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Showing posts from February, 2018

Chinese smartphone maker Doogee shows off its vision for the smartphone camera


 Doogee’s Mobile World Congress press conference is mostly what you’d expect from a company you’ve never heard of: small, low key, in the second basement meeting room at a hotel across from the convention center. It’s a bit like the smartphone farm system, the company’s hoping it can gin up enough awareness to rise above the din of news from the world’s… Read More from TechCrunch http://ift.tt/2FA9HzC via Technology

BMW says in-car digital assistants have to go beyond being ‘Echo Dots in a cup holder’

 BMW wants to bring personal assistants to the car, but it doesn’t want to build its own. Instead, it wants to work with Amazon, Google, Microsoft and others to bring the best features of their platforms to its cars. “We don’t want Alexa to drive our car. That’s not a good fit,” Dieter May, BMW’s senior VP for digital products and services, told me during… Read More from TechCrunch http://ift.tt/2EZPGFG via Technology

Facebook launches a local news accelerator for publishers

 Facebook is trying to play extra nice with local news publishers by putting $3 million behind the launch of the Local News Subscriptions Accelerator. The three-month pilot program will help 10 to 15 U.S.-based metropolitan news organizations gain more digital subscribers both on and off Facebook. Read More from TechCrunch http://ift.tt/2CMhxmw via Technology

The FTC settles with Venmo over a series of privacy and security violations

 The FTC announced today it has settled with PayPal over a complaint about the company’s handling of privacy disclosures in its peer-to-peer payments app Venmo, its lack of disclosure over the speed with which customers could access funds, as well as other issues related to the security and privacy of customer transactions. News that the Federal Trade Commission was looking into… Read More from TechCrunch http://ift.tt/2FzpgHG via Technology

BrainQ aims to cure stroke and spinal cord injuries through mind-reader tech

 Israel-based BrainQ is a new neurotech startup hoping to take on brain-computer interface (BCI) companies Kernel and Neuralink. But it’s early days in this industry, including for BrainQ, which plans to use a non-surgically embedded EEG machine to gather data and help improve outcomes for stroke and spinal cord patients. Read More from TechCrunch http://ift.tt/2GOPENm via Technology

An unlikely country is trying to win post-Brexit fintech business from Britain — Lithuania

Lithuania wants to become a fintech hub. MEP who set up Blockchain Centre says Brexit is "a big opportunity" to attract businesses. 35 companies applied to be licensed in Lithuania last year. UK-headquartered startups Revolut and TransferGo have already chosen to set up EU subsidiaries in the Eastern European country. LONDON — Lithuania is betting that Brexit can help it become a global fintech hub, as the Eastern European country seeks to attract British companies setting up subsidiaries in the EU. "I cannot deny that," Marius Jurgilas, a member of the board of the Bank of Lithuania, told Business Insider when asked if Lithuania saw Brexit as an opportunity. "We are not saying that we will be attracting top firms from the fintech hub of the world, which is and always will be London, to the new booming financial sector in Lithuanian, no," Jurgilas said. "But there is a huge flow of firms — and we want to participate in that flow — who want

The first Tesla Model 3 reviews are coming in — and there's one thing everyone is talking about (TSLA)

"Build quality" is a term often used in the auto industry when assessing manufacturing capability. Some observers have criticized the build quality of Tesla vehicles, most recently with the Model 3. Tesla has at times struggled with manufacturing as the same level of the rest of the industry, but it usually improves its processes. Since the Tesla Model 3 launched in July and started its uneasy path as a mass-market vehicle, Tesla watchers have been carefully scrutinizing the vehicle's quality. Last April, Reuters reported that Tesla skipped the "soft tooling" phase , which is a pre-production process that helps automakers work out manufacturing problems before starting mass production.  The company took a big risk by skipping this stage before commencing deliveries, and it has paid off. Holdups have kept Model 3 production well below its expected levels, with fewer than 3,000 cars officially delivered. CEO Elon Musk has called this "production

Ford just revealed the city where it plans to build its self-driving car program (F)

Ford has chosen Miami as its development hub for future self-driving vehicle fleets. The carmaker is developing an all-new, fully autonomous vehicles that could be used for robotaxi fleets or deliveries. That vehicle will arrive in 2021. The company will establish a logistics terminal in Miami and begin working with partners such as Domino's and Postmates. Miami was chosen due to its combination of driving challenges and good weather. Ford has big plans for full autonomous vehicles. By 2021, the carmaker intends to launch a car that can drive itself and deliver goods — and have no steering wheels or other controls. That ambitious objective took a leap forward on Tuesday when the company announced that after considering several US cities in which to test new services and businesses and develop autonomous technology, it had settled in Miami as the location for its pilot program. "We’ve spent years researching and developing self-driving technology, studying changing

Massive companies like Apple and Amazon are exploring new ways to care for the health of their employees — and it could upend the way healthcare’s done

Apple is launching health clinics   where its employees can get care in the spring, CNBC reported on Tuesday .   Employers, especially those acting as their employee's health insurers like Apple does, are starting to take a more active role in healthcare.  The move, along with the news that JPMorgan, Amazon and Berkshire Hathaway are forming a new  independent nonprofit venture  aimed at lowering healthcare costs for their employees, has people looking at employer-sponsored health plans in a new light. Companies like Apple are starting to take a more active role in their employees' healthcare.  That includes confronting the rising cost of healthcare, along with attempts to try and improve the quality of the care their employees receive. One way to pull that off is by building healthcare clinics built solely for employees. Clinics located in or near company headquarters have traditionally been a benefit at certain companies,  including banks, and of course hospitals.

Bill Gates weighs in on one of the oldest, biggest battles in programming (MSFT)

    Bill Gates prefers using tabs to spaces when he programs. Tabs vs. spaces is one of the most popular and enduring debates among programmers.  Recent research indicates spaces might actually be more popular — and, oddly, more lucrative. Bill Gates on Tuesday weighed in on the long-lasting debate over the best way to format software code. For the record, the Microsoft cofounder is a tabs guy. That's sure to annoy the other side of the debate — the advocates of spaces. "When I code I use tabs because you want the columns to line up," Gates said in his annual Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) session . "For some Word documents I use tabs. You want things to adjust when you go back and edit them, and tabs help." Tabs fans cheered having one of the most famous coders on their side. At the time of writing, Gates' answer had almost 14,000 "upvotes," making it one of the most popular posts in his AMA session. The debate over tabs and spaces ha