Davemichels

Chairman Pai has put the brakes on new internet privacy rules, broadband subsidies for the poor and investigations into potential network neutrality violations.

Ajit Pai, the head of the Federal Communications Commission appointed by President Trump, hasn’t wasted any time since his promotion to chairman in January.

The new chairman has moved to rescind Obama-era policies since taking office, including some that were only possible as a result of the network neutrality regulations championed by Pai’s predecessor, Tom Wheeler, who left the agency when Trump took office.

Net neutrality, the concept that internet providers should treat all data that travels over their networks equally, became law in 2015 after the FCC decided to regulate the internet like a basic utility. This allowed the commission to require internet service providers to adhere to public interest obligations, like ensuring ISPs respect customer privacy and provide subsidized service for Americans who fall below the poverty line.

Removing net neutrality protections could eventually mean a company like Netflix would end up charging more for its service, since it will have to pay internet providers to reach users at top speeds. It could also cement the dominance of incumbent companies, like Facebook and Google, since new, smaller online businesses may not be able to afford to pay for faster access to users — especially if websites that are already extremely profitable get to set the price.

In the past few weeks alone, Pai has acted to halt numerous policies and actions related to the Obama-era network neutrality rules, which he may eventually roll back entirely.

Here’s what’s happened with net neutrality at the FCC so far:

• Earlier this week, Pai delayed the enactment of new data privacy rules that the commission passed last fall. Those rules required internet providers to obtain consent from subscribers before sharing or selling their browsing data to third-party ad companies. Internet providers have argued that not being able to sell or share data on their subscribers gave companies like Facebook and Google an unfair advantage in online advertising.
• Pai dropped FCC investigations into mobile companies for privileging some websites and services over others by not counting their usage against a customer’s data plan, a potential violation of the network neutrality rules. It’s a practice commonly known as zero-rating. AT&T, Verizon and T-mobile all received letters from the FCC last month that they were off the hook.
• The FCC moved to halt nine different internet providers from participating in the Lifeline program, which provides a $9.25/month subsidy toward internet service to Americans who fall 135 percent below the poverty line. Designation of internet providers as Lifeline participants relied on the FCC’s authority to regulate internet providers under the network neutrality rules, according to the FCC’s order. Now the FCC is soliciting public comment as to whether or not it should continue to halt the expansion of the broadband subsidy.

In December, Pai said he wanted to “take a weed whacker” to the regulations and threatened that network neutrality’s “days are numbered.”

A record-breaking four million people commented in the FCC proceedings in favor of the network neutrality rules. Popular websites also supported the FCC’s move to instate network neutrality rules, including Netflix, Google and Twitter.

At the moment there are only three commissioners leading the agency, which usually has five seats filled. Two of the commissioners, including Chairman Pai, are Republicans, and one, Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, is a Democrat.

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Uber was already off to a bad start in 2017, but the year is getting worse by the day, if not the hour, for the $69 billion ride-hailing company. 

In January, Uber lost more than 200,000 customers in a single weekend after the #DeleteUber movement led to a fury of account deletions by customers upset about its ties to President Donald Trump. 

But that was just the beginning of Uber's no-good, very-bad month. Since then the company has been pummeled by a seemingly never-ending barrage of bad news, with a new crisis almost every day.

If business schools need a new case study for a company in a PR disaster, Uber's past two weeks are as perfect an example as can be found. And it's still not clear how Uber will get past this test.

Here's everything that's happened to Uber over the last 14 days:

 

SEE ALSO: Travis Kalanick is Uber's biggest asset, and now its biggest liability

Sunday February 19: The beginning

Susan Fowler starts it all with her reflections on "one very, very strange year at Uber." Fowler, a former engineer at the company, alleged in a blog post that she was sexually harassed at Uber and experienced gender bias during her time at the company. She claimed that one manager propositioned her and asked for sex, but her complaints to HR were dismissed because the manager was a high performer. She said Uber continued to ignore her complaints to HR, and then her manager threatened to fire her for reporting things to HR.

Uber CEO Travis Kalanick immediately pledges to look into Fowler's investigations, and hires former US Attorney General Eric Holder to lead the investigation. Kalanick responded within hours of publication to say Fowler's account was "abhorrent & against everything we believe in." Uber hires Eric Holder, former US attorney general, to lead an independent investigation into it.

Wednesday February 22: Cocaine and groping

The New York Times publishes a bombshell report that suggests Fowler's claims were not isolated. Employees did cocaine during a company retreat and a manager had to be fired after groping multiple women, according to the report. Former employees said they'd notified Uber's leadership, including Kalanick and CTO Thuan Pham, of the workplace harassment.

Thursday February 23: Investor betrayal and accusations of stolen technology

Uber investors, Freada and Mitch Kapor, blasted the company for failing to change. In an open letter to Uber's investors and board, the Kapors said Uber has ignored the behind-the-scenes work that some of its investors have tried to do for years to change the company culture. "We are speaking up now because we are disappointed and frustrated; we feel we have hit a dead end in trying to influence the company quietly from the inside," the Kapors wrote.

Google, another Uber investor, sued the company for intellectual property theft. In an explosive lawsuit, the Google self-driving-car group, now known as Waymo, accused Uber of using stolen technology to advance its own autonomous-car development. The suit, filed in the US District Court in San Francisco, claimed that a team of ex-Google engineers stole the company's design for the lidar laser sensor that allows self-driving cars to map the environment around them.

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

Marijuana could be the next mega-industry in the US.

A new report from New Frontier Data, a business intelligence firm focused on cannabis, projects the legal weed market will create more than a quarter of a million jobs by 2020. In comparison, manufacturing jobs are expected to decline by 814,000 by 2024, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

2016 was a watershed year for the budding industry. Eight states voted to legalize pot in some form, bringing the number of states with comprehensive medical marijuana laws to 28. One in five Americans can legally get high without a letter from a doctor.

As more people leave the black market for the safety, convenience, and product diversity that legal dispensaries offer, the industry's job growth could explode.

Legal marijuana businesses employed an estimated 100,000 to 150,000 workers in January, according to the Marijuana Business Daily. That estimate includes growers, scientists, dispensary employees, and tech entrepreneurs developing ancillary services like the "Yelp of weed" or "Uber for pot."

New Frontier based its projections on an analysis from the Marijuana Policy Group, an economic and policy cannabis consulting firm that works with the state of Colorado. The report assumes every state will have a medical and adult-use market in place by 2020 — a rather optimistic outlook. It's also banking on the belief that President Donald Trump will stand by his vow to support states' rights to legislate their own marijuana policy, despite warnings of a crackdown from Press Secretary Sean Spicer and Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Giadha Aguirre De Carcer, founder and CEO of New Frontier Data, described the forecast as "an optimal view of the market that demonstrates what potential job creation could be if legal cannabis is operating freely and openly," in a statement.

There's some evidence to suggest New Frontier's projections are on the right track. In Colorado, which legalized pot outright in 2012 and opened the recreational market in 2014, the industry has created roughly 18,000 jobs, according to the Marijuana Policy Group.

California, home to the world's sixth largest economy, fully legalized marijuana last November. Its state capital region alone could see 20,000 jobs created if it becomes a hub for the industry.

The legal marijuana market is expected to top $24.5 billion in 2025, based solely on the states that passed medical or recreational legalization initiatives before 2017.

SEE ALSO: 8 key findings on marijuana consumer trends from the 'Uber for weed'

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NOW WATCH: Here's how Attorney General Sessions could shut down the legal marijuana industry overnight

Alexa is popular, but daily usage is key.

Amazon plans to unveil one or more new Alexa-powered devices this year that will allow people to initiate phone calls by voice, according to multiple sources.

The device, or devices, will also allow people to talk with others on the opposite end of another Alexa device through a feature that could serve as an intercom system, these people said.

As of last month, the new hardware was in beta testing inside of Amazon. Sources say they expect an announcement in the coming months. An Amazon spokesperson declined to comment.

While the Echo and Echo Dot have been arguably the hottest new consumer products in the U.S. over the last year, Amazon needs to give consumers more reasons to use them on a daily or semi-daily basis.

While some use cases like music streaming and weather updates are popular on the Echo today, thousands of the other Alexa “skills” — or voice apps — have had a lot of trouble gaining traction, according to a recent study.

Some see communication features as potential killer apps for voice devices, and phone calls and intercom-like functionality will be a start.

But the new intercom capability comes with some potential conflict. Amazon led the Series A investment in a startup, called Nucleus, that sells its own tablet computers through Amazon meant to replace in-home video intercom systems. Amazon has talked internally about making an Alexa device with a video camera, sources said, but it’s not clear if it will make it into this release.

A Nucleus spokesperson said in a statement that the startup “cannot speak to Amazon’s plans” but “when we think about the future of connected devices within the home, Nucleus is focused on building the future of simple family communication. There are plenty of other video platforms out there, and will likely be many more, but none that let you see your loved ones in under a second with one simple tap or voice command."

The Wall Street Journal earlier reported that Amazon and Google were considering adding phone call functionality to their voice assistant gadgets, but Recode has learned Amazon is going ahead with that plan. Several details still remain unclear, including whether people will sync their own phone number and contacts with the device, or create a new device-specific phone number.

One former Amazon employee said Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has long been intrigued by Voice over Internet Protocol technologies such as Skype, well before the introduction of the Amazon Echo. The success of the Echo later re-kindled Bezos’ interest in the technology, this person said.

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News spread this week, thanks to a report from Time, that Amazon is working on a new feature that would give Alexa the ability to recognize an individual’s voice. In referring to sources “familiar with Amazon’s Alexa strategy,” the Time article mentions the voice signature feature has been under development since 2015. The challenge now is in strategically integrating it into Alexa devices like Amazon Echo.

The inability for Amazon Echo devices to distinguish between voices has been a noticeable feature for some time. At Opus Research’s Intelligent Assistants Conference last September in San Francisco, Dave Isbitski, Amazon’s chief evangelist for Alexa and Echo, acknowledged the topic of speaker identification but fell short of revealing any new developments about Alexa when it comes to voice identification.

Thanks to a surge in sales, Amazon and third-party developers have been rapidly expanding what the Echo line of devices can do in supporting more than 10,000 “skills.” The real potential for the voice ID feature would be the ability to distinguish among household members that have more than one Amazon account (or other skills providers) associated with a single Alexa.

Opus Research defines the Amazon Echo, as well as Google Assistant and Apple’s Siri and others, as “MetaBots” — embedded digital devices prevalent in our daily lives. A MetaBot operates on an individual’s behalf which puts them in the position of unhooking the direct link between brands and their customers.

It should be noted that rudimentary speaker identification (speaker ID ‘lite’) is already in use on iPhones with Siri, since 2015, as well as several other personal virtual assistants. With Amazon seemingly on the verge of unveiling voice identification features, these MetaBots are sure to become even more intelligent assisting us with secure, personalized services everyday.

 Building on its promise to give the entrenched a run for their money, conversational AI startup Ozlo is making its meticulously crafted knowledge layer available for purchase today. Ozlo’s new suite of APIs that includes tools for both expressing knowledge and understanding language will help to democratize the creation of conversational AI assistants. In the spirit of the expert systems… Read More

The Google Assistant is the one truly unique feature that Allo — one of Google’s many chat apps — has going for it, and today Google is making the feature even more prominent.

In an update to Allo for Android today, Google is placing a button to access the Assistant right in the little box where you type out a message. Previously, you had to type “@google” in order to call up the Assistant. Pressing the button has basically the same effect, but it’ll save time and, perhaps more importantly, highlight the feature for people who may not know it exists.

Google

The new button is meant for bringing the Google Assistant into chats with other people, where it’s able to do a number of...

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The price of one Bitcoin climbed above the price of one ounce of gold for the first time ever on Thursday.

The cryptocurrency climbed to $1,241.30 around 10:20 a.m. ET. Meanwhile, gold was around $1,241.25 at the time. Bitcoin dipped below the yellow metal minutes later, but then bounced back again.

As of 10:41 a.m. ET, Bitcoin is up by 1.8% at $1,248.10, while gold is down 0.6% at $1,242.15.

SEE ALSO: What 25 major world leaders and dictators looked like when they were young

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SEE ALSO: 21 words and phrases Shakespeare made up

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NOW WATCH: What happens when you eat too much protein

The company behind the hit messaging app Line is trying to expand in a big way by developing an Alexa-like virtual assistant, called Clova.

Details are pretty slim right now, but Line says that it intends for the assistant to work inside of apps and hardware, built both by itself and other companies. It’s promising all the basics — the ability to check the weather, listen to news, order products, update your calendar — and some surprisingly advanced features, too, like facial recognition and the ability to answer “complicated questions.”

But none of this is being demoed right now, so we’ll have to wait until Line shows something to see if any of it actually works. That’s supposed to happen “in early summer.”

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Google has announced via a YouTube video that the major expansion of its Google Assistant across “eligible” Android Marshmallow and Nougat devices is kicking off today. The company first revealed plans to widely roll out Assistant during Mobile World Congress earlier this week. Android users in the United States will receive the update first, with Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Germany to follow.

There’s no Google Assistant app to download or anything like that. Instead, Google is adding the functionality to “through an update to Google Play Services. So if you see that update pop up in the Google Play store, you’ll know you’re getting Assistant.

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Mercedes just unveiled its new E-Class Cabriolet that will hit US dealerships later this year.

The new E-Class is larger and packs more innovative features than its predecessor.

Scroll down for a closer look:

SEE ALSO: Mercedes-Benz will test its all-electric truck on German roads this year — here's everything you need to know

The new Mercedes E-Class Cabriolet is roomier than its predecessor. The vehicle is 5 inches longer than the 2017 model at a length of 190 inches.

Check out all that space in the back!

The 2018 model is the first Cabriolet to come with all-wheel drive.

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

Microsoft is adding Google Calendar and Contacts support to the Mac version of Outlook 2016, the company announced yesterday. The change means that Outlook users will be able to synchronize and track their Google Calendars across a range of devices, from Mac, to Android phone, to Windows PC.

After the update, users will be able to add, delete, and edit events in their Google Calendar through Outlook. The change will also let Gmail account holders use some of Outlook’s more advanced options, including the Focused Inbox feature, and better management of travel bookings and package deliveries.

The features are already rolling out to selected Mac users who are part of Microsoft’s Office Insider Fast program, but regular Office 365 customers...

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A survey by the US Energy Information Administration reveals some startling details about television use in American homes.

The amount of homes that don't own a TV has at least doubled since 2009. According to the USEI survey, 2.6% of American homes didn't have a TV in 2015. That's a huge increase from the 1.3% of American homes that didn't have a television in 2009.

In fact, from 1997 to 2009, the percentage remained stable at 1.3%, except for 2001, when the percentage was 1.2%.

The huge surge in homes without TVs proves that companies making TV content can't ignore that viewers are turning to other screens, such as computers and mobile devices, to access their video.

The survey also shows that homes that do own TVs are using fewer of them. There is an average of 2.3 TVs in an American home, down from 2.6 per household in 2009.

It isn't a surprise that the group that uses the least amount of TVs in their homes is people younger than 25 years old. The group that uses the most amount of TVs at home are those older than 75.

Next to peripheral TV equipment — such as cable boxes, digital video recorders (DVRs), and video-game consoles — smartphones are the most-used non-TV gadget and most popular among those aged 34 years old and younger — basically, millennials.

TV networks have been fearing this shift away from traditional viewing for years and have been slow to act on it. Streaming offerings like Netflix and Hulu are providing fans with their favorite shows and availability across multiple devices.

Amazon Prime Video and Netflix then took that a step further by making content available for download to watch offline.

There's also a growing battle among DirecTV Now, Sling TV, PlayStation Vue, and now YouTube to offer all the diversity of a cable subscription with a streaming product.

SEE ALSO: How digital is saving TV companies from extinction

DON'T MISS: The most popular TV shows based on how much money you make

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NOW WATCH: Don't be afraid to cancel cable — here's how to watch all of your favorite shows for less than $42 a month

Snap, parent company of the popular Snapchat app, will reportedly price its offering at $17 a share, giving it a valuation of $24 billion and putting around $4 billion in cash into its coffers.

The company had been hoping to sell around $3 billion worth of stock at around $15 a share, which would have given it a valuation of roughly $21 billion. During its last big round of funding Snapchat was reportedly valued at about $20 billion.

Like Twitter, Snapchat was unable to generate a profit prior to going public, and in fact said that it expects its losses to grow for the foreseeable future. Snapchat recently passed Twitter in terms of daily active users, but shows little signs of becoming the...

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Oculus is cutting the price of its Rift headset and Touch motion controllers by $100 each, dropping the cost of a complete system to $598. The change was announced today at GDC, alongside a slate of new games that will be released throughout the year. It makes the Oculus Rift significantly cheaper than its main competitor, the HTC Vive, and only $100 more than the current “budget” headset, the PlayStation VR. There’s no retroactive discount for recent Rift or Touch buyers, but people who purchased Touch at full price in the last 30 days will get a $50 Oculus Store credit.

At launch, the Oculus Rift headset alone cost $599, and Touch — a technically optional but very important component — cost $199. The setup also required a gaming PC...

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Microsoft is unveiling some changes to the way Windows Updates are applied to Windows 10 PCs with the upcoming Creators Update. The software giant has long been criticized by Windows 10 users for its aggressive approach to applying updates, and it’s introducing some new options to prevent annoying reboots. “What we heard back most explicitly was that you want more control over when Windows 10 installs updates,” admits John Cable, Microsoft’s Windows director of program management. “We also heard that unexpected reboots are disruptive if they happen at the wrong time.”

To stop these random reboots, Microsoft is adding a new snooze option that appears in a new prompt to let you know there’s a Windows 10 update available. Snooze will stop...

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If you became a frequent computer user starting anytime between, say, 1990 and 2007, there’s a good chance that your idea of a PC is a desktop or laptop running a mouse and keyboard-driven graphical user interface — most likely Microsoft Windows or, to a lesser extent, Apple’s (recently renamed) macOS.

But if you got attached to computing in the last 10 years, you very likely find it more natural and comfortable to do your digital tasks on a multi-touch device lacking a keyboard or mouse and running a new, simpler, and cleaner kind of operating system. This certainly includes an Android or Apple smartphone, or, possibly, a tablet running Android or iOS. These devices have become by far the most commonly, frequently, and extensively used...

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Welcome to America.

A version of this story was originally published on LinkedIn.

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Celestine Omin was accustomed to tackling tough engineering problems. Just not the two that the border agent had put in front of his face — or at least not now, after having spent 24 hours cramped in an economy seat on Qatar Airways.

It was Sunday, Feb. 26, and the 28-year-old software engineer had left his home in Lagos, Nigeria, to come to the United States for the first time. It was a work trip. For the last six months, Omin had been working for Andela, a startup that connects the top tech talent in Africa with employers in the U.S. Andela accepts less than 1 percent of applicants into its program and is backed by Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan. For this particular role, Omin was helping NYC-based fintech startup First Access create a JavaScript application for emerging markets and had secured a short-term visa.

After landing, Omin waited for 20 minutes and then reached the front of the line, where a Customs and Border Protection officer asked him a series of questions. It was here that Omin realized that the job might be challenging, but getting into America could now be impossible. No one at Andela had prepared him for the new reality.

After a few minutes of grilling him about the job, the border agent escorted Omin into a small room and told him to sit down. Another hour passed before a different customs officer came in.

“Your visa says you are a software engineer. Is that correct?” the officer asked Omin in an tone the engineer described as accusatory. When Omin said it was right, the officer presented him with a piece of paper and a pen and told him to answer the following questions:

“Write a function to check if a Binary Search Tree is balanced.”

“What is an abstract class, and why do you need it?”

To Omin — who now hadn’t slept in more than 24 hours — the questions seemed opaque and could have multiple answers. While he is a skilled software engineer with more than seven years of experience, Omin later tells me that the questions looked to him like someone with no technical background Googled something like, “Questions to ask a software engineer.”

(The U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency did not respond to multiple requests for comment made by LinkedIn over phone and email by the time this story went to press.)

With no context or guidelines on how to answer the questions, Omin, “too tired to even think,” sat down and tried his best. But when he handed his answers back after about 10 minutes of work, the official told him his answers were wrong. “No one would tell me why I was being questioned,” Omin told me by phone. “Every single time I asked [the official] why he was asking me these questions, he hushed me … I wasn’t prepared for this. If I had known this was happening beforehand, I would have tried to prepare."

“That is when I thought I would never get into the United States,” he told me with noticeable fear in his voice.

Omin tells me that the answers to the questions were technically correct, but he suspects the customs official interrogating him wasn’t technically trained and couldn’t understand his answers. More time passed, and Omin started to mentally prepare to get on a plane back to Nigeria. Then — with little explanation — the official told him he was free to go.

“He said, ‘Look, I am going to let you go, but you don’t look convincing to me,’” Omin said. “I didn’t say anything back. I just walked out.”

Omin later learned that U.S. Customs allowed him into the country after officials called Andela and First Access to corroborate his story. Jeremy Johnson, the co-founder and CEO of Andela, said that his co-founder Christina Sass was the one to receive the call to defend Omin. Just last year, Andela connected more than 100 technical workers from Africa with short-term work in the U.S. This is the first time that any of them have ever been grilled with questions specific to software engineering or their particular trade.

“Celestine was the first software engineer at one of the most visible e-commerce sites in Africa and is exactly the kind of person we want coming to America and sharing his skills,” said Johnson, who was named to LinkedIn’s Next Wave last year. “Tapping into brilliant minds like Celestine’s is a huge help to many American companies who are struggling to find talent.”

For every web developer looking for work in the U.S., there are roughly five open positions. That’s why startups like Andela exist in the first place: To connect foreign tech workers with opportunities here in the U.S. But now with his partners having a hard time getting into the country to work, Johnson is worried that he might have challenges in the future. He has already reached out to Customs and Border Protection for further clarification on why Omin’s work visa was flagged, but he hasn’t heard back yet.

“We seek to play by the rules, but we can’t respond to rules that are ad hoc,” Johnson said. “We want to make sure that our team members around the world know what to prepare for and don’t get unnecessarily hassled for their work.”

As for Omin, he says the experience hasn’t changed how he feels about the United States. A proud Nigerian who recently became a father, he is eager to continue to use his tech background to create growth for his country. That said, he was initially concerned about going public with his experience because he's worried he'll be added to a watch list of travelers and have trouble entering the U.S. in the future.

“I have been trying to focus here, and I haven’t thought about what is going to happen when I go back to the airport,” he said. “I am coming here legally with good intentions, and I hope to continue this work.”

Chip Cutter contributed reporting to this article.

Discuss this post on LinkedIn →

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Caroline Fairchild is the New Economy Editor at LinkedIn. Prior to joining LinkedIn, she served as the founding editor of Fortune's The Broadsheet, and has also reported for The Huffington Post and Bloomberg. Reach her @CFair1.

On Tuesday, YouTube unveiled YouTube TV, its competitor to cable and satellite television that delivers a package of traditional TV channels over the internet for $35 a month.

There's a lot to like about YouTube TV, such as the low price point, cloud DVR, and integration with YouTube's other offering.

But the streaming-video service has a huge programming hole compared with traditional cable.

YouTube TV is primarily based on deals with the four big broadcast networks: CBS, Fox, ABC, and NBC. This means YouTube gets access to content from those networks plus about 35 of their affiliated cable channels, according to Bloomberg — that includes "ESPN, Disney Channel, MSNBC, National Geographic, and Fox News."

But YouTube hasn't struck deals with some marquee cable networks like Turner, Discovery, Viacom, AMC, and A&E. That means no CNN, TBS, TNT, History, AMC, A&E, Comedy Central, HBO, and so on.

Though its programming offering isn't as robust as its competitors — AT&T's DirecTV Now, Sony's Vue, and Dish's Sling — YouTube said that trying to replicate the traditional TV bundle would be too expensive. It's going after people, particularly younger ones, who don't want to pay for a big bundle.

Sports offerings, however, was something YouTube was eager to keep intact.

YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki told Bloomberg that YouTube TV is designed to be "great for sports lovers" and that it will include pro and college football, basketball, baseball, and other sports.

"YouTube TV includes major sports networks like ESPN and regional sports networks like Fox Sports Networks and Comcast SportsNet, so you can watch your favorite NBA or MLB teams," YouTube said in a press release. "We've also partnered with local TV stations, so you'll also get sports and local news based on where you live."

Still, YouTube is missing the rights from Turner, for instance, which shows a ton of sports: NBA games, the NCAA basketball tournament, MLB, and others.

YouTube TV's programming could expand over the next few years, and there could be additional price tiers eventually, YouTube said.

Streaming rights are incredibly complicated, and YouTube TV is facing regional problems that have plagued competitors like DirecTV Now. That's why it will launch in "limited US markets, where it has full coverage," according to Recode's Peter Kafka (and why you won't be able to stream NFL games on your phone).

SEE ALSO: YouTube will now let you stream cable channels live for $35 per month

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NOW WATCH: Here’s what would happen if the Earth stopped rotating

 Google has quietly launched a new video conferencing application called Meet by Google Hangouts, which is designed for HD video meetings. The web and mobile application appears to be the latest addition to Google’s lineup of business products known as G Suite, though the product page on the G Suite website listed in the app’s description page on the App Store is not yet live. Read More

BARCELONA -- Homeowners worried about cybersecurity attacks on IP-connected devices like lights, baby monitors, home security systems and cameras, will soon be able to take advantage of a $200 network monitoring device called Dojo.

The device was shown at Mobile World Congress here this week and will go on sale online in April. While the Dojo device isn’t intended to provide enterprise-level security, it could be used to help, in a small way, in warding off massive attacks like the one that used the Mirai botnet which took advantage of unsecure, consumer-grade cameras and other devices last October.

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A company called Flash Robotics designed a robot named Emys that’s supposed to teach kids another language. While plenty of apps, TV shows, and games attempt to ingrain language into kids’ sponge brains through repetition, Emys might be more successful because of its built-in tablet and unique, expressive face, which relies on three moving disks and two smartwatch displays. It was inspired by emoticons :).

After demoing Emys at The Verge’s office, I don’t think it’ll turn your kids into baby geniuses. But with that said, I do think Flash Robotics approaches language instruction slightly differently than those TV shows and games in an effort to minimize screen time. Emys relies on RFID tags to teach. If a child holds a tag picturing a...

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Over the past couple of years, few companies have made as much progress on the global stage of mobile technology as Huawei. Better known for providing networking infrastructure for most of its history, Huawei is quickly becoming a household name in the West, just as it’s well known in its native China. But still, this old engineering giant has a few things to learn about the proper way to present its products.

Back at IFA in September, Huawei’s Nova series launch featured a 20-minute selfie masterclass from a random Instagram user. It was peculiar, it was patronizing, and it was perplexing. It also made me completely forget about the Nova phones that we were supposedly there to see. Here is but a quick highlight reel of it:

After that...

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Windows 10 users will soon be able to restrict the installation of software from any source other than the Windows Store.

Digital transformation and a company's ability to leverage data is at the core of future competitiveness and is critical to being able to control costs and drive innovation. 

 Pypestream is announcing that it has raised $15 million in Series A funding. When the startup launched more than a year ago, founder and CEO Richard Smullen was pitching text messaging as the best way for customers to communicate with businesses — specifically, through the Pypestream app, where businesses can create their own accounts with a variety of different “pypes”… Read More

By now, most of us are familiar with Boston Dynamics’ work. They brought us the terrifying giraffe bot and Spot, the robot dog. The company’s great at bringing us nightmare fuel. Another new robot leaked earlier this month and now we’re getting an official look at what Boston Dynamics calls Handle. It’s 6.5-feet tall, travels at nine mph, and can jump up to four feet vertically. Its jumps are terrifying, although I can’t deny its hops impress me.

Boston Dynamics

Boston Dynamics

Handle’s spins are way more calming and almost put me at ease. Robots on Ice needs to be licensed immediately. Zen out:

Boston Dynamics

Boston Dynamics is still presumably up for sale from Google, so...

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The Mercedes-Benz X-Class may be the most highly anticipated pickup truck in recent memory.  Unfortunately, Mercedes-Benz Vans — the division of the the German automaker responsible for the X-Class — has made it very clear over the past year that it has no plans to bring the model to the US. That is until now.

On Friday, MB Vans boss Volker Mornhinweg indicated that his company is looking closely at US demand for mid-size trucks like the X-Class, Reuters reported.

In addition, Mornhinweg told reporters that the current X-Class production facility in Argentina won't have sufficient capacity to meet US demand. As a result, US spec trucks will be made domestically, the executive said.

Last October, Mercedes-Benz gave the public its first look at the company's upcoming pickup truck in the form of the new X-Class Concept. According to Mercedes-Benz, the new X-Class will be the world's first true "premium" pickup truck.

Introduced in a ceremony in Stockholm, the new X-Class marks Mercedes' official entry into what is perhaps the most competitive, territorial, and lucrative segment in the automotive market.

"With the Mercedes-Benz pickup, we will close one of the last gaps in our portfolio," Dieter Zetsche, Daimler chairman and head of Mercedes-Benz, said in a statement at the time of the launch. "Our target: We want to offer customers vehicles matching their specific needs. The X-Class will set new standards in a growing segment."

In the US, the midsize pickup segment, where the X-Class would compete, is growing at more than 20% a year. It also dominates in Argentina, Australia, and Brazil.

Mercedes is expected to offer the X-Class in Europe, Latin America, South America, and Africa when it enters production in late 2017. No official pricing information for the X-Class has been released.

Here's a closer look at the Mercedes-Benz X-Class pickup:

SEE ALSO: These are the 18 most reliable used cars of 2017

In October 2016, Mercedes' Van division debuted two versions of the Concept X-Class.

One is a concept intended to show off Mercedes' design and luxurious appointments: the Stylish Explorer.

Then there's Powerful Adventurer, which is designed to display the truck's rugged side.

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

By Beth Schultz
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US Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao said Sunday that she would be reevaluating the Obama administration’s rules for self-driving cars and challenged the automotive and technology industries to better educate the public about the safety features of automated driving.

Speaking at the National Governors Association’s winter meeting, Chao said she wanted to “issue a challenge to Silicon Valley, Detroit and all other auto industry hubs to step up and help educate a skeptical public about the benefits of automated technologies,” according to Politico.

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