Cloudflare has announced that it will terminate its protection of 8chan after the forum site was linked to another mass shooting over the weekend, tying the site’s “lawlessness” directly to “multiple tragic deaths”.
Pressure had mounted on the company to cease its service to 8chan, arguing that it enabled the spread of violent white supremacist rhetoric and the celebration of perpetrators of massacres. Manifestos or open letters by shooters including those responsible for the Christchurch, Poway, and El Paso shootings, all of which occurred in 2019, have been hosted on the mostly-unmoderated forums. Read more…
More about White Supremacy, 8chan, Cloudflare, Tech, and Cybersecurity
Apple’s credit card is launching soon, and it looks like the highly anticipated card will come with a few unusual rules.
Goldman Sachs, which partnered with Apple on the card, published the customer agreement, revealing a few new details about the iPhone maker’s new offering.
Though many of the rules are what you’d expect to find in the fine print of any credit card, there are some notable parts of the agreement.
For one, the terms explicitly forbid credit card users from jailbreaking their iPhones. From the agreement (emphasis added):
In other words: don’t jailbreak your phone unless you want to risk having your account closed abruptly. Read more…
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Amazon’s plans to launch a drone delivery service in the United States are slowly inching forward.
The Federal Aviation Administration just announced an important milestone in drone flight that has significant implications for Amazon and other companies hoping to launch commercial drone operations.
The University of Alaska completed the first FAA-approved “beyond line of sight” drone flight this week, Reuters reported.
Up until now, the agency has had a strictly-enforced “line of sight” rules that requires drone operators to be able to see their drone at all times. And even one-time waivers granted by the FAA have required a person on the ground to watch the drone, according to Irish Automation, a company that makes the collision avoidance software that was used in the Alaska flight. This has been a major hurdle for Amazon and other companies that want to use autonomous drones for delivery services and other uses. Read more…
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There is no reasonable argument in 2019 for 8chan’s continued existence on the internet.
Just look at the recent history. QAnon, an alarming and deeply absurd conspiracy theory, blew up there. When reports surfaced in 2018 that Louisiana police possessed a “full list of antifa” doc — actually just the names of anti-Trumpers scraped from petitions and Facebook events — 8chan was found to be hosting the same list.
Then there are the mass shootings. The angry, hateful men allegedly behind the 2019 shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand; Poway, California; and, most recently, El Paso, Texas all used the site to promote their activities. The El Paso suspect apparently shared an entire, twisted manifesto. Read more…
More about Racism, Shooting, 8chan, Tech, and Cybersecurity
Forget snakes on a plane. We have bats to worry about, now.
On Wednesday morning, passengers on a 6:00 a.m. flight from Charlotte, North Carolina to Newark, New Jersey received quite the scare after a loose bat that somehow made it aboard a Spirt Airlines flight decided to dart through the cabin.
An absolute nightmare.
SEE ALSO: Woman fell asleep on an Air Canada flight and awoke to find herself alone on the plane
Two passengers shared footage of the terrifying scene on Twitter. In the first video, shown above, people can be heard screaming, and seen crouching down in their seats and attempting to hide behind the bathroom door. Read more…
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If you’ve been thinking about buying a new Tesla, now might be a good time to make a move.
Tesla is offering prospective buyers some extra incentive: free supercharging when you buy a new Model X or Model S. New purchases of the two cars will come with”free unlimited” supercharging, Tesla announced in a tweet.
BREAKING: All new Model S and Model X orders now come with ⚡ free ⚡ unlimited ⚡ Supercharging ⚡
— Tesla (@Tesla) August 3, 2019
The company didn’t post further details on the offer, but a spokesperson confirmed there is currently no set timeframe on the deal.
For Tesla, the free supercharging is likely meant to draw more customers to its older, higher-priced cars rather than the more affordable Model 3. On a recent earnings call, Tesla CEO Elon Musk acknowledged that the Model 3 is likely cannibalizing sales of the older Model X and Model S. And analysts have expressed concerns over slowing interest in the older models. Even Musk noted that demand for the vehicles “should be higher.” Read more…
More about Tech, Transportation, Tesla, Model S, and Tesla Model X
It might be time to break your Google Chrome habit.
Though Google’s browser is the most popular browser by an overwhelming margin, there are some good reasons to switch, especially if you care about privacy.
The Washington Post recently described Chrome as “a lot like surveillance software,” citing the browser’s habit of automatically signing you in if you use Gmail in order to serve better targeted advertising. Privacy advocates at the Electronic Frontier Foundation have criticized Google for putting its business interests (advertising) ahead of user privacy. And, as long as Google continues to dominate the digital advertising market, it has few incentives to invest in meaningful privacy protections. Read more…
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America has had 251 mass shootings in the 216 days of 2019, and with each devastating news cycle it gets harder and harder to accept the fact that President Donald Trump tweets “thoughts and prayers” instead of taking any real action on gun control.
In the wake of a recent mass shooting in El Paso, Texas, and another in Dayton, Ohio — which took place in the same 24-hour period — 2020 presidential candidates Beto O’Rourke, Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, and Pete Buttigieg are stepping up to directly call out Trump’s inaction and the impact that his hateful rhetoric has on this country. Read more…
More about Donald Trump, Gun Control, Mass Shooting, 2020 Election, and Culture
French inventor Franky Zapata has officially crossed the English Channel by hoverboard.
On Aug. 4, weeks after a failed Bastille Day flight, Zapata hopped on the jet-powered hoverboard that he invented, called the “Flyboard Air,” and set out to fly across the 35-kilometer channel. This time, he was successful.
SEE ALSO: Check out this ridiculous flying jet board from France’s Bastille Day parade
Zapata’s board is propelled by five small jet engines, and after he stopped halfway to refuel his board on a boat, Reuters reports that he was able to cross the Channel and land in a little more than 20 minutes. Read more…
More about Tech, France, Hoverboard, Tech, and Innovations
Keeping your home clean while juggling with different projects from school can be stressful. But if you let dust build-up, a gram of dust contains around 250,000 allergenic dust mite fecal pellets. Sounds nasty right? So why not get yourself a Eufy RoboVac robot vacuum, it allows you to focus on other stuff while it cleans for you.
With many great features, the customizable cleaning zone impressed us the most, as you can set where you want the robot vacuum to clean directly from your smartphone.
Check out more of today’s best deals from Amazon, Walmart, Dell, Adorama, Best Buy, Rakuten, Dell Small Business, and B&H Photo-Video for Sunday, Aug. 4. Read more…
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