Category: What’s On

Uber’s crisis PR activities have returned to relative normality in Asia after the U.S. firm ran into fresh issues with government regulators in two countries this week: Hong Kong and Thailand. The ride-sharing giant has been fighting some serious corporate fires in the U.S. lately — around its toxic work culture, connections to a polarizing U.S. President, and its CEO’s attitude to its drivers — but it is back to basics as UberX drivers in the two countries come under fire for operating in legal grey areas. In Hong Kong, five UberX drivers were fined HK$10,000 (around $1,300)

Chowbotics Inc. has landed $5 million in a Series A round of venture funding to develop what it’s calling food service robots. These are machines designed to prepare food in restaurants, cafeterias, hotels, or food courts in airports, malls and hospitals. The company’s flagship product, Sally, is a salad-making robot that uses 20 different food canisters to prepare and serve more than 1,000 different types of salads. According to Chowbotics CEO and founder Deepak Sekar, the company has finished pilot production of Sally and

The WikiLeaks-hosted “Vault7” collection of documents allegedly leaked from within the CIA’s Computer Operations Group is a messy mix of jargon, incomplete info, and broken (or redacted) links. The information is interesting, but it’s quite difficult to find a basic description of many of the terms used, even using the search function. So for everybody’s convenience I’ve gone through the whole pile of docs and listed as many of the tools and techniques mentioned by spook IT as I could

Today at the inaugural Udacity Intersect conference, the online education startup announced new robotics and digital marketing variants of its popular Nanodegrees — an effort to expand its corpus of  21st century skills-based courses. In addition to the new degrees, Udacity is adding 21 new hiring partners spanning the automotive, defense, tech, hardware and telecommunications industries. And, lastly, the company is partnering with Didi Chuxing for a new $100,000 competition to build safety features for self-driving cars. Nanodegrees More than 20,000 students have been a part of

Sources tell us that Google is acquiring Kaggle, a platform that hosts data science and machine learning competitions. Details about the transaction remain somewhat vague, but given that Google is hosting its Cloud Next conference in San Francisco this week, the official announcement could come as early as tomorrow. Reached by phone, Kaggle co-founder CEO Anthony Goldbloom declined to deny that the acquisition is happening. Google itself declined “to comment on rumors.” Kaggle, which has about half a million data scientists on its platform, was founded by

With controversial moves to tighten immigration in the works, visitors from abroad and U.S. citizens alike are on edge about international travel. For the organizers of South by Southwest, that climate gave rise to a public outcry over controversial language in its artist contracts. In light of the ensuing backlash among attendees and performers, SXSW has issued a statement asserting its opposition toward the Trump administration’s actions around immigration. The letter notes that SXSW will change language in its performer contracts to

A young British couple have designed a toupee that's unlike any other conventional hair replacement. 'Quiff and Co' have become a massive hit online for their waterproof and durable hair piece that you could never tell apart from real hair.Nikolay Nikolov11 minutes agoVia ASDA Alltop

Superstar director Steven Spielberg is assembling a superstar cast for his next movie. Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep have just been set to lead The Post, Mashable has confirmed. The fact-based drama revolves around the Pentagon Papers, a classified Department of Defense study which detailed the true scope of the U.S. government's dealings in the Vietnam War.Leaked by military analyst Daniel Ellsberg in 1971, the documents revealed that the Johnson administration had systematically lied to the public and to Congress to

If the Galaxy S8 leaks keep coming in at this rate, there won't be anything left for Samsung to announce at its big March 29 launch event. The latest leak potentially reveals what it'll be like to use the phone without a physical home button.Three images and a 5-second video posted by Slash Leaks show the Galaxy S8 in, uh, some of its glory. The first image shows the Galaxy S8's leaked "Infinity Display," with a good look at its rounded

Imagine you’ve come down with a cold while you’re away on a trip. You don’t necessarily want to buy a box of Kleenex, a full pack of Sudafed (or whatever decongestant you’re into) knowing that you have all these supplies at home, but just not currently with you. Wouldn’t it be great if someone could just bring you a sample size of tissue, a couple of Sudafeds and some throat lozenges? That’s where Jetpack, which recently launched on campus at

Former UKIP leader Nigel Farage couldn’t get elected member of UK parliament, so he became a member of European Parliament. He also couldn’t get knighted by the Queen of England, so he naturally opted for the next best thing: Being knighted by a young girl with a plastic sword on Russia-funded television network RT. You can watch the heartwarming ceremony here:The ceremony didn’t stop with the plastic sword, though. The RT host also told Farage he is now “honorary ambassador to the United

Alzheimer's is one of the leading causes of death in the U.S. Globally, nearly 47 million people are affected by the degenerative disease and that is likely to reach 131 million by 2050.Hindustan Unilever (HUL) might not have considered these stats. Or perhaps, they did

Uber is now in the process of getting a permit from the California DMV to resume testing its self-driving vehicles on public state roads. Uber started testing its self-driving Volvo XC90 SUVs in San Francisco last year – but the state DMV ultimately opposed the tests since Uber had not applied for its autonomous testing permit prior to beginning service. While Uber took its test fleet of XC90s on the road to nearby Arizona, where Governor Doug Ducey and regulators welcomed them

Image: Nv/EPA/REX/ShutterstockBy Manish Singh2017-03-02 07:24:14 -0500India’s major IT firms have long required their employees to give a three-month, "non-negotiable" notice before leaving the company, but they could be soon forced to change that.Fed-up IT professionals from across India have reached out to the government, complaining that it is "unrealistic" for anyone to plan that far ahead. Over 28,000 professionals have signed a petition, addressed to the ministry of labor, to take immediate action on the matter. "It is unrealistic for

An in-depth review of the highly anticipated Nintendo Switch, YouTube launches YouTube TV, Uber’s CEO apologizes for being mean to a driver and Craig Newmark donates $1 million to ProPublica. All this on Crunch Report. Read MoreVia ASDA Alltop

Constant innovation. It's a well-known motto of the pizza industry. Oh wait. It's not. But with the recent influx of pizza news, it kind of feels like it is. And now Pizza Hut has up and changed the game completely.Introducing the sneakers that double as pizza-ordering devices.Before we give you more information on this wonder-shoe, we want to first assure you that these shoes are real. The Shoe Surgeon, a custom sneaker maker in Los Angeles, has made 64 pairs of

Snapchat is displayed on a smartphone on September 27, 2016 in Berlin, GermanyImage: Thomas Trutschel/Photothek via Getty ImagesBy Kerry Flynn2017-03-01 06:19:41 UTCSnap Inc. has been playing with drones. The New York Times reported Tuesday that the company has worked on building its own drones, citing three people "briefed on the project who asked to remain anonymous because the details are confidential."The piece doesn't get into details, but the premise is intriguing — and not at all surprising for a

A couple of days ago, the New York Times wrote a story that aims to explain why Snap founders Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy have retained such a hold on voting power in the company — power that its shareholders will not enjoy. It’s a great account and wonderfully written by a reporter I respect greatly. But I don’t quite buy it. According to four sources who spoke to the Times, the reason that Snap’s founders are denying shareholders any say in their running of their

Appearing on TV is nerve-wracking enough, but would you be willing to try breastfeeding while you were on the air? One brave mom gave it a try, and the result is fantastic. Rachel Sklar, feminist media figure and founder of The Li.st, appeared a few weeks back as a guest on CBC news to talk about Barbie's recent makeover.  At first glance, you’d think she was just like any other talking head. Until the end..when out of nowhere, a baby hand

Waymo is suing Otto and Uber for allegedly stealing its trade secrets, Layer gets more funding and acquires Cola, a major Cloudflare bug leaked sensitive data from customers’ websites and Elon Musk addresses unionization concerns at Tesla. All this on Crunch Report. Read MoreVia ASDA Alltop

Uber is under attack once again today as the Twittersphere quickly concluded it was behind a smear campaign against a former engineer for the company, Susan Fowler Rigetti, who dropped a scathing blog post earlier this week detailing sexual harassment claims while working at Uber over the course of a year. Rigetti tweeted today people were being contacted for “personal and intimate info” about her, causing many to conclude Uber was behind these actions.It’s an easy assumption to make, given the

If you’ve read the latest headlines about Britain’s tech industry, you’d think the country hadn’t be rocked by the greatest political and economic uncertainty since the Second World War. Not only are UK startups raising record amounts of funding year on year, but tech giants like Amazon are investing and doubling down on the UK economy, as if the mood music was taken straight from a dance scene in La La Land. Surely Brexit Britain is booming? This week Amazon said it would

So much for sticking “nuclear weapons” in carriers’ dumb pipes. Shine, last year’s enfant terrible of mobile ad blocking is pivoting (again!) — in both tone of voice and business model. It’s also rebranding to, er, Rainbow. So, to keep tabs, since 2011 this Disrupt startup battlefield alum has moved from trying to sell mobile antivirus (Shine Security), to threatening network-level mobile ad blocking (Shine Technologies), to — its latest pivot — touting a permission-based marketing platform (Rainbow), which is slated to launch in “late summer”, according to CRO James

Germany’s far-right Alternative für Deutschland fell to its lowest polling point in seven months, hinting that the Trump tidal wave is not one Germans are eager to ride. A poll by the Institute Allsenbach and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung asked whom respondents would vote for if elections were held Sunday. Just 8.5 percent said AfD, led by Frauke Petry — the first time since July the extreme right-wing party has slipped below the 10 percent threshold, and its worst poll numbers since

Image: Bednarczyk/Epa/REX/ShutterstockBy Sohini Mitter2017-02-23 08:56:35 UTCWe told you that Justin Bieber is performing in India for the first time. Understandably, there's a lot of excitement, especially in millennials who can't have enough of the 23-year-old pop sensation. But now there's a problem as we discovered once the tickets went on sale.Firstly, there's a queue. Even if you wait, you are never sure that you're going to get a ticket. What if they are exhausted by 2,000 or even 3,900?And secondly,

Instagram just introduced its most controversial feature since Stories. The app added the ability to attach up to 10 photos and video clips to a single post, which is either the absolute worst or, maybe, kind of okay — depending on where you stand.But no matter where you stand, the update will absolutely change how you share and view posts and it could take some getting used to. Agreeing on the proper etiquette for how to share the new type of

NASA has discovered seven planets with Earth-like qualities orbiting a nearby star making them among the strongest candidates in the continued search for extraterrestrial life among  known exoplanets, or planets that exist outside of our own solar system. These new planets all inhabit another solar system which includes seven planets that have a relatively warm climate, as well as rocky terrain, both of which are promising signs in terms of identifying starting points for the search for both water and life.

This much we can tell you for sure: the still-untitled Han Solo spin-off movie will not be called "Red Cup." That's the working title, a nod to the fact that George Lucas named Solo's character for the plastic drinks brand. (True story.) But what about the actual title for the standalone film, which as of Tuesday is scheduled for May 25, 2018? Thus far Lucasfilm has it shut up tighter than a smuggling compartment on a Corellian freighter.This much is

This seems like typecastingImage: getty images/marvelBy Laura Prudom2017-02-21 20:18:47 UTCGame of Thrones alum Iwan Rheon, who played literal and figurative bastard Ramsay Bolton, is heading to the Marvel universe for ABC's new Inhumans series, it was announced Tuesday. Sticking with type, Rheon will play the villain Maximus — aka "Maximus the Mad" — brother of lead character Black Bolt. In the show, Maximus is described by Marvel as a clever and charming Inhuman that is fiercely devoted to the people of

Finding out that the fiver in your wallet is worth thousands of pounds is a dream-come-true for some — but not everyone. A Northern Irish woman who discovered a rare £5 note worth £50,000 ($62,317) has given the note to charity because she says she has no use for the money.The note is one of just four ultra-rare notes worth £50,000 in circulation in the UK. The note — which is engraved with a special Jane Austen inscription — is the

While the year continues to be dominated by headlines touting the universal appeal of Alexa, there’s another gives a glimpse of what the big next step in human-computer interaction will be: eye tracking. The concept of measuring and responding to human eye motion isn’t new, but the past year saw a rising interest in the technology. There have been a slew of acquisitions of eye tracking startups by large firms and the rollout of several devices and software that support eye tracking. “Eye tracking

Michigan Republicans are reportedly mulling a Senate run for heartland heartthrob Kid Rock, a country and rock star, who loves to “sit in the backyard sun and drink beer with dad,” according to his autobiographical song, “Drinking Beer With Dad.” Once unthinkable, Kid Rock for Senate is hardly unthinkable now: A professional wrestler has served multiple terms as governor of Minnesota, Christine “I dabbled in witchcraft” O’Donnell ran for the GOP Senate seat in Delaware in 2010, and Donald Trump

Sometimes it's not easy separating life from art. The Dominican newspaper El Nacional learned that the hard way on Friday, after it accidentally published a photo of Alec Baldwin instead of President Donald Trump. Baldwin has made headlines for his spot-on impression of the former reality star.  But it was a mistake.Image: twitter/screengrabThe paper on Saturday issued a clarification on its website: "El Nacional published on Friday as Donald Trump a picture of actor Alec Baldwin, who imitates on a television program

Love to make plans for when your business goes huge or you hit the elusive jackpot? Discover the best places for the super rich to live, as well as where life is best for the “little people.”Via Lottoland. Like infographics? So do we. Posted by Kate Rinsema Via ASDA Alltop