A pro-wall fund has raised more than $7 million in three days. Meanwhile, an effort to raise money for immigrants is picking up steam.
Source: CNET
The company ignored an FCC decision and launched four tiny satellites earlier this year.
Source: CNET
The man who led the Department of Defense for the first two years of the Trump administration will wrap up his tenure early next year. Retired Marine General James Mattis will leave his post by February 28, 2019. Mattis, who retired from the Marine Corps in 2013, received a special congressional waiver to serve as defense secretary.
President Trump characteristically announced the retirement in a pair of tweets, followed by a full resignation letter from Mattis.
In the letter, Mattis alludes to his fundamental ideological differences with Trump in leading the U.S. and interacting with its allies:
“My views of treating allies with respect and also being clear-eyed about both malign actors and strategic competitors are strongly held and informed by over four decades of immersion in these issues,” Mattis writes.
“Because you have the right to have a secretary of defense whose views are better aligned with yours… I believe it is right for me to step down from my position.”
Source: TechCrunch
Kiddie porn is reportedly being spread in WhatsApp chat groups.
Source: CNET
Juul, maker of the best-selling e-cigarettes, agrees to accept a $12.8 billion investment from Altria, the maker of Marlboro cigarettes.
Source: Wired
Los timos tipo ‘pump and dump’ son cada vez más comunes en el universo de las monedas criptográficas. Para luchar contra ellos, una investigación ha analizado su funcionamiento y ha creado un algoritmo capaz de predecir cuando hay uno a punto de suceder
Source: MIT
Hasta hace poco se creía imposible que algún material fuera capaz de convertirse en superconductor a temperaturas habituales en la Tierra, pero parece que el hidruro de lantano lo ha conseguido, aunque para ello requiere estar sometido a una presión elevadísima
Source: MIT
Twitter was down 11 percent today after a Citron Research report called the platform, the “Harvey Weinstein of social media” and set a low target price of $20. As of publishing today, the stock was down more than 11 percent at $29.29 a share.
In their report Citron did not mince words, basing their conclusions on an Amnesty International Report claiming widespread abuse on the Twitter platform. “Citron has been following Twitter for years and when we read the just published piece from Amnesty International, we immediately knew the stock had become uninvestable and advertisers will soon be forced to take a hard look at all sponsorships with Twitter,” Citron wrote.
Citron was reacting to an Amnesty International report that took Twitter to task for not doing more to curb abusive behavior. “We have built the world’s largest crowdsourced data set about online abuse against women… Twitter is a place where racism, misogyny and homophobia are allowed to flourish basically unchecked,” the report stated.
The report went on to call out Twitter for not doing more. “To be clear: it is NOT our job as a human rights organization to be analyzing abusive tweets on this platform – it’s Twitter’s. “But [the company’s] refusal to make public this information, while allowing abuse to flourish basically unchecked, meant we had to do this study for them,” the report said.
For its part, Twitter says it’s been working to reign in the kind of abuses that the Amnesty report criticized them for. “Our abusive behavior policy strictly prohibits behavior that harasses, intimidates or silences another user’s voice. We are also investing in better technology and tools to enable us to more proactively identify abusive, violative material, to limit its spread and reach on the platform and to encourage healthier conversations,” a Twitter spokesperson told TechCrunch.
Vijaya Gadde, Legal, Policy and Trust & Safety Global Lead at Twitter, defended his company, claiming that it wasn’t clear how Amnesty defined abusive language in the report. “With regard to [the] forthcoming [Amnesty International] report, I would note that the concept of ‘problematic’ content for the purposes of classifying content is one that warrants further discussion. It is unclear how [Amnesty has] defined or categorized such content, or if [they] are suggesting it should be removed from Twitter. We work hard to build globally enforceable rules and have begun consulting the public as part of the process — a new approach within the industry,” she said in a statement.
Source: TechCrunch
Obama-era regulation was supposed to curtail livestock antibiotics. But consumers are pushing Perdue, McDonalds, Tyson, Walmart, and more to change.
Source: Wired
Social game developer Zynga has entered into an agreement to acquire Small Giant Games, the startup behind the popular mobile game Empires & Puzzles, in a deal expected to total $700 million.
Zynga, which has tumbled since its 2011 Nasdaq initial public offering, will initially acquire 80 percent of Small Giant Games for $560 million, composed of $330 million in cash and $230 million of unregistered Zynga common stock. Zynga will fund part of the transaction with a $200 million credit facility.
“We’ve been impressed by the quality and momentum of Empires & Puzzles as we add another Forever Franchise into Zynga’s portfolio,” Zynga chief executive officer Frank Gibeau said in a statement. “Small Giant has created an innovative game that delivers a unique player experience that engages over the long term.”
The deal is expected to close on January 1. Zynga will purchase the remaining 20 percent of Small Giant over the next three years “at valuations based on specified profitability goals.”
Helsinki-based Small Giant Games had raised $52 million in equity funding from EQT Ventures, Creandum, Spintop Ventures, Profounders and others since it was founded in 2013. The company reported $33 million of revenue for Empires & Puzzles, its most popular game, 10 months after its launch in 2017. Small Giant, which is also behind Alliance Wars and Season 2: Atlantis, says they exceeded 2017’s revenue just four months into 2018.
“Our studio was founded on the idea that small, skillful teams can accomplish giant things, and I am confident that partnering with Zynga is the right next step in our evolution,” Small Giant CEO Timo Soininen said in a statement. “We will now operate as a separate studio within Zynga, maintaining our identity, culture and creative independence. By leveraging the expertise and support from the wider Zynga team, we will amplify the reach of Empires & Puzzles and the new games in our development pipeline.”
Zynga, founded in 2007, is the developer of FarmVille, Zynga Poker, Words with Friends and several other mobile games. The company reported revenues of $248.88 million for the quarter ended September 2018, failing to meet analyst estimates.
Zynga expects to bring in $243 million in revenue in the fourth quarter of 2018.
Source: TechCrunch