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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Criminals might want to think twice before stealing Tesla. 

A man led police on a chase through Riverside, California, after stealing a Tesla from a parking garage. The moment the Tesla was moved from its parking spot, the owner knew that his car was on the move and that he wasn’t driving it, according to local news reports.

The Tesla owner informed the police, who eventually arrested the suspect. 

This was a shining moment for the Tesla app. Not only does it serve as a key, but it tracks the car’s location, charge level, and can also control the interior climate.  Read more…

More about Tesla, Car Theft, Apps And Software, Tracking App, and Tech

Two major car makers just out “Ubered” Uber. 

Last year, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said he wanted the app to do it all: individual rides, carpools, food deliveries, electric bicycles, e-scooters, self-driving vehicles, and even flying taxis. He wanted Uber to become “the Amazon of transportation.”

But on Friday, German companies Daimler (of Mercedes-Benz) and BMW announced they were investing 1 billion euros ($1.13 billion) to offer many of the same services. 

Under the plan (which will initially focus on Europe, but could expand around the world), the two companies will combine existing services and companies with new transportation options.  Read more…

More about Uber, Mobility, Ride Hailing Apps, Bmw, and Daimler

One of Twitter’s cofounders is taking a major step back from the company: Ev Williams is leaving the company’s board.

“It’s been an incredible 13 years, and I’m proud of what Twitter has accomplished during my time with the company. I will continue rooting for the team as I focus my time on other projects,” Williams said in a statement in an SEC filing announcing his departure from the board.

More about Tech, Twitter, Ev Williams, Social Media Companies, and Tech

After The Wall Street Journal reported that popular period-tracking app Flo had been secretly sharing some of its users’ most personal health data with Facebook, Flo is promising to make some changes.

Along with a number of other popular health apps, Flo used Facebook’s developer software to track users’ data in a way that could be used for advertising purposes, the report found. 

In Flo’s case, the period tracking app “told Facebook when a user was having her period or informed the app of an intention to get pregnant,” according to The WSJ. This data “was sent with a unique advertising identifier that can be matched to a device or profile.” Read more…

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Videos of cats opening doors are always good, but here is a particularly good one.

It was taken by Twitter user @steeleio_, who couldn’t figure out why her roommate’s cat was always able to break out of their bathroom. So she set up a camera on a shower shelf, shut the cat in the bathroom, and shook his food bag outside the door so he’d want to get out. 

He escaped in less than five minutes. “Once he got out, we gave him a treat and watched the video,” @steeleio_ explained via Twitter DM. “My roommate was in complete shock.”

Here is the video. Watch and be amazed.

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