Twitter stock tumbles 15% after it purged fake accounts | Money CNN

July 27, 2018 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

The number of people on Twitter fell during the three months ending in June as it worked to clean up the platform and comply with new privacy regulations.

The social network said Friday that it had 335 million monthly users around the world in the second quarter, down from 336 million users in the quarter prior. The number of users could also decline in the third quarter, Twitter warned.

The company attributed the dip in part to “decisions we have made to prioritize the health of the platform” and, to a lesser extent, complying with sweeping new data protection regulations in Europe.

The stock fell 15% in premarket trading Friday after the earnings results.

D.B. Cooper: Investigators Claim They’ve Discovered Skyjacker’s Identity | Rolling Stone

July 26, 2018July 25, 2018 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

A team of former FBI investigators is claiming to have proof of the real identity of D.B. Cooper, the notorious airplane hijacker who has remained at large since he parachuted out of a Seattle-bound plane with $200,000 in November 1971. According to filmmaker and author Thomas Colbert – who has led the independent investigation into the cold case for the last seven years – the real Cooper is a 74-year-old Vietnam veteran named Robert Rackstraw. And the proof is hidden in a series of letters allegedly written by Cooper in the months after the hijacking and his disappearance.

French school to kids: Wear this tracking device or pay a $12 fine | Fast Company

July 24, 2018July 23, 2018 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

The time-honored tradition of skipping school may soon be a thing of the past.

A French school has announced that it would like students to carry Bluetooth-enabled tracking devices so teachers always know where they are, especially if they are not in class.

Prime Day 2018 Results: $1 Billion in Sales for Small Business on Day 1 | Small Business Trends

July 23, 2018July 23, 2018 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Small businesses who took part in the 36-hour event experienced great numbers. In some cases, small business sales were 10 to 100 times higher than their average day. In an Amazon press release, a few small businesses shared their thoughts as the day was just beginning.

“Prime Day is just getting started for us, but we’re already seeing 10 times our average day sales,” said Kelly Fedio of One Savvy Life,

“We’re having our biggest day ever! So far this Prime Day, we’ve sold 102 times more units than an average day.” said Victor Chang of Furbo.

Trump tariffs: Fed says manufacturers in all its districts are worried | Business Insider

July 19, 2018July 18, 2018 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

The manufacturers most affected by US tariffs on imported goods are worried about their future, according to the Federal Reserve.

The Fed’s Beige Book, which compiles anecdotes on business activity from across its 12 districts, showed Wednesday that manufacturers in all districts expressed concern about tariffs. In many districts, manufacturers said US trade policy had driven up their costs and disrupted supply.

Minneapolis officials keep teen’s hot dog stand in business | BBC News

July 19, 2018July 18, 2018 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

After a complaint threatened to shutter a young boy’s hotdog stand, US city officials decided instead to rally behind him to keep it open.

Jaequan Faulkner, 13, has been selling hotdogs outside his home in North Minneapolis, in the Midwestern state of Minnesota, since 2016.

His stand was at risk of closure after someone reported him for not having a permit, local media say.

Instead, city staff helped him obtain a permit and get back to work on Monday.

Why Silicon Valley Is So Good at Making People Hate Things They Should Love | Inc.com

July 18, 2018July 17, 2018 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

To anyone who has spent time in a great metropolis, San Francisco can only be experienced as a collection of dysfunctions interrupted by the occasional nice view. The housing market is the stuff of nightmares. Traffic heading in and out of town sits gridlocked for hours a day. The overcrowded public transit system primarily serves a narrow corridor of neighborhoods. Whole tracts of the city are weirdly barren of restaurants or supermarkets.

And let’s not even start on the ways this increasingly wealthy city fails its large homeless population.

All this dysfunction creates a ready market for consumer-focused startups that can ease the suck a little. It’s no accident that Uber, Airbnb, and Instacart all started here. And so it was when app-enabled electric scooters started showing up on the streets of San Francisco in March, a lot of people wanted to ride them. Cheap, convenient, zero-emissions transportation that gets you exactly where you’re going–that’s something that would improve every city, not just one this broken.

Bitcoin price passes $7K bringing all 100 top coins up with it | TechCrunch

July 18, 2018July 17, 2018 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Bitcoin is moving up, and it’s taking 99 of its best friends along for the ride. In the last 24 hours, every one of the top 100 coins by market cap was in the green, with 84 of them posting gains of over 5 percent. At the time of writing, Bitcoin was sitting at $7,310, up 14 percent in the last 7 days and up almost 10 percent in the last 24 hours.

Strikes, Boycotts, and Outages Mar Amazon Prime Day | WIRED

July 17, 2018July 16, 2018 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

PRIME DAY, WHICH began Monday, is one of Amazon’s biggest promotions of the year, when the retailer offers deals to subscribers of its Prime service.

This year, some Amazon workers in Europe are striking during Prime Day, hoping to draw attention to working conditions like proposed cuts in wages and health benefits. In solidarity, some consumers have been boycotting the company and its many subsidiaries, like Twitch and Whole Foods.

FCC may soon charge you $225 to investigate your complaint | Mashable

July 13, 2018July 11, 2018 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Late last December, nearly 24 million comments poured into the FCC after the agency revealed its plans, spearheaded by its chairman Ajit Pai, to roll back net neutrality.

The FCC’s rules, as they stand, require all comments from the public to be forwarded to the commissioners, and for the commissioners to take these comments into consideration when casting a vote on a new measure.

Well, it seems like the current FCC doesn’t want to bother having to read through all your comments anymore. At least, not without getting paid for it.