How Facebook’s last year shows dominance in mobile advertising — and what’s next | Mashable

September 27, 2016September 26, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

There’s plenty of shiny toys to look at when it comes to Facebook — Oculus Rift, WhatsApp, Messenger and ambitious plans to bring the internet to every corner of the globe.

At its core, however, is good old advertising. Well, maybe not old.

“We’re going to pursue any avenue we can to help business owners, all within the bounds of privacy control,” said Andrew Bosworth, Facebook’s vice president of ads and business platform. “Consumers need to feel comfortable if we ever creep anybody out we’ve done a poor job.”

Ahead of Advertising Week 2016 in New York, Mashable spoke with Bosworth to learn how Facebook has grown in digital and mobile advertising and what the team is creating next.

Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf fake-accounts scandal Mike Mayo CLSA | Business Insider

September 27, 2016September 26, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Wells Fargo has a lot of explaining to do.

The bank, once the largest bank in the US by market cap, and its CEO, John Stumpf, have been raked over the coals following the revelation that 2 million accounts were opened without customers’ knowledge from 2011 to 2015.

According to Mike Mayo, a banking analyst at CLSA, even after Stumpf’s testimony on Capitol Hill, there are still some important questions the bank has to answer.

This Redesigned Map Of U.S. Train Routes Might Make You Actually Want To Take Amtrak | Co.Exist

September 26, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

If it’s hard to picture the U.S. with a high-speed rail network like China’s—with trains going 186 miles an hour, and rail trips more than 70% faster than they are today—a subway-like map makes it feel more realistic.

“The transit map metaphor, with its straight lines and evenly spaced stations seems to make this easier to imagine,” says designer Cameron Booth, who created the map.

With the redesigned map, it’s possible to imagine the train as a viable option for travel in the rest of the country—even if the stops it shows now are just along existing Amtrak routes.

Here’s Why You’re Paying $200 to Rent a Clunky Set-Top Box | Bloomberg

September 26, 2016September 26, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Imagine watching TV without paying the cable company for the blinking set-top box, using a gadget of your choice that makes it easy to switch between cable channels, streaming programs and online shows.

The idea, simple in concept, is proving difficult in execution.

U.S. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler is pushing a plan to force cable companies to give up their control over set-top boxes, “unlocking” the marketplace as he puts it.

But he’s drawn opposition from lawmakers in both parties, not to mention some of the most active corporate lobbyists in Washington. Comcast Corp. and the cable industry — which stands to lose $20 billion a year in box rentals — say it’s unnecessary and are fighting it. So are Hollywood studios, DirecTV owner AT&T Inc., and CBS Corp. Even a fellow commission Democrat said Wheeler’s plan set for a Sept. 29 vote is flawed.

Can tech keep the world’s bees buzzing? | BBC News

September 23, 2016September 21, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

The plight of the honey bee is a major cause of concern for the world’s scientists, environmentalists and the food industry, not to mention beekeepers.

Bees play a crucial role in the survival of many of the crops in our food chain – one in three mouthfuls of food depends on the pollinating insects, according to the British Beekeeping Association – but their numbers are significantly declining.

A recent US report said that American beekeepers lost 44.1% of their hives between March 2015 – April 2016 – the highest rate of decline since the annual study began six years ago.

The Science of Boredom | Live Science

September 22, 2016September 20, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Although boredom is as familiar a feeling as excitement or fear, science has only begun to understand what makes people bored. Recently, six scientists who emerged after living for a year in isolation on the Mauna Loa volcano as part of the HI-SEAS (Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation) experiment, which simulated the isolation that future space travelers might experience traveling to and living on Mars, said that boredom was their biggest challenge.

Boredom “has been understudied until fairly recently, but it’s [worth studying] because human experience has consequences for how we interact with each our and our environment,” said James Danckert, professor of cognitive neuroscience at the University of Waterloo in Ontario in an interview with Live Science.

Europe demands YouTube pay more to artists | Money CNN

September 15, 2016September 14, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Europe has opened a new battlefront in its war against big U.S. tech, announcing draft rules that could force YouTube and others to pay more money to the music industry.

The European Commission, which administers EU law, has proposed a new Europe-wide copyright law on Wednesday, saying it wants to strengthen the rights of artists and make sure they receive a fair share of the profits made on their work.

If approved, the new rules will force streaming services such as YouTube and Dailymotion to beef up their copyright protection measures by filtering out copyrighted content or paying for its use.

That’s a huge step up from the current measures that only require these services to act when notified about a copyright infringement.

Americans ditching big restaurant chains and eating local | Business Insider

September 14, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Americans are downsizing their meal (location) choices.

Lagging sales at major restaurant chains have recently set off worries for the industry and the economy at large. According to Michelle Meyer, a US economist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, it may be less about personal economic situations or the election, and more about consumers’ taste preferences.

Using data from millions of Bank of America debit and credit cards, Meyer noted that the weakness in restaurant spending isn’t as alarming as other people make it seem.

Refugees Wanted: Meet The Companies Creating Jobs For The Displaced | Co.Exist

September 14, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

When Charly Ngoma arrived in Arizona as a refugee from the Democratic Republic of Congo, he’d never eaten a burrito before. Three months later, he had a job at Chipotle. Now—after a year and a half, and two promotions—he’s general manager at one of the restaurant’s locations in Phoenix.

“Everything I saw my first day was new,” he says. “I didn’t know even the name of the ingredients they use in English. I was just writing down everything.”

One reason for his success was his own motivation and hard work. But Chipotle also partners with the International Rescue Committee, or IRC, to recruit refugees. Without the partnership, it’s unlikely he would have even heard of the job.

Private Prisons Have a Problem: Not Enough Inmates | Bloomberg

September 13, 2016September 12, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

With overall violent crime rates falling nationally and fewer people getting sentenced to long stretches behind bars, private prison companies see a potentially catastrophic decline in demand for their services. Their response: diversify into everything from halfway houses to neighborhood check-in centers for drug offenders.

Over the past three decades, entrepreneurs and investors piled into the private prison industry, convinced that the thorny job of incarcerating criminals could be a lucrative growth business. No longer. Curtailment of harsh mandatory-minimum sentences and other changes in criminal justice policies have combined to reduce federal and state prison head counts to 1.56 million as of year end 2014, a 3 percent falloff.