The “Why am I seeing this post?” feature details how the company’s algorithm prioritizes certain posts on your feed. Facebook finally explains how it organizes your news feed – CNET
Source: CNet

Olga Kharif / Bloomberg:

DappRadar: only 28% of active dapp users were on Ethereum blockchain as of January, losing major ground to Tron and EOS, which now leads with 40% of dapp users  —  – EOS, Tron surpass Ethereum in popularity with many developers  — Some startups are now issuing tokens on competing networks

Here’s why the Facebook chief executive invited Congress to regulate his company in a post on Saturday. Mark Zuckerberg’s Call to Regulate Facebook, Explained
Source: NY Times Tech

“Why am I seeing this post?” feature will explain how the company’s algorithm has prioritised certain posts on your feed. Facebook is finally explaining how it organizes your news feed – CNET
Source: CNet

Matt Weinberger / Business Insider:

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney says Fortnite’s Creative mode, where players build together instead of battling, has attracted 100M players since its December launch  —  – Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney says that the company has big plans for “Fortnite,” which it sees “evolving beyond being a game.”

There used to be a time when amateur radio was a fairly static pursuit. There was a lot of fascination to be had with building radios, but what you did with them remained constant year on year. Morse code was sent by hand with a key, voice was on FM or SSB with a few old-timers using AM, and you’d hear the warbling tones of RTTY traffic generated by mechanical teletypes.

By contrast the radio amateur of today lives in a fast-paced world of ever-evolving digital modes, in which much of the excitement comes in pushing the boundaries of what is possible when a radio is connected to a computer. A new contender in one part of the hobby has come our way from [Guillaume, F4HDK], in the form of his NPR, or New Packet Radio mode.

NPR is intended to bring high bandwidth IP networking to radio amateurs in the 70 cm band, and it does this rather cleverly with a modem that contains a single-chip FSK transceiver intended for use in licence-free ISM band applications. There is an Ethernet module and an Mbed microcontroller board on a custom PCB, which when assembled produces a few hundred milliwatts of RF that can be fed to an off-the-shelf DMR power amplifier.

Each network is configured around a master node intended to use an omnidirectional antenna, to which individual nodes connect. Time-division multiplexing is enforced by the master so there should be no collisions, and this coupled with the relatively wide radio bandwidth of the ISM transceiver gives the system a high usable data bandwidth.

Whether or not the mode is taken up and becomes a success depends upon the will of individual radio amateurs. But it does hold the interesting feature of relying upon relatively inexpensive parts, so the barrier to entry is lower than it might be otherwise. If you are wondering where you might have seen [F4HDK] before, we’ve previously brought you his FPGA computer.

A New Digital Mode For Radio Amateurs
Source: HackADay

See how animals adapt and survive in the world’s most extreme habitats, in a new National Geographic series hosted by Bear Grylls, airing on April 1. Wildlife gets wilder than ever in new National Geographic Hostile Planet series – CNET
Source: CNet

The reimagined Snake game will be playable in Android and iOS Google Maps apps for around a week. Google adds Snake game to Maps apps for April Fool's Day gag – CNET
Source: CNet

A side by side comparison of the pictures taken on Samsung’s new S10 Plus alongside Apple’s iPhone XS Max. Galaxy S10 Plus vs iPhone XS Max: photo samples from our comparison – CNET
Source: CNet

It’ll come with 40 games and most of your favourites are there. Sega Genesis Mini: Release date and pricing announced – CNET
Source: CNet

Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:

Poland fines digital marketing firm Bisnode ~€220K for GDPR violations; Bisnode argues it may cost €8M+ to reach people it can only contact via physical mail  —  An interesting decision came out of Poland’s data protection agency this week after the watchdog issued …

Ramya Sethuraman / Facebook:

Facebook announces “Why am I seeing this post?”, a feature to help users better understand and control what is seen from friends, Pages, and Groups in News Feed  —  News Feed is always personalized to you — and starting today you’ll have even more information and control over your experience.

Laurence Dodds / Telegraph:

Exclusive: Facebook to finally explain the decisions of its news feed algorithm  —  Facebook will finally begin telling its users why posts appear in their news feeds as it seeks to assuage public concerns about the spread of fake news and its influence over billions of people’s reading habits.

Jeff Kauflin / Forbes:

A profile of payment card services startup Marqeta, which according to a source has doubled its revenue every year since 2016, reaching close to $150M in 2018  —  n the spring of 2015, Jason Gardner, the founder of Marqeta, a payments processor, left a grim board meeting and went for a walk …

You can now make flexible circuit boards of unlimited length. Trackwise was contracted out for making a wiring harness for the wing of a UAV and managed to ship a 26 meter long flexible printed circuit board. This is an interesting application of the technology — UAVs are very weight sensitive and wiring harnesses are heavy. Wings are straight, but they flex, and you need wires going from tip to tip. Flex circuits do all of this well, but first you need a technology that allows you to manufacture circuits that are as long as a wing. This is apparently something called ‘reel-to-reel’ technology, or some variant of continuous production. Either way, it’s cool, and we’re wondering what else this kind of circuit enables.

You may have noticed a few odd-shaped buildings going up in the last few years. These are buildings designed for indoor skydiving. Two went up around DC in the last year or so. What if you didn’t need a building? What if you could make an outdoor, vertical wind tunnel? Here you go, it’s the Aerodium Peryton.

KiCon, the first and largest gathering of hardware developers using KiCad, is happening April 26th in Chicago.

If KiCad isn’t your thing, PyCon is in Cleveland May 1-9. It couldn’t come at a better time: after losing LeBron, the Cleveland economy has plummeted 90%. Cleveland needs an industry now, and tech conferences are where it’s at. Go Browns.

For one reason or another, a few tech blogs wrote about a product on Tindie last week. It’s the SnapOnAir Raspberry Pi Zero PCB. This turns a Raspberry Pi Zero into a tiny, battery-powered handheld computer with a keyboard and display. This is just a PCB, and you’ll need to bring your own switches, display, and other various modules, but it is a compact device and if you need a small, handheld Linux thing, this is a pretty good solution.

Oh noes April Fools is tomorrow, which means the Internet will be terrible. Tip ‘o the hat to Redbox, though: they were the only one that sent out a press release to their waste of electrons by last Friday.

Hackaday Links: March 31, 2019
Source: HackADay

You better lose yourself in the Musk tweets. Elon Musk drops an auto-tune rap about 2016 meme Harambe – CNET
Source: CNet

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:

Proxy, a startup that is building a mobile identity layer on top of Bluetooth LE for keyless entry and more, raises $13.6M Series A led by Kleiner Perkins  —  You know how kings used to have trumpeters heralding their arrival wherever they went?  Proxy wants to do that with Bluetooth.

Kourtney, Kim, Khloé, Kendall and Kylie are back, now with extra Kanye — because “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” is back on TV tonight. The Kardashians Tell All About Jordyn Woods, Fyre Festival and Being Billionaires
Source: NY Times Tech

Samsung’s Galaxy S10 phones are tested and the verdicts are in. Here’s what they do best. 5 Galaxy S10 features you're going to love most – CNET
Source: CNet

A herd of technology public offerings this year and next year is set to anoint venture capital winners. Here are some of them. These Silicon Valley Investors’ Bets May Pay Off
Source: NY Times Tech

Live-action remake of Dumbo soared to the top of the weekend box office. Captain Marvel about to blast past billion at box office – CNET
Source: CNet

Metal fabrication is a useful skill to have. There’s plenty you can achieve in your workshop at home, given the right tools. There’s lathes for turning, mills for milling, and bandsaws and dropsaws for chopping it all to pieces. But what do you do if you need to make hoops and bends and round sections? You build a metal roller, of course – and that’s precisely what [James Bruton] did.

The main body of the tool is built out of box section, chosen largely as it’s what [James] had lying around. Bearings are of the familiar pillow block variety, with 20 mm bright steel serving as the rollers due to its better tolerance than mild steel stock. Set screws hold the shafts in place to avoid everything sliding around the place. A 10-ton bottle jack then provides the force to gently bend the workpiece as it passes through the rollers.

Initial tests were positive, with the roller producing smooth curves in 4 mm thick steel bar. There were some issues with runout, which were easily fixed with some attention to the parallelism of the shafts. It’s a tidy build, and can serve as a basis for further upgrades in future if necessary.

We’ve seen DIY roll benders before, too. Video after the break.

Build Your Own Metal Roller
Source: HackADay

Commentary: I was crushed when Apple cancelled its smart wireless charging pad. Now it’s time to move on. Apple AirPower's death could be the best thing for you and your iPhone – CNET
Source: CNet

As the KUWTK trailer promises, Mr. Kim Kardashian is ready to share his feelings with you. ‘Keeping Up With the Kardashians’ Returns With Its New Star … Kanye West?
Source: NY Times Tech

Everybody knows the concept of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) business model by now. But what not many might realize is that SaaS business lives or dies by its Monthly Recurring Revenue. MRR is becoming the lifeblood of companies following this unique business model, one that’s only growing in popularity as of late. But why? The SaaS market is predicted to grow at a compound annual rate of 17 percent by 2023. Furthermore, the industry as a whole is estimated to grow over $60 million by next year. With such stability and development numbers, it isn’t surprising really that so many tech companies…

This story continues at The Next Web

10 simple tricks to boosting MRR, the key to a SaaS business
Source: The Next Web