Much of the speculation around deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein’s fate misses how disruptive a post-midterms shake-up could be.
Can Google make the web faster without taking over the web?
Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages project has been controversial since it first rolled out in 2015. AMP is an open-source standard for a specialized type of webpage that offers a huge speed boost to sites that use it, and those pages load instantly from search engines like Google and (now) Bing. But AMP has many critics who have spent years contending that Google is using AMP to take over the web. In particular, Google shows AMP results in a news carousel at the top of its mobile search results, creating a huge incentive for news organizations — including The Verge and Vox Media — to use AMP.
For the past three years, AMP has been led by Google’s Malte Ubl, who was the project’s final decision-maker. That’s changing now, though: Google…
Uber is overhauling the way it responds to emergencies and natural disasters
Uber is overhauling its disaster response procedures so it doesn’t get caught flat-footed during major events like a hurricane or terrorist attack. In the past, Uber’s response to disasters was largely piecemeal, relying on local teams to make all the decisions about capping surge pricing or suspending service. Now, the ride-hail company’s new Global Security Center, based outside of Washington, DC, will hand down all decisions to those regional teams, with the hopes of creating a more efficient, consistent process during disasters.
This is a direct outgrowth of Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi’s overarching mission to rehabilitate the company’s reputation on safety. In recent months, he’s tackled issues such as rider and driver safety, s…
Facebook content moderators are suffering from PTSD, lawsuit claims – CNET
The suit seeks class action status for those whose job is to view violent and disturbing potential Facebook posts.
Flummoxed by Force and Motion? Try This Physics Experiment
Physics class can get painfully abstract. But you can collect your own data to see Newton’s second law in action.
Learn From These Bugs. Don’t Let Social Media Zombify You
The idea of “zombie scrolling syndrome” has legs, after all. From worms to wasps, nature has figured out mind control—in ways that bring to mind social media.
Twitter Releases New Policy on ‘Dehumanizing Speech’
The social network is also soliciting public feedback for the first time in updating its rules.
Microsoft’s Xbox Adaptive Controller Gives Disabled Gamers a Power-Up
Other game companies also are scrambling to introduce their own accessible hardware. But a customer base of more than 30 million gamers may give developers the push they need.
iOS keyboard cursor now works on all devices running iOS 12
One of the iPhone’s most useful 3D Touch features is the ability to turn your keyboard into a trackpad while typing, and with iOS 12, this functionality is coming to handsets without Apple’s pressure-sensitive technology. Mashable notes that you can enable the functionality by long-pressing the keyboard’s space bar at any time, at which point you can use it to easily move your cursor without having to obscure the text with your finger.
Apple introduced 3D Touch with the iPhone 6S, but it has opted to omit it on the cheapest of its 2018 models, the iPhone XR. Shipping a brand-new phone without the technology means that people will need to find alternative ways to access its functionality, and iOS 12 is giving us exactly that.
Does this…
Apple completes Shazam acquisition, will make app ad-free for everyone
Apple has successfully completed its acquisition of Shazam, the popular song identification app. The company confirmed it was buying Shazam and its development team for a reported $400 million last December. The acquisition was temporarily held up because of an investigation by the European Union, which scrutinized the deal over potential antitrust concerns. But regulators gave it the thumbs up earlier this month.
In what’s sure to be welcome news for Shazam users, Apple has announced that it will be removing all ads from the app “soon.” And yes, that includes the Android version, which isn’t going anywhere.
Shazam has been downloaded over 1 billion times around the world and is used over 20 million times every day, according to…