Eric David
Latest from Eric David
As it defends social media, Facebook debuts snooze button to mute your annoying friends
Facebook Inc. launched a Snooze feature today that lets users hide annoying friends and pages from their news feed for 30 days. Snooze allows users to mute their Facebook friends without having to unfollow or unfriend them permanently. The feature will notify users when the 30 days are nearly up, allowing them to either extend the Snooze or let it expire. They can ...
YouTube VR finally arrives on PC, but reviews are mixed
Google LLC has has been keeping YouTube VR to itself, releasing the 360 video app exclusively on its Daydream mobile virtual reality platform. Today, YouTube VR is finally available for desktops. Google has released a free YouTube VR app on PC gaming platform Steam that is designed for the HTC Vive. Like most desktop VR apps, YouTube VR comes with ...
Google’s AI helped NASA discover two new planets hidden in old Kepler data
NASA announced today that it has discovered two new exoplanets thanks to a neural network developed by Google LLC’s artificial intelligence team. One of the new planets orbits a Sunlike star in a distant system called Kepler-90 (pictured), which is 2,545 light years from Earth. Astronomer Andrew Vanderburg described Kepler-90 as “a mini version of our solar system,” with ...
Snap launches Lens Studio, an augmented reality creator for Snapchat
The unexpected popularity of a dancing hot dog seems to have convinced Snap Inc. that augmented reality is the future of Snapchat. Snap announced today the launch of Lens Studio, a free AR creation app for Windows and Mac that will flood Snapchat with new AR content. Lens Studio allows users to create their own Snapchat ...
‘We’ve heard you loud and clear’: Crowdfunding site Patreon walks back unpopular fee changes
Content crowdfunding platform Patreon has halted plans to change the way it collects service fees after it encountered firm resistance from creators and their patrons. Patreon had planned to implement the new fees on Dec. 18, but Patreon Inc. Chief Executive Jack Conte (pictured) announced today that the company has decided to rethink its decision. “We’ve heard you loud and clear. We’re not going to ...
EBay acquires Terapeak to give sellers better analytics on their sales
Online marketplace eBay Inc. today said it has acquired Terapeak Inc., a Toronto-based data startup that helps sellers make supply and pricing decisions for ecommerce sites such as eBay and Amazon.com. Founded in 2002, Terapeak’s cloud-based data platform lets sellers track supply, demand and pricing data both historically and in real time. EBay will integrate some of Terapeak’s tools directly into its Seller ...
Apple invests $390M in US maker of iPhone X’s Face ID lasers
Apple Inc. will invest $390 million in Finisar Corp., an American optics company that produces components for iPhone X’s facial recognition technology. The investment comes from Apple’s $1 billion Advanced Manufacturing Fund, which aims to create more manufacturing jobs in the U.S. Finisar is one of Apple’s largest suppliers of vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers, small yet complicated components that power several of iPhone X’s ...
Facebook changes how it reports international ad money
Facebook Inc. announced a major change today to the way it reports advertising revenue outside of the U.S., claiming that it wants to be more transparent with local governments and businesses. Currently, Facebook lumps its non-U.S. ad revenue into a single report through its international headquarters in Dublin, Ireland, but starting next year, the social media giant will ...
Learn Go tips from Google DeepMind’s champion AI, AlphaGo
You can now learn to play Go like a supergenius with AlphaGo Teach, a new tool created by Alphabet Inc.’s DeepMind team that cracks open the mind of their undefeated artificial intelligence, AlphaGo. AlphaGo Teach offers up AlphaGo’s analysis of the 6,000 most popular opening sequences in Go, which are based on data from 231,000 ...
Menlo Security raises $40M to fight malware in the enterprise
Silicon Valley startup Menlo Security announced today that it has raised $40 million in a late-stage funding to expand its antimalware tools for the enterprise. The Series C funding round included participation by new investors American Express Ventures, Ericsson Ventures and HSBC, along with existing investors JPMorgan Chase, General Catalyst, Sutter Hill Ventures, Osage University Partners and ...