Amazon launches Counter, its package pickup service, in the US, starting with 100 Rite Aid stores; it will expand to 1,500 locations by the end of the year
Amazon is teaming up with national drugstore Rite Aid as part of a new package pickup service that further expands the tech giant's logistics network.
YouTube gives users a “don't recommend channel” option and a way to pick topics of interest for videos showing in Up Next or homepage, now on iOS and Android
No matter how advanced algorithms get, none will understand your YouTube viewing preferences better than you.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says the company could have acted more quickly to flag a doctored Nancy Pelosi video but defended its decision to leave it up
Data Sheet Matt Novak / Gizmodo : Breaking Up Facebook Won't Fix Real Problems, According to Completely Disinterested and Impartial Mark Zuckerberg Kurt Wagner / Bloomberg : Facebook CEO: Company Was ...
Researchers demonstrate how the US Wireless Emergency Alert system, which uses LTE networks, can be easily spoofed with “pirate” cell towers to cause mass panic
With a pirate cell tower, it's easy to send fake emergency alerts warning of a terrorist attack, nuclear bomb, or other disaster.
Author credits on research papers reveal that several Huawei employees have collaborated on research projects with Chinese armed forces personnel
- Huawei says research was not authorized by the company — Employees collaborated on AI and communications with military
FCC gives Verizon permission to lock cell phones to its network for 60 days after activation, despite open-access rules applying to Verizon's 700MHz spectrum
Verizon, seeking to deter theft, gets FCC waiver to lock phones for 60 days. — Verizon yesterday received the government's permission …
Mark Zuckerberg says weak US response to 2016 Russian election interference sent a signal to the world, and similar activity has increased from Iran and others
and I'm not just talking about the Russians — is going to make 2016 look like small potatoes ... there's going to be more election interference in 2020.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... Greg Sarge...
Mark Zuckerberg says Facebook is trying a new approach to limit the distribution of deepfakes, argues that the definition is too broad and needs to be scoped
Mark Zuckerberg signaled today that Facebook might be taking a different approach to so-called deepfakes, synthetic videos created through …
Less than a week after ransomware victim Riviera City paid ~$600K, another Florida town, Lake City, votes to pay ~$500K in BTC to ransomware hackers
Lake City officials give in and agree to pay nearly $500,000 to ransomware gang. — Less than a week after a first Florida city agreed …
EU expert panel recommends that EU should ban AI-based social credit scoring and limit mass surveillance
New recommendations have also been criticized as lacking enforceability — A group of policy experts assembled by the EU has recommended that it ban the use of AI for mass surveillance and mass …
Some Philips Hue smart bulbs now come with Bluetooth built in, allowing them to be set up and used without the $60 hub; prices start from $15
Philips Hue smart bulbs are getting what may be their biggest upgrade ever: many bulbs will now ship with Bluetooth built in …
Twitch launches beta of Subscriber Streams, which will let Twitch streamers who are Twitch Affiliates or Twitch Partners offer subscriber-only streams
A potentially useful tool for big events — Twitch is giving its well-behaved streamers a chance to offer a new …
Google, UChicago, and its medical center sued in a lawsuit accusing the hospital of sharing hundreds of thousands of identifiable patient records with Google
SAN FRANCISCO — When the University of Chicago Medical Center announced a partnership to share patient data with Google in 2017 …
Warburg Pincus announces new $4.25B fund for China and Southeast Asia, which will focus on tech, consumer services, healthcare, financial services, media, more
Warburg Pincus, the private equity fund with over $60 billion under management, is doubling down on Asia after it announced …
Report: ecommerce startup Brandless has hired John Rittenhouse as CEO after Tina Sharkey resigned in March amid tensions with SoftBank, which has a 40% stake
- In March, Tina Sharkey stepped down as CEO of Brandless, the direct-to-consumer retailer of “unbranded” household items. Source: The Information .
Following criticism, Twitter rolls out a notice for tweets from political figures, verified users, and accounts with 100K+ followers that break its guidelines
The platform has been criticized for letting politicians break the rules without consequence — Today, Twitter is rolling …
Facebook announces updates to its terms of service, adding details on how the company makes money, content removals, and users' IP rights, effective July 31
People should have clear, simple explanations of how online services work and use personal information.
ARM confirms that its lead CPU and system architect, Mike Filippo, has joined Apple; Filippo's LinkedIn says he began work in May out of Austin, Texas
Joe Rossignol / MacRumors :
A profile of Jeff Jordan, managing partner at Andreessen Horowitz, who became a VC in his fifties and invested early in Airbnb, Instacart, and Pinterest
How Jeff Jordan is applying what he learned during his time at Disney, eBay, and OpenTable to help founders at Airbnb, Pinterest, and Instacart. Tweets: @polina_marinova , @katiebaynes , @manuelabarce...
Corporate travel booking startup TripActions raises $250M Series D led by Andreessen Horowitz at a $4B valuation, four times its previous November valuation
TripActions got off the ground by gamifying corporate travel and rewarding customers who chose cheaper hotel rooms with cash for personal travel or Amazon gift cards.
Axon, formerly Taser, a supplier of body cams and software for 47 out of the 69 largest US police agencies, to ban the use of facial recognition on its devices
Its ethics board says the technology is not reliable enough to justify using. — Mr. Warzel is an Opinion writer at large.
Reddit “quarantines” r/The_Donald, which has 750K+ subs, over threats made against cops and public figures; quarantines show a content warning upon visiting sub
first salvo fired by harassing the main reddit for their election enemy. https://www.theverge.com/... Ryan Mac / @rmac18 : A post on r/The_Donald explains Reddit quarantine was due to “repeated rule-b...
Line unveils new products including Line Stickers Premium, a subscription service for stickers, Line Score, an AI-driven social credit rating system, and more
Japan's dominant social media company unveils a dizzying array of new products — Today, I spent my afternoon in an amphitheater next …
In a joint letter, Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo tell the Trump administration that proposed Chinese tariffs would harm the game industry and cost gamers $840M
Trump's tariffs are foolish Charlie Hall / Polygon : Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony say Trump's tariffs on China will hurt the game industry Matthew Forde / PC Games Insider : Microsoft, Sony and Ninte...
Google says its location history auto-delete tool, which lets users pick either 3 or 18 months of data retention, is rolling out on mobile over next few weeks
Natt Garun / The Verge :
Superhuman, a $30/month email service designed for speed that has less than 15,000 users, raises $33M Series B led by Andreessen Horowitz at a $260M valuation
One of Silicon Valley's buzziest start-ups, Superhuman, is betting its app's shiny features are worth a premium price. Tweets: @db , @scottgal , @ow , @joshchafetz , @kevinroose , @caseynewton , @jaso...
Facebook shares a report on its ongoing process to establish an Oversight Board for content decisions following consultations
Brent Harris / Facebook :
Shopify says users can now message its 820K+ merchants through Apple's iMessage-based Business Chat service, and adds support for Apple Pay
anytime, anywhere and for free. https://www.shopify.com/ping https://twitter.com/...
San Francisco Pride says Google can still participate in parade after ~100 Googlers petitioned it to drop Google as a sponsor over handling of LGBTQ+ issues
and successful April Glaser / Slate : The Wayfair Walkout Is a Different Kind of Tech Worker Protest Christine Fisher / Engadget : Google employees petition to ban the company from SF Pride Alyssa New...
Candy Crush Saga maker King touts to UK MPs that, of the game's 270M players, 9.2M play for 3-6 hours per day, and 432,000 play for six hours or more
Mark Sweney / The Guardian :
Subscription e-book and audiobook service Scribd introduces Snapshots, bite-sized distillations of nonfiction books' key points
Anthony Ha / TechCrunch :
Oppo demos an under-screen selfie camera with a display using a custom transparent material, plans to launch in a commercial phone “in the near future”
Sam Byford / The Verge :
Instagram says it will roll out ads on its Explore page, visible when users tap on Explore posts, starting with an ad for IGTV today
here's how marketers say it will change their ad spend Evan Selleck / iDownloadBlog.com : Instagram is adding ads to the Explore page Tweets: Eric Jhonsa / @ericjhonsa : One more ad inventory source f...
Fungible, which lets data centers expand using Data Processing Units, raises $200M Series C led by SoftBank's Vision Fund, bringing its total raised to $300M
Catherine Shu / TechCrunch :
Sources: UK's largest supermarket Tesco has partnered with Israeli startup Trigo Vision to work on cashierless stores, as competition with Amazon heats up
Yaacov Benmeleh / Bloomberg :
An inside look at a treatment center in Beijing for internet addiction, which China classified as a mental disorder and a public health threat in 2008
Celia Chen / South China Morning Post : Tweets: @ldignan , @scmpnews , and @scmpnews . Thanks: @chuakongho Tweets: Larry Dignan / @ldignan : Inside one of China's internet addiction centers. Hint: It...
Aera, which develops AI-based data processing and augmentation products, raises $80M led by DJF, bringing its total raised to $170M+
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat :
EU opens formal antitrust investigation of Broadcom for suspected exclusivity practices and seeks an interim order to prevent anti-competitive behavior
Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch :
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Zoho CRM Plus in 2025: A year of thoughtful CX improvements
2025 marked 11 years of building a customer experience platform designed to support organizations as customer expectations, channels …
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data
Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.