It’s increasingly clear that Facebook is viewing YouTube as a major competitor.

In a blog post today, Facebook once again demonstrated its focus on video, with an announcement concerning the rollout of more video ad options. It’s a response to advertiser demand for even more control over where video advertisements are shown, the company said. These new options borrow heavily from some of YouTube’s very own video advertising models.

The first new video ad option coming from Facebook is called In-Stream Reserve, which will “allow advertisers to reach people watching video from a selection of the most engaging, highest quality publishers and creators.” Basically, Facebook is allowing advanced ad space buyouts from only its best performing video makers. The audiences for these video ads are U.S.-based and are verified by Nielsen.  Read more…

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Google Search is 20 years old today. Judging by the Google Doodle and recent feature upgrades, Google would like the day to be a celebration of how the company’s algorithms have evolved over the years, cementing its position as the dominant player in the space.

But, more than ever, tech doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Google Search is turning 20 in a time where the public is questioning both our relationship with technology and the fundamental principles and motivations of the companies building it. Social networks like Facebook and Twitter have borne most of the criticism, but Google has been a target as well. Read more…

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Shane Dawson released the second episode of his Jake Paul docu-series, and … things don’t look so good. 

The Dark Side of Jake Paul opens with a scene from one of Paul’s vlogs. Dawson looks into how Paul treats his Team 10 roommates, showing a clip of him pranking fellow YouTuber Tessa Brooks with the “buried alive prank.” 

Smothering her in blankets while she sleeps and blasting siren noises, Paul wakes Tessa up by convincing her she’s in the back of an ambulance with a serious injury. 

It’s not the first, and definitely not the last, time that Paul has brushed off cruelty as “just a joke.”  Read more…

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As another allegation surfaces against Brett Kavanaugh, Time’s Up has released an ad asking him to withdraw his Supreme Court nomination.

It echoes a statement released by the organization earlier this week, in which they said Kavanaugh’s confirmation would “compromise the integrity of the court for years to come,” and called for a walkout in solidarity with survivors of sexual assault and harassment.

The advertisement is another in the strong campaign supporting Kavanaugh’s accusers, which recently featured 1,600 men signing a full-page ad in the New York Times. Read more…

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From my very first demo two years ago, back when it was called Santa Cruz and had a fan and processor strapped to the back, I’ve been impressed with the headset. Last year, I saw an even better demo that convinced me the future of VR is wireless. 

Now that I’ve seen the product fully realized, I’m even more certain: the Oculus Quest feels like what VR should have been all along — mobile, wireless, and about the same price as a gaming console.

For Facebook, the Oculus Quest ($399) rounds out its VR lineup, with the Oculus Go ($199) at the low end and Oculus Rift ($399, plus the cost of a powerful PC) at the high end. Oculus Quest, by comparison, is a kind of compromise that attempts to offer the best of both worlds: the portability of the Go with games worthy of the Rift. Read more…

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The way Dr. Jesse Karmazin sees it, New York City needs some fresh blood. 

It’s been over a year since we last heard from the physician behind Ambrosia LLC, the company hoping to reverse aging by pumping adults with the blood plasma of the young, but don’t think for a second that Karmazin’s been sitting still. Far from it.

Karmazin confirmed today over email that he plans to transform what was once a clinical trial running out of Monterey, California, into a full-fledged New York City-based clinic offering that most elusive of products: youth.  Read more…

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Read more…More about Iphone Cases, Mashable Reels, Iphone Xs, Tech, and Iphone

Poor ’90s tweens! They never used Facebook Messenger. They couldn’t text people from their iPhones, they couldn’t add GIFs to their WhatsApp messages, and they were far too young for any Twitter DMs. 

Somehow, they survived. And a lucky few of them even had access to one of the most sophisticated pieces of messaging technology to come out of the mid-’90s: The Casio Secret Sender JD-6000.

This tiny purple toy, marketed to tween girls, is the messaging app’s true digital ancestor.

If you’re an Xennial like me, you might remember  Casio My Magic Diary, an “electronic organizer” that premiered in 1993. At the time of its release, the Magic Diary was the height of technology. It had software that could store phone numbers and addresses, report local times from across the world, function as a calculator, record friends’ birthdays, log diary entries, give users their horoscopes, and even allow them to “design” digital faces — ideally of their crushes <3 <3 <3. Read more...

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President Donald Trump gave a rare press conference on Wednesday, and it was … bonkers?

After a day filled with meetings at the United Nations General Assembly, Trump talked to reporters for over an hour, facing questions on everything from trade policy to his embattled Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. His answers were rambling and at times incoherent, and even for those accustom to his unusual rhetorical style, this was a wild ride. 

Here are the five standout moments:

1. Taking aim at George Washington

Trump didn’t offer much in the way of concrete answers in response to several questions about the multiple sexual assault allegations against Brett Kavanaugh, except to claim it was a “big fat con job” by the Democrats. But he did somehow manage to bring George Washington into the conversation, saying, “Look, if we brought George Washington here, and we said, ‘We have George Washington.’ The Democrats would vote against him, just so you understand. And he may have had a bad past, who knows? He may have had some — I think accusations made? Didn’t he have a couple of things in his past? George Washington would be voted against 100 percent by [Chuck] Schumer and the con artists.” Read more…

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