Review Vrtmr: December 2019

Tuesday 31 December 2019

Tech's biggest companies are worth ~$5T as 2019's epic stock market run wraps

Yes, we know that the Nasdaq has been setting new records and SaaS had a good year. Let's cap off this year the way it deserves to be remembered, as a kick-ass trip 'round the sun for your local, public technology company.

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Major new privacy law in 2020: What you need to know about the CCPA

One huge change coming in 2020 is a new data privacy law called the California Consumer Protection Act, or CCPA. And its effects will be felt far beyond the Golden State.

The CCPA is basically California’s equivalent to the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR. The law, which was signed by Gov. Jerry Brown last year, grants California residents new privacy rights and consumer protections. It goes into effect at the stroke of midnight on Jan. 1, 2020. And, even if you aren’t a resident of California, it could affect you.

What is the CCPA going to do?

Residents of California will have the right to know what personal data is being collected about them and the right to request that this information be deleted. They will also have the right to know the details of how their data is being used, who the data is sold to or shared with, and they can request that their data not be sold to third parties. In addition, Californians will have the right to request access to their personal data. Read more...

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Tech that defined the decade

2020 is just around the corner, and another decade will soon come to an end. A lot has happened over the past ten years, and not all of it was pleasant: 3D television came and went, the headphone jack slowly died and the intersection of tech and politics frequently became front-page news. But amidst the downers, there was still plenty of groundbreaking tech that came about between 2010 and now that have made an impact in our lives. Here's a not-at-all-comprehensive list of a few of them.

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Everything we think Apple will release in 2020

One of Apple's great virtues is its predictability. The company's annual routine hasn't changed all that much in the last five years or so, meaning fans can plan their purchases (and journalists can plan their coverage) weeks or months in advance, even without knowing every specific detail about every announcement.

As such, we have a decent idea of what to expect from Apple in the new year, even if we haven't seen the fine print yet. We'll almost certainly get some combination of new iPhones, iPads, Macbooks, and Apple Watches this year, and we can even map out when we'll probably hear about all these things. Read more...

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Sharon Stone finds her Bumble account blocked, is later reinstated

The Basic Instinct actress took to Twitter to express her concerns. The dating app soon reached out to her to rectify the situation. Read more...

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In 2019 cameras got much better, but the market still crashed

For cameras and photographers, 2019 was another banner year... but for manufacturers? Not so much. Sales were down in all categories as of mid-year because everyone just uses their smartphones now. While that's pretty gloomy news, it's working out nicely for buyers, especially in the enthusiast and high-end categories. Companies like Sony, Nikon, Canon and Fujifilm are pulling out all the stops to create desirable models and are dropping prices, too. In a major milestone, mirrorless sales passed DSLRs for the first time ever. Some banner 2019 models include Panasonic's S1H, the first mirrorless camera approved for Netflix productions. In the enthusiast category, we saw the stellar Fujifilm X-T30, Canon's M6 Mark II, Sony's A6400 and the Nikon Z50. At the high end, Sony jolted the market with the 61-megapixel A7R IV. And on the weird side, Fujifilm unveiled the eccentric X-Pro3 with a display it wants you to not use. However, smartphone cameras keep improving with new AI tech, extreme high-res sensors and multiple lenses. To survive, manufacturers could try to get more creative by making it easier to snap and share photos -- or just accept that cameras have become a niche market and adjust their business plans accordingly. In any case, let's take a look at all the best models that came out in 2019.

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Rock your way into 2020 with the latest JBL speaker for less than $100

TL;DR: Make every day a celebration with up to 50% off JBL speakers and headphones.

Twitter has once again been taken over by tweets like "If you play 'Hey Jude' at 11:56:52 on December 31st you will hear '...better, better AHHHHH' exactly as it becomes 2020!" and people are loving it.

If you do want to enter the new year with one of the Beatles screaming, you'll need a good speaker. JBL has you covered.

From the Flip 5, their latest speaker model, to their in-ear headphones endorsed by the Greek God himself, Giannis Antetokounmpo, they have sales on it all.

We rounded up the deals happening now on Amazon. Check them out below: Read more...

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Did Honda’s CEO Say EVs Make No Sense? Not Exactly

Honda CEO Takahiro Hachigo says there’s no future for EVs. Or maybe he didn’t. Comments Hachigo made recently indicate he doesn’t see “a dramatic increase in demand for battery vehicles.” Much of the confusion comes from analysis / commentary from other media outlets reacting to a recent interview with Automotive News Europe. Hachigo appears, at worst, to be honest in noting that demand sucks currently for fully electric vehicles. That honest appraisal disheartens EV-enthusiast journalists who dislike an executive who isn’t a full-on cheerleader for battery electric vehicles.

Tesla has shown there’s a market for pure EVs, not just hybrids, not just plug-in hybrids (PHEVs). Similarly, two decades ago, Toyota showed there’s a market for hybrids that went a mile or two on battery power, the rest of the time on gasoline (but still managed impressive mpg increases). Their dominant products sucked the oxygen out of the market for a decade or more.

What Honda CEO Hachiago Really Said

Here’s the key points from an interview of Hachigo with Automotive News Europe editors Jamie Butters and Hans Greimel, through a translator:

Q (ANE): Honda wants two-thirds of its global sales to come from electrified vehicles by 2030. What is your road to electrification when demand for hybrids and EVs is still undeveloped?

A (Hachiago ): I believe hybrid vehicles will play a critical role. The objective is not electrification, per se, but improving fuel efficiency. And we believe hybrid vehicles are the way to abide by different environmental regulations.

Q: What about full-electric vehicles?

A: Are there really customers who truly want them? I’m not so sure because there are lots of issues regarding infrastructure and hardware. I do not believe there will be a dramatic increase in demand for battery vehicles, and I believe this situation is true globally. There are different regulations in different countries, and we have to abide by them. So it’s a must to continue R&D. But I don’t believe it will become mainstream anytime soon.

What we hear from Honda’s head guy is what you’d expect to hear from pragmatic automaker: a straightforward appraisal of where the market is today. He did not, unlike other CEOs, complain that governments need to underwrite a big charging infrastructure first.

What we hear from some of our fellow editors tracking EVs is disbelief that Honda hasn’t gotten with the program. From Elektrek (“Honda CEO says ‘There Will Be No Dramatic Increase EV demand’”):

Honda EV Plus: first modern EV, 1997-99, 80-100 miles range, 300 built.

The automotive industry is operating on two completely separate alternative planes of existence. Readers of this site are familiar with the overwhelming evidence of EVs approaching an inflection point, and the last gasps of internal combustion. Let’s call that reality. And then there’s Honda’s Takahiro Hachigo, joined by executives from Toyota (and others). In their alternative universe, the inevitability of a pure-electric future is not proven. Nobody wants them.

… Nearly four decades ago, Honda introduced the first engine technology to meet US Clean Air Act standards without the need for a catalytic converter. In 1999, the Honda Insight was the first hybrid. But that’s ancient history. Today, the company remains fixated on 20-year-old technology rather than innovating for the new electric age. … At the same time, Hachigo’s latest statements are entirely out of step with the times. The imperative of global climate change is too urgent for minimal compliance and CES eye candy.

And from Jalopnik (“Ghostly Specter Of Honda’s CEO Still Not Convinced Electric Cars Are A Thing”):

Here comes Honda CEO Takahiro Hachigo, rising from the dead to walk among us in the year 2019—a year in which Tesla has sold more than 255,000 cars [worldwide]—to inform us he is still not sure about this whole electric car thing, revealing himself to be not a man but a ghost of a bygone era.

Honda is also designing a modular electric car platform which they hope to have ready by 2025. Does that count as “anytime soon?” By automaker timelines, probably not, which means there’s plenty of time for more CEOs to die and rise from the dead before Honda completes its EV platform for a future it doesn’t think will happen.

One company dominated hybrid sales 20 years ago: Toyota. Now Tesla is doing the same with EVs. Four-fifths of EVs sold in the US are Teslas. After that, only Chevy, Nissan and BMW sell more than 5,000 EVs year. (Source: Statista)

The EV Market Is Good (For Tesla)

Automakers have lots of rules to follow: crash protection, safety equipment, emissions. Also they have to make money for shareholders. And stay in business. Right now, Tesla dominates battery-electric vehicle sales, controlling 80 percent (182,000) of the 228,000 pure EVs sold in 2018 in the US, which is 1.0 percent of all US sales. What’s left is table scraps. Chevy has 8 percent of the EV market (0.1 perecent of all vehicles sold), Nissan 6 percent of EVs (0.1 percent of all sales). For everybody else, it rounds to 0.0 percent unless you go to two decimal places.

Honda sold 948 Clarity BEVs in 2018. That is a small number: one of every 1,500 Hondas sold, one of every 18,000 cars sold (all brands) in 2018. Clarify is actually three vehicles: a fuel-cell car that converts hydrogen to electricity, a BEV (the sub-1,000 sales), and a plug-in hybrid. Together they accounted for 20,000 Clarity sales, but virtually all of them were PHEVs. Honda marketed the Clarity BEV as a comfortable family car (think Accord with batteries instead of gasoline). But with an EPA combined-driving range of 89 miles, it was a challenging car to sell. Honda will move into 2020 with the fuel cell and PHEV but not the Clarity EV.

Critics scoff at PHEVs as uninteresting for the long term, and they’re probably right. For. The. Long. Term. But in the US with its greater driving distances than Europe, they make sense. You can drive to and from work on electricity alone if you remember to recharge when you get home. And then on weekends you go where you want, mostly on gasoline. Meanwhile, battery technology is improving at about 20 percent a year, so four to five years from now, a 100-mile Clarity BEV could be a 200-mile Clarity. (And, okay, a 250-mile Tesla could be a 500-mile Tesla.) So Honda could lay low until 2025, rejoin the fray then, and not miss a lot of EV sales in the US. In Europe, the company may face regulatory pressure to act sooner.

The Honda E is part of a new architecture coming within five years.

Honda’s Roadmap for Electrification

Honda e, due in 2021 in Europe – Honda’s first minicar since 2001.

Honda will bring to bring to market an electric city car in 2020 called the Honda E, in the spring of 2020. At 157 inches, it’s smallish for the US market. Over the summer Honda told investors and media it’s developing a dedicated EV platform for midsize and large sedans and SUVs. The first vehicles will come to market in 2025. It’s this timeframe that has some media critics upset with Honda.

Right now in the US Honda has these alternative vehicles:

Honda Accord Hybrid, 48 mpg city / 46 mpg highway, this from what measures as a full-size car.
Honda Insight third-generation compact hybrid, 48 mpg city / 46 mpg highway
Honda Clarity PHEV, BEV, hydrogen fuel cell through 2019.
Honda CR-V Hybrid, due early 2020, targeting Toyota RAV4.

Honda appears to be intercepting the glidepath toward higher-efficiency, zero-tailpipe-pollution vehicles. Europe especially is pushing automakers toward cleaner, higher-efficiency vehicles. Honda will begin selling the retro-look Honda e next year in Europe, with a goal of at least 10,000 units a year, possibly more. The Honda e, a minicar, will allow Honda to meet EU CO2 targets in 2020 and 2021 without paying fines.

While we live on the same planet and breathe the same air (more or less), Europe feels the shock more when Russian or the Middle East countries restrict access to petroleum – the US can always “drill, baby, drill” (per Sarah Palin – and Europe is also more concerned about clean air. The US’ concern about fuel consumption and clean air depends a lot on who’s in the White House come 2021. Currently the US supports aggressive petroleum-source development and extraction.

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Meet 9 of the best kitchen gadget deals we found in 2019

At the risk of being trolled by IP lovers out there, the truth is, you don't really need an Instant Pot. In fact, you don't really need many kitchen appliances on the market. But then again, what's the fun in that?

While there are always manual workarounds, appliances do regularly save you time, elbow grease, and headaches while cooking. And this ease of use is the reason why even Michelin-starred chefs will opt for cooking with devices such as a sous-vide instead of hovering over an open flame.

So if you're looking to fully trick out your kitchen in the new year, the good news is that many top-tier appliances are on sale right now (and have price tags that rival Black Friday promotions). Read more...

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10 of the best charging accessories are all on sale

Take stock of the chargers you've perused ever since the beginning of the smartphone era, and we can almost guarantee that you've gone through countless ones. We get it. Most chargers are shoddy, and the options that seem promising come with questionable price tags.

But we're here to save you from purchasing another charger that you would just throw out in a matter of months. Below, you'll find 10 of the best charging accessories that we found this year, all of which are on sale for an extra 20% off with the code 20SAVE20.

Qi Wireless Fast Charging Pad

Whether you're using a sleek Samsung or a shiny new iPhone, this charger will boost your device to 100% as long as it's Qi-compatible. It rids you the hassle of dealing with wires and safeguards your gadgets from damage thanks to short circuit and overheating protection. Typically on sale for $14.99, it's just $11.99 with the code 20SAVE20. Read more...

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Here’s how thinking about building on Mars can help us build better right here on Earth

Thinking about how to build things on Mars comes with a surprising advantage, according to AI SpaceFactory. The company recently won first place at NASA’s 3D-Printed Habitat Challenge with their 3D printed Martian habitat, MARSHA. A few months after the competition, TERA, AI SpaceFactory's first attempt to 3D print a home designed for Earth, is now under construction.

The company believes its space construction technology could help us build sustainable and recyclable houses here on Earth, too. Read more...

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LG's answer to foldable phones may be a detachable display that wraps around the phone

In the never-ending quest for increasing the screen real estate on smartphones, LG has a new idea: a case that's actually a big, foldable OLED display that can wrap around the phone.

Yes, it's a little weird.

This is according a new LG patent unearthed by Dutch outlet LetsGoDigital (via Android Central). The patent, submitted to the WIPO Global Design Database, as well as The Hague International Design System, describes a case that's essentially all screen, and can be combined with the mobile phone and used as a foldable display. It can also be set next to the phone (it connects to the phone via a special, vertically positioned connector), allowing you to get a vast amount of screen space. Read more...

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Monday 30 December 2019

Russia starts antitrust investigation into Booking.com

Booking.com has become the latest US tech company to draw the attention of Russia's Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS). On Monday, the agency said it plans to investigate the hotel and hostel reservation website for anticompetitive practices.

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Uber and Postmates sue California over gig worker law

It didn't take long for tech companies to take legal action in hopes of thwarting California's gig economy labor law. Uber and Postmates have filed a lawsuit in an attempt to block AB5, which makes it harder for companies to define workers as contractors, just as it takes effect. They (along with two workers, Lydia Olson and Miguel Perez) claim the law violates both US and state Constitutions by denying the guarantees of equal protection. The companies alleged that the bill, and its sponsor Lorena Gonzalez, unfairly singled out the gig economy while letting other industries off the hook.

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New Lyft and Uber rules to know for New Year's Day

Happy New Year! Now pay up.

That's what it feels like with new fees, regulations, and taxes kicking in on Jan. 1 (on Wednesday) for ride-share trips on apps like Uber and Lyft.

In California, there's a lot to take in. A statewide change to gig job classifications, called AB5, goes into effect as soon as it's officially 2020.

That means on-demand drivers for apps like Lyft and Uber can argue they should be treated like employees with better pay and benefits, not like independent contractors. Lyft and Uber don't plan to change anything yet with how it hires, pays, and employs drivers, claiming its drivers are truly independent workers who don't need to be reclassified. Read more...

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Listen to top VCs discuss the next generation of automation startups at TC Sessions: Robotics+AI

Robotics, AI and automation have long been one of the hottest categories for tech investments. Robotics are beginning to dominate nearly every aspect of work, from warehouse fulfillment, to agriculture to retail and construction. Eric Migicovsky is a General Partner a Y Combinator.

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Bye, Siri. Make your car give you directions in your own voice.

Forget a random digital voice telling you to turn left in 800 feet. A new service "clones" real voices so that your mom, sister, or even you can be the one giving you directions.

It's called "My Car, My Voice," and it's built into Cerence, the voice software in many cars from Toyota, GM, Audi, Chrysler, BMW, and other automakers. It's only available for the voice assistant built into the car, not Google Assistant or Apple's Siri.

To generate the voice, you need a live person to speak a series of sentences into the Cerence app in your infotainment system, which means you can't make it sound like your favorite celebrity unless you know them IRL. If you can get Timothée Chalamet into your car to record some phrases for you, by all means, please do. Read more...

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Mars 2020 Rover Completes First Test Drive

NASA has inched closer to completing its next Mars rover with a milestone driving test. The team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California fired up the Mars 2020 rover and allowed to to drive around the Spacecraft Assembly Facility clean room. NASA reports the rover passed the test with flying colors, signaling it’s ready to drive on the red planet.

The still-unnamed Mars 2020 rover borrows heavily from Curiosity’s highly successful design. It has six wheels with independent suspensions, allowing it to traverse uneven terrain. In the JPL test, the team set up small staggered ramps to test the robot’s weight distribution as the wheels moved up and down. The rover drove in one-meter increments for more than 10 hours.

The rover has now shown that it can operate under its own weight on Earth, so it should encounter no problems on Mars where it will weigh much less. NASA hopes this rover will cover a lot of ground on Mars — Opportunity holds the current record with 28.06 miles (45.16 kilometers), but Curiosity (upon which Mars 2020 is based) has managed a respectable 13.10 miles (21.09 kilometers).

This driving test also demonstrated the rover’s autonomous capabilities for the first time. NASA designed this robot to handle more decision-making on site rather than waiting for controllers on Earth to send instructions for each maneuver. For this reason, it has higher resolution cameras and additional processing power to create maps and run its auto-navigation software. It should have the necessary muscle, too, with its thicker aluminum wheels and titanium spokes. Curiosity’s wheels have suffered heavy damage from the sharp rocks of Mars, but Mars 2020 should be able to cover more distance before showing wear. Mars 2020 should be able to average 650 feet (200 meters) per day, which is just shy of Curiosity’s best day at 702 feet (214 meters).

NASA plans to launch the rover in summer 2020 when Mars and Earth pass close by each other. It should land on Mars using a Curiosity-style rocket sled in February 2021. The Jezero crater landing site is ideal for the mission to search for evidence of ancient life, as well as current water deposits. It will even store samples that a future mission could collect for a return trip to Earth. The rover should also get a name in the next few months.

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Yep, Venmo is down

Given the need to buy weed so you can get through another few days with your family, it's a bad time for Venmo to go down but here we are.

The issues first hit Venmo around 11:30 a.m. ET on Monday morning and have continued for more than two hours.

Users trying to access their funds or pay someone for last night's pizza were met with the following error screen.

Welp, Venmo pic.twitter.com/LO8bSogTqX

— Marcus Gilmer (@marcusgilmer) December 30, 2019

Users are now scrambling to figure out ways to pay people in the year of Lord Bezos 2019. Read more...

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Uber co-founder announces resignation from board of directors

Travis Kalanick will leave the company with $2.5 billion from Uber stock as he ventures further into new projects. Read more...

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While other tech giants fund housing initiatives, Amazon is opening a homeless shelter -- inside its HQ

As big tech gets bigger, industry leaders have begun making more noise about helping homeless populations, particularly in those regions where high salaries have driven up the cost of living to heights not seen before. Last January, for example, Facebook and Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, among other participants, formed a group called the Partnership for the Bay's Future that said it was going to commit hundreds of millions of dollars to expand affordable housing and strengthen "low-income tenant protections" in the five main counties in and around San Francisco. Microsoft meanwhile made a similar pledge in January of last year, promising $500 million to increase housing options in Seattle where low- and middle-income workers are being priced out of Seattle and its surrounding suburbs.

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Google Pixel 4a could have a hole-punch display

Google's flagship Pixel 4 phone has only been out for two months and we're already seeing rumors about the Pixel 4a.

Renders by site 91 Mobiles, based on information from reliable Twitter leaker @OnLeaks (via The Verge), shows what the Pixel 4a could look like, including a hole-punch display for the front-facing camera.

And here comes my last late #Christmas gift in form of your very first and early look at the #Google #Pixel4a!
360° video + gorgeous 5K renders + dimensions, on behalf of my Friends over @91mobiles -> https://t.co/rsvRkjVOln pic.twitter.com/sqG6J5knSR

— Steve H.McFly (@OnLeaks) December 28, 2019 Read more...

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Amazon wants to give you an extra $5 to spend on eBooks

TL;DR: Get $5 back in eBook credit when you spend $20 on Amazon eBooks. (Note: you have to log in to Amazon to see this particular deal, but we promise it's there.)

Don't we all have that long list of books we've been meaning to get to? Well, the time is now. After all, you'll probably want a moment to sit and relax after the craziness of the holidays and New Year's.

Luckily, Amazon is offering a $5 eBook credit (log in to see it) when you spend $20 on any of their thousands of eBook options bought between Dec. 27 and Dec. 31. If you've already spent money stocking up your Kindle, don't worry, your purchases during the above time period will still count towards the $20. Read more...

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This Bose sale is so good, you might want to pause your vacation

There's no shame whatsoever in buying budget tech — trust us, we know how expensive it can get. One thing we don't suggest skimping on, though, is your audio equipment. We're talking headphones, speakers, soundbars; all that good stuff.

When it comes to sound tech, you can't go wrong with Bose — a bunch of their devices are on sale on Amazon, all of them high-quality and worth every penny.

Here's what you can get:

Bose SoundSport Free Truly Wireless Headphones — Save $30.95

Total freedom of movement and amazing sound quality to boot, the Bose SoundSport earbuds are a great pick for those who regularly visit the gym — they're sweat-and-water-resistant, and come with multiple different tips to ensure you get a secure fit. You'll even get a charging case that can get you up to five hours of play at a time. Read more...

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A New Study Indicates Humans Self-Generate Misinformation

A new study into sources of misinformation suggests that humans self-generate it on a regular basis by misrecalling information they’ve previously learned in ways that fit already-existing opinions and biases.

The term misinformation is specifically defined as Merriam-Webster as “incorrect or misleading information.” It is distinct from terms like disinformation, which is defined as “false information deliberately and often covertly spread (as by the planting of rumors) in order to influence public opinion or obscure the truth.” One of the major differences between misinformation and disinformation is motive. Disinformation campaigns are always deliberate, misinformation can be spread in good faith.

The sources of misinformation matter a great deal if your goal is to deepen people’s understandings of facts and improve the quality of public discourse. If you think about how information is distributed, you probably picture some version of a top-down model: Something happens, eyewitnesses and journalists converge on it, and the information they collectively report filters down to all of us through whatever media we use to consume it. The education system uses more-or-less the same model.

Typically, when people think about fighting misinformation, we think about it in terms of fact-checking sources and ensuring the data in an article or textbook is as complete and up-to-date as possible. I check facts like die sizes, launch dates, and benchmark results on a regular basis to make certain that I’m writing factual data.

A new paper published in Human Communication Research suggests, however, that we’ve been overlooking a significant source of misinformation — and it’s going to be far more difficult to fix: Humans appear to self-generate misinformation even when they’ve been given the facts. This study focused on numerical misinformation — i.e., mistransmission of data related to specific factual information that study participants had been given. The fundamental goal of the experiment was to measure whether or not humans would remember numbers better if the claims they were given were consistent or inconsistent with the beliefs of the individual.

To test this, individuals were presented with data on topics like support for same-sex marriage in the US, gender preferences for one’s boss, the number of Mexican immigrants in the United States, and the total number of white people killed by police in 2016 versus the total number of black people. The individuals being tested were polled for their own pre-test expectations on these topics and the data presented to them was given in a manner that was both consistent with what individuals believed would be true or was chosen to present facts they were less likely to believe are true. Table 1, shown below, shows the framing for the experiment:

Individual polling of the test group showed that the poll results aligned with expectations, which is why this is called “schema consistent.” In the case of Mexican immigrants, people expected there to be more immigrants in 2014 than in 2007, when in fact the opposite was true. The first group of participants were asked to answer questions based on the data they had just seen. Their answers were then used to inform the questions that were shown to a second group of people. The answers from that group were used to inform the questions asked to a third group of people.

The image above shows how the system worked. The test was administered using numerical sliders to give answers and using text input. Effectively, this replicates a game of telephone — each person is transmitting the version of data they remember. Before you look at the next slide, let’s quickly review: Americans generally expect there were more Mexican immigrants in the US in 2014 than in 2007, they believe police killed more black people than white people in 2016, they prefer a male boss to a female boss, and they favor support for same-sex marriage. Now, look at what the test results showed. The values on the far left of the graph are the actual statistics, in every case. Wave 1 indicates the answers of the first group, Wave 2 the second group, etc.

When presented with data that conflicted with their own previously held beliefs, humans get really bad at math. The drop in Mexican immigrants that occurred from 2007 – 2014 reverses in Wave 1. The very first people who saw the data literally couldn’t remember the answer correctly and flipped the values, associating 2007 with fewer immigrants and 2014 with more. Importantly, these results continue to diverge when transmitted to Wave 3. In other words, it’s not just that people think that the overall Mexican immigrant population must have risen because of the passage of time. Wave 1 overestimated the number of Mexican immigrants by 900,000. Wave 3 overestimated it by 4.1 million. In this case, the initial figure of total immigrants doesn’t drop all that much and most of the inaccuracy is introduced by grossly inflated estimates of how many Mexicans moved to the US over this period.

With police shootings, Wave 1 manages to remember that more whites than blacks were shot, even if both values are wrong. Starting with Wave 2, we get the same crossover that we saw with Wave 1 — except in this case, the initial value keeps being shoved lower.

The data on police shootings shows a little more staying power. While the absolute values both moved towards reversing, Wave 1 still remembered which group was larger. By Wave 2 — remember, that’s the group that used the answers Wave 1 gave — that effect has completely reversed. This time, however, both numbers have come unmoored from their original data points in both tests.

But if you give people data they do expect, they show completely different mental patterns — not so much necessarily in terms of absolute accuracy, but at least in terms of relationships. In the case of percentage of Americans who prefer a male versus a female boss, the percentages climb towards the group-reported estimate of belief rather than maintaining the initial levels given, even though the initial percentages show clear preference for male over female bosses (aligning with general group preference). In the last case, the number of Americans who favored same-sex marriage was underestimated, while the percentage opposed declined in Wave 1 and then moved back towards the actual value.

Participants in the NIH ResearchMatch version of the study were told that numerical percentages could not exceed 100 percent in the slider version, and also told that the total number of immigrants did not exceed 20 million, which may explain some of the differences, but the charts are in general agreement.

People Remember Facts Less Well if They Disagree With Them

There are two interesting findings here. First, there’s further evidence that people literally remember facts less-well if they don’t agree with them. For all the people who claim they change their mind if confronted with facts, the reality is that people tend to change their facts, not their opinions — even when asked to answer questions about information they literally just read.

This has serious implications for how we think, as a society, about the transmission of information from one mind to another. About a year ago, I wrote a story debunking some rumors about AMD’s then-future 7nm Ryzen CPUs. At the time, some individuals were arguing that AMD’s 7nm CPUs would simultaneously deliver huge price cuts, more cores, large clock speed increases, and a giant leap in IPC, simultaneously. My debunk article wasn’t 100 percent accurate — I guessed that AMD might not use chiplets for desktop Ryzen and reserve them for Epyc instead — but the final chips AMD launched bear absolutely no resemblance to the rumored configurations.

I addressed this topic several times over six months because this set of rumors simply would not die. I bolstered my arguments with historical CPU data, long-term CPU clock scaling trends, AMD’s statements to investors, AMD’s statements to the press, and long-term comparisons on the relationship between AMD’s margins and its net profits. I discussed increasing wafer costs and how chiplets, while a great innovation, were also a symptom of the problems AMD was facing.

Now, let me be clear. I’m not arguing that everyone who read those stories was somehow automatically obligated to agree with me. My prognostication record is anything but perfect and reasonable people can disagree on how they read broad industry trends. There’s a difference, however, between “I think 7nm clocks might come in a little higher than you do,” and “I think AMD will simultaneously slash prices, slash power consumption, and revolutionize semiconductors with generational performance gains we haven’t seen in almost a decade,” despite the fact that there was literally no evidence to support any of these positions.

If you showed up to argue the former, or something that even reasonably looks like it, I’m not talking about you. I’m talking about the vocal minority of people who showed up to argue that AMD was about to launch the Second Coming in silicon form. Those who didn’t predict my firing often suggested I’d be writing a tearful apology at some later date.

My point in bringing this up isn’t to rehash old arguments or toot my horn. My point is that there’s a real life example of this very phenomena that you can go and read about. I don’t know where these rumors started, but once they took hold, they proved quite tenacious. As good as Ryzen is — and 7nm Ryzen is great — the rumors about it were better than the CPU could ever possibly be. When confronted with this, some people got angry.

Short of giving the planet some in-depth training in overcoming cognitive bias, it’s not clear how to reduce the spread of person-to-person misinformation, and the authors conclude that more study is needed here. As important as it is to ensure the factual accuracy of primary sources, the fact that humans appear to generate misinformation in an effort to make that data align with pre-existing schemas means focusing solely on the primary source problem will never address its full scope.

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Jump-start your smart home with this Echo Dot and Philips Hue bundle — save $35

TL;DR: Start putting together your smart home with this Echo Dot and Philips Hue smart lighting bundle — now 44% off on Amazon; just $44.99.

We humans are lazy by nature — sometimes all we want to do is curl up on the couch and watch some Disney+, so no wonder so many of us want to build out a smart home setup. You haven't known true peace until you've scheduled your robot vacuum to clean, checked your to-do list, and got lost in your latest playlist without having to move a muscle.

If that sounds good to you, this Echo Dot and Philips Hue bundle is a great start to your smart home essentials — plus, it's $35 off right now. Read more...

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Being a YouTube creator is hard. Here are the top tools to grow your channel.

It’s never been a better time to become a YouTuber.

Sure, the earliest creators had a head start building their channels and monetizing accounts is harder now. But there are more people watching YouTube videos now than ever before.

The online video behemoth is the world’s second biggest search engine, trailing only its parent company, Google. More than 2 billion people visit the site each month and that’s only counting users logged into their YouTube account.

While covering YouTube for Mashable and managing channels myself, I’ve tested a number of third-party tools that can help creators run their channels. If you’re a YouTube creator or even thinking of starting a channel, here are some of the tools I think you should check out. Read more...

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Elon Musk details SpaceX progress on latest Starship spacecraft build and flight timelines

The holidays might be a time of slowed activity for most companies in the tech sector, but for SpaceX, it was a time to ramp production efforts on the latest Starship prototype – "Starship SN1" as it's called, according to SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. This flight design prototype of Starship is under construction at SpaceX's Boca Chica, Texas development facility, and Musk was in attendance over the weekend overseeing its build and assembly.

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Sharon Stone gets on Bumble, gets blocked after users report her profile as fake

Online dating ain't easy if you're a celebrity.

Sharon Stone learned that the hard way when she created a profile on online dating app Bumble, only to get blocked because, essentially, no one believed it was really her.

"Your account has been blocked because we've received several reports about your profile being fake," said the message Stone has received from Bumble, according to a screenshot she posted on Twitter.

I went on the @bumble dating sight and they closed my account. 👁👁
Some users reported that it couldn’t possibly be me!
Hey @bumble, is being me exclusionary ? 🤷🏼‍♀️
Don’t shut me out of the hive 🐝

— Sharon Stone (@sharonstone) December 30, 2019 Read more...

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2019 Africa Roundup: Jumia IPOs, China goes digital, Nigeria becomes fintech capital

2019 brought more global attention to Africa's tech scene than perhaps any previous year. Here’s an overview of the 2019 market events that captured attention and capped off a decade of rapid growth in African tech. The story of the year is the April IPO on the NYSE of Pan-African e-commerce company Jumia.

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Become an elite digital marketer in 2020 with this $39 course bundle

TL;DR: Become a digital marketing whiz with The 2020 Full Stack Digital Marketing Certification Bundle for $39, a 98% savings.

While you can always learn to code and build websites, there are definitely other ways to make good money on the internet in 2020 – like digital marketing, for example. Digital marketing professionals are crazy in-demand these days, and you can make a solid starting salary using the digital platforms you're on every day. You just need to learn all the hidden tricks lying beneath the surface.

Since digital marketing has expanded pretty drastically over the past few years, you're going to need to know more than just how to set up an Instagram account. And this 2020 Full Stack Digital Marketing Certification Bundle can help you on your way to greatness. Read more...

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10 of the best audio products of 2019 are on ridiculous sale right now

We're merely days away from 2020 – the year of perfect vision, lucidity, and precision. Besides getting your goals in line and your finances in order, there are some other things in your life that could use some clarity – like your music, for example. If you're still tethered to wired headphones, listening to your Spotify playlists on an old boombox with one working speaker, or holding onto your ancient MP3 player, it's time to upgrade your listening experience. You deserve to hear clear, pristine audio in the year 2020.

Check out some of our favorite wireless headphones and Bluetooth speakers, all on sale for an extra 20% off. Enter the coupon code 20SAVE20 at checkout and you'll find it hard to pass up these great deals. Read more...

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Sunday 29 December 2019

Indian tech startups raised a record $14.5B in 2019

Indian tech startups have never had it so good. Local tech startups in the nation raised $14.5 billion in 2019, beating their previous best of $10.5 billion last year, according to research firm Tracxn . Tech startups in India this year participated in 1,185 financing rounds -- 459 of those were Series A or later rounds -- from 817 investors.

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Data leak by IoT device maker Wyze exposes personal information of 2.4 million people

Smart home device company Wyze has confirmed that personal data gathered from millions of users was left exposed on the internet for weeks, including email addresses and health data.

The breach was discovered by security consulting firm Twelve Security and confirmed by IPVM, both posting blogs about it on Dec. 26. According to Twelve Security, the compromised data gathered from 2.4 million people included users' emails, nicknames given to cameras, Wi-Fi names, health data like weight and gender, and information on users' Wyze devices.

The report has since been confirmed by Wyze's co-founder and chief product officer Dongsheng Song, who said in a Dec. 27 forum post that user data was left exposed from Dec. 4 to 26. According to Song, human error was to blame for the breach. Read more...

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Obama praises book that slams his White House for its Google relationship

As he has in years past, the 44th President of the United States just released a list of his favorite music, movies, TV shows and books of 2019. And as in years past, the main thing about Obama’s favorites are that he has pretty good taste. His movie list, for example, is full of solid choices, and he's careful to point out the one case where's he's biased:

Next up are my favorite movies and TV shows of 2019. Of course, there’s also American Factory, a film from our own production company, Higher Ground, that was recently shortlisted for an Oscar. Here’s the full list: pic.twitter.com/PEcgwotcxm

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) December 29, 2019 Read more...

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It's The Jons 2019!

In other words it was another perfect year for The Jons, the annual award which celebrates dubious tech-related achievements, named, in an awe-inspiring fit of humility, after myself. To Adam Neumann, who presided over the spectacular rise and even more spectacular fall from grace of WeWork, which proudly launched its proposed IPO this year and promptly saw most of its valuation (and its cash) disintegrate in a sea of eyebrow-raising stories about delusional irresponsibility and the harsh realities of actual business. To Masayoshi Son, whose widely announced dreams of a $108 billion Vision Fund II turned into the relative nightmare of something "far smaller" -- but still has his surreal, dreamlike slide decks to fall back on.

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Does YouTube radicalize users? This study says not —but it's deeply flawed.

A new study of YouTube's algorithm attracting mainstream attention this weekend claims that the online video giant "actively discourages" radicalization on the platform. And if that sounds suspect to you, it should.

The study flies in the face of everything we know about YouTube's recommendation algorithm. There has been plenty of evidence that it pulls users down a rabbit hole of extremist content. A 2018 study of videos recommended to political viewers during the 2016 election found that an overwhelming majority were pro-Trump. Far-right allies of the authoritarian Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil say he and they wouldn't have won election without YouTube. Read more...

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Why Apple, Google, and other big tech companies create their own fonts

After its famous 1984 Super Bowl commercial, Apple officially unveiled the Macintosh 128k, the "the computer for the rest of us." The Mac revolutionized personal computing. And it was Apple designer Susan Kare’s job to create digital fonts and icons to usher in this new age.

"I was a typical customer that they were trying to attract, someone for whom the graphical side of it would have been attractive," Kare told a technology historian in 2000. "I didn’t really have much computer experience, but even then I found the rudimentary Mac more appealing to me than the Apple II."

Compared to most personal computers at the time — which used command line interfaces that were too technical for many users to understand— the Mac adopted a much more user-friendly graphical interface (GUI). It featured plenty of things that even the most novice computer user today understands intuitively — pointers, menus, scroll bars, windows, icons, and typefaces. Read more...

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15 deals on home security cameras that can help keep you safe

Home security cameras don't only exist to record your late-night drunken shenanigans or alert you when your Amazon package is finally waiting for you at the door. While those are unintended perks of having a camera, don't ever forget their core function: Keeping an eye on what's happening in and out of your home.

To ring in the new year — and the brand new decade — invest in security cameras to keep your home safe and sound. Below are 15 worthwhile options, all of which are on sale for an extra 20 percent off for a limited time with the code 20SAVE20.

RemoBell S: Fast-Responding Smart Video Doorbell Camera ($99 Value) Read more...

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12 totally random but cool deals you should snap up this week

Black Friday, Cyber Week, and Green Monday have all come and gone. But there's no need to pay full price just because you missed out on the major deal days. We've rounded up 12 of the sweetest deals we could find on everything from action cameras to kitchen essentials. Just be sure to enter the code 20SAVE20 at checkout to score the lowest price possible.

Playseat Challenge racing video game chair

With integrated wheel and pedal mounts, and a compact, foldable design, the Playseat Challenge is the perfect racing seat for gamers who want a complete setup but have little space to spare. It's compatible with all steering wheel and pedal sets, as well as all consoles, and can easily be stored when not in use. Currently on sale for $249 (usually $277), it's available for $199.20 when you use the code 20SAVE20. Read more...

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Google Search now lets you add movies and shows to a 'Watchlist'

Your Google Search results may now be a lot more helpful when it comes to keeping track of all the shows and movies you're keeping an eye on. The tech giant has rolled out a new card for the mobile results page that lets you add TV series and film titles to a "Watchlist" and a "Watched" bookmarks collection, 9to5Google has discovered.

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Saturday 28 December 2019

Sony lands patent for a new PlayStation controller design

A new PlayStation controller may be in the works at Sony HQ. The tech giant has secured a prototype for a new controller design on December 26th, according to Polygon, which found its documentation on the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) database. Based on the illustrations on the website, the new design looks pretty much like the current DualShock 4 controllers, except it doesn't have a PS button and there are two additional buttons on its backside.

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