Business, Spoken

This week in security we took a closer look at Fin7, also known as JokerStash, Carbanak, and a host of other names. The cybercrime group rakes in as much as $50 million a month by stealing credit card numbers, most recently from the company that owns Saks Fifth Avenue, Lord & Taylor, and more. They’ve got an interest in ATM hacks, too, and their professional acumen has turned them into what researchers estimate is a billion-dollar enterprise. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Spotify’s successful direct listing could change the way tech’s “unicorns” go public, possibly even saving them some money. But let’s not get self-righteous about it---this is still capitalism. Typically, when companies go public, they follow an elaborate series of protocols. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

When China’s government said last summer it intends to surpass the US and lead the world in artificial intelligence by 2030, skeptics pointed to a major problem. Despite gobs of data from the world’s largest online population, lightweight privacy rules, and 8 million fresh college graduates in 2017, the country doesn’t have enough people skilled in AI to overtake America. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Smart algorithms have taken Google a long way. They helped the company dominate search and create the first software to conquer the complex board game Go. Now the company is betting that algorithms that understand images and text will draw business to its cloud services, make augmented reality popular, and prompt us to search using our smartphone cameras. But some of the algorithms Google is staking its future on aren’t equally smart everywhere. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

In 2016, the National Center on Sexual Exploitation sent a letter to a fast-growing content marketing network called RevContent. The nonprofit watchdog was concerned about the way some of RevContent’s advertisers portrayed women. The network regularly ran ads for mail-order bride services, for example, or ones that featured close-ups of women’s breasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

In 2011, when Spotify launched its streaming music service in the U.S., the future of digital media lied squarely in the realm of advertising. Sure, everyone knew ad-based models—sometimes called “the Internet’s original sin”—had flaws. But companies like Google, Yahoo, Facebook and were able to grow very large, very quickly by attracting big audiences to their free services and selling ads. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

At least one person was killed and four others wounded following a shooting at YouTube's headquarters Tuesday afternoon. Four victims were being transported to local hospitals, though the extent of their injuries was unknown. San Bruno police say one woman was found with what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound, and is believed to be the shooter. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

All Matt Maloney wanted to know was whether Chicago-style deep dish pizza is better than New York-style thin crust. It’s a simple question. If he were anyone else, Maloney would have had to get violently anecdotal. Deep dish, while delicious, is obviously not so much a pizza as a casserole; conversely, if you want to put pizza toppings on a cracker, why not just order a flatbread? (Maloney is from Chicago, so you can guess which side he comes down on.) But no. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

AT&T spent last week in court slugging it out with the Department of Justice over its $85 billion plan to acquire Time Warner. The DOJ argues the deal could lead to higher cable television prices for consumers, while AT&T says the deal is routine and that the agency is blocking it for political reasons. On the surface, the deal bears a strong resemblance to Comcast's 2011 acquisition of NBC Universal in a deal valued at about $30 billion. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

On Thursday, Emmanuel Macron, the president of France, gave a speech laying out a new national strategy for artificial intelligence in his country. The French government will spend €1.5 billion ($1.85 billion) over five years to support research in the field, encourage startups, and collect data that can be used, and shared, by engineers. The goal is to start catching up to the US and China and to make sure the smartest minds in AI—hello Yann LeCun—choose Paris over Palo Alto. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

When Mark Zuckerberg isn't responding to the latest scandal engulfing his company, he's actually trying to fix Facebook: He's trying to redirect its obsession with growth---in users and in the time they spend on Facebook---to focus on whether those users have good experiences on the platform. The problem is that he'd prefer the world not know exactly how obsessed with these metrics his company was. And the world is not cooperating. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The headlines about the trade wars being touched off by President Trump’s new tariffs may telegraph plenty of bombast and shots fired, but the most consequential war being waged today is a quieter sort of conflict: It’s the new Cold War over data protection. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

It was a somber scene outside New York’s City Hall on Wednesday afternoon. Four coffins sat at the foot of the steps; one by one, taxi drivers covered them with white flowers, before assembling on the steps and shouting for the city to “stop Uber’s greed” and “stop making us slaves.” It was the second such gathering in two months, as drivers and their advocates mourned another suicide that they attribute to the rise of ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Last week the internet jumped on a new research paper proclaiming that the bitcoin blockchain contains child pornography. The authors of that paper conclude that if you’re one of the thousands of people running a full copy of the bitcoin software, or even just a curious researcher downloading the transaction history, you’re breaking the law. Because removing any data from the blockchain destroys the functionality of the system, this legal trouble could spell doom for cryptocurrencies. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Oracle's nearly eight-year legal battle with Google just won't end. Tuesday a federal appeals court ruled that Google violated Oracle's copyrights when it built a custom version of the Java platform for its Android operating system. The court sent the case back to a district court to decide how much Google should pay Oracle. But Google can appeal to the Supreme Court. And it should, because the decision will affect not just Google and Oracle, but the entire software industry. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

In 1933, Thupten Gyatso, the 13th Dalai Lama, died at the age of 57. According to Tibetan Buddhist doctrine, the spirit of a departed Dalai Lama chooses the next body into which he will be reincarnated. So when a group of elders noticed that Gyatso’s head had pivoted from facing south to facing northeast during the embalming process, they took it as an omen. A search party left Lhasa for the northeastern province of Amdo, where they found a 2-year-old boy named Lhamo Thondup. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

At age 25, Anjney Midha has a stronger resume than some people twice his age. Before graduating from Stanford, he joined the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. He led the firm’s investment in Magic Leap, the mysterious and much-hyped augmented reality company. Then he ditched venture capital to pursue a dream that had followed him from a technology-free young adulthood on a bird sanctuary in India, to the hyper-connected streets of Singapore, to his days at Stanford. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

A grinning 4-year-old boy clambers up and down an inflatable backyard water park, collecting oversize Easter eggs, goaded from behind the camera by his mom. The boy, Ryan, stomps the eggs open and unveils plastic toys. It looks like a home movie, but it’s actually the most-watched video on one of the most-watched YouTube channels in the world, Ryan ToysReview. It has been viewed more than 1.1 billion times since 2016, and the leaders of a new startup, Pocket. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

See this fancy pink water bottle I’m holding? Now watch as I bash my head in with it. This is not, I assume, what the makers of the $38 “beauty essential” intended. What they promised was “glamour sipping like a boss.” They wanted me to “be brave. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The sixth-month anniversary of Hurricane Maria’s grinding-up of Puerto Rico brought what might feel like good news. According to AEE, the Electrical Energy Authority, almost 93 percent of Puerto Ricans—1,365,065 people—now have power. The process has been agonizing—a misguided early repair contract to the unlikely Whitefish Energy for $300 million got cancelled, and it took months for crews from better-suited firms to get started. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

When administrators in Ohio’s Mentor Public Schools were buying MacBooks during the 2015-16 school year, the local Best Buy was offering a lower price than Apple, even after the company’s standard discount for school districts. Superintendent Matt Miller pushed for a better deal, but Apple said it would not budge from its price list. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The drumbeat to regulate Big Tech began pounding long before the Cambridge Analytica scandal rocked Facebook—six long years ago, the Obama administration pushed a “Privacy Bill of Rights” that, like most other legislative attempts to safeguard your data online, went nowhere. But this time, as they say, feels different. Thanks to repeated lapses from not just Facebook but all corners of Silicon Valley, some sort of regulation seems not only plausible but imminent. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Even if you're not a gadget geek, you likely know whether your laptop is powered by an Intel chip or one from a competitor like AMD. The sticker plastered next to your keyboard won't let you forget. But even if you know your Ryzens from your Ice Lakes, you probably don't put much thought into who makes the memory chips that store your data and keep your laptop and smartphone working. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Travis Kalanick, Uber’s founder and former CEO, wasn’t gone very long. After he resigned from Uber in June 2017, Kalanick spent time hobnobbing at elite conferences like Davos and getting good at smartphone games. This month, he announced 10100, a fund for his personal investments. On Tuesday Kalanick elaborated on his plans: 10100 acquired a controlling stake in City Storage Systems, a holding company which invests in distressed real estate assets, for $150 million. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

A year ago, The Intercept published a story about a Trump campaign affiliate that was circulating personality tests to collect Americans’ personal information. The company, called Cambridge Analytica, had already been unveiled by the Guardian in a chilling report that detailed its voter-targeting operation. There was every reason to be concerned. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

“I started Facebook, and at the end of the day I'm responsible for what happens on our platform,” wrote Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in a statement that addressed a series of news stories reporting Facebook’s data had been misused. In the 937-word statement, posted on his Facebook profile Wednesday afternoon, Zuckerberg outlined all that Facebook has done and plans to do to keep our data safe. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The technology at the heart of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin—blockchain—has captured the world’s attention, much as the internet, peer-to-peer file transfers, apps, and the cloud did before it. Simply put, blockchains are distributed databases that can be securely updated without the need for central intermediaries. That makes them relevant to a whole host of uses, including everything from food safety to digital identity to insurance records. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Two weeks ago, Facebook learned that The New York Times, Guardian, and Observer were working on blockbuster stories based on interviews with a man named Christopher Wylie. The core of the tale was familiar but the details were new, and now the scandal was attached to a charismatic face with a top of pink hair. Four years ago, a slug of Facebook data on 50 million Americans was sucked down by a UK academic named Aleksandr Kogan, and wrongly sold to Cambridge Analytica. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

You return home to your penthouse apartment after a long day at work auctioning Cryptokitties and other cryptogoods on a peer-to-peer marketplace. You grab a bottle of tangerine-flavored weed soda from the fridge and sink into your couch. With a flick of your hand, the overhead light switches on. A wooden side table, custom-built by a robot in India, holds a box containing your antidepressant patches. You peel off the back and slap one on your arm. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

We all know how it feels to be low on energy at the end of a long work day. Some call-center agents at insurer MetLife are watched over by software that knows how it sounds. A program called Cogito presents a cheery notification when the toll of hours discussing maternity or bereavement benefits show in a worker’s voice. “It’s represented by a cute little coffee cup,” says Emily Baker, who supervises a group fielding calls about disability claims at MetLife. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Consumers have long wondered just what Google and Facebook know about them, and who else can access their personal data. But internet giants have little incentive to give straight answers — even to simple questions like, “Why am I being shown this ad?” On May 25, however, the power balance will shift towards consumers, thanks to a European privacy law that restricts how personal data is collected and handled. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

On January 16, a new course launched on the online learning platform Coursera with an unassuming name: The Google IT Support Professional Certificate. It promised to prepare beginners for entry-level jobs in IT in eight to 12 months. That day, it attracted the largest-ever group of first-time Coursera users, almost half of them people without college degrees. By February, it was Coursera’s second-most-popular offering. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

WIRED Editor-in-Chief Nicholas Thompson interviewed YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki on Tuesday at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas. Here is an edited transcript of the talk. Nicholas Thompson: So you have had a crazy year and a half. All the social media companies have had a crazy year and a half. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Tech companies are rushing to infuse everything with artificial intelligence, driven by big leaps in the power of machine learning software. But the deep-neural-network software fueling the excitement has a troubling weakness: Making subtle changes to images, text, or audio can fool these systems into perceiving things that aren’t there. That could be a big problem for products dependent on machine learning, particularly for vision, such as self-driving cars. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

If broadband providers thought that they'd be subject to fewer regulations after the Federal Communications Commission voted in December to jettison its net neutrality protections, they could be disappointed. California state Senator Scott Wiener on Wednesday introduced a bill that would create a regime in some ways more strict than the Obama-era rules against blocking, throttling, or otherwise discriminating against content. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Technology keeps making it easier to separate you from your money. PayPal enabled you to easily send money via the internet. Square allowed businesses to use a smartphone to accept your credit card. Apple Pay and Android Pay flipped this idea on its head and let you pay with your phone instead of a card. Despite this innovation in how consumers can pay businesses, the way businesses pay each other hasn't changed much. San Francisco startup Fundbox wants to give businesses another option. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

President Donald Trump blocked Broadcom's proposed $105 billion acquisition of fellow wireless chip giant Qualcomm on Monday amidst mounting fears that US could fall behind China on technology innovation. That’s a little odd, because on its face, the deal itself has nothing to do with China. Broadcom's key units are US-based; the company is headquartered in Singapore, which is generally considered friendly to the US. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Washington state Governor Jay Inslee Monday signed the nation’s first state law intended to protect net neutrality, setting up a potential legal battle with the Federal Communications Commission. The law bans broadband providers offering service in the state from blocking or throttling legal content, or from offering fast-lane access to companies willing to pay extra. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Predicting the winners and losers of March Madness is such a daunting challenge that it attracts math nerds like Starfleet voyagers lining up at Comic-Con. Statisticians, economists, Silicon Valley coders, the PhD quants at hedge funds and gambling syndicates: They’ve all tried to “solve” the outcome of the annual college basketball tournament’s 63 matchups. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

No matter where you situate yourself on the political spectrum, don’t try to deny that the 2016 US presidential election made you go “whaaaaaaat?” This isn’t a judgment; if you believe Michael Wolff’s book, even Donald Trump didn’t think Donald Trump was going to be president. Partially that’s because of polls. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

In January, Facebook said it will reduce the volume of news in its news feed, in favor of more posts from friends and family. In fact, Facebook’s role in distributing news has been falling dramatically for more than a year. Data from Parse.ly, which tracks visits to more than 2,500 publisher sites, shows that ahead of the 2016 US presidential election, more than 40 percent of traffic to those sites came from Facebook. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Apple's programming language Swift is less than four years old, but a new report finds that it's already as popular as its predecessor, Apple's more established Objective-C language. Swift is now tied with Objective-C at number 10 in the rankings conducted by analyst firm RedMonk. It's hardly a surprise that programmers are interested in Apple's language, which can be used to build applications for the iPhone, Apple Watch, Macintosh computers, and even web applications. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

From the street, you can hear children at play. Inside the one-story house in Fremont, California, a fish tank gurgles by the front door. A plastic bin filled with Legos sits in the sun room. Renuka Sivarajan, 37, runs a home daycare here. Her path to this point has been like the stock market of late. When Sivarajan first came to the US from India, in 2003, she worked for a tech company in Phoenix. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Forget free-range, antibiotic-free, and grass-fed—tomorrow’s burger will be lab-cultured. Scientists are creating a new slaughterhouse-free food group called clean meat: edible animal protein grown in a vat. Stem cells are extracted from animals, brewed in a bioreactor, fortified with nutrients like amino acids and glucose, and structured around collagen “scaffolds. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

On stage at a tech conference last month, Campbell Brown, Facebook’s head of news partnerships, fired a warning shot to publishers who think they get a raw deal from Facebook. ”My job is to make sure there is quality news on Facebook and that publishers who want to be on Facebook … have a business model that works,” Brown said. “If anyone feels this isn’t the right platform for them, they should not be on Facebook. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Facebook has had a bumpy couple of years. It makes money in torrents, but the way it's handled the manipulations of its platform has led critics to charge it was being irresponsible and craven. In recent months it's finally begun to signal it understands that criticism and to make specific and potentially meaningful changes. But competitors, especially Rupert Murdoch and his News Corp CEO Robert Thomson, have no intention of letting this crisis go to waste. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Hims, a San Francisco-based e-commerce startup selling men’s wellness products, has raised $40 million in funding from venture firms IVP and Redpoint Ventures, according to sources familiar with the deal. The new round values Hims at $200 million not including the funding, the sources said. Launched in late 2017, Hims has already sold around $10 million worth of products for baldness and erectile dysfunction, according to a source. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Claire L. Evans has discovered the solution to our social media woes: “Go back to BBS.” She means bulletin board systems, those grunge-era digital hangouts, like the Well and Echo, where users linked up based on mutual interests and supported one another. (So civilized.) Earlier this year, Evans even installed BBS server software on her Raspberry Pi to test her theory. “That kind of small-scale, self-­policed social media could serve as a balm to us all,” she says. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

In 1965, tech pioneer Gordon Moore noticed a trend: The number of components on an integrated circuit was doubling every year. He predicted this would continue, resulting in wildly powerful digital devices. It was an audacious forecast (he later revised the interval to every two years), but Moore’s law more or less held for five decades, shrinking the computer from room-sized appliance to ­pocketable smartphone. The world of bits was transformed. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

I usually write in Google's online word processor Google Docs, even when noting the company's shortcomings. This article is different: it was drafted in a similar but more private service called Graphite Docs. I discovered it while exploring a nascent and glitch-ridden online realm known as the decentralized internet. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices