Tips and tricks for all

Alex W. Palmer / Wired : A behind-the-scenes account of how a member of TripAdvisor's anti-fraud team helped the FCC track down a Florida man accused of making 96M+ illegal robocalls   —  BRAD YOUNG, A lawyer at TripAdvisor, arrived at the company's offices in Needham, Massachusetts, on October 12, 2015 … from Techmeme https://ift.tt/2CLulfY

Dan Bilefsky / New York Times : A profile of AI pioneer Yoshua Bengio, a co-recipient of the 2018 A.M. Turing Award, who says he supports regulating AI, including a ban on “killer robots”   —  MONTREAL — Yoshua Bengio is worried that innovations in artificial intelligence that he helped pioneer could lead to a dark future … from Techmeme https://ift.tt/2YEwXFB

Anna Hensel / Digiday : A look at Pinterest's efforts to position itself as the platform at the top of the purchasing funnel, challenges with the “buy button”, ads, and visual search   —  Pinterest's imminent IPO raises new questions about how big of a role the platform will play in the future of social commerce. from Techmeme https://ift.tt/2U7n9FP

Gavin De Becker / The Daily Beast : Jeff Bezos' security chief says his investigation concluded with high confidence that Saudi Arabia “had access to Bezos' phone, and gained private information”   —  The National Enquirer's lawyer tried to get me to say there was no hacking.  —  For 40 years, I've advised … from Techmeme https://ift.tt/2CLSV0i

Kana Inagaki / Financial Times : Line names founder Shin Jungho as co-CEO to drive the Asian chat app's expansion from ads into payments, banking, and other fintech businesses   —  Mark Zuckerberg recently outlined a strategy that would see the future of Facebook in private messaging.  Shin Jungho, the reclusive founder … from Techmeme https://ift.tt/2YFW5w3

When you’ve been doing this job long enough, you start to develop strange interests (though some might compellingly argue that strange interests are a prerequisite). Lately for me it’s been power banks. Quite possibly the least sexy product in all of consumer electronics outside of the ever-ubiquitous dongle. I don’t know what to tell you. Blame the fact that I’m traveling every other week for this job. There are also all of the liveblogs from years’ past that got cut off in the last few minutes as my poor ancient MacBook put itself to sleep during those last precious battery percentages. Low batteries give me anxiety. I’m the guy who’s the first to notice when your phone’s screenshot is below 10 percent. So the power bank has become constant accessory in my life, both home and on the road. Until last year, I used to carry a massive one that was just north of 20,000mAh. The peace of mind to back pain ration seemed sensible enough, but I learned the hard way that, not only do Chinese ...

It’s been a busy day for Facebook exec op-eds. Earlier this morning, Sheryl Sandberg broke the site’s silence around the Christchurch massacre, and now Mark Zuckerberg is calling on governments and other bodies to increase regulation around the sorts of data Facebook traffics in. He’s hoping to get out in front of heavy-handed regulation and get a seat at the table shaping it. The founder published a letter simultaneously on his own page and The Washington Post , the latter of which is an ideal way to get your sentiments on every desk inside the beltway. In the wake a couple of years that have come with black eyes and growing pains, Zuckerberg notes that if he had it to do over again, he’d ask for increased external scrutiny in four key areas: Harmful content – He wants overarching rules and benchmarks social apps can be measured by Election integrity – He wants clear government definitions of what constitutes a political or issue ad Privacy – He wants GDPR-style regulations gl...

On our final day in Pittsburgh, we find ourself in a decommissioned coal mine. Just northeast of the city proper, Tour-Ed’s owners run field trips and tours during the warmer months, despite the fact that the mine’s innards run a constant 50 degrees or so, year round. With snow still melted just beyond the entrance, a team of students from Carnegie Mellon and Oregon State University are getting a pair of robots ready for an upcoming competition. The small team is one of a dozen or so currently competing in DARPA’s Subterranean Challenge. The multi-year SUbT competition is designed to “explore new approaches to rapidly map, navigate, search, and exploit complex underground environments, including human-made tunnel systems, urban underground, and natural cave networks.” In particular, teams are tasked with search and rescue missions in underground structures, ranging from mines to caves to subway stations. The goal of the $2 million challenge is design a system capable of navigatin...

Mark Zuckerberg / Washington Post : Mark Zuckerberg calls for global regulations in four areas: policing harmful content, election integrity, a GDPR-like privacy framework, and data portability   —  Mark Zuckerberg is founder and chief executive of Facebook.  —  Technology is a major part of our lives, and companies such as Facebook have immense responsibilities. from Techmeme https://ift.tt/2I0FVr2

Welcome back to this week’s transcribed edition of Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast that unpacks the numbers behind the headlines. We’re running an experiment for Extra Crunch members that puts the words of our wildly popular venture capital podcast, Equity, in your eyes instead of your ears. This week, Kate Clark and Alex Wilhelm recorded an emergency episode to discuss Lyft’s IPO, which debuted Friday. The crew has been talking about the ridesharing company for a long time and this week, it closed its first day of trading up 9% after a 21% opening pop. So if you don’t like podcasts but still want the goodness that is Equity, you can have a read of this week’s episode below. It’s been edited for clarity. For access to the full transcription, become a member of Extra Crunch.  Learn more and try it for free.   Kate Clark: Hello and welcome to Equity. I’m tech crunches, Kate Clark and I’m joined today by Alex Wilhelm of Crunchbase news. Alex Wilhelm: ...

Will Oremus / Slate : How a 119-word local crime brief amassed more than 800K Facebook shares, nearly twice as many as any other piece of English-language content this year so far   —  A tale of accidental virality in the age of algorithms.  —  On an otherwise ordinary Sunday in late January … from Techmeme https://ift.tt/2Wyzake

In an open letter published by the New Zealand Herald, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg finally addressed the shocking mass shootings that left 50 dead at two Christchurch mosques. The first of part of the deadliest mass shooting in modern new Zealand history was live-streamed on Facebook by the attacker. But while the site’s technology was used the broadcast the horrific attacks, Facebook has largely stayed silent on the matter in the intervening two weeks. Sandberg broke that silence in her letter, which addressed grieving families and a shaken nation. The note addresses aspects that the site could have handled better, but the company still appears to be at something of a loss for how to handle such an event. “Many of you have also rightly questioned how online platforms such as Facebook were used to circulate horrific videos of the attack,” Sandberg writes. “We are committed to reviewing what happened and have been working closely with the New Zealand Police to support their respon...