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The trouble with Sandberg saying Facebook allows fake news ads
If the Russian-bought election interference ads hadn’t been bought by fraudulent accounts, “Most of them would be allowed to run” Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg said this morning. “The responsibility of an open platform is to allow people to express themselves” she said during the first of an Axios interview series with Facebook execs. “The thing…
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Uber and Deliveroo get a gig economy rights grilling
Uber and Deliveroo execs faced questions from a UK parliamentary committee today as the government continues to deliberate on changes to employment law to account for the rise of gig economy work facilitated by tech platforms. Ride-hailing giant Uber was also grilled over what one committee member dubbed its “aggressive” response to TfL’s recent decision…
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Thinking about the social cost of technology
Every time I call my mum for a chat there’s usually a point on the phone call where she’ll hesitate and then, apologizing in advance, bring up her latest technological conundrum. An email she’s received from her email provider warning that she needs to upgrade the operating system of her device or lose access to…
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Uber only has itself to blame for London license loss
The tech industry’s over-processed supply of irony might not be enough to service all the ramifications of Uber being stripped of its London license by the city’s transport regulator. Uber advocates were immediately scrambling to bust out the reactionary clichés — painting the regulator as “anti-innovation” and claiming London is now ‘closed for digital business’.…
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Documents detail DeepMind’s plan to apply AI to NHS data in 2015
More details have emerged about a controversial 2015 patient data-sharing arrangement between Google DeepMind and a UK National Health Service Trust which paint a contrasting picture vs the pair’s public narrative about their intended use of 1.6 million citizens’ medical records. DeepMind and the Royal Free NHS Trust signed their initial information sharing agreement (ISA) in September…
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Storyline lets you build and publish Alexa skills without coding
Thirty-nine million Americans now own a smart speaker device, but the voice app ecosystem is still developing. While Alexa today has over 25,000 skills available, a number of companies haven’t yet built a skill for the platform, or offer only a very basic skill that doesn’t work that well. That’s where the startup Storyline comes…
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Die With Me is a chat app for sharing your phone’s last gasp
Are humans too addicted to their smartphones? I’ll leave the question hanging and point you to an art project in chat app form: Die With Me is a (paid) app that can only be used for chatting when your phone (and your interlocutors’ phones) are at 5% or less battery left. The app is an…
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Digital minister’s app lands on data watchdog’s radar after privacy cock-up
UK digital minister Matt Hancock, who’s currently busy with legislative updates to the national data protection framework, including to bring it in line with the EU’s strict new privacy regime, nonetheless found time to launch an own-brand social networking app this week. The eponymously titled: Matt Hancock MP App. To cut a long story short,…
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A traveling frog exposes concerns within Apple’s Chinese App Store
An app about a frog that likes to travel has exposed worrying signs that Apple isn’t doing enough to prevent fake apps from entering its App Store in China, the world’s largest smartphone market and Apple’s single largest country for app revenue. The story centers around ‘Tabi Kaeru’ — or ‘Travel Frog’ — a Japanese…
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Apple’s $1T dreams are on hold as it misses on iPhone sales in the holiday quarter
Apple’s dream of becoming a $1 trillion company will have to wait — at least for a little while. But while iPhone sales this year were about flat (down about 1% to be exact), revenue from the iPhone rose 13% year-over-year. That means Apple is finding ways to get more revenue out of the same…
