The founder of online bank Current claims Facebook copied his company’s logo for the social network’s bid to reinvent the global financial system. From a report: Stuart Sopp, a Wall Street trader turned start-up CEO, told CNBC that he used a San Francisco-based design firm named Character to create his start-up’s logo in 2016. That firm also worked on the secretive…
Tag: San Francisco
‘How Close Are We to Self-Driving Cars, Really?’
Chris Urmson helped pioneer self-driving car technology at Google before founding Aurora (which sells self-driving car software to automakers, and this week announced a new partnership with Chrysler and a new round of investment by Hyundai). In a new interview, Urmson “says he expects that in about five to 10 years, Americans will start seeing robots cruising down the road in…
How to Get XKCD Author Randall Munroe To Visit Your City
Since 2005 Randall Munroe has been the author/illustrator of the popular nerdy comic strip XKCD — and he’s now planning to publish “the world’s least useful self-help book.” How To: Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems offers readers a third choice beyond simply doing things either the right way or the wrong way: “a way so monumentally bad that no…
Supreme Court To Consider Racial Discrimination Case Against Comcast
The Supreme Court will consider whether a black television producer can pursue racial discrimination claims against Comcast for declining to carry his programming channels on its cable system (Warning: source paywalled; alternative source). The Wall Street Journal reports: The Comcast case stems from the cable operator’s decision not to carry Pets.TV, Recipes.TV and other channels from Entertainment Studios Networks Inc. The…
Why Doesn’t the U.S. Build More Earthquake-Proof Buildings?
schwit1 shares a report from the New York Times flagging America’s surprising low usage of an engineering technique protecting buildings from earthquakes:
Chile, China, Italy, Mexico, Peru, Turkey and other countries vulnerable to earthquakes have adopted the technologies to varying degrees. But with notable exceptions, including Apple’s new headquarters in Silicon Valley, the innovations have been used only sparingly in the United…
Swedish Startup To Bring Pogo Sticks To San Francisco as E-Scooter Alternative
San Franciscans may soon be able to bounce their way around town, if a Swedish-based mobility company has its way. From a report: Last month, start-up company Cangoroo announced plans to deploy hundreds of pogo sticks in select cities to directly compete with electric scooters as a transportation option. Cangoroo officials said they plan to first launch their pogo sticks in…
California Approves Wide Power Outages To Prevent Wildfires
An anonymous reader quotes a report from NBC News: California regulators on Thursday approved allowing utilities to cut off electricity to possibly hundreds of thousands of customers to avoid catastrophic wildfires like the one sparked by power lines last year that killed 85 people and largely destroyed the city of Paradise. Utilities’ liability can reach billions of dollars, and after several…
The World Economic Forum Wants To Develop Global Rules for AI
This week, AI experts, politicians, and CEOs will gather to ask an important question: Can the United States, China, or anyone else agree on how artificial intelligence should be used and controlled? From a report: The World Economic Forum, the international organization that brings together the world’s rich and powerful to discuss global issues at Davos each year, will host the…
Elon Musk on Twitter: ‘Trains Should Be On Surface, Cars Below’
An anonymous reader writes:
The SFGate site reports that Elon Musk engaged in a “bizarre Twitter fight” after someone suggested underground tunnels were better for trains than cars. “Opposite is true,” Musk argued. “You can have 100’s of layers of tunnels, but only one layer on surface (to first approximation), therefore trains should be on surface, cars below.” Underground, he noted later,…
An RV Camp Sprang Up Outside Google’s HQ. Now Mountain View Wants To Ban It
schwit1 shares an excerpt from a report via Bloomberg: In a quiet neighborhood near Google’s headquarters last month, rusty, oleaginous sewage was seeping from a parked RV onto the otherwise pristine street. Sergeant Wahed Magee, of the Mountain View Police Department, was furious. Mountain View is a wealthy town that’s home to Alphabet, the world’s fourth-most valuable public corporation and Google’s…