WhatsApp co-founder, Brian Acton, urged his Twitter followers to delete their Facebook.

Brian Acton, the co-founder of messaging app, WhatsApp, who made billions from its sale to Facebook, has said that “it’s time” for people to delete Facebook.

In the wake of the Cambridge Analytica data misuse scandal, in which 50 million user profiles from Facebook were breached and gathered, the social network’s stock price fell more than 11 percent. Facebook is now facing crackdowns from regulators in the U.S. and Europe. Not only that, but the Mark Zuckerberg-led platform is also facing a lawsuit from its own investors.

On Tuesday, Acton tweeted that “It’s time” to delete Facebook with the hashtag “#DeleteFacebook”. The hashtag he used has been trending since the scandal broke last week. While the WhatsApp co-founder urged his 25 thousand followers to bid farewell from the social network, Google searches for “How to delete Facebook” spiked and many people criticized Facebook’s silence during this time.

Acton was an engineer and executive at Yahoo before he co-founded WhatsApp in 2009. Facebook bought the messaging app in 2014 which made Acton a multi-billionaire after which he stayed with the company until November last year.

Acton currently is the head of the Signal Foundation, a non-profit organization whose mission is “to develop open source privacy technology that protects free expression and enables secure global communication. While WhatsApp had previously used Signal’s open-source, end-to-end encryption technology, the app is a direct rival to the company. This technology was developed by Signal founder, Moxie Marlinspike and his team at Open Whisper Systems.

In February, Marlinspike announced the creation of the Signal Foundation, a new nonprofit funded by Acton. Acton invested $50 million into the project as a starter.

“Brian left WhatsApp and Facebook last year, and has been thinking about how to best focus his future time and energy on building nonprofit technology for public good,” Marlinspike said.

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A US-based start-up launched four tiny satellites, going against FCC regulation.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced that a Silicon Valley-based start-up called Swarm Technologies launched four minuscule satellites into space without the agency’s permission.

Swarm Technologies, founded by former Google and NASA JPL engineer, Sara Spangelo, disregarded the FCC’s interdiction and launched SpaceBees 1,2,3 and 4. The satellites would reportedly help the company test out a space-based concept for an “Internet of Things” (IoT) communication network.

Near the end of last year, Swarm Technologies applied for a permit from the FCC to launch its prototypes into space with the government agency declining the request due to security reasons.

FCC claimed that the satellites were too small to be tracked, making them a threat to other objects and satellites in space.

The agency currently does not have the means to monitor the minuscule SpaceBees, which measure about 4 inches (10 centimeters) in all three dimensions.

“If they’re difficult to track… and you want to know in the future: ‘Is it going to hit my satellite?’—the answer might be erroneous because we don’t have a good orbit for them,” said Brian Weeden, a space expert at the Secure World Foundation.

Swarm claims that their new technology would lay the groundwork for a worldwide communication network, one which would be less expensive for transportation network and agricultural technologies to employ.

The company’s satellites would reportedly use solar-powered gateways to connect existing IoT devices via Bluetooth or Wi-fi and transfer data to Internet-connected stations on Earth.

While Swarm had the SpaceBees satellites outfitted with GPS responders and covered them with radar-reflecting material for easy tracking, the FCC denied the permit application.

According to aerospace professor, Marcus Holzinger, the greatest danger posed by the tiny satellites is not stemmed from their mass but rather their velocity. He said that the size of the satellite would enable such a huge energy transfer to occur when orbiting Earth, that a collision with another satellite would be “catastrophic”.

Swarm Technologies has yet to provide an official comment on their unauthorized launch.

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Jaguar has just announced its first all-electric SUV.

Automotive company, Jaguar Land Rover, unveiled Thursday via live stream from Graz, Austria, its first all-electric vehicle called I-Pace. The new vehicle aims to compete with Tesla Motor’s larger Model X SUV.

The Jaguar I-Pace SUV is priced at 63,495 ($87,152) pounds in the UK, while the US pricing is expected to be announced on March 6. According to the company, the upcoming SUV will pack 394 horsepower and 512 pound-feet of torque in its two-motor all-wheel-drive configuration.

The I-Pace will also have 240 miles of range per charge and be able to accelerate from zero to 60 mph in 4.5 seconds.

Tesla’s Model X SUV can drive 295 miles on a single charge and accelerate from zero to 60 mph in 2.9 seconds.

Its battery can reportedly reach an 80 percent charge in about 40 minutes using publicly available DC rapid chargers. More so, the company claims that home charging with a 230-volt system will reach 80 percent charge in just over 10 hours.

The electric SUV’s interior will feature a redesigned dashboard with two touchscreens on the center console and a heads-up display that projects information like GPS and the car’s speed on the windshield.

Jaguar claims that the I-Pace will be able to gather data about the owner’s driving habits and interior preferences and use artificial intelligence to adjust itself.

The car will be compatible with Amazon’s virtual assistant, Alexa, as owners will be able to ask for information regarding battery levels. In addition, the I-Pace will be Jaguar’s first vehicle to receive wireless updates, similar to how Tesla updates its vehicles.

Jaguar aims to roll out the electric SUV in the second half of this year as a 2019 model in three trim levels, the S, SE, and HSE versions. The speedy launch would make the I-Pac one of the first luxury electric SUVs to compete with Tesla’s Model X.

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Tinder will adopt a Bumble-like feature that allows women to message first.

The popular dating app, Tinder, will soon implement a new feature that will allow women to message first. This new option, which will most likely roll out with an upcoming update, will allow women to start a conversation, however, it will not be a default setting. Rival app, Bumble, is most known for having this feature albeit as a default. Tinder would thus give women the ability to decide whether or not they’d want to interact with a potential match.

Tinder currently allow either men or women to initiate a conversation after a mutual match has been made. The idea, while simple in its design, has made Tinder the most successful dating app on the market to date. The app now has over 3 million paid subscribers in total.

The premium user base accounted for nearly one-third of Match Group’s revenue in 2017. Match Group is the owner of Tinder as well as a number of other dating services including Match.com and OkCupid. The app has reportedly been downloaded over 100 million times.

The move to have women take control of a conversation on the app is a new idea that has been discussed at Tinder, according to Match Group CEO, Mandy Ginsberg.

“Often, women don’t really want the pressure of kicking off the conversation, but it they want it, that’s great,”  Ginsberg, said.

The new option will reportedly be tested prior to a public launch.

While the feature is new to dating app, Bumble has been boasting the same option for some time. The rival dating app has been slowly garnering a very active user base with the company claiming to have 26 million users.

Tinder had previously tried to acquire Bumble, however, since the popular app is opting to incorporate a Bumble-like feature, it’s safe to say that the deal couldn’t be finalized.

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Uber will force its US drivers to take 6-hour breaks for every 12 hours of driving.

Ride-hailing app, Uber, has added a feature that will issue a six-hour break whenever one of its drivers works for 12 hours straight. The feature will apply to all active Uber drivers across the US. Once the six-hour break comes online, the driver will be unable to accept trips.

Uber’s latest announcement is an attempt to tackle the problem of driver fatigue and drowsy driving.

The feature will reportedly trigger when the driver has driven 12 hours without taking a continuous six-hour break at any point between. Uber said that hours spent online and driving will rack up to the 12-hour limit. This does not apply to time spent online but stopped, such as waiting for a ride at the airport. The company added that they will not track time drivers might spend offline on the app driving for another rival service.

According to Uber’s Head of Safety Product, Sachin Kansal, the company took into account a variety of factors to determine what does and doesn’t count as a user’s total driving time. They consulted with road safety organizations and relied on the company’s experience with drivers.

“There’s definitely a lot of third-party expertise that has gone into our thinking,” said Kansal. “But it’s also that we know how our driver drive, we know road conditions,”

The company’s US feature echoes a similar policy Uber introduced in the UK, which logs out drivers from the app after ten hours of activity.

Uber has currently capped driver hours in certain cities, including New York and Chicago. The company imposed the 12-hour limit on its New York drivers at the beginning of 2016, after media outlets reported that some drivers were driving for 19 hours straight.

According to Uber, the feature won’t impact most drivers on its platform, as 60 percent of them were reported to use the app a mere 10 hours per week.

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On Thursday, the NPD Group made public the highly-anticipated list of best-selling video games in 2017, in the United States. Taking the first position on that list was a name that many players expected: Call of Duty: WWII. Some of the games that also reached the top five in terms of sales were Destiny 2, NBA 2K18, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Madden NFL 18. When it comes to the month of December, the best-selling game was the same as on the list that included the entire year. However, the secondary places went to some different titles. Star Wars: Battlefront II was the second best-selling game in December. Rounding out the top five were Super Mario Odyssey, Mario Kart 8 and NBA 2K18.

Also for December, it seems that people spent about $3.3 billion on everything ranging from video games, hardware and even accessories. This was a 10% increase since last year. When it comes to the entire year of 2017, people spent about $14.6 billion on games, accessories and hardware. This was an 11% increase since 2016.

The best-selling video games of last year

When it comes to the number of packaged video games that were sold last year, the numbers also increased from 271 in 2016 to 314 in 2017. A notable 16% increase. This means that people have begun buying video games more frequently in the past year and if the trend continues, in 2018, the numbers should be even higher.

It’s worth noting that once specific genre of video games showed a major increase: racing. In comparison with 2016, the sales for racing titles increased by 68%. This is indeed a huge jump. At the same time, the shooter genre remains the one bringing in the most profit.

For hardware, the Nintendo Switch was the best-selling in December. However, over the whole year, the PlayStation 4 sold the best.

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It seems that Apple CEO Tim Cook has decided to learn a thing or two from Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. This is why on Wednesday, the company teased the plans to build a new campus in the United States, among other interesting initiatives. The idea is that Apple wants to hire about 20,000 new employees over the next five years and naturally, they need a place where to work. It’s interesting that the company didn’t announce where exactly this campus is going to be. Instead, it said that further details will be announced later this year.

While this project is indeed a nice initiative, it sounds a lot like what Amazon is planning to do with the “HQ2”. For this project, Amazon asked cities in the United States to place bids for where the company should build the new $5 billion headquarters. Amazon is planning to hire about 50,000 people to work in he new headquarters. But one thing was different. Amazon asked for bids from about 50 cities. Meanwhile, Apple didn’t even reveal a possible location and didn’t say anything about bids.

Apple’s new initiative to hire people

It’s no secret that Apple usually receives tax breaks in exchange of jobs for people. So, it is possible that the company is currently negotiating this special tax status, even if it doesn’t do it so publicly, like Amazon did.

Also, when Amazon announced the new headquarters, it also said that it is going to be the equal to the original Seattle campus. Apple did not say this. Considering that the new campus is not a new headquarters, it may not be an equal to those in Cupertino, California.

Also, the company won’t make this campus for high-skilled programming jobs. New iPhones are most likely not going to be built in this new campus. Still, these jobs will surely help a lot of people and will help Apple at the same time.

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There are a lot of objects today that contain virtual assistants like Amazon’s Alexa or Google’s Assistant. Smartphones, smart speakers, washing machines and clocks. They all have it. So, as expected, the problem is not finding a virtual assistant within an object. The challenge is finding someone who actually uses the virtual assistant for more than the normal object can do. Let’s say you have a radio. Now put a virtual assistant inside and what do you have? Still a radio. You may be able to vocally control it, but it still does what a radio is supposed to do, play music.

This is why a management consulting firm called Activate recently analyzed how heavy users of virtual assistants actually use them. They found that those people turn to them for music, weather, they ask questions or set timers. Apart from this? Not much. According to Activate’s research, most Alexa users have never used anything else than the assistant’s basic apps. And while there are indeed hardcore fans out there who use Alexa for a variety of other things, most people still prefer routine tasks. So, is there a solution for this? Could there be something that could make these people use the virtual assistant for more things? Probably not.

People don’t use virtual assistant for too many things

Most big companies are currently trying to integrate their virtual assistants into as many things as possible. From phones to cars to intelligent houses. And while these virtual assistants are capable of doing a very large number of things, people are satisfied with their basic functions.

There are numerous examples of people who only use them for fun, music or to change the lights in the room. Experts are saying that things will get better because people are now learning more about these many functions virtual assistants have. Still, some years will pass before they will learn their true value.

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Yesterday, Facebook took the decision that everyone saw coming. It gave up on the Messenger Day feature and from now on, all the Stories will appear in the main Facebook Stories feature. The posts will also be in sync and you will be able to see them from both apps. They will still be available for 24 hours, but you won’t have to view a certain story on each app if you’ve already seen it on one.

According to Facebook product manager Connor Hayes, their idea was to make it much easier for users to share their stories in such a way that they’ll be visible on both apps. It’s interesting that there were some people who were already thinking that the posts on the two apps were connected. This made the team rethink their project and unite the stories the people are posting.

Facebook gives up on Messenger Day

However, users should know that the two cameras on Messenger and Facebook are going to remain separate. The Facebook one will be focused more on augmented reality and masks, while the Messenger one will focus on stylized captions. Experts are saying that by connecting the two apps, the user base of the Facebook Stories might grow even larger. It needs that, especially because it doesn’t have the popularity that Instagram Stories has.

Hayes says that the team feels optimistic about this change and that they think it will draw in more people. It’s interesting that Facebook is also giving up on the Facebook Direct feature. From now on, all the replies to the stories and the camera messages will appear in Messenger. According to Paulina Bozek, the Messenger product manager, people would like the Story replies to reach them via Messenger. So, this is what the team did to please them.

Facebook is also launching its new Stories for Groups and Events. Here, members can post various pictures and videos that the rest of the people in the group can also see.

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The President of the United States was blocked out of his Twitter personal account for a total of 11 minutes. The reason for this interruption wasn’t any violation of the company’s terms and conditions clauses. Instead, one of Twitter’s employees used her security clearance during her last day within the company to deactivate this particular user.

Former Twitter Customer Officer Was Crowned King for How She Tackled Trump’s Personal Account

On Thursday night, Donald Trump was unable to enter his Twitter account for 11 minutes. The phenomenon couldn’t have passed without authorities signaling the social media company about this misunderstanding. Therefore, Twitter representatives claimed at first that the account was suspended temporarily due to human error.

However, the company changed its statement after only a couple of hours. This time, the accident turned out to be a deliberate intention of a former customer support agent. The person in question went to the office for the last employee’s day of work and deactivated Trump’s account.

The Internet responded mainly with cheers in favor of the anonymous Twitter support officer. The most vocal users were Trump’s critics who even elevated the employee to the level of a hero. Others viewed this episode as entertaining and laughed about it.

The Incident Reverts Back to Old Concerns Regarding the Influence of Tech Companies

On the other hand, this incident uncovers the degree of vulnerability that concerns all Twitter accounts. Previously, Twitter refused to disclose any security measures it took to protect their user who happens to be the most powerful person in the world, namely Donald Trump. This silence suggested that the company implemented additional strategies to ensure the safety of this particular personal account.

Despite these extra layers of security, a corporate worker still managed to reduce world’s most influential person to silence in the digital world. At the moment, nobody knows which Twitter employees have access to user accounts.

It is unknown if the anti-Trump former Twitter staffer was able only to activate or deactivate accounts or she could have done more changes than this. Nonetheless, the way this employee chose to spend his last day at Twitter opened old concerns regarding the power of tech companies.

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