According to The Wall Street Journal, Verizon has agreed to sell its blogging website Tumblr to the owner of popular online-publishing tool WordPress. Tumblr was acquired by Yahoo for $1.1 billion in 2013, and was later included in Verizon’s $4.5 billion purchase of Yahoo’s web assets in 2017. Bloomberg reports: Automattic Inc. will buy Tumblr for an undisclosed sum and take…
Tag: San Francisco
Judges Begin Ruling Against Some Porn Purveyors’ Use of Copyright Lawsuits
Slashdot reader pgmrdlm quotes Bloomberg: Pornography producers and sellers account for the lion’s share of copyright-infringement lawsuits in the U.S. — and judges may have seen enough. The courts are cracking down on porn vendors that file thousands of lawsuits against people for downloading and trading racy films on home computers, using tactics a judge called a “high tech shakedown.” [Alternate…
AMD Poses ‘Major Challenge’ to Intel’s Server Leadership
Rob Enderle reports on the excitement at AMD’s Epyc processor launch in San Francisco: I’ve been at a lot of AMD events, and up until this one, the general message was that AMD was almost as good as Intel but not as expensive. This year it is very different; Intel has stumbled badly, and AMD is moving to take the leadership…
Lyft Pulls Its Electric Bikes From the Bay Area After Four Catch on Fire
“Lyft’s Wednesday move to pull all its black and pink electric bikes from the East Bay, San Francisco and San Jose came after flammable battery packs or vandalism caused at least four bikes to catch fire,” reports the Bay Area Newsgroup: San Jose city officials are encouraged by the fact no one was injured when a bike caught fire there on…
Facebook Gets Closer To Letting You Type With Your Mind
An anonymous reader shares a report: More than two years ago, Facebook revealed it was working on a project for typing words onto a computer right from your brain, without requiring invasive surgery to make it work. The company has been working with several universities on the effort, including the University of California, San Francisco. Facebook helped pay for UCSF researchers…
Microsoft Invests $1 Billion in OpenAI To Develop AI Technologies on Azure
Microsoft today announced that it would invest $1 billion in OpenAI, the San Francisco-based AI research firm cofounded by CTO Greg Brockman, chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, Elon Musk, and others, with backing from luminaries like LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman and former Y Combinator president Sam Altman. From a report: In a blog post, Brockman said the investment will support the development…
6.6 Million Lose CBS Channels After ‘Business Dispute’ With AT&T
“Media giants are embroiled in yet another fight over TV rates, and viewers are once again paying the price,” writes Engadget. CBS’ channels in 17 markets (including New York, San Francisco and Atlanta) have gone dark on AT&T services like DirecTV Now and U-verse after the two companies failed to reach an agreement on a new carriage contract before the old…
New Map Shows Where America’s Police, Businesses Are Using Facial Recognition and Other Surveillance Tech
“Fight For the Future, a tech-focused nonprofit, on Thursday released its Ban Facial Recognition map, logging the states and cities using surveillance technology,” reports CNET — noting that “surveillance technology” in this case includes Amazon’s Ring doorbell security cameras. A CNET investigation earlier this year highlighted the close ties between Ring and police departments across the US, many of which offer…
Google Glass May Have an Afterlife As a Device To Teach Autistic Children
While Google stopped selling its augmented-reality glasses to customers due to privacy concerns, Google Glass lived on as something to be used by researchers and businesses. The New York Times reports of a new effort from Stanford researchers to use Google Glass to help autistic children understand emotions and engage in more direct ways with those around them. The glasses could…
Berkeley Becomes First US City To Ban Natural Gas In New Homes
Berkeley has become the first city in the nation to ban the installation of natural gas lines in new homes. The City Council on Tuesday night unanimously voted to ban gas from new low-rise residential buildings starting Jan. 1. The San Francisco Chronicle reports: The natural gas ordinance, introduced by Councilwoman Kate Harrison, requires all new single-family homes, town homes and…