2 Clubhouse, an invitation-only audio chat app launched less than a year ago, has caught the attention of tech industry bigshots like Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg — not to mention the Chinese government, which has already blocked it in the country. What is Clubhouse, you ask? Q: What is Clubhouse? A: The iPhone-only app, once you’re in, lets you start or listen into conversations on a whole host of topics, from tech to pro sports, parenting, Black literature and so on. There are no posts, photos or videos — only people’s profile pictures and their voices. Conversations can be intimate, like a phone call, or might include thousands of people listening to a talk by boldface names, like a conference or stage interview. Think part podcast, part conference call, part social media. It’s free to use and there are no ads, at least not at this point. Q: How do I get in? A: Currently, the only way to get an invitation is to … [Read more...]

WARSAW, Poland—One of the rare successes chalked up by the regime of Europe’s last dictator has been the establishment of a kind of East European Silicon Valley, which spawned a booming industry of Belarusian programmers and tech start-ups. The autocratic president of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko , now fears he has created a monster. An army of 30,000 tech-savvy professionals is turning against its creator. Coders and software engineers, many of whom are linked to the state-sponsored Hi-Tech Park in Minsk, have formed a hacking collective called Cyber Partisans which is wreaking havoc as Lukashenko tries to quell a growing revolution. Thousands of Belarusians have been arrested since August’s presidential election, which was condemned as rigged by foreign observers. Opposition leaders claim Lukashenko was voted out of power amid huge demonstrations against a brutal quarter of a century in power. Hundreds of those who were arrested have been beaten and assaulted, some have … [Read more...]

Amazon’s “Just Walk Out” technology, which eliminated cashiers in its Amazon Go convenience stores, has now been integrated into a full-size 25,000 square foot Amazon Fresh grocery store for the first time. The system uses camera surveillance, pressure-sensitive shelves, and biometric data to charge customers for items they put in their carts. The Verge reports that e-commerce and tech giant Amazon is integrating its Just Walk Out retail shopping tech in a full-size grocery store for the first time. According to an announcement from Amazon , the new 25,000 square foot Amazon Fresh store is significantly larger than the 10,400 square foot Amazon Go Grocery store it opened last year, or its standard 1,200 and 2,300 square feet Go convenience stores. The new store will be Amazon’s fourteenth Fresh location in the United States when it opens on June 17 in Bellevue, Washington. When Amazon previously opened a 35,000 square foot Amazon Fresh store last year using its Dash Carts, … [Read more...]

Social media giant Twitter is reportedly exploring new ways to prevent the “unwanted attention” that users may receive when mentioned in a tweet by another user. Their answer seems to be an “unmention” feature to let them drop out of a thread. Engadget reports that Twitter is currently looking into new ways to prevent “unwanted attention” that can result in harassment on its platform. The company is reportedly working on tools that would allow users to prevent people from mentioning them in tweets without the block or mute button, whether this feature ever goes live is debatable as it is still currently just in testing phases. Twitter product designer Dominic Camozzi described the features as “early concepts,” that would give Twitter users the ability to “unmention yourself” and control who can tag them in future tweets. Similar to untagging yourself on Facebook, unmentioning would unlink your Twitter handle from a tweet and prevent you from being tagged in future replies. … [Read more...]

Washington, DC (CNN) Waymo, the self-driving company of Google's parent company Alphabet, has raised $2.5 billion as its investors appear undeterred by a CEO change and progress that has lagged expectations . The investment comes about a year after Waymo raised $2.25 billion in its first external fundraising round. Waymo said Wednesday that the new funding came from Alphabet, venture capital firms, sovereign wealth funds and auto industry companies. Alphabet led the round, and the valuation was not disclosed. Waymo's co-CEOs Tekedra Mawakana and Dmitri Dolgov, said in a blog post that the funding would be used to expand the company's team and improve its technology. Waymo has worked to commercialize self-driving cars as long as anyone. It's achieved plenty of breakthroughs, such as giving a ride to a passenger in 2015 , before competitors. It was also first to launch a self-driving ridehail service, which is active today in Chandler, Arizona. … [Read more...]

New York (CNN Business) Windows 10 was supposed to be Microsoft's ultimate PC operating system . The promise: Windows 10 would forever get updated twice a year, bringing tweaks, the occasional fresh coat of paint and new features to keep your computer up to date. But now, six years later, Windows 11 is on its way. We can only assume Microsoft ( MSFT ) got bored, because what we've seen so far of Windows 11 doesn't feel like anything revolutionary . A complete internal version of Windows 11 has leaked online. You can download it from some sketchy websites, but we wouldn't recommend it. Still, it's there, and it appears legit. Based on the leak, Windows 11 is full of mostly small visual changes. The taskbar icons are centered, giving Windows a decidedly MacOS look (don't freak out — it can be left-justified if you're old school). The Start menu ditches live tiles for pinned apps. We've got a new Windows logo: four equal-sized … [Read more...]

New York (CNN Business) The end is finally near for Internet Explorer, one of Microsoft's most-reviled products that refused to die. Microsoft announced this week that it will end support for Internet Explorer 11 on June 15, 2022. That final nail in the coffin came after years of flirting with IE's demise. For example, in August 2020, Microsoft turned its back on IE for its own products. Workplace chat software Teams stopped working with IE last fall, and its 365 apps (including Office) will no longer work on IE by mid-summer 2021. Once the most-used web browser, Internet Explorer had been on a steady downward trajectory for nearly two decades. Its share of the browser market fell below the 50% threshold in 2010 and now sits at about 5%, according to browser usage tracker NetMarketShare . Google's ( GOOGL ) Chrome is the browser leader, commanding a 69% share of the market. In its death announcement, Microsoft said Internet Explorer … [Read more...]

New York (CNN Business) Microsoft is giving Windows 10 a fresh coat of paint. But it's not just getting a touch-up — Microsoft is doing all the fine details, getting under the switch plates and sanding the molding. Windows gets periodic visual updates , with constantly changing recycling bins, Start menu colors, task bar icons and other prominent items PC users look at every day. But under the hood, Microsoft has a bunch of less-noticed visual cues that were in serious need of a refresh — like, haven't been updated since Windows 95 serious. The redesign is part of a major visual overhaul of Windows 10 coming in October, a preview of which Microsoft made available to developers this week. it shows updates to some of its less-used icons to better reflect the technology of the 21st century. Outdated CRT monitors have been replaced with flat screens, and trackball mice are now touchscreens, for example. Old icons (left) and new icons (right) … [Read more...]

The U.S. Education Department said Wednesday it's erasing student debt for thousands of borrowers who attended a for-profit college chain that made exaggerated claims about its graduates’ success in finding jobs. The Biden administration said it is approving 18,000 loan forgiveness claims from former students of ITT Technical Institute, a chain that closed in 2016 after being dealt a series of sanctions by the Obama administration. The new loan discharges will clear more than $500 million in debt. The move marks a step forward in the Biden administration’s effort to clear a backlog of claims in the borrower defense program, which provides loan forgiveness to students who were defrauded by their colleges. Claims piled up during the Trump administration, which stalled the program and only started processing claims after a federal court demanded it. There are now more than 100,000 pending claims. In announcing the new action, Education Secretary Miguel Cardona vowed to continue … [Read more...]

Sal Khan has interesting ideas about what constitutes riveting dinner conversation. At the moment, he’s partial to “mind-blowing” similarities between Greek, Latin, Germanic languages and ancient Sanskrit as well as the fact that Iran and Ireland are the only countries with names that mean “land of the Aryans.” “That’s still my favorite thing to share in conversations,” said the founder of Khan Academy, a free, online learning platform serving 15 million people a month. “The other thing is you can get hypothermia (and die) in 80-degree water.” Khan smiled. “I’m a nerd,” said Khan, who is a nominee for the 2018 Visionary of the Year award sponsored by The Chronicle. The winner of the award will receive a $25,000 grant that can be applied to the cause of his or her choice. In Silicon Valley, nerds like Khan — with companies whose users number in the many millions — are often billionaires. While Khan isn’t poor, he falls well short for any list featuring big-money moguls in … [Read more...]