Новости за 21.03.2018

More than 60 representatives from the House are calling on the Senate to get a move on and confirm the Trump administration’s nominee for NASA administrator. The group — which includes mostly Republicans and a dozen Democrats — sent a signed letter to the Senate majority and minority leaders, urging them to vote and accept Trump’s candidate, Rep. Jim Bridenstine (R-OK). They argue that without a leader, it’ll be hard to oversee the ambitious plans that the government has for NASA.

When the iPhone X first came out, everyone had fun using the device’s front-facing camera to make Animoji. But it turns out, the device’s facial capture abilities aren’t just good for making cartoon pigs sing. They could also potentially be a powerful and inexpensive tool for game developers.

The European Commission has proposed a plan to add a 3 percent tax on the revenues of digital tech companies like Google, Facebook, and Amazon in order to make sure that they pay “their fair share.”

OnePlus 6 speculation is slowly revving up. Someone on Weibo today leaked what could be the phone’s actual specs and pricing details, and they indicate OnePlus’ next phone could have some very high-end specs — with a relatively high-end price to match.

This afternoon, a new crew of three astronauts will embark on a flight to the International Space Station, bringing the total number of crew on the orbiting lab to its standard size of six. Two US astronauts, Ricky Arnold and Drew Feustel, and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev will be making the voyage, taking off in a Soyuz rocket from Kazakhstan in the first crewed flight of 2018. All three are spaceflight veterans and will be staying on board the ISS for about five months.

For most of her life, Tammy Dobbs, who has cerebral palsy, relied on her family in Missouri for care. But in 2008, she moved to Arkansas, where she signed up for a state program that provided for a caretaker to give her the help she needed.

Uber is launching a perks program for Uber Freight, the company’s app that lets truckers easily book loads. It’s called Uber Freight Plus, and it offers truckers different discounts and opportunities depending on how much they drive with the service.

The first time I saw someone sit on a public toilet, I screamed.

My friend and I were in a McDonald’s restroom, casually chatting, when she lowered her pants and sat on the toilet. “What are you doing?” I shouted, suddenly panicky. I told her she should squat on the seat or at least cover it in toilet paper: public toilets are dirty! She shrugged my concerns away and kept doing her business. But then I started asking other friends: Do you sit down on public toilets? To my shock, the answer was always yes. Читать дальше...

The academic at the heart of the Facebook data scandal has said he is being used as a scapegoat by the US tech giant. Aleksandr Kogan, a researcher at Cambridge University, collected a dataset of some tens of millions of Facebook users four years ago using a personality quiz app. Kogan later passed this information on to voter-profiling firm Cambridge Analytica, which claimed (but now denies) that it used the data to craft political ads for President Trump’s 2016 election.

Qualcomm is launching a development kit based on its Snapdragon 845 VR platform in the second quarter of this year. The self-contained headset and software development kit will showcase key elements of Qualcomm’s mobile chip-based VR system, including full inside-out motion tracking and a partnership with eye-tracking company Tobii. It will also support HTC’s Vive Wave platform, which is designed to let VR developers build and sell software across multiple brands of headsets.

YouTube’s new Live streaming feature for Chrome browsers is available now to try for yourself. The feature allows users to easily set up a live stream from their computer without any additional equipment, and the tool is due to roll out to other browsers “soon.” YouTube says it will also allow live streaming directly from the camera app on select devices from Asus, LG, Motorola, Nokia, Samsung, and more in the coming months. The ability to instantly create live video streams is a feature users of Instagram and Facebook have long enjoyed. Читать дальше...

Microsoft first acquired Wunderlist almost three years ago, promising the to-do app would help the company “reinvent productivity for a mobile-first, cloud-first world.” At the time, Wunderlist founder and CEO Christian Reber joined Microsoft to continue leading the app forward. Instead, Microsoft launched its own To-Do app to replace Wunderlist last year, and fans of Wunderlist haven’t been happy it’s going away.

In 2014, Facebook bought WhatsApp for $16 billion, making its co-founders — Jan Koum and Brian Acton — very wealthy men. Koum continues to lead the company, but Acton quit earlier this year to start his own foundation. And he isn’t done merely with WhatsApp — in a post on Twitter today, Acton told his followers to delete Facebook.

BlackBerry wants you to advertise on its behalf in exchange for the weekly chance to win... wait for it... BlackBerry-branded gear like a bag, mugs, a hat, and more. Okay, and also a monthly drawing for a BlackBerry smartphone. The program, called BlackBerry Smartphone Fan League, has you connect your social media platforms in order to promote BlackBerry and earn points. The more points, the more entries. To win a BlackBerry hat. Or cup. Yay.

Disney’s theme parks are about to get a lot more Marvel superheroes. After the successful launch of the Guardians of the Galaxy: Mission Breakout! ride last year, the company has announced that it will be bringing more Marvel properties to the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, along with expanded experiences at both Disneyland Paris and Hong Kong Disneyland.

Uber is being accused of its drivers denying rides to a Texas woman with cerebral palsy on “approximately 25 separate occasions” across 2016 and 2017, according to a new lawsuit filed today. The woman claims that drivers repeatedly canceled rides because she requires the use of a service dog. The complaint, filed in Northern California District Court, accuses Uber of violating the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Texas Human Resources Code, and the plaintiff is seeking damages for “intentional... Читать дальше...

Skype has teamed up with TripAdvisor so you can now send travel plans and tips right inside the Skype app. It’s also got a new integration with StubHub, a platform for sporting and concert tickets, that lets you browse and share events. Both add-ins are great for those who still use Skype to make video calls and chat with friends and family. Now you can just send and receive travel plans and tickets without downloading any extra apps beyond Skype.

After nearly four days of silence from top executives on the unfolding controversy around Cambridge Analytica’s misuse of user data, Facebook on Tuesday made a statement about what Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg are doing. “Mark, Sheryl and their teams are working around the clock to get all the facts and take the appropriate action moving forward, because they understand the seriousness of this issue,” Facebook told The Daily Beast. “The entire company is outraged we were deceived. We are... Читать дальше...