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    • Amazon robots caused bear repellent explosions both in 2018, when one punctured a can and hospitalized dozens, and 2015, when another ran over a can in Texas (Louise Matsakis/Wired)

    Louise Matsakis / Wired: Amazon robots caused bear repellent explosions both in 2018, when one punctured a can and hospitalized dozens, and 2015, when another ran over a can in Texas  —  Two dozen Amazon warehouse employees in New Jersey were hospitalized Wednesday, one in critical condition, after a robot punctured … Amazon robots caused

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    VexRISC-V Exposed

    If you want to use FPGAs, you’ll almost always use an HDL like Verilog or VHDL. These are layers of abstraction just like using, say, a C compiler is to machine language or assembly code. There are other challenges to the throne such as SpinalHDL which have small but enthusiastic followings. [Tom] has a post

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    • Tumblr's initial embrace of pornography helped it grow users, but it has since been phased out following Yahoo acquisition (Lux Alptraum/The Verge)

    Lux Alptraum / The Verge: Tumblr’s initial embrace of pornography helped it grow users, but it has since been phased out following Yahoo acquisition  —  When censoring sex becomes preferable to acknowledging its existence  —  About a decade ago, I met up with Tumblr founder David Karp at a SoHo coffee shop. Tumblr's initial embrace

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    • Epic's PC and Mac games store, announced earlier this week, is live with Epic's own Fortnite and Unreal Tournament, Supergiant Games' Hades, with more to come (Jon Russell/TechCrunch)

    Jon Russell / TechCrunch: Epic’s PC and Mac games store, announced earlier this week, is live with Epic’s own Fortnite and Unreal Tournament, Supergiant Games’ Hades, with more to come  —  It’s a busy week for Epic Games .  Fresh from pushing out a major season 7 update for Fortnite, so the gaming giant has

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    • Amazon says Alexa can now better recognize context, such as playing the right song after an inaccurate request or launching a skill without hearing its name (Dami Lee/The Verge)

    Dami Lee / The Verge: Amazon says Alexa can now better recognize context, such as playing the right song after an inaccurate request or launching a skill without hearing its name  —  Alexa will understand you meant to say, ‘Play Nice for What’ instead of ‘Good for What’  —  In a developer blog post published

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    • Sources: Uber has confidentially filed for an IPO; filing indicates it could go public as soon as the first quarter of 2019 (Wall Street Journal)

    Wall Street Journal: Sources: Uber has confidentially filed for an IPO; filing indicates it could go public as soon as the first quarter of 2019  —  The filing indicates a public listing could come in early 2019, pitting the ride-hailing service against rival Lyft  —  Uber Technologies Inc. filed paperwork confidentially … Sources: Uber has

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    • UK-based Boku, a carrier billing services provider, says it has acquired Danal, a US-based mobile identity and authentication service, and will pay up to $68M (Ingrid Lunden/TechCrunch)

    Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch: UK-based Boku, a carrier billing services provider, says it has acquired Danal, a US-based mobile identity and authentication service, and will pay up to $68M  —  After going public in the U.K. last year, Boku has made an acquisition to expand its carrier billing services … UK-based Boku, a carrier billing

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    • Google has found three malicious ad network SDKs as part of Cheetah Mobile and Kika Tech ad fraud probe; sources: SDKs are from AltaMob, BatMobi, and YeahMobi (Sarah Perez/TechCrunch)

    Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: Google has found three malicious ad network SDKs as part of Cheetah Mobile and Kika Tech ad fraud probe; sources: SDKs are from AltaMob, BatMobi, and YeahMobi  —  A few days ago, Google removed popular Cheetah Mobile and Kika Tech apps from its Play Store following a BuzzFeed investigation … Google

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    • Italy's competition authority fines Facebook a total of $11.4M for using people's data for commercial purposes in ways that break the country's laws (Katie Collins/CNET)

    Katie Collins / CNET: Italy’s competition authority fines Facebook a total of $11.4M for using people’s data for commercial purposes in ways that break the country’s laws  —  Italy’s Competition Authority on Friday slapped Facebook with two fines that total 10 million euros ($11.4M) for using people’s data … Italy's competition authority fines Facebook a

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