Category: Tech news

 The debate about the effects social networks like Facebook and Twitter have on us as human beings goes one. Indeed, just this week Facebook co-founder Sean Parker said “The thought process that went into building these applications, Facebook being the first of them, … was all about: ‘How do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible?… God only… Read More

A special episode this week recounting the day in 2007 when hashtags arrived on Twitter.

Sorry Yelp and Foursquare: Local peels the stickiest, best part of Facebook away from all the stuff you’d rather not have.

Lucasfilm is putting a lot of faith in the guy behind the next installment of the Skywalker saga. That means it must be good.

We’re about to get snowed under with deals, so grab these discounts from Bose, Dell, Roku, and Amazon today!

Hector Guerrero has traveled more than 1,000 miles documenting Mexico’s tallest volcanoes and the people and landscape surrounding them.

The internet is awash in theories about Facebook using your smartphone’s microphone to eavesdrop on your conversations. It’s not. Here’s why.

 Twitter has followed up its move to double the character limit of tweets to 280 by increasing the length of a username to 50 characters. This is far less impacting that the 280 character expansion, and certainly less controversial, but it may be useful for people with longer names or those who like to add emojis or change their name to witty statements regularly. The name function… Read More

Today’s Stories

Uber CEO says 2019 is the target for IPO
Apple has acquired imaging sensor startup InVisage Technologies
Twitter pauses account verifications after critics slam it for verifying Charlottesville rally organizer

Credits
Written by: MRD
Hosted by: MRD
Filmed by: Joe Zolnoski
Edited by: Joe Zolnoski Read More

 The Gillmor Gang — Doc Searls, Keith Teare, Kevin Marks, Denis Pombriant, and Steve Gillmor. Recorded live Friday, November 3, 2017.
G3: Social Security — Mary Hodder, Maria Ogneva, Tina Hui, and Tina Chase Gillmor. Recorded live Friday, November 3, 2017.
@stevegillmor, @dsearls, @kteare, @DenisPombriant, @kevinmarks
Produced and directed by Tina Chase Gillmor @tinagillmor Read More

 Here at TechCrunch we serve a global audience which is why we’ve held casual meetup events across many different parts of the world. Now we’re excited to add a new region to that list: Southeast Asia. As someone who has watched the region’s startup ecosystem grow in recent years, I’m delighted to announce that we’re teaming up with Google and VC firm SeedPlus to… Read More

 Musical.ly, the lip-syncing app popular with teens and young people, has been sold to Chinese social media giant Toutiao, according to an announcement made today. The deal is undisclosed but sources tell TechCrunch that Bytedance, the company behind China’s top news aggregator service Toutiao, will pay between $800 million and $1 billion to buy Musical.ly, which claims 60 million users… Read More

 A New York Times piece and a subsequent Medium post this week highlighted an ongoing problem with YouTube Kids — bizarre and disturbing videos aimed at young children using key words and popular children’s characters. Now YouTube says it is putting in place a new process to age-restrict these types of videos in the main YouTube app. Read More

 Disney CEO Bob Iger revealed some amazing news on his company’s earnings call for this quarter, including a live-action Star Wars TV show that will be coming to Disney’s subscription streaming service with a target premiere date by the end of 2019. It’s going to live alongside a Monsters, Inc. adaptation, a High School Musical show and one original series from… Read More

 Justin.tv, the life-streaming service that eventually grew into Twitch, was shut down back in 2014. Since then, many Twitch users have asked when the company would release the old Justin.tv usernames – requests that escalated after Twitch introduced the ability to change usernames earlier this year. As it turns out, Twitch is now doing just that. In an email sent confidentially to… Read More