Apple, Samsung and Sony Linked to Child Labor Claims in Cobalt Mines 

A new report by Amnesty International claims that Apple, Samsung and Sony are consistently failing to perform the basic checks which are required to ensure that mining operations for essential minerals do not take advantage of child labor. Read more…

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Apple, Samsung and Sony Linked to Child Labor Claims in Cobalt Mines 

Giant Clams Light Up Like Plasma Screens, Only Better

I bet you’ve never thought about how giant clams wil revolutionize future technology. It’s okay. You probably didn’t know about the incredible way these massive mollusks turn sunlight into power . Read more…

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Giant Clams Light Up Like Plasma Screens, Only Better

GE’s New $10,000 App-Powered Pizza Oven Is My American Dream

Imagine a world where pizza didn’t come from the pizza store. Imagine if you could pop down into your spacious kitchen, toss some toppings on dough, and throw it all into your very own internet-connected pizza oven. This future is finally possible— but it’s expensive . Read more…

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GE’s New $10,000 App-Powered Pizza Oven Is My American Dream

Pro Tablet Showdown: iPad Pro vs. Surface Pro 4

Apple’s iPad Pro and Microsoft’s Surface Pro 4 look a lot alike. Both are big tablets, both connect to slim keyboard covers, and both offer a stylus for drawing and note-taking. But after spending some time with these potential laptop replacements, I found that they’re really quite different, particularly when it comes to productivity. Read more…

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Pro Tablet Showdown: iPad Pro vs. Surface Pro 4

All the Best, New Features Coming in iOS 9.3

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

California fines Uber $7.6 million for not reporting driver data

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

Yahoo releases massive 13.5TB web-browsing data set to researchers

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

19th Century Shipwreck Discovered by Australians Still Looking for MH370

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