Amazon has set up 14 Amazon Go stores in Chicago, New York, San Francisco, and Seattle. They do not have any cash registers so once customers have scanned a screen from a special app on their phone at the entrance, they just grab their items and walk out the door, while Amazon magically charges their credit card. By all accounts, the…
Tag: San Francisco
Oakland Becomes Third US City To Ban Facial Recognition
Oakland, California has followed San Francisco and Somerville, Massachusetts in banning the use of facial recognition in public spaces. Motherboard reports: A city ordinance passed Tuesday night which prohibits the city of Oakland from “acquiring, obtaining, retaining, requesting, or accessing” facial recognition technology, which it defines as “an automated or semi-automated process that assists in identifying or verifying an individual based…
Elon Musk’s Neuralink Will Detail Progress in Computer-Brain Interface
Neuralink, Elon Musk’s fourth and least visible company, will become a bit less secretive Tuesday with a livestreamed presentation about its technology to connect computers directly to human brains. From a report: Neuralink accepted applications from some folks to attend the San Francisco event to hear “a bit about what we’ve been working on the last two years,” but the rest…
FCC Kills Part of San Francisco’s Broadband-Competition Law
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The Federal Communications Commission today voted to preempt part of a San Francisco ordinance that promotes broadband competition in apartment buildings and other multi-tenant structures. But it’s not clear exactly what effect the preemption will have, because San Francisco says the FCC’s Republican majority has misinterpreted what the law does. FCC Chairman…
Unlivable Wages in Expensive Cities Are Plaguing the Video Game Industry
An anonymous reader shares a report: Crunch has been one of the biggest topics in video game industry news over the last year with reports of massive studio layoffs at established studios following closely behind. Another topic relating to these issues that hasn’t received as much attention, however, are the low and unfair wages developers are being paid in exchange for…
California shakes from 2nd big quake in 2 days
An earthquake scientist said of the recent 2 big California earthquakes, “… the M6.4 was a foreshock. This was a M7.1 on the same fault … part of the same sequence.” She added it will not trigger another large earthquake outside the Ridgecrest, California, area. Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/southern-california-earthquakes-july-2019…
Would You Pay $30 a Month To Check Your Email?
The year is 2019, and the brainy engineers of Silicon Valley are hunkered down, working on transformative, next-generation technologies like self-driving cars, digital currencies and quantum computing. Meanwhile, the buzziest start-up in San Francisco is … an expensive email app? From a report: A few months ago, I started hearing about something called Superhuman. It’s an invitation-only service that costs $30…
A Second US City Has Banned Facial Recognition
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Somerville, Massachusetts just became the second U.S. city to ban the use of facial recognition in public space. The “Face Surveillance Full Ban Ordinance,” which passed through Somerville’s City Council on Thursday night, forbids any “department, agency, bureau, and/or subordinate division of the City of Somerville” from using facial recognition software in public…
San Francisco Becomes First US City To Ban Sale of E-Cigarettes
San Francisco voted to ban e-cigarettes in the first legislation of its kind in the United States. The Guardian reports: Supervisors approved a measure banning the sale and distribution of e-cigarettes in an effort to curb the rise of youth vaping. The measure will now go for final approval to San Francisco Mayor London Breed, who said she will sign the…
New York City’s Public Libraries to End Film Streaming Through Kanopy
Public library cardholders in New York City will no longer have access to tens of thousands of movies through Kanopy as of July 1, when the New York, Brooklyn and Queens public libraries end their partnerships with the streaming service because of the cost, the libraries said Monday. From a report: The San Francisco-based platform, which notified library cardholders by email…