Apple’s iOS 9.3 introduces several new useful, interesting features, including a F.lux-like screen temperature changer based on time of day, password locks for notes, new shortcuts, and more. Apple rarely does anything big with its incremental updates, but this time it’s different. Read more…
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All the Best, New Features Coming in iOS 9.3
Uber was hit with a $7.6 million fine on Thursday after the California Public Utilities Commission found that the company failed to provide proper data on its drivers in 2014. Uber plans to pay the fine to avoid a suspension of its operating license, though it will appeal the ruling, the Los Angeles Times reports. In July 2015, a judge recommended Uber be fined upwards of $7 million for failing to provide relevant driver data under California’s new ride-hailing laws . Today’s fine stems from that recommendation. The CPUC says Uber failed to provide accessibility information (how many riders asked for accessible vehicles and actually received them), service information (pickup and payment data in each zip code where Uber operates), and the cause of each “driving incident” involving an Uber vehicle. Uber has since provided all of this information to the CPUC, the LA Times reports. Uber’s main competition, Lyft, isn’t facing any penalties in California. While you’re doing the math on all of this, remember: Uber is valued at more than $60 billion . Source: Los Angeles Times
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California fines Uber $7.6 million for not reporting driver data
Turns out we’re way closer to our self-driving car future than most of us expected. US Department of Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx announced at the Detroit Auto Show (pdf) Thursday that the Obama administration will have a national blueprint for autonomous vehicle standards by July. What’s more the administration is earmarking $4 billion of the 2017 budget to create a decade-long program that will support and accelerate development of the technology. “We are on the cusp of a new era in automotive technology with enormous potential to save lives, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and transform mobility for the American people, ” Secretary Foxx said in a statement. Currently, each state has individual laws regarding the burgeoning technology. This forces automakers and early adopters like Google to juggle multiple sets of rules and regulations, depending on where in the country the technology is being built. For example, California recently decided that a human “driver” be present at all times should something go wrong. This program should reduce the number of hoops companies have to jump through by creating an overarching, national-level development framework. Via: Re/Code Source: Department of Transportation (pdf)
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US government announces $4 billion self-driving car program
Yahoo’s business may be struggling , but millions of people still visit its site to read the news every day. That gives the company unique insights into browsing and reading habits, and today the company has released a huge swath of that data. The “Yahoo News Feed dataset” incorporates anonymous browsing habits of 20 million users between February and May of 2015 across a variety of Yahoo properties, including its home page, main news site, Yahoo Sports, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Movies and Yahoo Real Estate. All told, the data set is a whopping 13.5TB and covers 110 billion unique interaction “events.” Yahoo calls it the “largest machine learning dataset” ever publicly released, and we’re inclined to believe them — there aren’t very many companies who could accumulate this much browsing data. It’s a huge amount of data, but fortunately you don’t need to worry about advertisers mining it to make more targeted ads. Yahoo is specifically releasing it only to the academic research community to help people build more effective recommendation algorithms. As noted by the MIT Technology Review , the data set includes includes headlines that Yahoo’s personalization algorithms show to visitors, a summary of the article, and which specific articles people click. There’s also some demographic data for about 7 million users that includes age, gender and location — but it’s all been anonymized. Improving recommendation algorithms is particularly relevant right now, as some of the biggest web properties rely on good recommendation engines to engage with their user. Netflix, Amazon, Google, Apple and Facebook (just to name a few) all rely on serving their users relevant recommendations to keep them engaged with their products and services. Yes, it’s a way for those companies to make more money, but it also generally makes for a better user experience — as long as those recommendations are good. Yahoo’s huge data release will probably go a long way towards meeting that goal. [Image credit: Noah Berger/Bloomberg via Getty Images] Source: Yahoo (Businesswire)
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Yahoo releases massive 13.5TB web-browsing data set to researchers
(credit: SRU.edu ) Online copyright enforcer Rightscorp has agreed to pay $450,000 to end a lawsuit accusing the company of making illegal calls to cell phones. Morgan Pietz, an attorney who played a key role in bringing down Prenda Law, sued Rightscorp in 2014 , saying that the company’s efforts to get settlements from alleged pirates went too far. Rightscorp’s illegal “robocalls” violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), a 1991 law that limits how automated calling devices are used. The class-action lawsuit claimed that some Rightscorp targets were receiving one robocall on their cell phone per day. It’s generally illegal to have automated devices call cell phones. Earlier this week, Pietz and his co-counsel filed court papers outlining the settlement. Rightscorp will pay $450,000 into a settlement fund, which will be paid out to the 2,059 identified class members who received the allegedly illegal calls. Each class member who fills out an “affidavit of noninfringement” will receive up to $100. The rest of the fund will pay for costs of notice and claim administration (about $25,000) and attorneys’ fees and costs, which cannot exceed $330,000. Rightscorp will also “release any and all alleged claims” against the class members. The company had accused the 2,059 class members of committing 126,409 acts of copyright infringement. Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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Rightscorp agrees to pay $450,000 for illegal robocalls
Daniel Rigmaiden was a prolific and talented fraudster who made more than a million dollars filing tax-returns for dead people, using ninja forgery skills and super-tight operational security to avoid arrest for years. (more…)
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How an obsessive jailhouse lawyer revealed the existence of Stingray surveillance devices
(credit: CableLabs ) Next-generation cable modems that can deliver multi-gigabit speeds have been certified by CableLabs, the cable industry’s research and development lab. The new modems use version 3.1 of DOCSIS (the Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification), cable’s answer to fiber Internet speeds. The first DOCSIS 3.1 certifications were earned by Askey, Castlenet, Netgear, Technicolor, and Ubee Interactive, according to the announcement by CableLabs . The group’s testing confirms that the modems comply with the new DOCSIS spec. DOCSIS 3.1 reduces network latency and will enable “high-speed applications including Virtual and Augmented Reality, advanced video technologies such as Ultra High Definition 4K television, tele-existence and medical imaging, and gaming,” CableLabs said. Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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Multi-gigabit cable modems ready to help you blow past your data cap
An anonymous reader writes: A recent ruling of the European Court of Human Rights has granted EU companies the right to monitor and log private conversations that employees have at work while using the employer’s devices. The ruling came after a Romanian was fired for using Yahoo Messenger back in 2007, while at work, to have private conversations with his girlfriend. He argued that his employer was breaking his right for privacy and correspondence. Both Romanian and European courts disagreed. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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EU Companies Can Monitor Employees’ Private Conversations While At Work
David Bowie. (credit: davidbowie.com ) When David Bowie became an Internet service provider in 1998, a man named Ron Roy helped him start the business. Now, three days after the legendary musician’s death at age 69, we’ve interviewed Roy about how “BowieNet” came to life and why it was so important to the artist. “David was tremendously involved from day one,” Roy told Ars via e-mail. Roy appeared in some of the first press releases that followed BowieNet’s US and UK launches; we tracked him down at his current business, Wines That Rock . It was a lot easier to become an Internet service provider in 1998 than it is today. Instead of the enormous expense of deploying fiber or cable throughout a city, ISPs could spring to life by selling dial-up connections to anyone with a telephone line. BowieNet’s dial-up service sold full access to the Internet for $19.95 a month (or £10.00 in the UK), but it was also a fan club that provided exclusive access to David Bowie content such as live video feeds from his studio. Customers who already had a dial-up Internet provider and didn’t want to switch could buy access to BowieNet content separately for $5.95 a month. BowieNet had about 100,000 customers at its peak, Roy said. Read 10 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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David Bowie’s ISP, as remembered by the guy who helped create “BowieNet”
Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 mysteriously disappeared on March 8, 2014—nearly two years ago, if you can believe it. And while Australian researchers still haven’t found the plane, they recently discovered a shipwreck dating back to the 19th century . Read more…
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19th Century Shipwreck Discovered by Australians Still Looking for MH370