If you’ve spent a significant amount of time on the internet, you’ve probably heard of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), the badly-thought-out piece of legislation that governs using stuff on the internet. That it’s broken is not news — people have been railing against the DMCA since before it became law — but a handful of recent examples illustrate the point rather well.
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Without question, Google Maps is one of the most widely used and highly regarded navigation apps in the industry, but an upcoming change might be enough to convince some users to give other apps a try.
In a blog post on Tuesday, Google revealed that it will begin experimenting with local search ads on Google Maps. Ads for nearby businesses will appear on both the desktop and mobile version of Google Maps, giving advertisers the ability to show off their stores when users search for goods or services they carry.
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About two times a year, Netflix holds an internal hackathon where employees are encouraged to come up with creative ideas and explore new technologies, both in software and hardware, that tend to fall outside of their day-to-day job description. In other words, the Netflix hackathon is a great excuse for engineers to have a bit of fun. Just this past November, for example, you might recall that Netflix engineers managed to get a video stream running on a 1950s era TV.
By the time Netflix’s most recent hackathon ended, the streaming giant noted that it saw 200 engineers put together more than 80 unique hacks. “The hacks themselves ranged from product ideas to internal tools to improvements in our recruiting process,” Netflix said.
Of those 80+ projects, Netflix published a blogpost highlighting some of the cooler concoctions its engineers managed to come up with this year. Here’s a look at a few of them.
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Remember when we said that Siri was becoming boring and stale in the face of impressive AI advancements from the likes of Google, Viv and Amazon? Well, perhaps we spoke too soon. According to a new report from The Information, Apple is finally ready to let Siri grow up.
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These days, an iPhone 6 in half-decent condition sells for about $400. So why exactly are people willing to pay upwards of $50,000 for an older, weirder iPhone 6?
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Candance Payne’s “Chewbacca mom” video is easily our favorite viral sensation of the year so far. First, it’s hilarious. Second, Payne seems like she’s perhaps one of the most likable people on the planet. And third, her laugh is without question the most amazing and infectious laugh that has ever swept the web. Her video on Facebook now had nearly 142 million views at the time of this writing and if you somehow haven’t seen it yet, here’s a link to watch it and welcome back to Earth.
Of course if you’re like us, you were left with one important question: Where can I get that awesome Chewbacca mask for myself?
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Every time there’s a large scale data breach, we’re reminded how little thought and creativity people use when coming up with their passwords. In in the wake of LinkedIn’s 2012 data breach, for example, we learned that hundreds of thousands of people were using “password” as their password. A good number of users were also found to be using the password LinkedIn.
In an effort to combat people’s predilection for choosing horribly insecure passwords, Google has come with an interesting new solution called a “Trust Score” designed to replace passwords altogether. Trust Score, in a broad sense, is effectively a continuation of Project Abacus which Google first introduced last year.
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It normally shouldn’t matter what smartphone a person chooses to use, but when the executive chairperson of one of the biggest tech conglomerates in the world says they use a product from the competition, well, it kind of does. In this case, we’re looking at former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, currently the executive chairman of Alphabet, the little company that’s the owner of Google. He apparently uses an iPhone 6s, Apple’s latest and greatest. He admitted his iPhone-using-ways during an interview, but still professed a little love for Samsung.
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Modular phones are in vogue this year: Google’s pushing ahead with plans for its own handset with interchangeable cameras and speakers, while LG has already made a stab at things with its G5. You’d be right in thinking that Apple isn’t going to make its own modular iPhone any time soon. But luckily, case maker Otterbox is on hand with the Universe case, which offers attachments for everything from tripods to lenses to flash storage.
Unfortunately, it’s also unspeakably ugly.
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Tesla’s Autopilot feature is awesome, and it’ll surely be a great way to “drive” your car once self-driving cars are regulated, and once Tesla deploys a more advanced version of its software. However, people driving Tesla cars should remember that Autopilot is in beta right now. That means drivers should still keep their eyes on the road and be ready to take control on a whim. It almost definitely does not mean that you can fall asleep behind the wheel and let Autopilot do its thing — we’re definitely not there yet.
But that’s exactly one driver did, and someone recorded it on video.
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