Technology news

You know what tech startups hate? Complicated legal compliance. The problem is, Facebookisn’t a startup any more, but its competitors are.
There have been plenty of calls from congress and critics to regulate Facebook following the election interference scandal and now the Cambridge Analytica debacle. The government could require extensive ads transparency reporting or data privacy protections. That could cost Facebook a lot of money, slow down its operations, or inhibit its ability to bui

Netflix has been banned from competing in the Cannes Film Festival, according to a report from The Hollywood Reporter. Theirry Fremaux, the head of Cannes, told THR last week the ban is because Netflix refuses to release its films in theaters, choosing instead to debut them on its streaming service and, in some rare cases, do day-and-date releases so the film can be seen both online and off. In the case of Bong Joon-ho’s Okja and Noah Baumbach’s The Meyerowitz Stories — films

Dystopian fiction has become popular in recent years, with the successes of books like Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games, and television adaptations such as Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale. High-end publisher The Folio Society’s latest science fiction offering is one of the classics of the genre: a new edition of 1924’s We, by Russian author Yevgeny Zamyatin. It features original art by Kit Russell, and an introduction by the late Ursula K. Le Guin.The book is widely co

The American Midwest has a long history of making stuff. During the 20th century, it was the manufacturing center for the nation, and indeed much of the world. It’s still where a surpassing majority of agricultural commodities are grown and processed. But is it also a major producer of technology startups? Maybe not as much as the coasts, but the Midwest’s bustling metropoli and vast expanses of rural land prove to be fertile ground for quite a bit of startup activity.
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HBO’s upcoming adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s classic dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 finally has a release date: May 19th, 2018, according to Variety. The network announced the project last year, which stars Black Panther’s Michael B. Jordan and The Shape of Water’s Michael Shannon. Ramin Bahrani (99 Houses) directed and co-wrote the film.Bradbury published the novel in 1953, expanding several shorter works about censorship and authoritarianism. In this future, books are b

The recently revealed Facebook data “breach” that allowed Cambridge Analytica to get access to millions of users’ worth of Facebook data has been greeted as a shocking scandal. Reporters and readers have been surprised to learn about the ability to gather personal data on the friends of people who install a Facebook app, the conversion of a personality quiz into a source of political data, the idea that you can target marketing messages based on individual psychographic profil

Science fiction as a genre has long been obsessed with the possibility of reaching Mars, for both expeditions, such as Andy Weir’s novel The Martian, and colonizations, like in Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy. A new novel, One Way, by S.J. Morden, falls in the middle: we’ve reached Mars, but now, we need to figure out how to build a civilization.In Morden’s future, that monumental task is placed upon humanity, and governments have contracted companies to begin buildi

Donald Glover and his creative collaborator and younger brother Stephen Glover, with whom he works with on FX’s Atlanta, are departing the animated Deadpool TV series alongside FX Networks, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The duo are exiting the project due to “creative differences.” Announced last year, the animated Deadpool show was billed as an adult-themed action-comedy that would air on FX’s FXX sister channel, which is also now the home of the network’s

Volkswagen announced late last year that it would return to the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb for the first time in 31 years. Now we know that the German automaker plans to tackle the competition with a wild, all-electric race car called the ID R Pikes Peak.In case you’re unfamiliar, PPIHC is one of the more revered (and daunting) motorsports competitions in the world. Drivers start at the bottom of a 156-turn, 12.4-mile course, and race (one at a time) to the finish line at the sum

Facebook on Sunday took out full-page ads in seven British newspapers and three American ones to apologize for the ongoing Cambridge Analytica data privacy scandal engulfing the social network in a legal and regulatory nightmare.The ads, which take the form of an apology penned by CEO Mark Zuckerberg, attempt to clarify the situation by reiterating that the company has already stopped third-party apps from “getting so much information,” and that Facebook has started “limiting

After weeks of speculation, Uberhas concluded a deal that will see it sell its business in Southeast Asia to local rival Grab . The company plans to announce the agreement this coming week and potentially as soon as Monday, two sources have confirmed to TechCrunch.
Full details of the arrangement aren’t fully clear at this point, but TechCrunch understands that Singapore-based Grab will take over Uber’s ride-sharing in the eight markets in Southeast Asia where it is op

Tidal has added a new feature that will let you automatically add albums to your library as soon as they are released. The new “pre-save” feature will allow Tidal users to add albums to their collections as soon as they are uploaded to Tidal’s service ahead of the release date. Photo: Tidal
Spotify has a similar feature, but it’s seemingly only used in marketing campaigns by artists and labels, and you need a direct link to the album to use it. Tidal is launching the new

Facebookchief Mark Zuckerberg has taken out a full page ad in the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and six UK papers today to apologize Cambridge Analytica scandal, according to CNN’s Brian Stelter.
The ad starts in bold letters, saying:
“We have a responsibility to protect your information. If we can’t, we don’t deserve it.”
Facebook took out full page ads in the NYT, WSJ, WashPost, and 6 UK papers today https://t.co/kMA822kTpU pic.twitt

One night in February of 2017, Wylie Overstreet wheeled his telescope out in the street of a residential neighborhood in Los Angeles to observe the Moon. Within a couple of hours, more than 20 people had walked up to him to take a look. A young couple was so amazed by what they saw through the telescope — it was “one of the most incredible experiences we’ve had in memory,” they said — that they told Overstreet he’d just made their night.“I was like, wel

Earlier this year, the business community received a wake-up call issued with all of the might that $6 trillion can muster.
The call came from Laurence Fink, the founder and chief executive of the global investment firm, BlackRock,and was delivered as a letter to the CEOs of the world’s largest companies.
Aptly titled, “A Sense of Purpose,” the letter informed business leaders that driving record profits is no longer enough to garner BlackRock’s support. Companies must al

Dear blockchain people: this is your hour. Abandon your transparently greedy get-rich-quick schemes, turn away from your casinos of de-facto modern-day penny stocks, and focus your decentralized attention on what the world needs. Save us, O blockchainers, from the scourge that is Facebook! Decentralize all the things!
I’m kidding, of course. For now.
Every year, it seems, a new “new Facebook” arises, swells, deflates, and vanishes, generally in a matter of weeks. Remember Diasp

Mild spoilers ahead for The Feed.
Following last week’s Cambridge Analytica revelations, Facebook is now imploding before our eyes, leading to increased fears of data-sharing and data mining by third-party apps, numerous lawsuits, and calls for investigation from Congress. Most importantly, users are considering whether they can or should cut off social media giants for good. With that in mind, Nick Clark Windo’s debut novel, The Feed, which came out on March 9th, feels particularly

Facebook has been collecting call records and SMS data from Android devices for years. Several Twitter users have reported finding months or years of call history data in their downloadable Facebook data file. A number of Facebook users have been spooked by the recent Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal, prompting them to download all the data that Facebook stores on their account. The results have been alarming for some.
“Oh wow my deleted Facebook Zip file contains info on every single

Hey startups! TechCrunch is returning to Tel Aviv on 7 June, 2018 for its inaugural day-long conference at the Tel Aviv Convention Center. This year’s event will be bigger and better than ever — featuring not only TechCrunch’s signature stellar programming focused on mobility, but also a new expo area called Startup Alley, where hundreds of rock-star startups will demo their products to attendees.TechCrunch events are the ideal place to show off your company to prospective cust