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Verizon is selling Tumblr to WordPress’ owner

Verizon has agreed to sell Tumblr to WordPress owner Automattic Inc. for an undisclosed amount, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Verizon, which first acquired Tumblr in 2017 after it purchased Yahoo, started to explore a sale earlier this year. Automattic reportedly bought Tumblr for less than $3 million, according to Axios, a stunning drop in value from the $1.1 billion Yahoo paid for it in 2013.

“Tumblr is a marquee brand that has started movements, allowed for true identities to blossom and become home to many creative communities and fandoms,” Verizon Media CEO Guru Gowrappan said in a statement. “We are proud of what the team has accomplished and are happy to have found the perfect partner in Automattic, whose expertise and track record will unlock new and exciting possibilities for Tumblr and its users.”

Although it makes sense. Tumblr was once a hugely influential force in the blogging and social media sphere, but it become less so under Yahoo and then Verizon’s ownership. Meanwhile, platforms like Instagram, Snapchat, and YouTube moved to fill the void and become much larger cultural forces as a result. Still, Tumblr does have a very active and dedicated community.

That became very apparent to Verizon leadership last year when Verizon decided to ban adult content on the platform back in December. Tumblr acted as a safe haven for many LGBTQ members who used the platform to explore and express their sexuality and to find an online community that shared those interests. The decision to ban all types of adult content led many to boycott the site, and the ban alienated a significant portion of Tumblr’s user base. There are no plans to reverse those decisions, Automattic Inc.’s CEO Matt Mullenweg told the Journal. Instead, Tumblr will act as as a “complementary” site to WordPress.“WE’RE NOT GOING TO CHANGE ANY OF THAT.”

“It’s just fun,” Mullenweg told the Journal. “We’re not going to change any of that.”

One part of being a complement to WordPress is possibly sharing services and functionality, according to the report. Tumblr has a mobile interface that executives could use to leverage WordPress’ own mobile platform. It’s unclear what other services the two companies may share, but considering both are blogging platforms to some extent, there’s room for experimentation.

David Karp, who founded Tumblr in 2007, left the company in November 2017. He didn’t mention his reasoning at the time, but he wrote in a personal blog that he had faith in the company’s future. “I beg you to understand that my decision comes after months of reflection on my personal ambitions,” Karp wrote at the time, “and at no cost to my hopefulness for Tumblr’s future or the impact I know it can have.”

Update August 12th, 4:50pm ET: The story has been updated to include a report from Axios that suggests the sale was for less than $20 million.

Update 2, August 12th 6:40pm ET: The story has been updated to include an update from Axios that suggests the sale was for less $3 million.

Update 3, August 12th 7:10pm ET: The story has been updated to include a statement from Verizon.

Source: The Verge

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Spotify’s pitch to podcasters: valuable listener data

Spotify is going to give podcasters listener data they can’t get anywhere else. The company is taking its Spotify for Podcasters dashboard out of a beta today, giving more podcasters a chance to see data like their listeners’ music taste, age, gender, location, and how long they listened to a particular episode. Apart from Apple, which offers some show analytics, this is the most detailed information podcasters likely have about their audience.

Around 100,000 podcasts have signed up for the program since its beta rollout last October, Linnea Hemenez, head of content marketing at Spotify, tells me. But Spotify has more than 450,000 shows as part of its catalog, so it has a ways to go to bring those hosts over to the analytics platform. The dashboard is available globally but only in English for the time being.

“It’s still really the beginning,” says Charlie Hellman, head of Spotify’s creator marketplace. “This is the part of the conversation where we’re continuing to get feedback and trying to iterate the product.”ANY PODCAST CREATOR CAN SIGN UP FOR DASHBOARD ACCESS

Podcasters have long lacked data about their listeners, which poses problems when they’re trying to sell ads. Spotify is uniquely qualified to give podcasters that data because every Spotify user requires an account to listen, where they’ve provided basic demographic data about themselves, as well as their music listening habits.

Nothing about the dashboard will change when it comes out of beta, although Hellman says it’ll be refined over time as podcasters respond to the product. The idea is to mirror Spotify for Artists, the dashboard it provides for musicians, but optimized for podcasters.

The dashboard is meant to “give as much information” as Spotify can to podcasters and creators, Dawn Ostroff, chief content officer, tells The Verge.

Spotify already gives musicians the ability to publicize tour dates, sell merch, and create playlists. It’s easy to imagine the company doing the same for podcasters, which could make the dashboard more powerful than what’s available today. In theory, it could also become a place for ad insertion to be handled if Spotify wanted to become an ad network or help connect brands with podcasters.

Podcasters can’t currently submit their shows for inclusion on podcast playlists, but Hellman says that “over time, as we fine-tune the format that’s working with listeners, we’ll try to bring back any opportunities for podcasters to better participate.”

The data that’s in the podcasters dashboard is, of course, not everything Spotify knows about listeners, but Ostroff says it’s been distilled to the “most relevant.” Ostroff says Spotify has a “firehose worth of data,” but didn’t elaborate on what additional data Spotify-created shows might have access to versus what’s presented on the dashboard.

“We obviously have access to other types of data, which we’re able to use depending on what it is that we’re looking for,” she says. “But in order to really mainstream and find the most helpful data points for podcasters across the board, we’ve been able to come up with the dashboard.”

For now, the company’s podcast-creation technologies, like Anchor and SoundTrap, are also kept separate from the dashboard, but they round out Spotify’s broader podcast ambitions.

“All of the different podcasts initiatives and companies have very specific verticals that they focus on,” Ostroff says. “If you think about … how many ways this industry is growing, having the different ways in which people who are interested in podcasting can connect with us seems to be a smart strategy.”

The more shows Spotify lists on its platform, the wider appeal it has to listeners. But as it courts new podcasters, the streaming service has to offer them something in return for providing their shows if it wants to avoid a Luminary-like backlash, in which a podcast startup wanted to profit in part off creators’ freely available work. Beyond Spotify already counting more than 200 million monthly active listeners, a massive global user base, giving creators detailed information about the listeners — data they can’t get anywhere else — sweetens the platform deal and makes it even more attractive.

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Snap launches Spectacles 3 with dual HD cameras and 3D, coming this fall for $380

Snap today has announced the Spectacles 3, the latest version of its glasses with built-in cameras designed specifically for Snapchat. The Spectacles 3 feature dual HD cameras and a “strong, lightweight steel frame design with circular lenses and adjustable acetate tips.”

Snap says that because of the new dual-camera design, the new Spectacles 3 are well suited for augmented reality. The company explains that having two cameras allows Spectacles to process depth, with support for digital assets interact with real-world objects in a scene. The dual-camera setup provides a “rich 3D canvas for self-expression and a suite of new 3D Effects on Snapchat,” Snap says.

As you can see in the image above, the two cameras are housed on either side of the frames. When you tap either button on the glasses, they will start recording and can record continuously up to 60 seconds. Everything you record is saved to the Snapchat app.

Tap either button for video (up to 60 seconds continuously) or press and hold for a still. Spectacles 3 supplements high-definition videos with high-fidelity audio from a 4-microphone array. LED indicator lights notify people when recording, and users will see a light as well.

Spectacles 3 are available in two color options, Carbon and Mineral. The former is described as a “classic, monochromatic black with a semi-matte finish and high-gloss details.” The Mineral option is described as “a tone inspired by cosmetic hues with a hint-of-gold frame.”

The Spectacles 3 are available for pre-order now for $380 on the Spectacles website and will launch to the public this fall. Snap notes that this will be a limited production run, so availability might get tight. The Spectacles 2 are available on Amazon for $199.

Read the full press release below:

Snap Inc. Unveils Spectacles 3

New Spectacles Capture the World in 3D

SANTA MONICA, Calif. — Snap Inc. (NYSE: SNAP) today unveiled Spectacles 3, the latest version of Spectacles sunglasses delivering innovative design with dual HD cameras to empower creativity in 3D.

Shipping in fall 2019, Spectacles 3 capture depth and dimension the way our eyes do. This new ability provides a rich 3D canvas for self-expression and a suite of new 3D Effects on Snapchat.

Features

Spectacles 3 are equipped with two HD cameras to capture Snaps in 3D and transform them with 3D Effects, inspiring creativity like never before.

Snaps captured using Spectacles 3 seamlessly transfer in HD to Memories within Snapchat to add new lighting, landscapes, and other magical effects to an entire scene with a swipe. Snaps can also export to Camera Roll as circular, horizontal, square and virtual reality formats for saving, editing, sharing, and reliving, anywhere.

Design

Spectacles 3 feature a strong, lightweight steel frame with circular lenses and adjustable acetate tips.

Spectacles 3 come in two color options:

Carbon: a classic, monochromatic black with a semi-matte finish and high-gloss details.

Mineral: a tone inspired by cosmetic hues with a hint-of-gold frame.

Functionality

Tap either button for video (up to 60 seconds continuously) or press and hold for a still. Spectacles 3 supplements high-definition videos with high-fidelity audio from a 4-microphone array. LED indicator lights notify people when recording, and users will see a light as well.

Accessories

Spectacles 3 charge on-the-go in their included Charging Case, which can store up to four charges. The full-grain leather case folds flat when not in use and comes equipped with a standard certified USB-C charging cable.

Also included is a 3D viewer to relive memories and bring Snaps to life.

Spectacles 3 will ship this fall and are available to pre-order now for $380 at Spectacles.com.

About Snap Inc.

Snap Inc. is a camera company. We believe that reinventing the camera represents our greatest opportunity to improve the way people live and communicate. We contribute to human progress by empowering people to express themselves, live in the moment, learn about the world, and have fun together. For more information, visit snap.com.

Source: 9to5mac

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The Apple Card is available starting today for a select few

It’s official: the Apple Card will be available starting today, but only in a “preview rollout” for a select group of users, according to The Verge. A broad rollout will follow later in August for all US iPhone owners.

The preview group is comprised of folks who signed up for notifications on when the Apple Card would be available – if you happened to do that, expect an invite. It’s unclear just how big this group is, nor when the larger rollout will start.

The signup process is reportedly smooth: iPhone owners running the latest iOS 12.4 enter some personal information (address, birthday, income level, last four digits of their social security number), which is sent to Goldman Sachs (which backs the card) to approve/decline the application almost immediately, per The Verge. It’s reportedly as simple and quick as Apple’s video demonstrates:

Once approved, your Apple Card appears in your Apple Wallet, just like that. You can request a vanuted card be mailed to you, which arrives with an NFC tag that you tap on the phone to activate the card.

Apple Card info can be found, unsurprisingly, in Apple Wallet. Sift through the settings to find your card number, make a payment, or check your spending – all Apple has explained in a series of videos it uploaded here.

Global launch still unclear

This sudden debut isn’t a complete surprise: CEO Tim Cook revealed during an earnings call last week that the Apple Card would finally be released sometime in August. 

But it’s still unclear when it will come to markets outside the US. That likely has a lot to do with gaining bank support for those markets, as well as Apple’s insistence that the Apple Card have no late, annual, international or over-balance fees. 

In the meantime, more information continues to arrive about the card – like how it won’t allow folks to sign up with jailbroken iPhones or to use it for buying cryptocurrencies (or other cash-like transaction), according to its User Agreement.

We’ll likely know more as folks start using the Apple Card and revealing its intricacies.

Source: TechRadar

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‘Apple Music for Artists’ exits beta, now available to everyone with new iOS app and Shazam data

Last year, Apple launched an “Apple Music for Artists” platform that displayed things like analytical data, milestones, and more. That dashboard, however, was only available via the web and to a small group of artists. All of that changes today, with Apple launching a new Apple Music for Artists app for iOS and more.

As detailed by TechCrunch, Apple Music for Artists is now out of beta, allowing all artists to see data on how many times songs have been played, listeners reach, and more. There’s also an “insights” section that offers data on week-over-week performance, trends, and more.

Apple’s privacy values remain strong with this platform. While you can see data such as popularity among certain age groups and cities, you can’t cross-reference different datasets. For example, you can’t track how many users between a certain age group and in a specific city are listening to a song.

Other features offered by Apple Music for Artists include things like song purchases, inclusion in Apple-curated playlists, and more. Data is available from the launch of Apple Music in 2015 through the most recent 24 hours.

Perhaps most notably, the platform also now integrates data from Shazam. This allows artists to see things like their top Shazam cities and countries, which help music labels and artists know where to start pushing a specific song or artist.

Apple emphasizes that Apple Music for Artists is particularly useful for indie musicians, who otherwise wouldn’t have access to this type of data:

“As a truly independent artist with a small team, music analytics is something we can’t do without. We don’t have the luxury of deep major label market research to rely on to help us make important decisions like where to perform and how to advertise the things that we make,” says Canadian R&B singer Daniel Caesar, who was one of several artists consulted during the build-out.

You can learn more and sign up on the Apple Music for Artists website.

Source: 9to5mac

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Google is giving students three months of YouTube Premium for free

Google has a new back to school deal for students, offering new members a free three-month trial of YouTube Music Premium or YouTube Premium (which includes YouTube Music Premium, so I’m not sure why you’d ever take the first option).

The deal essentially works by having students sign up for the discounted plan of their choice ($4.99 per month for YouTube Music Premium, or $6.99 per month for YouTube Premium), but instead of getting one month free, for a limited time, they now get three months. After that time expires, Google will start charging you the usual monthly price, unless you opt out and cancel the subscription, so that’s something to keep an eye on.AN EXTENDED FREE TRIAL, BASICALLY

YouTube Music Premium is Google’s paid music streaming service, which allows for users to stream, download, and discover new music — basically Spotify or Apple Music, but built off YouTube. YouTube Premium is the more comprehensive subscription, which allows for downloading YouTube videos on mobile, removes ads from YouTube, and gives access to YouTube Original shows, in addition to all the benefits of YouTube Music Premium.

Google isn’t the only company offering a deal for students: Amazon just announced Prime Student members can now get Amazon Music Unlimited for $0.99 per month, too.

Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. These do not influence editorial content, though Vox Media may earn commissions for products purchased via affiliate links. For more information, see our ethics policy.

Source: The Verge

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Trump says he’s ‘watching Google very closely’ after meeting with CEO

The company is dealing with new anti-conservative bias claims

President Trump again took aim at Google in a series of tweets on Tuesday morning, claiming there was an anti-conservative bias at the search giant while also suggesting there was a conspiracy at the company to “illegally subvert the 2020 election,” ideas the company has repeatedly denied.“WE ARE WATCHING GOOGLE VERY CLOSELY!”

Trump said in the tweets that he had met with CEO Sundar Pichai and discussed recent news about the company, including its work in China. Trump wrote that “it all sounded good” before he learned of a former Google engineer who recently claimed there was a bias against conservatives at the company.

The former employee, Kevin Cernekee, was the subject of Wall Street Journal profile last week, and has appeared on Fox News, but has since been criticized for his past statements at Google on topics like white nationalist Richard Spencer. Last night, Trump also posted an interview Cernekee gave to Lou Dobbs, in which he claimed Google would work to damage Trump’s 2020 reelection bid. The company has denounced the comments as baseless.

“All very illegal,” Trump wrote this morning about the company. “We are watching Google very closely!”

….in 2020.” Lou Dobbs stated that this is a fraud on the American public. @peterschweizer stated with certainty that they suppressed negative stories on Hillary Clinton, and boosted negative stories on Donald Ttump. All very illegal. We are watching Google very closely!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 6, 2019

“The statements made by this disgruntled former employee are absolutely false,” a Google spokesperson said in a statement, adding that Cernekee was fired for downloading confidential information. “We go to great lengths to build our products and enforce our policies in ways that don’t take political leanings into account. Distorting results for political purposes would harm our business and go against our mission of providing helpful content to all of our users.”

Trump, by now, has a history of questioning Google’s motives. As a candidate in the 2016 election, he suggested the company was actively “suppressing” negative news about Hillary Clinton, a claim he’s since repeated, despite a lack of evidence. As president, he has talked before about meeting with Pichai, and in March, he tweeted about a meeting where the two discussed “political fairness.” It’s not clear if Trump was referencing the same meeting today, but at the time, the president said it had “ended very well!”

Source: The Verge

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Apple Card rollout starts today, first invites being sent out to users

Apple has officially started the Apple Card rollout. Apple will send out invites to a select group of customers today who showed interest in Apple Card by filling out the “Notify Me” form on the Apple website (via TechCrunch).

Invited users to the Apple Card Preview will be able to sign up for the card in the Wallet app, and also apply for the physical titanium card to be delivered. Apple will be launching Apple Card for everyone later in the month.

iOS 12.4 or later is required to sign up for Apple Card.

If you need help using the Apple Card, Apple has released a how-to video series detailing everything from the initial setup process to making purchases and paying off the balance.

Matthew Panzarino from TechCrunch writes that he has been testing the Apple Card for a few days. He said that after submitting the application form through the Wallet app, he was accepted in under a minute.

Based on the purchase made, the Apple Card representation in the Wallet app displays a kind of multicolored heatmap, with different categories of purchases represented by different colors.

Remember, Apple Card pays 3% daily cashback on Apple purchases, 2% cashback on purchases made with Apple Pay, and 1% cashback on purchases made with the physical titanium card.

Nilay Patel from the Verge got a chance to hold the actual physical card:

I got to hold the card itself and it is very nice, although it is fairly thick and felt a little bit heavier than the typical metal credit card. You can use the card without your phone nearby like any other card, but it doesn’t support contactless payments — Apple obviously wants you to use your phone or watch for that.

Amusingly, Patel points out that while Apple has made it really simple to apply for the Apple Card, if you want to cancel it, it retreats back into a more traditional credit card arrangement: You have to talk to Goldman Sachs on the phone.

Regarding data privacy, Apple says that it never sees information about your transactions; the card activity, spending trend alerts, and pretty charts all happen on device.

Goldman Sachs obviously has access to your transactions because ultimately the bank has to approve purchases and check for things like fraud, but Apple has apparently signed a special agreement with Goldman Sachs that means the information cannot be used for marketing purposes. This means Goldman Sachs is not allowed to share your purchase information with third parties, or use it for advertising.

Apple Card has no fees other than the interest rate on balances. This means you won’t be charged an additional penalty if you pay late. Apple says that Apple Card interest rates are between 12.99% to 23.99%. Upon applying for the card, the Wallet app will show upfront your applicable interest rate and credit limit based on your credit rating.

These interest rates are not particularly amazing; Apple says it wants to be among the lowest rates in the industry. One nice thing, though, is that the Wallet interface tries to help Apple Card owners pay off their balances sooner, ideally paying no interest at all.

For the time being, Apple Card is only available to users in the United States. Check your email to see if you have been invited into the preview group. Otherwise, don’t fret too much: Apple Card should be available to everyone by the end of month.

Source: 9to5mac.com

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Amazon will let you opt out of human review of Alexa recordings

First Google, then Apple, and now Amazon: all three are bowing to pressure from the EU over the issue of humans reviewing recordings from their respective digital assistants. While Apple and Google paused human review, Amazon has decided to offer a clearer, more comprehensive opt-out setting to Alexa users.

Amazon already offered a much clearer set of privacy policies than either Google or Apple — having set up a privacy portal after the last round of scandals over Alexa voice recordings revealed more than most realized. That portal now has updated language around what checking certain boxes will do.

Specifically, you can go to your Amazon Alexa app and navigate to your settings, then “Alexa Privacy” and finally “Manage How Your Data Improves Alexa,” and find new language on that page that now specifically calls out that “your voice recordings may be used to develop new features and manually reviewed to help improve our services” (emphasis ours).

You can also find that page via your web browser, here: https://www.amazon.com/alexaprivacysettings.

Bloomberg first reported the change earlier today. An Amazon spokesperson provided the following statement:

We take customer privacy seriously and continuously review our practices and procedures. For Alexa, we already offer customers the ability to opt-out of having their voice recordings used to help develop new Alexa features. The voice recordings from customers who use this opt-out are also excluded from our supervised learning workflows that involve manual review of an extremely small sample of Alexa requests. We’ll also be updating information we provide to customers to make our practices more clear.

That clarity is much needed, as earlier language made it appear that unchecking a box turned off uploading of your voice recordings — that is not the case, as they’re still uploaded to Amazon’s servers. The only change is that while the old setting only opted users out of having their utterances reviewed “to help develop new features,” the new setting means they will not be reviewed by humans, full stop.

In essence, Amazon has updated its settings and the language around them to actually do what you would have assumed they would have done in the first place.

Amazon does offer a tool to let users delete their voice recordings whenever they wish, but even with these new settings Amazon will still store recordings of your voice by default. If you want to delete them, you will need to periodically go into your Alexa settings and do so yourself.

Apple has paused human review of utterances entirely across the globe, Google has paused it in the EU, and Amazon is simply offering this clearer opt-out. All three companies have a different approach to handling this growing worry about human reviewers, and hopefully all three will eventually end up in the same place: clearer disclosures, transparent options for managing data, and the ability to not have your voice automatically stored if you don’t want it to be.

Source: The Verge

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LG updates Apple-endorsed UltraFine 5K Display with iPad Pro support

LG has announced an updated version of its 27-inch UltraFine 5K Display, the monitor that Apple endorsed as the best option for the current generation of MacBook Pros but which has been unavailable for some months. The new model boosts power delivery to 94 watts and now offers USB-C connectivity as well as Thunderbolt 3. That means it’ll work with the 2018 iPad Pro over USB-C, though it’s not clear what resolution will be supported.

Otherwise, the product appears to be basically identical to its predecessor, so our buying advice will likely remain the same. LG’s UltraFine Displays have extremely good panels and excellent native support for macOS features, even including True Tone when hooked up to a compatible laptop. But their industrial design is pretty boring, and they’re not a good option for Windows computers because they don’t have any physical controls.

LG also recently introduced a new 24-inch version of the UltraFine 4K, which is bigger than the previous 21.5-inch monitor but has a lower resolution. It’s a solid mainstream option, not least because the new UltraFine 5K still costs almost twice as much at $1,299. Both models are available now from Apple Stores and Apple’s website.

Source: TheVerge