactive of all manufacturers, with 100% of recalls initiated by internal investigation rather than NHTSA investigation; and the top spot for recall timeliness. As for the cars being "mediocre", Tesla once again topped the Consumer Reports owner satisfaction index, with a 91% "would buy again" rating crushing the next closest competitor, Porsche at 84%.

I fully and understand your reaction. You see other people happy about a product, think that they shouldn't be, and so that makes you mad. Has it ever crossed your mind that perhaps there is a real, legitimate reason that other people are happy with the product? And have you taken the time to consider where you're getting wrong information from, such as "Tesla has a high recall rate" - when in reality the opposite is true?

The abundant test drive reviews disagree with you.

Motor Trend - Exclusive: Tesla Model 3 First Drive Review - Motor Trend

Top Gear- Tesla Model 3 review: first drive of Elon Musk's affordable EV

The Verge - A closer look at Tesla Model 3's spartan interior

The Verge - Tesla Model 3 first drive: this is the car that Elon Musk promised

Bloomberg - Tesla’s Model 3 Arrives With a Surprise 310-Mile Range

Bloomberg[/COLOR] - Driving Tesla’s Model 3 Changes Everything

Car and Driver - 2018 Tesla Model 3: Everything We Know | Feature | Car and Driver

CNET - Tesla Model 3 is well worth the hype

Car Advice - Tesla Model 3 quick drive review | CarAdvice

Fortune - Here’s What Reviewers Think About Tesla’s Model 3 So Far

Ars Technica - All the things the Internet hates about the Tesla Model 3 have me excited

Mashable - Driving a Tesla Model 3 is pretty damn awesome

TechCrunch - Your smartphone is the key for the Tesla Model 3

But hey, feel free to live in your own little world and deny reality to your heart's content.

Does it make it any better that Google said this in their internal statement:

There are co-workers who are questioning whether they can safely express their views in the workplace (especially those with a minority viewpoint). They too feel under threat, and that is also not OK. People must feel free to express dissent. So to be clear again, many points raised in the memo — such as the portions criticizing Google’s trainings, questioning the role of ideology in the workplace, and debating whether programs for women and underserved groups are sufficiently open to all — are important topics. The author had a right to express their views on those topics — we encourage an environment in which people can do this and it remains our policy to not take action against anyone for prompting these discussions.

Here's what Google said internally, according to TechCrunch:

This has been a very difficult few days. I wanted to provide an update on the memo that was circulated over this past week.

First, let me say that we strongly support the right of Googlers to express themselves, and much of what was in that memo is fair to debate, regardless of whether a vast majority of Googlers disagree with it. However, portions of the memo violate our Code of Conduct and cross the line by advancing harmful gender stereotypes in our workplace. Our job is to build great products for users that make a difference in their lives. To suggest a group of our colleagues have traits that make them less biologically suited to that work is offensive and not OK. It is contrary to our basic values and our Code of Conduct, which expects “each Googler to do their utmost to create a workplace culture that is free of harassment, intimidation, bias and unlawful discrimination.”

The memo has clearly impacted our co-workers, some of whom are hurting and feel judged based on their gender. Our co-workers shouldn’t have to worry that each time they open their mouths to speak in a meeting, they have to prove that they are not like the memo states, being “agreeable” rather than “assertive,” showing a “lower stress tolerance,” or being “neurotic.”

At the same time, there are co-workers who are questioning whether they can safely express their views in the workplace (especially those with a minority viewpoint). They too feel under threat, and that is also not OK. People must feel free to express dissent. So to be clear again, many points raised in the memo — such as the portions criticizing Google’s trainings, questioning the role of ideology in the workplace, and debating whether programs for women and underserved groups are sufficiently open to all — are important topics. The author had a right to express their views on those topics — we encourage an environment in which people can do this and it remains our policy to not take action against anyone for prompting these discussions.

The past few days have been very difficult for many at the company, and we need to find a way to debate issues on which we might disagree — while doing so in line with our Code of Conduct. I’d encourage each of you to make an effort over the coming days to reach out to those who might have different perspectives from your own. I will be doing the same.

I have been on work related travel in Africa and Europe the past couple of weeks and had just started my family vacation here this week. I have decided to return tomorrow as clearly there’s a lot more to discuss as a group — including how we create a more inclusive environment for all.

So please join me, along with members of the leadership team at a town hall on Thursday. Check your calendar soon for details.

The team believes they’d need an additional 2,000 meters (about 1.2 miles) of track to achieve a max theoretical speed of 700 mph for the test pod, which is what it could possible reach in real-world commercial systems.

https://techcrunch.com/2017/08...

I'm not saying DSLRs are going away, nor am I saying an iPhone will shoot as well as a DSLR in all conditions, but serious photography CAN be done with an iPhone, as these three magazine covers show.

http://nypost.com/2017/04/15/c...

http://bgr.com/2017/02/17/ipho...

https://techcrunch.com/2017/04...

As always, the talent matters more than the tool.

As mentioned somewhere below (citing Techcrunch) - this isn't a vendor/contract issue. The two equal owners of Snopes (via Bardav, Inc.) divorced, and one sold their share to the company running the web site. Now, the other owner apparently wants to move the website elsewhere.

It's a dispute between two equal parties in a company trying to take it in different directions. Since the party seeking donations isn't being upfront and honest about things, and actually seems to be deliberately deceptive, I tend to support the other side.

No no no no no.
There is no two parties. A company cannot own shares in Snopes.
The 'company' thought it was being smart, and divided up the shares it owned among it's equity holders. It was all done in their names.
You can tell from the language, that there was nothing contractual about this company owning snopes. That's why their reasoning in their complaint, uses language like "on the understanding that".

So to be clear, Proper LLC cannot own any of Snopes.
Proper LLC have no contractual claim to own any of snopes.
Proper LLC got outmanoeuvred and are now a minority shareholder, and are upset about it.

As mentioned somewhere below (citing Techcrunch) - this isn't a vendor/contract issue. The two equal owners of Snopes (via Bardav, Inc.) divorced, and one sold their share to the company running the web site. Now, the other owner apparently wants to move the website elsewhere.

It's a dispute between two equal parties in a company trying to take it in different directions. Since the party seeking donations isn't being upfront and honest about things, and actually seems to be deliberately deceptive, I tend to support the other side.

In August of 2015, Snopes entered a revenue-share/content and ad management agreement with a company called Proper Media, formed earlier that very year. In early 2016, Proper arranged to buy Barbara’s [Estranged wife of the owner] share of Bardav [the company they two started, owner of Snopes], replacing her as co-owner of the company.

https://www.meganrosedickey.co...
https://techcrunch.com/author/...

Fair point, Symbian and RIM were still strong then in some markets, but in others the iPhone was definitely king - such as this 78% share in Western Europe in late 2009, or 50% share worldwide early 2010.

The iPhone certainly had dominant mindshare back then, but I will concede that its peak marketshare perhaps didn't last long enough to overly concern EU regulators.

Are there any companies that hope to have a non diesel/gasoline big rig available by then?

Yes.

Malware that flows around the internet and infects random nations?
No security service or nation would allow their own side, nation, interests to be at any risk from random malware.
Malware thats in the wild doing stuff to a lot of nations is not a national cyber event.
Its just malware and a slow news day.
Read up on how nations really consider and use their cyber assets. Nations take care to ensure the system, user or server is the only thing thats accessed.

Lets do some reading
The Inside Story of How British Spies Hacked Belgium’s Largest Telco (December 13 2014)
https://theintercept.com/2014/...
Read down to the "The hack would remain undetected for two years, until the spring of 2013" part and consider the quality and effort a nation puts into its code.
To stay in a network, only that network and not get found. No AV or websites or social media talking about that effort in real time.
Notice the difference after discovery too? "" ... never got a chance to study the routers."" Nations don't comment much on the efforts of other nations, to experts or the media.

Stuxnet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Equation Group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Again stay hidden, works really well for the task, great effort to stay with interesting people and efforts not spreading back to creators own nation. Skills to try and avoid random AV detection too. Less AV chatter in real time in the wild.
Nations can try automated cyber efforts but again they are automated to respond to very interesting people and try not to get talked about in real time by AV and experts. The staging servers are not found in real time. Malware do random things to many nations is not a cyber effort.
Its just malware and a news story.
Look at list of how nations do their cyber.
Names and definitions of leaked CIA hacking tools (Mar 9, 2017)
https://techcrunch.com/2017/03...
Neat products by server, brand, target. No finding the servers, no finding the nations control GUI. Exploits that work and and can work around most consumer AV and their experts most of the time. Not malware that flows over anything, everything and anyone thats been talked about and studied in real time.
Discovering a Hive, or SparrowHawk would not be an option for a nation's cyber contractors or gov/mil staff.

Echo will let you do named timers and reminders now.

Amazon Music is useless. Using the Echo with Spotify, works well.

The timers, Spotify support, the weather/news, and the occasional unit-of-measure conversion, make it a nice kitchen accessory (especially with its small footprint on the countertop). That's all I use it for.

The problem was not that he had sexual relations. The problem is that there was an element of coercion. As someone else worded it:

The women were all in contact with the VC in a professional capacity. Some as founders hoping to secure funding from his fund for their businesses. It’s hard to imagine a more skewed power dynamic.

Why are you lying? How come you and Barbara are lying about it?

your a moran

My guess is that you just read Barbara's comments where He lied,

Barbara's not a dude. The clue is in the name.

Anyway here's something for you:

https://techcrunch.com/2017/06...

Caldbeck says:

The past 24 hours have been the darkest of my life. I have made many mistakes over the course of my career, some of which were brought to light this week. To say I'm sorry about my behavior is a categorical understatement. Still, I need to say it: I am so, so sorry.

So yeah, he apologised for the stuff he did, so why are you denying his apology? What right do you have to speak for him?

Guess what... you just became uglier.

nah brah I'm ripped and beach ready

TechCrunch published a fantastic essay a few years back explaining the very complex, interlocking set of political interests and problems that have caused Bay Area housing costs to explode. Surge in high paying tech jobs, extreme NIMBY by neighborhood councils, California legislation, owls, and well meaning activists have led to the complete cluster that the SF housing market is today. Construction costs have never been a significant issue. I also feel like Google's plans are going to be disrupted by these same factors once the vested powers figure out what's going on.