‘Dancing With the Stars’ will be back this fall for season 32, and we know the first official contestant of the new season! Here’s everything we know so far about what’s going on in the ballroom.
‘Dancing With the Stars’ will be back this fall for season 32, and we know the first official contestant of the new season! Here’s everything we know so far about what’s going on in the ballroom.
Drake made fans do a double take when he posed with a Taylor Swift look-alike and congratulated the singer on the re-release of ‘Speak Now.’
Drake made fans do a double take when he posed with a Taylor Swift look-alike and congratulated the singer on the re-release of ‘Speak Now.’
Are you on Threads yet? Meta’s Twitter rival pulls your existing Instagram handle and follows to create a pretty busy timeline, despite only launching over 24 hours ago. It’s already got over 30 million users – which is insane – and speaks to the ease of converting your Instagram account to a Threads account.
Twitter probably isn’t happy, as beyond its own problems, Threads is doing a decent job (in these early days) of replicating Elon Musk’s social network. Now that’s legally true: Twitter has threatened legal action against Meta, accusing it of poaching former employees and unlawful misappropriation of trade secrets and intellectual property.
“Twitter intends to strictly enforce its intellectual property rights, and demands that Meta take immediate steps to stop using any Twitter trade secrets or other highly confidential information,” Alex Spiro, Elon Musk’s personal lawyer, wrote in a letter to Meta. Spiro, who is acting on behalf of Twitter parent X Corp., claims Meta has hired dozens of ex-Twitter employees over the last year. (Surely, they have to get jobs somewhere.)
Meta has refuted Spiro’s claims. “No one on the Threads engineering team is a former Twitter employee — that’s just not a thing,” Meta communications director Andy Stone wrote on… Threads.
– Mat Smith
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The best gaming laptops for 2023
‘The Super Mario Bros. Movie’ is coming to Peacock on August 3rd
Lawmakers in France’s National Assembly have passed a bill that lets police surveil suspects by remotely activating cameras, microphones and GPS location systems on phones and other devices. A judge will have to approve use of the powers, and the recently amended bill forbids use by journalists, lawyers and other “sensitive professions,” according to Le Monde.
But civil liberties advocates are alarmed. The digital rights group La Quadrature du Net previously pointed out the potential for abuse. As the bill isn’t clear about what constitutes a serious crime, there are fears the French government might use this to target environmental activists and others who aren’t grave threats.
To give you an idea how old Angry Birds is, it arrived on iOS, webOS and something called Maemo 5 (you don’t remember Maemo?) before it even came to Android, according to our 2010 review. It’s still around, over 13 years later, and Sega is buying its developer, Rovio, for around $776 million. Now we’re getting the first Angry Birds-themed restaurant, called iSwii by Angry Birds, in the food court at the new Tangram mall in Flushing, Queens, NY. I prefer the Kirby Cafe.
We all know this, but there are so many Windows laptops now. If there’s a specific feature (like a touchscreen or stylus input) you really need, there’s a great chance there’s a notebook for you. However, that abundance of choice can also make it difficult to know where to start shopping. If your main focus is on general productivity, a sleek ultraportable is all you need. But if you edit photos and videos or play AAA games, you may want a bigger system with discrete graphics. We lay out the most crucial specs, our top-rated devices and our best budget picks too.
It’s now been four years since Pokémon Sleep was announced, in the wake of the Pokémon Company’s success with Pokémon Go. Finally, there’s a brand-new gameplay trailer and an approximate release date of late July. Can you call it gameplay, though? Because, really, it’s a sleep-tracking app wearing a Pokémon jacket.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-morning-after-twitter-says-meta-stole-trade-secrets-to-build-threads-111503761.html?src=rss
So, you signed up for a Threads account, because you wanted to see what the fuss was about with Meta’s Twitter rival. If you decide that the new social network isn’t for you or if you want to start fresh, deleting your Threads profile may not be the way to go — as The Verge notes, doing so will also erase your entire Instagram account. When you open a Threads account, you can use your Instagram credentials to sign up if you want to bring over your profile and your circles from the photo-sharing app. But by doing so, your accounts on both platforms become inextricably linked.
In a post on Threads, Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, said Meta is aware of the issue and is currently looking for a way to allow you to delete your Threads account separately. The company is also working on features that are still missing from the app, including the following tab, hashtags, fediverse support and messaging. For now, you can deactivate your Threads account to hide your profile and content. You can also set your profile to private or simply just delete individual threads. To note, you can also sign up for a Threads account with an email or a phone number not linked to your Instagram account, so you can keep the two platforms completely separate.
Meta couldn’t have launched Threads at a better time. Twitter recently made changes that frustrated even the most avid users. It first prevented people who aren’t logged in from seeing tweets — though it quietly backtracked on requiring users to log in — and then put a strict cap on how many posts users can see per day. Around 10 million users signed up for a Threads account within its first seven hours, and in the first morning after it became available, the app already had 30 million users. Shortly after Threads launched, Twitter threatened to sue Meta, accusing it of poaching former employees and misappropriating trade secrets and intellectual property. In a response to a tweet about the potential lawsuit, Elon Musk replied: “Competition is fine, cheating is not.”
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/meta-is-working-to-stop-deleted-threads-accounts-from-nuking-instagram-too-094423213.html?src=rss
Uber, DoorDash and Grubhub are suing for an injunction to stop New York City’s new $18 minimum wage law for food delivery app workers, The Washington Post has reported. The app delivery platforms are asking for a temporary restraining order against the new rules, set to be implemented on July 12th. “We will not stand by and let the harmful impacts of this earnings standard on New York City customers, merchants, and the delivery workers it was intended to support go unchecked,” a DoorDash spokesperson told CNN.
The Worker’s Justice Project that backed the survey decried the new lawsuit. “This latest legal maneuver to prop up their business model comes at the expense of workers who can barely survive in a city facing a massive affordability crisis,” director Ligia Guallpa told the Post.
New York became the first US city to mandate a minimum wage for food delivery workers, ordering platforms to pay workers $17.96 per hour, plus tips, by July 12th. The minimum wage in the city is $15 per hour, but the extra amount accounts for the fact that delivery workers are usually paid as contractors, so have higher taxes and must pay work-related expenses out of pocket. According to an estimate from the DCWP (NYC Department of Consumer and Worker Protection), NYC has more than 60,000 food delivery workers who earn an average of $7.09 per hour.
However, DoorDash and GrubHub argued that the earnings estimate was based on flawed methodology. Workers surveyed were told up front that the aim was to help raise the pay of delivery workers and suggested “correct” answers, according to the lawsuit.
Grubhub also expressed concern about the increased difficulty in monitoring workers. Uber said, in a separate lawsuit, that the higher minimum wage would inflate food order prices, in turn hurting local restaurants.
App services like Uber have fought for years against regulations against the “gig worker” economy. Earlier this year, a court ruled that Uber and Lyft could keep treating drivers as contractors, rather than reclassifying them as salaried employees.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/uber-doordash-and-grubhub-sue-new-york-city-over-18-minimum-wage-law-103531552.html?src=rss
Amazon’s $1.7 billion acquisition of Roomba manufacturer iRobot is under scrutiny not only in the US, but also in Europe. The European Commission has revealed that it has opened an in-depth investigation into the purchase out of concerns that the merger would restrict competition for robotic vacuum cleaners. In particular, the commission is concerned that Amazon might prevent iRobot’s rivals from selling their robot vacuums on its marketplace. Amazon might favor iRobot’s products in both paid and unpaid search results or charge competing products more to advertise their offerings, the commission said.
In addition, authorities are worried about the possibility of Amazon preventing iRobot rivals from accessing future Alexa APIs and from getting the “Works with Alexa” certification, since voice control with the assistant is one of the most important selling points for robot vacuums. Finally, the commission has raised concerns about Amazon obtaining access to iRobot users’ data, which it believes could provide the e-commerce giant “an important advantage.” Amazon could, for instance, use that information to better personalize and target advertisements. Bottom line is that the “transaction may raise barriers to entry and expansion for Amazon’s competitors to the detriment of consumers.”
The commission will now look into these concerns in cooperation with other competition authorities and has until November 15th to finalize its results. In the US, the Federal Trade Commission launched a probe into the acquisition last year after politicians from both parties asked it to oppose the purchase.
An Amazon spokesperson told Reuters that the company will “continue to work through the process with the European Commission and [is] focused on addressing its questions and any identified concerns at this stage.” They also told the news organization that Amazon could “offer a company like iRobot the resources to accelerate innovation and invest in critical features while lowering prices for consumers.”
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/amazons-irobot-purchase-is-under-investigation-by-european-authorities-054857108.html?src=rss
Days after Michael Jordan said he disapproves of his son Marcus’ relationship with Larsa Pippen, the basketball legend was spotted on a vacation with his wife, Yvette Prieto.
Days after Michael Jordan said he disapproves of his son Marcus’ relationship with Larsa Pippen, the basketball legend was spotted on a vacation with his wife, Yvette Prieto.
On the re-recorded version of ‘Speak Now,’ Taylor Swift made a major lyric change to one of the album’s original songs, which is speculated to be about Joe Jonas and Camilla Belle.
On the re-recorded version of ‘Speak Now,’ Taylor Swift made a major lyric change to one of the album’s original songs, which is speculated to be about Joe Jonas and Camilla Belle.
The NFL athlete and ‘Spider-Man’ actress were seen getting hot and heavy while hanging out in a pool in Mexico. See the steamy PDA pics!
The NFL athlete and ‘Spider-Man’ actress were seen getting hot and heavy while hanging out in a pool in Mexico. See the steamy PDA pics!
‘The Kardashians’ star proved she’s the fun aunt after she & her daughter, True, made singing videos with her niece, Dream, on Jul. 6.
‘The Kardashians’ star proved she’s the fun aunt after she & her daughter, True, made singing videos with her niece, Dream, on Jul. 6.
