Virtual reality has yet to hit the big time with the vast majority of consumers — headset sales are still in the single-digit millions — but today Google and NBC announced a deal to make programming that could help the medium pick up some more mainstream appeal. The two said that they will be working together to produce at least 10 multi-episode VR productions that will run as extra content alongside core programming on NBC itself and its network of other channels. Users can watch in VR on Google Cardboard or Daydream View, and it will also be hosted on…
Author: geekfenceblogger
Technotopia is a podcast about the future. It assumes the world won’t fall into a dystopia and therefore is optimistic about our chances for human success. I’m looking for cool people to talk to and I’d like for you to join me. I love guests who are are excited about the future and technology but I do not require a technology background. I want artists, writers, programmers, makers, and thinkers. I want to ask smart people why we shouldn’t despair. Want to join in? Fill this out to schedule a time. PR people fill it out as if you were…
Facebook’s lawyers are attempting to block a High Court decision in Ireland, where its international business is headquartered, to refer a long-running legal challenge to the bloc’s top court. The social media giant’s lawyers asked the court to stay the referral to the CJEU today, Reuters reports. Facebook is trying to appeal the referral by challenging Irish case law — and wants a stay granted in the meanwhile. The case relates to a complaint filed by privacy campaigner and lawyer Max Schrems regarding a transfer mechanism that’s currently used by thousands of companies to authorize flows of personal data on EU…
Payments company Stripe is today taking another step to expand its operations into a wider set of business services, targeting the startups that form its core base of customers. Today, the company is announcing that Atlas, the all-in-one service Stripe started two years ago to help founders incorporate in Delaware, can now be used to set up Delaware-based limited liability companies. As with the C-Corp set-up, Atlas for LLCs costs $500, which includes forming new entity, getting a tax ID, getting a U.S. business bank account and Stripe account, access to expert tax and legal advice, tools for handling taxes, and credits…
Jake Bright Contributor Jake Bright is a writer and author in New York City. He is co-author of The Next Africa. More posts by this contributor Business solutions firm Africa’s Talking closes $8.6M round led by IFC Uber and Taxify are going head-to-head to digitize Africa’s two-wheeled taxis When it comes to monetizing digital social interactions, Kenya’s Safaricom has its own order. American tech companies such as Facebook and Twitter offered social networks first, then moved to commercialize them. Through its M-Pesa mobile money product, Safaricom built one of Africa’s most robust commercial webs and now aims to leverage it as a…
Don’t let procrastination drain your time and productivity — or your wallet. You have exactly three days left to save up to $1,800 on Super Early Bird pricing for Disrupt San Francisco 2018 — the premiere tech conference related to all things startup. Disrupt SF takes place September 5-7 at Moscone Center West, and it’s one of the most productive ways early-stage startup founders, investors and technologists can spend their time. How much you spend to get there is up to you. Get your tickets today. This year we’re building out Disrupt SF 2018 to be our biggest Disrupt ever.…
Here’s an odd juxtaposition for you. According to a new report on voice assistants released today by PwC, younger users are adopting voice technology at a faster rate than their older counterparts, but are somehow using their voice assistants less often. The report found that users 18 through 24 had fewer “heavy” users of voice technology, compared with those 25 to 49, and 50 or older. The study also found that 8 percent of the youngest demographic said they only used a voice assistant a few times per year, compared with 6 percent of those 25 to 49, and only…
Since it was revealed that Cambridge Analytica improperly accessed the personal data of millions of Facebook users, one question has lingered in the minds of the public: What other data did Dr. Aleksandr Kogan gain access to? Twitter confirmed to The Telegraph on Saturday that GSR, Kogan’s own commercial enterprise, had purchased one-time API access to a random sample of public tweets from a five-month period between December 2014 and April 2015. Twitter told Bloomberg that, following an internal review, the company did not find any access to private data about people who use Twitter. Twitter sells API access to…
European Union lawmakers want online platforms to come up with their own systems to identify bot accounts. This is as part of a voluntary Code of Practice the European Commission now wants platforms to develop and apply — by this summer — as part of a wider package of proposals it’s put out which are generally aimed at tackling the problematic spread and impact of disinformation online. The proposals follow an EC-commissioned report last month, by its High-Level Expert Group, which recommended more transparency from online platforms to help combat the spread of false information online — and also called…
Fitbit this morning announced plans to utilize Google’s new Cloud Healthcare API, in order to continue its push into the world of serious healthcare devices. It’s a bit of a no-brainer as far as partnerships go. Google announced Cloud for Healthcare, taking a major step into the world of health, which comprised around $3.3 trillion in U.S. spending in 2016 alone. Unchecked, that number is expected to balloon even further over the next several years. For its part, the company is leveraging existing cloud offerings to create an information sharing infrastructure for the massive world of healthcare. In its earliest…