Google Reportedly Plans To Offer Checking Accounts Next Year
November 13th, 2019Via: Forbes:
While previous attempts from big tech companies like Facebook and Apple to get into financial services have met with obstacles and regulatory scrutiny, Google will become the latest Silicon Valley leader to push into the banking space, as it plans to offer checking accounts starting next year, the Wall Street Journal first reported.
Supreme Court Allows Sandy Hook Families’ Case Against Remington Arms To Proceed
November 13th, 2019Via: NPR:
The Supreme Court has denied Remington Arms Co.’s bid to block a lawsuit filed by families of victims of the Sandy Hook school massacre. The families say Remington should be held liable, as the maker and promoter of the AR-15-style rifle used in the 2012 killings.
The court opted not to hear the gun-maker’s appeal, in a decision that was announced Tuesday morning. The justices did not include any comment about the case, Remington Arms Co. v. Soto, as they turned it away.
YouTube: Accounts Can Be Deleted if ‘No Longer Commercially Viable’
November 13th, 2019Via: PC Magazine:
YouTube’s attempt to explain when it can terminate your account has led to confusion among its most prolific users. The Google-owned video platform chose a curious way to explain it, implying that YouTube can delete your account if your videos alienate advertisers.
“YouTube may terminate your access, or your Google account’s access to all or part of the Service if YouTube believes, in its sole discretion, that provision of the Service to you is no longer commercially viable,” reads the change to YouTube’s Terms of Service, which will go into effect Dec. 10.
The “no longer commercially viable” wording has the vlogging crowd worried that YouTube is empowering itself to shut down niche video channels that mainstream advertisers don’t like.
Federal Judge Rules Suspicionless Device Searches at the Border Are Illegal
November 13th, 2019Via: Engadget:
Civil liberties advocates just scored an important victory in a bid to prevent arbitrary device searches at the US border. A federal court handling a 2017 lawsuit has ruled that US policies allowing device searches without valid suspicion or warrants violate Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. Judge Denise Casper noted that an exemption for searches at the border was “not limitless,” and still needed to strike a balance between privacy and government interests. That usually means focusing on contraband, she said.
The Newest Fake Meat Is Made from Thin Air
November 12th, 2019pHood!
Via: FastCompany:
Most plant-based meat, such as the Impossible Burger or the Beyond Burger, uses protein made from soy or peas. The newest meat alternative uses protein made from air instead, in a process that transforms CO2 into an ingredient with the same nutritional profile as the protein you find in animals.
Air Protein, a Bay Area-based startup, unveiled the first prototypes of “air-based” meat today. The technology behind it comes from an idea first explored by NASA in the 1960s, when scientists trying to figure out how to feed astronauts in space discovered that it was possible to use microorganisms to convert CO2—breathed out by astronauts—into food. Using a similar process on Earth, inside fermentation tanks, could help radically improve the environmental footprint of food.
Tesla Will Build Gigafactory 4 in Berlin Area
November 12th, 2019Via: TechCrunch:
Elon Musk said Tuesday during an awards ceremony in Germany that Tesla’s European gigafactory will be built in the Berlin area.
Musk was on stage to receive a Golden Steering Wheel Award given by BILD.
“There’s not enough time tonight to tell all the details,” Musk said during an on stage interview with Volkswagen Group CEO Herbert Diess. “But it’s in the Berlin area, and it’s near the new airport.”
Awkward MSNBC When Alabama Student Says Jeffrey Epstein Didn’t Kill Himself Live On Air
November 12th, 2019Someone fell asleep at the memory hole button on this one. haha
Via: Camera Never Lies:
Amazon Launching New Grocery Store Brand as Alternative to Whole Foods
November 11th, 2019Via: Cnet:
Amazon on Monday said it plans to open its first new brand of grocery store in California next year, as it amps up its ambitious push to become a bigger name in food.
“Amazon is opening a grocery store in Woodland Hills in 2020,” an Amazon spokesperson confirmed to CNET on Monday morning, soon after the company published four new jobs postings for the location. Woodland Hills is a neighborhood in Los Angeles.
The store will be different from Amazon-owned Whole Foods, the company said. It didn’t say whether it will open more of these locations, what its selection or pricing will be, or what the brand name is. But in the jobs postings, the company described the Woodland Hills location as “Amazon’s first grocery store,” suggesting that it will have the Amazon brand name and that the company could expand to multiple sites.
Google Collecting Complete Health Histories on Millions of Americans
November 11th, 2019Unbelievable.
Via: Wall Street Journal:
Google is engaged with one of the U.S.’s largest health-care systems on a project to collect and crunch the detailed personal-health information of millions of people across 21 states.
The initiative, code-named “Project Nightingale,” appears to be the biggest effort yet by a Silicon Valley giant to gain a toehold in the health-care industry through the handling of patients’ medical data. Amazon.com Inc., Apple Inc. and Microsoft Corp. are also aggressively pushing into health care, though they haven’t yet struck deals of this scope.
Google began Project Nightingale in secret last year with St. Louis-based Ascension, a Catholic chain of 2,600 hospitals, doctors’ offices and other facilities, with the data sharing accelerating since summer, according to internal documents.
The data involved in the initiative encompasses lab results, doctor diagnoses and hospitalization records, among other categories, and amounts to a complete health history, including patient names and dates of birth.
Los Angeles: ‘Capsule Living’
November 11th, 2019PodShare getting you down? Try capsule living!
Via: AFP:
Kay Wilson packed up her life in a hurry and moved to Los Angeles… only to find that what she paid in Pennsylvania for a nice studio apartment would only get her a 2.9-square-meter box in California.
Her new home is a capsule, inspired by the famous hotels in Japan.
Wilson arrived a month ago at UP(st)ART, a community for young people with artistic aspirations in need of an affordable place to live.
Each room contains up to six capsules, which Wilson describes as “cozy.” They contain a single bed, a bar for hanging clothes, a few compartments for storing shoes and other items and an air vent.
By most standards, the accommodation is still not cheap — $750 per month plus taxes. That works out at around $800, which is slightly more than the 26-year-old was paying in Bethlehem, around 70 miles outside Philadelphia.
“I couldn’t afford a studio by myself. Not at all,” she told AFP. “It’s $1,300 or more.”
