Facebook’s dark ads problem is systemic

Facebook’s admission to the UK parliament this week that it had unearthed unquantified thousands of dark fake ads after investigating fakes bearing the face and name of well-known consumer advice personality, Martin Lewis, underscores the massive challenge for its platform on this front. Lewis is suing the company for defamation over its failure to stop bogus ads besmirching his reputation with their associated scams. Lewis decided to file his campaigning lawsuit after reporting 50 fake ads himself, having been alerted to the scale of the...

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From dorm room to Starbucks, Rip Van Wafels is bringing Euro-inspired snack to the masses

Rip Pruisken waffled in college (we got that pun safely out of the way for now). He was a student in the Ivy League at Brown University, and had focused on academics for much of his life. His parents were physicists, and “I thought I would study some sort of cookie-cutter path of studying something that I would use post-college,” he explained. “I didn’t really consider entrepreneurship to be a viable option because I was still in that frame of mind.“ It was during a study trip to Italy that he had an epiphany. He was inside an Italian bookstore...

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Emissary wants to make sales networking obsolete

There is nothing meritocratic about sales. A startup may have the best product, the best vision, and the most compelling presentation, only to discover that their sales team is talking to the wrong decision-maker or not making the right kind of small talk. Unfortunately, that critical information — that network intelligence — isn’t written down in a book somewhere or on an online forum, but generally is uncovered by extensive networking and gossip. For David Hammer and his team at Emissary, that is a problem to solve. “I am not sure I want a world...

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Facebook shrinks fake news after warnings backfire

Tell someone not to do something and sometimes they just want to do it more. That’s what happened when Facebook put red flags on debunked fake news. Users who wanted to believe the false stories had their fevers ignited and they actually shared the hoaxes more. That led Facebook to ditch the incendiary red flags in favor of showing Related Articles with more level-headed perspectives from trusted news sources. But now it’s got two more tactics to reduce the spread of misinformation, which Facebook detailed at its Fighting Abuse @Scale event...

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T-Mobile is reportedly much closer to a merger deal with Sprint

{rss:content:encoded} T-Mobile is reportedly much closer to a merger deal with Sprint https://ift.tt/2HACCaX https://ift.tt/2HwtjZI April 27, 2018 at 11:09PM It looks like a potential merger deal between T-Mobile and Sprint, two of the major telecom companies in the U.S., is getting closer and now has set valuation terms, according to a report by Bloomberg. The deal could be announced as soon as Sunday, according to a report by CNBC. The proposed tie-up of the two companies was called off in November last year, but now that deal appears to be coming...

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Essential’s first handset is coming to more markets

{rss:content:encoded} Essential’s first handset is coming to more markets https://ift.tt/2r4NNh3 https://ift.tt/2vSA56t April 27, 2018 at 10:46PM It’s hard launching a phone company — something Essential was pretty candid about from the start. Andy Rubin’s latest endeavor got off to something of a slow start, according to outside accounts, but today the well-funded hardware startup is getting ready to add a whole bunch of new markets to its online store. On Twitter today, the company announced a handful of key additions to its coverage map, including...

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CultureCrush breaks out of the swipe right box

Most dating apps are aimed at a general population, but people of color and immigrants are rarely well-represented. CultureCrush wants to fix that. This app, created by a team led by former attorney Amanda Spann, lets you search the dating pool by nationality, ethnicity and tribe in an effort to help fish out of water find a match. “We have 24,000 users, 5% of which are premium paid users, and the app has generated revenue every month since its existence. Upon our relaunch, we anticipate this number to rapidly accelerate,” said Spann. “CultureCrush...

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Facebook’s Messenger Kids’ app gains a ‘sleep mode’

Facebook’s Messenger Kids, the social network’s new chat app for the under-13 crowd, has been designed to give parents more control over their kids’ contact list. Today, the app is gaining a new feature, “sleep mode,” aimed at giving parents the ability to turn the app off at designated times. The idea is that parents and children will talk about when it’s appropriate to send messages to friends and family, and when it’s time for other activities – like homework or bedtime, for example. The app, which launched last December, has not been without...

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Aloe Bud is the adorable self-care app you’ve been waiting for

The buzz or chime of a push notification on your phone is, at best, a distraction, and at worst, a source of stress and anxiety. A new app called Aloe Bud wants to make those push notifications into something more welcome: gentle reminders to take care of yourself and your own needs. With its configurable reminders, Aloe Bud will encourage you to take a break, drink water, move your body, rest, breathe, and more. The app is the latest to enter the booming “self-care” market, which caters to a largely younger demographic who are better handling...

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Meet the first four startups in the MetaProp Bridge international accelerator

Real estate-focused MetaProp NYC has been adding new programs on top of its core accelerator. The latest: The MetaProp Bridge at Columbia University. It’s an international accelerator designed specifically for real estate and property tech-related startups from Europe, the Middle East and Africa that are looking to expand into North America. Participants get access to MetaProp mentors, advisory services and up to $250,000 in financing. The 14-week program begins with eight weeks in London before moving to New York City and concluding with a two-week,...

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Facebook drops fundraising fees for personal causes

Despite Facebook being under fire for everything pertaining to Cambridge Analytica, the company still hopes to be able to do some good. Today, Facebook is dropping its platform fees pertaining to fundraisers for personal causes. That means Facebook is getting rid of the 4.3 percent platform fee in the u.S. and the 6.2 percent fee in Canada. Those fees were charged to cover a review process for and vetting for each fundraiser. Now, Facebook says it will absorb the costs associated with those safety and protection measures. “We’re continuously learning...

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Nintendo is releasing a mobile RPG this summer

{rss:content:encoded} Nintendo is releasing a mobile RPG this summer https://ift.tt/2JxmpA5 https://ift.tt/2HUmQHu April 27, 2018 at 03:20PM The maker of Shadowverse and Granblue Fantasy is teaming up with Nintendo for a new mobile RPG. Called Dragalia Lost, the Japanese-style action RPG will be a free-to-play game though likely loaded with Loot Box-style mechanics that will result in a financial windfall for Nintendo and developer Cygames. The trailer doesn’t reveal many details about the game’s story. I assume from the title that someone called...

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Maverick, a social network for young women, launches with $2.7M in funding

While Bumble BFF and Hey! Vina help adult women find new friends, there isn’t a social network dedicated to young women. But Brooke Chaffin and Catherine Connors are looking to change that with the introduction of Maverick, a social network that connects young girls with female mentors to express their creativity in a safe space. Here’s how it works: When a new user signs up, they can browse through various challenges set forth by Catalysts, inspiring role models selected specifically by the founders to inspire the younger demographic on the network....

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Maverick, a social network for young women, launches with $2.7M in funding

While Bumble BFF and Hey! Vina help adult women find new friends, there isn’t a social network dedicated to young women. But Brooke Chaffin and Catherine Connors are looking to change that with the introduction of Maverick, a social network that connects young girls with female mentors to express their creativity in a safe space. Here’s how it works: When a new user signs up, they can browse through various challenges set forth by Catalysts, inspiring role models selected specifically by the founders to inspire the younger demographic on the network....

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Square is acquiring website builder Weebly for $365M

Square just announced that it’s reached an agreement to acquire Weebly for $365 million in cash and stock. While Square is best known for its payment software and hardware, it’s also been expanding into other areas, for example with the acquisition of food delivery service Caviar and corporate catering startup Zesty. Weebly, meanwhile, offers easy-to-use website building tools. While those tools can be used by individuals (my personal website is built on Weebly), the company has increasingly focused on serving small businesses and e-commerce companies. Meanwhile,...

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MoviePass CEO says he doesn’t know if the one-movie-per-day subscription will ever return

MoviePass is known for a pricing model that sounds too good to be true — in exchange for paying $9.95 per month, subscribers get up to one movie ticket per day. At least, they used to: If you try to sign up now, that isn’t quite what you’re offered. Instead, there’s a bundle that combines a three-month trial for iHeartRadio All Access with four tickets per month on MoviePass — still a pretty good deal (especially since MoviePass says 88 percent of users see fewer than two movies per month), but not quite as irresistible as the old plan. Does this...

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The alternative to the four-hour workweek mindset

Often when I attend a conference or a networking event I am surprised by how many people operate at the periphery of the tech industry. Social media gurus, SEO “ninjas,” bloggers, etc. It’s a coterie of tech “club promoters.” The hype men of the industry. “Hack your way to success.” “Meet the right people.” “Become a business superstar.” They’ve found their silver bullet. They boast of building a passive income from a web business, all while traveling the world as the rest of us mortals are slaving away at our 9-5 jobs. In a world where we are...

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DeepCode cleans your code with the power of AI

Zurich-based DeepCode claims that their system – essentially a tool for analyzing and improving code – is like Grammarly for programmers. The system, which uses a corpus of 250,000 rules, reads your public and private Github repositories and tells you how to fix problems, remain compatible, and generally improve your programs. Founded by Veselin Raychev, advisor Martin Vechev, and Boris Paskalev, the team has extensive experience in machine learning and AI research. This project is a spinoff from ETH in Switzerland and is a standalone research...

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What we learned from Facebook’s latest data misuse grilling

Facebook’s CTO Mike Schroepfer has just undergone almost five hours of often forensic and frequently awkward questions from members of a UK parliament committee that’s investigating online disinformation, and whose members have been further fired up by misinformation they claim Facebook gave it. The veteran senior exec, who’s clocked up a decade at the company, also as its VP of engineering, is the latest stand-in for CEO Mark Zuckerberg who keeps eschewing repeat requests to appear. The DCMS committee’s enquiry began last year as a probe...

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