Tech Boys

Good morning! Here's the tech news you need to know this Tuesday. 1. Apple is due to report its quarterly earnings on Tuesday. Here's what to watch out for, from its China business to the timing of the iPhone 8. 2. Facebook bought an AI startup that could turn its middling virtual assistant into a Siri killer. It has acquired Ozlo. 3. The chiefs of Facebook, Google, and other tech giants aren't committing to testify to the US Congress on net neutrality, Recode reports. A deadline for commitments has now been extended. 4. Amazon has launched a home makeover show featuring YouTube stars. "Overhaul" is designed to sell products available on Amazon. 5. UK Home Secretary Amber Rudd thinks messaging services like WhatsApp should stop using end-to-end encryption. Writing in The Telegraph, she said that "real people" don't need the tech and it helps terrorists. 6. Reddit has raised an extra $200 million (£150 million). It is now valued at $1.8 b...

By 2040, we think fifth-level, autonomy-enabled mobility will be available as a service for the majority of the transportation needs of urban consumers. In other words, 70% of the urban population wouldn’t need to own cars because they would be available on-demand through their favorite app.   Although several power players like General Motors and Ford are promising fully autonomous cars sooner, there are many technological and large-scale regulatory and consumer sentiment issues with autonomous cars that would need to be addressed before they could fulfill our transportation needs. See also: Report predicts 95% of cars will be autonomous by 2030 But imagine the world in 2040, when most of the population doesn’t need cars. Everything from shopping to commuting to long distance road trips will be addressed by fully autonomous vehicles that you can summon with the push of a button.  Rethinking today’s products and services in the 2040 world Once you accept ...

Environmental technology is breaking out of its shell and transforming into what is becoming today’s new buzzword: sustaintech, a combination of cleantech and smarttech. What does the emergence of sustaintech mean? It signals that we are witnessing how disruptive innovations are breaking down the long-standing status quo of sustainability originating from the cleantech sector. Essentially, the crossing point between sustainability and IoT is bringing disruptive technologies to the table, and this new megatrend is turning both investors’ and entrepreneurs’ heads.     The evolution of the sustaintech market Sustaintech, short for sustainable technology, is technology that provides environmental and social value and helps advance a better future for humanity. It leverages intelligent technology and has a high degree of internet-integration to reduce environmental impact and enhance efficiency and resource productivity. See also: Can IoT tu...

 Snap, the Snapchat parent, closed the day down just 1% Monday after the first phase of the dreaded lockup expiration, which meant that some insiders are now eligible to sell shares. The anticipation of a big selloff had been putting downward pressure on the stock for weeks, but it appears that enough of that fear was already built into the stock price to withstand day one. But while… Read More from TechCrunch http://ift.tt/2wgybbc via Technology

Did you get the memo ? We’re living in the future . But despite being in the middle of the 4 th Industrial Revolution (or Industry 4.0 ), we’re not seeing the increase in productivity we’re used to seeing with the previous revolutions. Labor productivity growth is at a historical low , in defiance of the  increased fetishization of productivity , countless technological innovations we have seen in this current business cycle (beginning Q4 2007),  vacation days decreasing , and hours growth outpacing its long-term historical trend. What’s happening, argues Jeff Schwartz, Deloitte’s HR thought leader, is that while technology is advancing at an unprecedented rate and individuals are usually quick to adapt, “…business productivity is not driven by Moore’s Law.” So what can organizations do to move the needle and close the gap between business productivity and technological advancement? Adapt with your workforce. Schwartz and his colleagues at Deloitte Human Capital, among...

Energy storage is one of the largest economic opportunities on the planet. And it’s going to be one of the most entertaining. Entertaining, that is, from a news perspective. One of the best parts about working in technology is the constant drama. A revolutionary concept emerges. Companies form. Venture capitalists pour millions into the market. Then early winners topple, incumbents stumble and previously overlooked ideas prosper like mammals after the death of the dinosaurs. Storage, along with software and solar, will also pave the way for bringing over 1 billion more people onto the grid and reducing problems like dirty water and the lack of economic opportunities; a huge portion of IoT and edge devices will run on their own power. So what should you be looking at when you evaluate a company or business model? #1: What do they make? Is a company manufacturing battery cells? Or are they selling an operating system for managing battery packs? Or do they want to buy thi...

Ready for another story about political emails? CNN reports tonight that a person described as a "prankster" from the UK emailed several White House officials and successfully fooled them into believing he was a colleague. That included a message cla... from Engadget RSS Feed http://ift.tt/2tTKqJY via IFTTT

To date, VR backpack PCs have been aimed at gamers who just don't want to trip over cords while they're fending off baddies. But what about pros who want to collaborate, or soldiers who want to train on a virtual battlefield? HP thinks it has a fix.... from Engadget RSS Feed http://ift.tt/2w08jkt via IFTTT

Periods are normal, but kids pointing them out in their sketches is something else. Australian woman Penny Rohleder shared a photo of her son's drawing on the Facebook page of blogger Constance Hall on Jul. 25, which well, says it all. SEE ALSO: James Corden tests out gymnastics class for his son and is instantly showed up by children "I don't know whether to be proud or embarrassed that my 5 year old son knows this," Rohleder wrote.  "Julian drew a family portrait. I said 'What's that red bit on me?' And he replied, real casual, 'That's your period.'"  Well, at least he knows. To give further context, Rohleder revealed she had pulmonary embolism in October 2016, and was put on blood thinning treatment which makes her periods "very, very bad," she explained to the Daily Mail . Read more... More about Australia , Parenting , Culture , Motherhood , and Periods from Mashable http://ift.tt/2vd8Lyt via IFTTT

Sometimes at work, you might encounter a snake. No, not a deceitful coworker. An actual reptile, like the one found in a cameraman's edit suite at the offices of TV station 9 News Darwin in Australia. SEE ALSO: Dude attempts to smuggle 3 king cobra snakes into U.S. via potato chip cans A video of its removal was tweeted by the bureau's news director Kate Limon on Monday. A woman attempts to take control of it, and place it in a shopping bag held by a man — although without much luck. "Geez it's not small," someone can be heard saying off camera. Limon told the NT News she was about to call a snake catcher, until she realised the station's program manager is a wildlife warrior.  Read more... More about Australia , Animals , Snakes , Reptiles , and Reptile from Mashable http://ift.tt/2hiF4X6 via IFTTT

The wild world of Bitcoin is about to get a whole lot wilder.  On August 1, 2017, the preeminent cryptocurrency is set to break in two. Two warring factions, fundamentally divided on Bitcoin's future, are coming to a head — and the impending split could either save Bitcoin or doom it. SEE ALSO: Why Bitcoin is surging again, in plain English The split, called a hard fork, will result in two separate and distinct cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin Core . Oh, and it also has the potential to create billions of dollars worth of new cryptocurrency out of thin air.   But that's not what this is really about. Bitcoin as it currently stands is in trouble, and with so much money on the line opposing parties have naturally come forward with plans to save it. And, surprise, they all don't agree on the solution.  Read more... More about Bitcoin , Cryptocurrency , Altcoin , Bitcoin Cash , and Tech from Mashable http://ift.tt/2uPQ82k via IFTTT

Sit down, folks. The Anthony Scaramucci drama just got even crazier — thanks to a self-proclaimed "email prankster." According to CNN , the prankster posed as former White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus from a mail.com account, and reached out to Scaramucci, who resigned Monday from his job as White House communications director.  SEE ALSO: Anthony Scaramucci resigned and everyone is hahahahahahahahaha This exchange came the day after Priebus stepped down, according to emails shared with CNN by the prankster:  Not Reince Priebus : "I had promised myself I would leave my hands mud free, but after reading your tweet today which stated how; 'soon we will learn who in the media who has class, and who hasn't', has pushed me to this. That tweet was breathtakingly hypocritical, even for you. At no stage have you acted in a way that's even remotely classy, yet you believe that's the standard by which everyone should behave towards you? General Ke...

Niantic postpones its European Pokémon GO Event, Discovery Communications acquires Scripps Networks for $14.6 billion, Game of Thrones materials getting released in HBO hack and Reddit is now valued at $1.8 billion. All this on Crunch Report. Read More from TechCrunch http://ift.tt/2wfFvUo via Technology

YouTube views can translate into serious dollars, but if you're a student athlete, you may want to think twice about trying to earn money on the platform. A football player for the University of Central Florida has lost his place in the team, and hen... from Engadget RSS Feed http://ift.tt/2vcwsqy via IFTTT

This is a preview of a research report from BI Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service. To learn more about BI Intelligence, click here . Improving artificial intelligence (AI) technology and the proliferation of messaging apps — which enable users and businesses to interact through a variety of mediums, including text, voice, image, video, and file sharing — are fueling the popularity of chatbots. These software programs use messaging as an interface through which to carry out various tasks, like checking the weather or scheduling a meeting.   Bots are still nascent and monetization models have yet to be established for the tech, but there are a number of existing strategies — like "as-a-service" or affiliate marketing — that will likely prove successful for bots used as a tool within messaging apps. Chatbots can also provide brands with value adds — services that don't directly generate revenue, but help increase the ability of brands and busin...

 After being ousted from the VR empire he built, Oculus founder Palmer Luckey is wasting no time on his next project: building the wall. As CNN reports, Luckey’s newfound interest in defense is evident in the Secure Miles with All Resources and Technology (SMART) Act, proposed by Texas Representative Will Hurd. Hurd partnered with other Republican representatives from border states… Read More from TechCrunch http://ift.tt/2vd213p via Technology

Tesla CEO Elon Musk made headlines last week when he tweeted about his frustrations that Mark Zuckerberg, ever the optimist, doesn't fully understand the potential danger posed by artificial intelligence.  So when media outlets began breathlessly re-reporting a weeks-old story that Facebook's AI-trained chatbots "invented" their own language, it's not surprising the story caught more attention than it did the first time around. Understandable, perhaps, but it's exactly the wrong thing to be focusing on. The fact that Facebook's bots "invented" a new way to communicate wasn't even the most shocking part of the research to begin with. Read more... More about Tech , Facebook , Artificial Intelligence , Apps And Software , and Tech from Mashable http://ift.tt/2ueuYHT via IFTTT