Amazon would really like U.S. law enforcement to use its facial-recognition software, despite how its employees feel.

According to internal documents obtained by the Project on Government Oversight, Amazon met with officials from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) over the summer in order to pitch facial-recognition technology known as Rekognition.

In June 2018, Amazon Web Services sales representatives met with ICE officials to discuss the government agency’s use of the face-scanning technology. In an email to ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations that followed, Amazon sent “action items” which included “Rekognition Video tagging/analysis, scalability, custom object libraries.” The Amazon sales representative went on to thank the agency for its interest in using the company’s technology “to support ICE and the HSI mission.” Read more…

More about Amazon, Ice, Facial Recognition, Immigration And Customs Enforcement Agency, and Tech

You ever fall out of your Lambo with armfuls of your luxury items just to flex on the proletariat? 

The “Falling Stars” challenge is the latest trend sweeping Weibo and Instagram as the elite youth flaunt their wealth on social media. According to South China Morning Post, the trend is also known as the “flaunt your wealth” challenge in Mandarin, and started in Russia before mega-rich Chinese kids adopted it. 

More about Instagram, Memes, Weibo, Culture, and Web Culture

What I would give right now to not have celiac disease because this cookie almost makes me want to suffer through an allergic reaction just for a taste.

For the lucky majority out there who have zero gluten issues, you’ll be happy to know that Oreo is rolling out a new cookie, and it’s thicc. Dubbed the Most Stuf Oreo, the cookie is its most stuffed cookie to date. 

SEE ALSO: Student says she gave cookies containing grandfather’s ashes to classmates

Earlier this month, the Instagram page TheJunkFoodAisle posted a picture of the cookie in question. According to the caption, the picture is an accurate depiction of the amount of creme that’s going to be in the cookie. Read more…

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Flying 1,500 feet above the Antarctic coast, NASA scientists recently passed over a bizarrely straight-edged rectangular iceberg and snapped a picture of the floating slab. 

While an intriguing image for the many of us who don’t take aerial surveys of the changing, cracking, and melting Antarctic coast, these “tabular” icebergs are a common sight for scientists working in Antarctica.

“It’s not uncommon to see that in Antarctica — although that [the tabular iceberg spotted by NASA] is a fresh and sharp looking one,” Ted Scambos, a senior research scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center, said in an interview. Read more…

More about Nasa, Science, Antarctica, Icebergs, and Ice Shelf

Facebook has been pulling back the curtain on how politicians, super PACs, corporations, and other entities spend money on its platform. On Tuesday, it made that information more comprehensible, and therefore useful, with a weekly Ad Archive Report that summarizes political and “issues” advertising on the platform.

Facebook launched the Ad Archive in May alongside new labelling requirements for advertisers. The archive allowed anyone with a Facebook account to search all ads about elected officials, political candidates, and “issues.” As of Tuesday, now anyone — regardless of whether they have a Facebook account — can search the archive. Read more…

More about Facebook, Elections, Tech, Social Media Companies, and Politics

There’s a dolphin in the bath and a brand new song in the latest trailer for Mary Poppins Returns.

As everyone’s favourite magical, singing nanny, Emily Blunt takes the lead in a new original track for the Disney sequel, called “Can You Imagine That?” and teased in a clip released Monday. 

Directed by Rob Marshall, the film features all new original songs by Broadway stalwarts Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, and a musical score by Shaiman.

The teaser also appears to feature a few aesthetic throwbacks to Poppins classics like “Jolly Holiday” and “Chim Chim Cher-ee,” but foregrounds the original track. And many, many dolphins. Read more…

More about Music, Disney, Emily Blunt, Mary Poppins Returns, and Entertainment

Google News is chewing up huge amounts of data in one very annoying bug.

As reported by The Verge, Android users have complained about the issue since May, with the app mysteriously downloading gigabytes of mobile data in the background.

A Google community manager acknowledged the problem in September, after unhappy users reported data usage as high as 24GB, resulting in excess charges that amounted to hundreds of dollars. 

Some users said they had the Google News app set to “download via Wi-Fi only,” but were still stung by the bug. Read more…

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Snapchat may be losing ground to Instagram with some of its most important users: teens.

Instagram is now the most-used social media platform among teens, according to research firm Piper Jaffray. 

The new stats show that the Facebook-owned photo sharing app is slowly gaining ground over Snapchat. Eighty-five percent of teens report using Instagram at least once per month, compared with 84 percent who say the same for Snapchat. 

The findings, part of the firm’s fall 2018 “Taking Stock With Teens” survey, is the first time Instagram has edged out Snapchat for the top spot. Though the two apps have consistently ranked at the top for teens, Snapchat has been slightly more popular since the spring of 2016. Read more…

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Janet Jackson’s doing itJeff Goldblum’s doing it. Now Cardi B has purred her way into ASMR. 

In a tingly new interview with W Magazine, the rapper kicks your autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) into overdrive by stroking and whispering into the microphones, and playing with a fluffy rug and toddler toy. 

It is alarmingly stimulating, but also a genuine interview that delves into the success of her commercial debut single “Bodak Yellow,” her debut album Invasion of Privacy, and the difficulties of working during her pregnancy.

But the real highlight? You’ve never heard Cardi B deliver her signature “okurr” like this.  Like what you hear? Check out the rest of W Magazine’s ASMR interviews with celebrities like Aubrey Plaza and Melissa Benoist. Read more…

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Get ready for the Alexa headphone explosion.

Up till now, there haven’t been too many headphones that integrate Amazon Alexa. There are certainly some you can buy — from high-end noise-canceling cans that fit over the ears to true-wireless models — but even when Alexa is present, its abilities are limited to a subset of what it can do on an Echo smart speaker.

That’s about to change in a big wayQualcomm has developed an audio chipset specifically for headphones to integrate digital assistants like Alexa, and a reference design that incorporates the technology: a neckband-style pair of headphones lets you call up Amazon’s digital assistant at the touch of a button. Read more…

More about Alexa, Wireless Headphones, Bluetooth Headphones, Qualcomm, and Digital Assistants