• TransferWise now valued at $3.5B following a new $292M secondary round
• Revolut launches Group Vaults as an alternative to joint accounts
• Online ads can be targeted based on your emotions
• NASA picks satellite maker Maxar to build the first crucial piece of its new lunar space station
• The Age of Robot Farmers…Picking strawberries takes speed, stamina, and skill. Can a robot do it?
• 5G could mean less time to flee a deadly hurricane, heads of NASA and NOAA warn…”…It’s because one of the key wireless frequencies earmarked for speedy 5G millimeter wave networks — the 24 GHz band — happens to be very close to the frequencies used by microwave satellites to observe water vapor and detect those changes in the weather. They have the potential to interfere. And according to NASA and NOAA testimony, they could interfere to the point that it delays preparation for extreme weather events…”
• Huawei: ARM memo tells staff to stop working with China’s tech giant
• The Number of ATMs Around the World Has Fallen for the First Time
• PlayStation believes the streaming era is upon them.”…PlayStation Now expansion a key element of Sony’s next-gen plans. [PDF]
• ABB launches blockchain-based inverters for solar energy

• Disney takes over Hulu from Comcast as stream wars heat up…Comcast also will be allowed to sell its 33% stake in Hulu to Disney in 2024 at a valuation of at least $27.5 billion
• AT&T will pull popular shows like Friends from streaming competitors, says CEO
• Stranger Things’ amazing Lego set takes the Upside Down literally
• San Francisco becomes the first US city to ban facial recognition by government agencies
• Uber Black launches Quiet Driver Mode
• VW’s new electric car passes 10,000 orders in just 24 hours
• Microsoft exec explains how the Windows 10 upgrade cycle is driving sales growth — and it’s only halfway done…Windows 7 support ends in January 2020, and Office 2010 support ends in October 2020.
• Uber launches a new tool to help cities track average vehicle speeds by street
• Google’s combining all its travel planning features under a site called Trips
• The next Star Wars movie hitting theaters in 2022 will be from Game of Thrones’ Benioff and Weiss
• McKinsey Skill shift: Automation and the future of the workforce
• WSJ: McDonald’s Strategy to Personalize Ordering
• “…In 2015, about 54 percent of product searches started on Google, and 46 percent started on Amazon. By 2018, the numbers had flipped, according to the marketing analytics firm Jumpstart…Google said on Tuesday that it planned to beef up its e-commerce with a shopping feature that would allow people to make purchases directly from searches, images and YouTube videos. By clicking ads in those settings, a shopper would buy products through Google.” Nytimes

• Google’s latest AI art project turns your face into a ‘poem portrait’
• Blue Origin unveils its lunar lander, Blue Moon
• Cisco open sources MindMeld conversational AI platform
• Netflix has made a rare acquisition, to help it make more kids’ stuff
• The rise of fear-based social media like Nextdoor, Citizen, and now Amazon’s Neighbors
• Germany is opening its first electric highway for trucks
• Uber Is Going Public: How Today’s Tech I.P.O.s Differ From the Dot-Com Boom
• For a Split Second, a (Simulated) Particle Went Backward in Time
• Stripe’s fifth engineering hub is Remote

Tried to do some simple emoji detection with @tensorflow.js What do you think? pic.twitter.com/mP0RDsPHMd

— Nick Bourdakos (@bourdakos1) May 6, 2019

Excellent demonstration of Normal distribution. pic.twitter.com/4vUItHE0zV

— Gabbbar (@GabbbarSingh) May 5, 2019

• The making of Amazon Prime, the internet’s most successful and devastating membership program
• Lego introduces a new STEM Star Wars kit
• Spotify’s leanback instant listening app Stations hits iOS
• A new camera can photograph you from 45 kilometers away
• “…Carnegie Mellon University research has found ways to read “complex thoughts“ based on brain scans, and output text accordingly. The university’s study demonstrated that complex thinking could enable its A.I. to predict the next “sentence” in the thought process…”
• Tesla’s Powerwall as the beating heart of your home

via Gfycat