• 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

• BCG: The Most Innovative Companies 2019
• Built Robotics brings self-driving to construction
• Shopify is expanding its efforts in brick-and-mortar retail with the launch of its new retail hardware collection.
• Comcast is in talks to sell its 30% stake in Hulu to Disney
• Amazon’s warehouse-worker tracking system can automatically fire people without a human supervisor’s involvement
• Automation Could Wipe Out Almost Half of All Jobs in 20 Years
• A Excavator Operator at Bauma in Germany digging at a jobsite in South Korea
• Future Of Retail: How Brands Should Handle Automation In 2019
• 20 Examples Of Machine Learning Used In Customer Experience
• Lettuce-Farming Robots Might Grow Your Next Salad
• NASA and FEMA are practicing what would happen if an asteroid hits the Earth
• Apple Considered Purchasing Intel’s Smartphone Modem Chip Business

• Qualcomm  stock surged after the announcement that the company has settled its  lawsuits with Apple
• Sila Nano’s battery tech is now worth over $1 billion with Daimler partnership and $170 million investment
• Netflix added 9.6M subscribers in Q1, with revenue of $4.5B.. .148.9 million paid streaming subscribers…
• AI is helping retro games look like new
• YouTube is finally coming back to Amazon’s Fire TV devices
• Someone Listed a T-Rex on eBay, and Paleontologists Are Furious
• Hindsight 2070: by  15 experts, “What do we do now that will be considered unthinkable in 50 years?” Here’s what they told us.” By VOX
• How do you hire a great growth marketer?
• Uber’s self-driving car unit raises $1B from Toyota, Denso and Vision Fund ahead of spin-out
• Microsoft Acquires Express Logic To Boost IoT
• GSMA, specified that 5G’s latency should be 1 millisecond, which is 50 times better than 4G’s current 50 milliseconds.
• Apple revamping Find My Friends & Find My iPhone in unified app, developing Tile-like personal item tracking
• West Virginia Will Use Blockchain Voting in the 2020 Presidential Election
• 46 Corporations Working On Autonomous Vehicles
• Intel quits 5G modem business hours after Apple settles with Qualcomm

• The Twilight of Combustion Comes for Germany’s Empire of Engines
• Amazon Workers Are Listening to What You Tell Alexa
• Disney+ streaming service launches on November 12, with a price of $6.99 per month…The Mandalorian Will Be Available on Disney+…The Simpsons will stream exclusively…
• Skype now lets you share your Android or iOS phone screen on video calls
• Uber spent $457 million on self-driving and flying car R&D last year
• DHL launches Africa eShop app for global retailers to sell into Africa
• Computer Scientists Play Key Role in First Image of Black Hole
• Google’s Next Big Money Maker Could Be the Maps on Your Phone…Google Maps is an indispensable part of life for more than 1 billion people, who use it to commute, explore new cities or find a hot new restaurant
• Here’s who owns everything in Big Media today
• Gartner and IDC agree: Global PC shipments fell to exactly 58.5 million in Q1 2019
• Google Chrome engineers want to block some HTTP file downloads

M87 Black Hole Size Comparison https://t.co/wwzQ44nO8a https://t.co/wKfeSkW6U9 pic.twitter.com/pfRPc17O2D

— XKCD Comic (@xkcdComic) April 10, 2019

• Falcon Heavy’s first real launch on Sunday is the dawn of a new heavy-lift era in space
• Skype now supports up to 50 group call participants, topping rivals
• Amazon reportedly readying its Alexa-powered answer to AirPods
• Amazon’s Rise in Ad Searches Dents Google’s Dominance : WSJ
• Apple Music Overtakes Spotify in Paid U.S. Subscribers: WSJ
• 8 Top Findings in Gartner CMO Spend Survey 2018-19
• Elon Musk: Self-driving Teslas are going to make their owners money by competing with Uber, Lyft
• Useable energy stored in different materials, by weight
• Amazon will launch thousands of satellites to provide internet around the world
• New battery will give electric cars over 600 miles of range

• Palantir wins $800 million contract to build the U.S. Army’s next battlefield software system
• The best thing about Apple’s new TV app is that you don’t need an Apple TV
• The 5 biggest announcements from Apple’s March event
• Sony celebrates 4.2 million PSVRs sold — or about twice as many Sega CD accessories
• A new Star Wars audio-only novel will explore Count Dooku and Asajj Ventress’ backstory
• Warner Music will release 20 albums made by an algorithm this year
• McDonald’s spent a reported $300 million to acquire an AI company
• Apple’s new credit card means the tech giant is now battling the same banks that built Apple Pay
• How Apple Card works
• Facebook launches searchable transparency library of all active ads

A devastating development for the Jurassic Park franchise. pic.twitter.com/G2kXuv9TLo

— Eugene Wei (@eugenewei) March 19, 2019