It’s time for Facebook and Twitter to coordinate efforts on hate speech

Since the election of Donald Trump in 2016, there has been burgeoning awareness of the hate speech on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. While activists have pressured these companies to improve their content moderation, few groups (outside of the German government) have outright sued the platforms for their actions. That’s because of a legal distinction between media publications and media platforms that has made solving hate speech online a vexing problem. Take, for instance, an op-ed published in the New York Times calling for...

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Uber’s chief diversity officer is coming to TechCrunch Disrupt 2018

At TechCrunch Disrupt 2018, Uber’s Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer Bo Young Lee will be joining us to talk about the ride-sharing company’s efforts to put detoxify its corporate culture and promote a more inclusive environment for employees. Lee was hired as the company’s first chief diversity and inclusion officer this past January, after leaving insurance company Marsh LLC where she held a similar role. Uber has obviously had its fair share of issues with fostering an inclusive culture, they’ve made some public efforts to showcase that...

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How Silicon Valley should celebrate Labor Day

Ask any 25-year old engineer what Labor Day means to him or her, and you might get an answer like: it’s the surprise three-day weekend after a summer of vacationing. Or it’s the day everyone barbecues at Dolores Park. Or it’s the annual Tahoe trip where everyone gets to relive college. Or simply, it’s the day we get off because we all work so hard. And while founders and employees in startup land certainly work hard, wearing their 80-hour workweeks as a badge of honor, closing deals on conference calls in an air-conditioned WeWork is a far cry...

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Twitter hints at new threaded conversations and who’s online features

Twitter head Jack Dorsey sent out a tweet this afternoon hinting the social platform might get a couple of interesting updates to tell us who else is currently online and to help us more easily follow Twitter conversation threads. “Playing with some new Twitter features: presence (who else is on Twitter right now?) and threading (easier to read convos),” Dorsey tweeted, along with samples. Playing with some new Twitter features: presence (who else is on Twitter right now?) and threading (easier to read convos) https://t.co/aCVRxVDfy0 — jack (@jack)...

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Rappi raises $200M as Latin American tech investment reaches new highs

Rappi, the Colombian on-demand delivery startup, has brought in a new round of funding at a valuation north of $1 billion, as first reported by Axios and confirmed to TechCrunch by a source close to the company. DST Global has led the more than $200 million financing, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia — all of which were existing investors in the company. Rappi kicked off its business delivering beverages and has since expanded into meals, groceries and even tech and medicine. You can, for example, have a pair of AirPods...

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Mynewsdesk acquires web monitoring service Mention

Communications workflow company Mynewsdesk is acquiring French startup Mention for an undisclosed sum. Norwegian business media group NHST currently owns Mynewsdesk. Mention lets you monitor keywords around the web. It’s a good way to hear what customers are saying about your brand on their blog, on Twitter, on Facebook or anywhere that is public. You can also use Mention to generate reports, study competitors to see if people are talking about them and find influencers who use your products. It can be a useful tool for PR and marketing companies...

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Apple’s new iOS 12 beta fixes the annoying ‘please update’ bug

{rss:content:encoded} Apple’s new iOS 12 beta fixes the annoying ‘please update’ bug https://ift.tt/2NAdi3Y https://ift.tt/2C3X41z August 31, 2018 at 06:19PM iOS 12 beta testers have been plagued with a frustrating bug that continually pops up messages alerting them that a new iOS update is available when, in fact, it’s not. Apple has now fixed this bug, which is patched in the latest iOS 12 betas rolling out now, we understand. The bug had first made headlines on Thursday, when a number of iOS 12 beta testers – including developers and those on...

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Wish, Netflix, Uber and ~100 others testing WhatsApp’s new Business API

Earlier this month, WhatsApp announced the launch of its first revenue-generating enterprise product, the WhatsApp Business API. The API allows businesses to respond to messages from WhatsApp users for free up to 24 hours, then charges for any responses after that point on a per message basis. Though still in a limited preview, the company is now supporting around 100 businesses directly on its API platform, including airlines, e-commerce companies, banks, and others like Uber and Netflix, and plans to onboard many more in the months ahead. Because...

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Apple will require all apps to have a privacy policy as of October 3

{rss:content:encoded} Apple will require all apps to have a privacy policy as of October 3 https://ift.tt/2MEiZBB https://ift.tt/2NzyNlf August 31, 2018 at 03:41PM Apple is cracking down on apps that don’t communicate to users how their personal data is used, secured or shared. In an announcement posted to developers through the App Store Connect portal, Apple says that all apps, including those still in testing, will be required to have a privacy policy as of October 3, 2018. Allowing apps without privacy policies is something of an obvious hole...

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Scientists make a touch tablet that rolls and scrolls

{rss:content:encoded} Scientists make a touch tablet that rolls and scrolls https://ift.tt/2N2po8U https://ift.tt/2opZrlF August 31, 2018 at 10:54AM Research scientists at Queen’s University’s Human Media Lab have built a prototype touchscreen device that’s neither smartphone nor tablet but kind of both — and more besides. The device, which they’ve christened the MagicScroll, is inspired by ancient (papyrus/paper/parchment) scrolls so it takes a rolled-up, cylindrical form factor — enabled by a flexible 7.5inch touchscreen housed in the casing. This...

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Enveritas’ technology lets small growers tap into the market for sustainable coffee

Demand for sustainable coffee is growing, a boon for socially conscious coffee lovers — but many small growers are missing out because they lack the ability to verify that their coffee beans are grown using fair labor and eco-friendly practices. In fact, verification is often accessible only to large coffee estates or cooperatives. Enveritas wants to change that. The nonprofit, which recently completed Y Combinator’s accelerator program, uses geospatial analysis to make the process more efficient, enabling it to offer free verification to small...

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Weebly brings more e-commerce features to mobile

{rss:content:encoded} Weebly brings more e-commerce features to mobile https://ift.tt/2LHV12H https://ift.tt/2LBk6fT August 31, 2018 at 01:08AM Weebly is part of Square now, but it continues to update as a standalone product. This week, for example, the company announced a number of new e-commerce features for the Weebly mobile app. Those features include the ability to ship and print labels, to respond to customer questions (via Facebook Messenger, which can be embedded on Weebly sites), to approve customer reviews, to create branded coupon codes...

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Huge leak shows off the new iPhone XS

{rss:content:encoded} Huge leak shows off the new iPhone XS https://ift.tt/2MGfI4o https://ift.tt/2Pmpaa9 August 30, 2018 at 08:48PM Get ready for a leaked look at the new iPhone XS. 9to5Mac has gotten its hands on an image of Apple’s next generation of iPhone hardware, and the future looks pretty swanky. The leaked image showcases the new sizing of Apple’s soon-to-be-unveiled flagship bezel-less devices, which likely will have 5.8-inch and 6.5-inch screens, respectively. The phones will be called the iPhone XS, according to the report. The pictured...

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Clinc is building a voice AI system to replace humans in drive-through restaurants

Clinc is expanding its focus on fintech into new verticals that could take advantage of its conversational artificial intelligence. The Ann Arbor-based company recently took the wraps off its new system that aims to provide quick service restaurants like McDonald’s and Taco Bell with a voice assistant in the drive-through window. I got a demo of the new system. For the most part, even in its early state, it works as advertised. Want a double cheeseburger without pickles and mayo with a side of fries and a Coke? With Clinc’s system, a person can...

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Twitter announces new policy and certification process for ‘issue ads’

Twitter continues to roll out new policies aimed at increasing transparency, particularly around political advertising. Amidst ongoing concerns about Russian election interference and misinformation on social media, the company recently announced political ad guidelines and launched an Ads Transparency Center where you can find more information about advertisers. Initially, however, Twitter’s stricter standards were limited to ads for U.S. federal election candidates and campaigns. Now it’s announced a policy around the broader category of “issue...

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Porter Road wants to herd the meat industry in a new direction

Down a two-lane road on the outskirts of Princeton, Ky., next to a cemetery and past the Light of Truth Church, is the Porter Road Butcher Meat Co. facility — a staging ground for what the Nashville-based startup Porter Road hopes will be a revolution in the American meatpacking industry. For the company’s co-founders, James Peisker and Chris Carter, the refashioning of the meat business in America is the next step in a nearly decade-long journey since the former chefs first met working in the restaurant of Nashville’s historic Hermitage Hotel.  The...

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InVision deepens integrations with Atlassian

InVision today announced a newly expanded integration and strategic partnership with Atlassian that will let users of Confluence, Trello and Jira see and share InVision prototypes from within those programs. Atlassian’s product suite is built around making product teams faster and more efficient. These tools streamline and organize communication so developers and designers can focus on getting the job done. Meanwhile, InVision’s collaboration platform has caught on to the idea that design is now a team sport, letting designers, engineers, executives...

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Instacart now serves 70 percent of U.S. households

Toward the end of 2017, Instacart penned a partnership with one of the country’s biggest grocery retailers, Kroger. At the time, it was a smaller deal with one of Kroger’s chains called Ralphs. But today Instacart is expanding its partnership with Kroger, bringing Instacart delivery to 75 additional Kroger markets, growing Instacart’s Kroger footprint by 50 percent nationwide. The expansion will be completed by late October, bringing Instacart delivery to more than 1,600 Kroger stores. This builds on Instacart’s momentum, following partnership...

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Facebook pulls post by Anne Frank Center after seeing only nudity in a photo of the Holocaust

Facebook moderators temporarily removed a post by the Anne Frank Center which was seeking to raise awareness about the Holocaust, after the company was unable to distinguish between historical genocide and child nudity. The post included an archive photograph of Jewish children who had been stripped and starved by Nazi Germany. Between 1941 and 1945 the German state imprisoned and murdered millions of Jews in concentration and death camps — the child Anne Frank, who the Center is named after, being just one of them. Frank died in 1945,...

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