Snap Inc. is expanding its presence in China

Snapchat is officially banned by the Chinese government, but its parent company Snap Inc. is looking to expand its presence in the country’s tech and manufacturing hub of Shenzen. According to a CNN, Snap Inc.’s Shenzen office will work on research and development related to Spectacles, the company’s only hardware device, which is already being manufactured in China.

Although Snap currently has about 20 employees in Shenzen, new job postings on popular messaging service WeChat revealed the Los Angeles-based startup is looking to build its “first core team” of engineers in China. The company is looking for alums of China’s major tech companies like Alibaba (which reportedly invested $200 million in Snapchat last year), Baidu or Tencent. Shenzen employees would also get potentially lucrative shares of Snap stock as well as the opportunity to relocate to the US in the future.

While a growing presence in Shenzen could signal a wider release for the somewhat scarce Spectacles is coming down the line, CNN also notes that ties to China could help Snap keep an eye on how local trends influence global markets. And even though the service is blocked in the country, large companies that wish to break out of China could be a boon for Snapchat’s advertising revenues.

Source: CNN

Uber’s self-driving tests in SF end after the DMV steps in

The self-driving Uber pilot in San Francisco has ended, now that the DMV revoked registrations for the vehicles. Last week, the company faced off with government officials both state and local in an attempt to insist its cars did not need a permit or autonomous testing. Regulators disagreed, and things quickly escalated. Uber says it plans to redeploy the cars, somewhere, (hopefully without bike lanes), and “will be redoubling our efforts to develop workable statewide rules.”

Uber:

“We have stopped our self-driving pilot in California as the DMV has revoked the registrations for our self-driving cars. We’re now looking at where we can redeploy these cars but remain 100 percent committed to California and will be redoubling our efforts to develop workable statewide rules.”

Today’s massive Fitbit Charge 2 update is a good reason to make fitness a New Year’s resolution

A fitness-centric firmware update just in time for the new year.

If you’ve been holding out on that Fitbit Charge 2, today’s news might finally entice you to try one out — especially if you’re like the rest of humanity and you’re attempting to make 2017 your “year of fitness.” I know I am for the tenth time!

Fitbit launched a massive update to the Charge 2’s firmware that enables six new major feature additions. They include (in handy list form):

• Workout pause function
• Guided breathing vibration cues
• Do Not Disturb option
• Improved Heart-rate zone display
• On-device battery life
• New clock face

Let’s be honest, you’ll keep the fitness regimen up for about two weeks until you give up and realize that old habits die hard. After all, there’s nothing more comforting than eating a bucket of fried chicken while snuggling on the couch with the latest reality television. We work too hard to do anything else.

Fitbit has also bundled in five more features on top of the aforementioned list that require just a little more explaining. They include intuitive intervals, which vibrates the band when it’s time to transition to your next set of weights, for instance; workout recaps that last an hour after you’ve finished, so you can study your progress after the fact; smarter, simpler notifications; caller identification, so that you can ignore any unknown callers interrupting your workout; and message prioritization — because you want to hear from the kids, but not from your husband.

This update is also particularly good news for those of you who may have already purchased a Fitbit Charge 2 for a pal or family member. Be sure to include an enthusiastic “update before using!” message in the Christmas card, so that the gift receiver knows they can do more than just track their steps with this Very Thoughtful Gift.

See Fitbit Charge 2 at Amazon

FCC Republicans promise to limit net neutrality when ‘possible’

If you’re worried that the US government will stomp on net neutrality the moment Trump becomes President, your concerns are well-founded. The FCC’s two Republican Commissioners, Ajit Pai and Michael O’Rielly, have sent a letter to carrier lobbying groups promising to “revisit” net neutrality rules “as soon as possible” — that is, once Chairman Tom Wheeler leaves and the right wing gets majority control of the agency. They write that the requirements for traffic fairness and transparency create “unjustified burdens” for providers, and previously said that they intended to “undo” net neutrality and other policies opposed by their party.

The letter is ostensibly about extending an exemption to transparency rules for small internet and wireless providers. The net neutrality order exempted providers with 100,000 or fewer customers until December 15th of this year, but Pai and O’Rielly pushed for a compromise measure that would keep the exemption going for networks with 250,000 or fewer users.

This doesn’t mean that net neutrality will die as soon as Trump is sworn in. As Ars Technica observes, a proposed rule change like this would require months of procedure and public comment before it can take effect. However, it’s safe to say that net neutrality will eventually lose a lot of its thunder under the new administration, assuming it survives at all. At the least, it’s doubtful that the FCC will grill telecoms over zero-rating and other policies that effectively dodge neutrality regulations.

Via: Ars Technica

Source: FCC (PDF)

Russia successfully tested a missile that could cripple US satellites

According to Pentagon officials, Russia has successfully completed tests of an anti-satellite missile that could be capable of crippling the US military communications and navigation network. The test, which went off on December 16th, was actually the third successful launch of the PL-19 Nudol missile, and according to a new report from Business Insider, those same top-ranking Pentagon officials believe that the US’s reliance on satellite networks — and our lack of similar anti-satellite weapons — makes the United States essentially an easy target in space.

Although Russia claims the Nudol missiles are meant to be used defensively against incoming enemy weapons, the Pentagon classifies them as “direct ascent” anti-satellite weapons. And US intelligence officials estimate that it would only take “two dozen or so anti-satellite attacks” to wreak havoc with US military operations, which rely on the network for everything from navigation and communications to targeting and intelligence purposes.

“Potentially, it could result in our defeat in a high intensity conflict,” former Pentagon strategic arms policymaker Mark Schneider said. “The complete loss of the GPS network, or its serious degradation, would eliminate the effectiveness of all existing long-range conventional strike cruise missiles and would degrade the functioning of many of our precision guided weapons.”

While the US has been taking steps to move away from its reliance on GPS, the Russian military also has plans for a terrestrial missile jamming systems. On the offensive front, the Pentagon likely won’t divulge what sort of anti-satellite capabilities the US has, but an Air Force proposal for anti-satellite lasers was shot down years ago and other anti-satellite programs have apparently been halted since the late eighties, although the Navy did shoot down a malfunctioning spy satellite in 2008.

Meanwhile, beyond the Nudol test, Russia and China are both reportedly developing other orbital weapons like anti-satellite lasers and smaller satellites capable of physically attacking America’s space infrastructure. As Heritage Foundation defense analyst Michaela Dodge explained, the successful tests should be a wake-up call to the US to “treat space as an increasingly contested environment where access might not be guaranteed as it has been in the past.”

Source: Washington Free Beacon, Business Insider

Hoaxy visualizes how fake news spreads across social media

We’re at the point where the proliferation of fake news online has had extreme offline consequences. While Google has poured funds into battling misinformation and Facebook has asked its users to rate headlines for truthfulness, Indiana University is going about things a different way. Hoaxy, a project from IU’s Center for Complex Networks and System Research, is a search engine that tracks the spread of fake news stories, visually.

As CNET explains, the tool, currently in beta, indexes 132 sites responsible for writing fake news stories and illustrates how the links travel across social media. Beyond that, it will also keep an eye on sites that serve to further conspiracy theories, like Info Wars does, or those that twist real news stories into wholesale falsehoods.

The “Picklegate” clips start around 70 seconds in.

For example, searching for “pickle jar” brings back 20 results claiming that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton opened a pre-opened jar of pickles to prove how healthy she was on late-night TV. Many come from Alex Jones (above) of Info Wars.

Selecting one, and then hitting “visualize” brings back a graph showing tweets and a timeline of when the story was most active. On the right side of the page is a network map illustrating the source of the link, who’s retweeted it and where it’s picked up the most traction.

The web app can be a bit kludgy at times (it’s a beta after all) but it offers a unique way to look at how propaganda can take over the internet and where it originates from.

Via: CNET

Source: Hoaxy