The indictment of 13 Russians for interfering with the Presidential election has intensified the pressure put on Facebook, which uncovered about three-thousand Russian-linked ads on its platforms before and after November 2016. Cheddar Senior Reporter, Alex Heath, breaks down the the latest developments.
Facebook's Vice President for ads, Rob Goldman, tweeted about Russia's disinformation effort. President Trump then cited him. Facebook did not intend for Goldman’s tweets to be quoted by Trump. They thought the tweets would only be seen by a contextually-aware audience of techies and media types who follow Goldman.
Heath believes that the tweeting from Goldman and other execs is part of a carefully orchestrated PR campaign by Facebook to make itself appear more transparent and relate-able through engaged spokespeople on Twitter.
Ujo Music's co-founder Jesse Grushack says the music industry is broken, because artists can't get paid fairly or accurately for the music they create on all the platforms where it might appear. He says blockchain technology can help fix this going forward.
Glamour magazine's Morgen Peck, who recently wrote a story about the leading women in cryptocurrency, says their increasingly visible role may change the so-called bro culture of the industry.
Musk's behavior during his earnings conference call Wednesday surprised reporters and rattled some investors: Tesla's stock opened down more than 6 percent Thursday.
But Galileo Russell, the founder of the YouTube channel HyperChange TV, said retail investors found it “the most informative conference call they’ve ever heard from Tesla.”
The guided meditation app wants to make the ancient practice of mindfulness easier for people. You don't need "to sit down on the floor, cross-legged, light some incense," says the Headspace co-founder Andy Puddicombe, a trained Buddhist monk.
Soothe's new CEO Simon Heyrick says the company is working on new tools to increase its clients' safety after an assault accusation by a Kentucky woman. The massage on-demand app recently raised $31 million in a new round of funding.
Rachio is a smart sprinkler that can schedule waterings and also help homeowners control how much water is used, says Chris Klein, the company's co-founder and CEO. That functionality has helped conserve about 28 billion gallons of water to date.
For the first time in eight years, the social site is rolling out a redesign that reduces white space and increases flexibility in how users view content. Many of the changes were careful and based on user feedback, says Chris Slowe, the site's chief technology officer, because "Reddit exists as a platform to criticize Reddit."
The live streaming platform, primarily used for video game streaming, has 15 million daily users who spend an average of two hours a day watching content there. That's because Twitch has turned the traditionally "solitary exercise" of gaming into a more social experience, says co-founder Kevin Lin.
The humanoid robot was designed with an eye toward businesses before homes, says Steve Carlin, Softbank Robotics chief strategy officer. That way American users can interact and "get used to" the four-foot-tall robots before letting them into their personal spaces.
One of the ways to turn the company around is a change in management, says Michael Pachter, an analyst from Wedbush Securities. Shares of the social media company took a hit Wednesday, a day after it delivered disappointing quarterly results.
