Thursday, April 23, 2020

US FCC votes to open additional spectrum for Wi-Fi use

The FCC voted to make 1,200 megahertz of spectrum in the 6 GHz band available for unlicensed use and help usher in Wi-Fi 6, the next generation expected to be over 2-1/2 times faster than the current standard. https://ift.tt/3eM0SE3

Coronavirus clouds Intel outlook, despite short-term bump from PC buying

Intel forecast second-quarter earnings below Wall Street views as it cited the cost of readying a new PC chip and said it could not make a forecast for the full year because of economic uncertainty caused by the coronavirus pandemic. https://ift.tt/2VMPiQc

Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk among billionaires gaining net worth in pandemic: Report

According to the IPS report, eight of these billionaires including Bezos, Zoom Video Communications Inc founder Eric Yuan and Musk saw a $1-billion jump in their total net worth. https://ift.tt/2KuMwtR

Facebook gets rid of 'pseudoscience' ad-targeting category

Facebook Inc has removed "pseudoscience" as an option for advertisers that want to target audiences, a category available until this week even as the world's largest social media network vowed to curb misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic. https://ift.tt/350egzW

Coinbase announces Coinbase Oracle, a source of signed price data for BTC-USD and ETH-USD markets sourced from the Coinbase Pro exchange (Alexander Behrens/Decrypt)

Alexander Behrens / Decrypt:
Coinbase announces Coinbase Oracle, a source of signed price data for BTC-USD and ETH-USD markets sourced from the Coinbase Pro exchange  —  San Francisco-based Coinbase has released a DeFi pricing oracle fed by the Coinbase Pro exchange and secured by advanced Coinbase infrastructure.  —  Ethereum



Facebook Kills 'Pseudoscience' Ad Category for Targeting

Facebook has removed "pseudoscience" as an option for advertisers that want to target audiences, a category available until this week even as the world's largest social media network vowed to curb... https://ift.tt/2KtdLoq

Netflix Says Its Subscribers Won't Run Out of Content This Year

Netflix announced this week that it has finished filming the majority of movies and series due for release this year, playing down concerns that its flow of hit shows such as "Tiger King" could run... https://ift.tt/3cCQnB0

Dish announces deal with software maker Mavenir for its 5G network

Dish Network Corp, which vowed to build a 5G network by 2023 to take on the big three U.S. telecommunications giants, said on Thursday it is working with software company Mavenir to build its next-generation wireless network. https://ift.tt/2VAVH2m

How to get e-pass to donate blood during lockdown

The government of India has also introduced a new e-pass option for blood donors via their e-raktkosh service for people who want to go out during lockdown to donate blood. https://ift.tt/2VTzAmz

Apple says it found no evidence of hackers exploiting the newly discovered vulnerabilities in the Mail app for iPhone and iPad (Mark Gurman/Bloomberg)

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Apple says it found no evidence of hackers exploiting the newly discovered vulnerabilities in the Mail app for iPhone and iPad  —  - It saw no immediate threat to users after investigating  — Hundreds of millions worldwide use Apple's mobile devices  —  Apple Inc. said it found …



Coronavirus lockdown: 9 internet safety tips for kids

https://ift.tt/3aAMwmw

TikTok finally finds favour with India's social media elite

One of the reasons TikTok has been able to catch on with India’s social media elite is due to a surge in its visibility on other popular platforms. https://ift.tt/2KHoMD3 https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Slack says it will not reopen its offices until at least September 1 of this year, will continue to pay contractors and hourly workers their regular wages (Paayal Zaveri/Business Insider)

Paayal Zaveri / Business Insider:
Slack says it will not reopen its offices until at least September 1 of this year, will continue to pay contractors and hourly workers their regular wages  —  - Slack will not reopen its offices until at least September 1 of this year, and is committed to continue paying its employees …



Gogoro’s new e-bike brand Eeyo will launch in the U.S. first

Gogoro, the Taiwanese company known for its electric scooters, announced a new ebike brand that will go on sale in the United States first. Details about the ebike, called Eeyo, haven’t been released yet, but it is noteworthy because it marks Gogoro’s first product launch in the U.S.

Eeyo be available for purchase in the U.S. in May, before launching in Europe and Taiwan this summer.

Founded in 2015 by former HTC executives Horace Luke and Matt Taylor, Gogoro says its Smartscooters are now the best-selling brand of electric two-wheel vehicles in Taiwan. The company also licenses its technology, including swappable, rechargeable batteries, to manufacturers like Yamaha, Aeon and PGO.

In Europe, Gogoro provided the fleet for Coup, the scooter-sharing service owned by Bosch, before it shut down last year.

Despite being best known for its Smartscooters, and the upcoming launch of Eeyo, Gogoro doesn’t just see itself as an electric vehicle maker. In an interview last year with Extra Crunch, Luke, Gogoro’s CEO, said the startup’s future lies in providing a platform for energy-efficient vehicles.

Last year it launched GoShare, a vehicle-sharing platform that will be available to other mobility companies as a turnkey solution for “any form factor” of vehicle.

Tech companies cut hiring, with analysts seeing ~20% drops in job openings between mid-March and mid-April, steep drops in supply chain logistics and delivery (J.R. Reed/CNBC)

J.R. Reed / CNBC:
Tech companies cut hiring, with analysts seeing ~20% drops in job openings between mid-March and mid-April, steep drops in supply chain logistics and delivery  —  - Despite the massive shift to remote work and the surge in demand for certain online services, the tech industry has seen a widespread drawdown in job listings.



Some startups and researchers who can't access the most advanced chips are adopting a "frugal AI" approach, building smaller models on open-weight systems (Rina Chandran/Rest of World)

Rina Chandran / Rest of World : Some startups and researchers who can't access the most advanced chips are adopting a “frugal AI” app...