There’s more evidence that just ignoring your eccentric boss’ bad ideas is the best way to deal with them.

The co-creator of Google Maps and current Salesforce president Bret Taylor decided that Feb. 23, 2019 was a perfectly good time to blow all our damn minds.

On Saturday morning, Taylor dropped what he innocently described as a “silly Google Maps origin story” in a Twitter thread. It included the tale of how one popular feature was almost called… Bird Mode?!

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Verizon just took a pro-tip from the fashion industry with Tech Pack, a subscription box that lets users try different tech products for up to two weeks before deciding if they want to keep them. 

The new service was announced Friday, in emails sent out to select Verizon customers. It’s apparently still in the testing phase and has already filled up.

Similar to other subscription boxes like Stitch Fix or FabFitFun, users first fill out a survey about what gadgets they like so the box can be best tailored to their interests. Three mystery products are then sent out (Verizon hasn’t decided how often) and the user can decide whether to keep or return them after two weeks. Read more…

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Tech optimism can be hard to come by these days. But the idea that tech will empower us to make the world a better place abounds at Magic Leap — it just all depends on 5G.

Magic Leap, the company best known for its augmented reality headsets, is unveiling some grand ideas about what it sees as the future of technology. Rony Abovitz, the company’s CEO, first shared his vision for the future, called the “Magicverse,” in Oct. 2018. 

Abovitz expanded on that idea in a company blog post and interview Saturday, in which he describes the Magicverse as “an Emergent System of Systems bridging the physical with the digital, in a large scale, persistent manner within a community of people.” Read more…

More about Internet Of Things, Magic Leap, 5g, Tech, and Vr Ar

Fans of Marvel Comics probably know a thing or two already about the Skrulls that apparently fill the role of villain in Captain Marvel. But not everyone knows about the green-skinned alien shapeshifters.

In this new “Intergalactic War” featurette from Marvel, we get a walkthrough of what the Skrulls are all about from Captain Marvel principals Brie Larsen, Gemma Chan, Jude Law, Ben Mendelsohn, producer Jonathan Schwartz, and directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck. There’s some new footage in here, and our clearest look yet at the movie’s take on the comic book aliens.

Captain Marvel is set to hit theaters on March 8. Read more…

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YouTube said Friday that it would pull advertising from videos that espouse anti-vaccination conspiracy theories, according to BuzzFeed. The action contributes to a growing trend of social media companies taking action to combat the spread of vaccine misinformation online.

Social media companies, including Facebook and YouTube, have recently been facing pressure to get better at this, following inquiries from media and calls from lawmakers. The World Health Organization recently categorized “vaccine hesitancy” as one of 2019’s top threats to global health. 

The US is experiencing a measles outbreak — a previously near-eradicated disease — that’s affecting unvaccinated children. Social media has played a significant role in proliferating the false conspiracy that vaccines can cause autism. Read more…

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PETA is facing negative backlash (again), this time for calling out Google and Steve Irwin on Friday.

The Google homepage featured an illustration of Irwin, the late Australian zookeeper and conservationist, holding a crocodile on what would have been his 57th birthday. It was an image that PETA referred to as “dangerous” and “fawning.”

PETA quote tweeted Google about 12 hours after the graphic went up, which still fell squarely on Irwin’s birthday (he died after being stung by a ray in 2006).

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U.S. Magistrate Judge Gabriel Gorenstein might be a little too curious about the crime he’s overseeing. Gorenstein will preside over the case of Therese Okoumou, who climbed the Statue of Liberty on July 4, 2018 – only now Gorenstein basically wants to climb it as well.

According to NBC New York, Gorenstein wants “to better appreciate the risks or hazards created by defendant’s conduct.” He filed a court order requesting a ladder and access to the area where Okoumou was found.

Okoumou climbed the Statue on Independence Day after an Abolish ICE protest, but a U.S. Attorney deemed the climbing to be “dangerous and reckless” compared to constitutionally sanctioned peaceable protest. Read more…

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Some Microsoft employees feel the company’s business entanglements with the U.S. military aren’t OK, and they want the bosses to know about it.

An open letter to CEO Satya Nadella and Chief Legal Officer Brad Smith from Microsoft Workers 4 Good makes the position of protesting employees clear: “We are a global coalition of Microsoft workers, and we refuse to create technology for warfare and oppression,” the letter begins.

Specifically at issue is a $479 million “Integrated Visual Augmentation System” contract that Microsoft entered into back in Nov. 2018. As the letter notes, the intent is for the company to “rapidly develop, test, and manufacture a single platform that soldiers can use to Fight, Rehearse, and Train that provides increased lethality, mobility, and situational awareness” against America’s foes. Read more…

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Welcome to Small Humans, an ongoing series at Mashable that looks at how to take care of – and deal with – the kids in your life. Because Dr. Spock is nice and all, but it’s 2019 and we have the entire internet to contend with.

If you’re pumping breast milk, what would you pay to not feel quite so much like a literal dairy cow? With the release of a new and improved breast pump, that’s no longer a hypothetical question. 

Despite a built-in customer base thanks to insurance coverage from the Affordable Care Act and a lack of paid maternity leave pushing American mothers back in the workplace as fast as possible, meaningful improvements to the breast pump are few and far between.  Read more…

More about Breastfeeding, Pregnancy, Maternity Leave, Parenting Family, and Small Humans

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