Yes, the recession meant we were forced to adapt to different circumstances than those under a stable economy, but it certainly didn’t make starting out any easier. However, that’s not to say we didn’t learn some invaluable lessons from building a business during one of the biggest recessions of our lifetime. To grow around 2008 we had to step back, look around, and focus even more relentlessly on seeing the world through the eyes of our customers....

According to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, Lime failed to disclose 50 occasions where a braking issue with its scooters led to riders crashing and sustaining injuries. “The ACCC considers Lime misrepresented to consumers that its Gen 2 e-scooters were safe to use when in fact it did not disclose to consumers a safety issue it was aware of,” the commission reports. The issue reportedly lies with the brakes on Lime’s Gen 2 e-scooters....

There are no formal alternatives in place, but Torvalds suggested plenty of choices. Suggested replacements for master/slave are primary/secondary, controller/device, requester/responder, and main/replica. Alternatives for blacklist/whitelist are denylist/allowlist and blocklist/passlist. A long list might create a few confusing cases in the future as the Linux team or Torvalds haven’t recommended one set over another. However, creating a more inclusive language for the community’s use is the right way to go....

That’s not the case on music streaming platforms, where artists aren’t paid a fixed fee when you stream their songs or albums. Instead, your subscription fee enters a big pot which is then split between every artist on the platform based on their share of overall streams. You can think of the payment pot as a pie chart: the size of an artist’s slice of revenue is determined by how many streams they get compared with their fellow artists....

According to Peter Rawlinson, CEO and CTO, Lucid Group: Crucially, this landmark is achieved by Lucid’s world-leading, in-house EV technology, not by simply installing an oversize battery pack. Our race-proven 900V battery and BMS technology, our miniaturized drive units, coupled with our Wunderbox technology endow Lucid Air with ultra-high efficiency, enabling it to travel more miles from less battery energy. The next generation EV has truly arrived. Then you need the weekly SHIFT newsletter in your life....

Spaceport Esrange will provide the European Space Agency (ESA) with an independent getaway to the stars, enhancing its current capabilities in French Guiana. At first, the spaceport will be used to launch satellites into orbit. “Satellites are decisive for many functions of the daily lives of today’s modern world, and the need for them will only increase in the years to come with space playing an even more important role,” Stefan Gardefjord, CEO of the Swedish Space Corporation (SSC), said in a press release....

Starting this fall, Domino’s plans to employ a fleet of Nuro vehicles, each electric and self-driving, to deliver piping-hot pizza directly from its ovens to your doors. Each of the electric autos has a top speed of around 25 miles-per-hour, and they’ll soon share the roads with human-driven cars. These vehicles, however, aren’t built for humans. Each is about half the height and width of a typical car they lack both the space and the hardware (including seats and steering wheels) for human pilots....

You can interact with it here. This was a simple experiment I did to manage recruitment emails and job applications, inspired by Big Kid Lab. My original intention was to showcase my resourceful skills and get hands-on experience with conversational AI design, but I added some bolder questions to filter out recruiters who represent companies that don’t align with my values. It’s rather alarming if a company still hasn’t taken a stance of support for BLM or other social justice issues at this point....

Last August, Meta launched Horizon Worlds as an invite-only beta to let early adopters experience the virtual space, and even build new things with tools provided by the company. In other words, it’s like a shittier Minecraft VR. You can watch a glimpse of what you could do in it through the video below. While the trailer of Horizon World looks sleek, the real-life gameplay might be a little childish....

The latest temptress is Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta. In a move redolent of 1984’s Two Minutes Hate, the company has temporarily permitted calls for violence and deaths. The social media behemoth has provisionally permitted hate speech in certain Facebook and Instagram posts. There’s no need to worry, however: the malice can only target Meta-approved baddies. Violent speech will now be permitted when targeting Russian soldiers and Russians in the context of the Ukraine invasion, according to internal emails seen by Reuters....

The Facebook founder has unveiled a new set of “values” to reflect the profound transformation of his beleaguered baby. But can the new slogans transform the company’s fortunes? We asked branding experts and metaverse veterans. 1. Live in the Future The social media — sorry, metaverse — juggernaut has ditched its old motto of “be bold.” In its place is the slightly ominous “live in the future.” Gijsbregt Vijn, the founder and managing director of Lemon Scented Tea, a European creative agency, feels the new motto is too vague:...

Microsoft Math Solver — available on both iOS and Android — can solve various math problems including quadratic equations, calculus, and statistics. The app can also show graphs for the equation to enhance your understanding of the subject. [Read: Microsoft packs Excel, Word, Powerpoint, and PDF tools into one nifty app ] You can either type your query (formula) using a scientific calculator in the app, or draw it on your phone’s screen....

The two OLED displays feature a 4:3 aspect ratio and a resolution of 1800 x 1350 pixels, and together, they form an 8.1-inch screen at 2700 x 1800 pixels, with a 3:2 aspect ratio. They’re both protected by Gorilla Glass, and work with Microsoft’s Surface styli. Under the hood, the Surface Duo packs a powerful Snapdragon 855 processor, and 6GB RAM, 128GB or 256GB of UFS 3.0 storage, and a 3,577mAh battery....

In an extremely short report, Returns noted that Microsoft is going to put its mixed reality headset, HoloLens 2, on sale next month. The report stated Microsoft’s VP, Harry Shum, made the announcement at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai. It’s not clear at the moment if the company’s going to sell the devices to developers, businesses, or both. Both the commercial and developer edition of the HoloLens 2 costs $3,500....

The Lobe desktop app for Windows and Mac currently only supports image classification, but Microsoft plans to expand it to other models and data types in the future. “Just show it examples of what you want it to learn, and it automatically trains a custom machine learning model that can be shipped in your app,” the Lobe website explains. Users first need to import and label images of what they want Lobe to recognize....

Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the naming scheme for the company’s last few consoles, the cheaper alternative is expected to be called ‘Xbox Series S. According to Eurogamer, Microsoft plans on unveiling the console in August. The console was originally expected to be revealed at this year’s E3, but you know, coronavirus. The lower-powered console has been said to put out about 4 teraflops of GPU power(compared to 12 teraflops for the Series X) and to support 1080p native resolution (compared to 4K)....

Researchers from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and Microsoft have created a new algorithm that matches paintings from the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum through hidden stylistic connections. The MosAIc system is inspired by the “Rembrandt and Velazquez” exhibit in the Rijksmuseum that has paired up paintings which might seem different but actually have some connection in terms of interpretation or style. For example, in the exhibit Francisco de Zurbarán’s, The Martyrdom of Saint Serapion is paired up with Jan Asselijn’s The Threatened Swan; both of them have visual similarities in terms of posture....

It used to be scary and thought-provoking when a resourceful hacker cracked open a hoard of user information, but the sheer number of massive hacks that happened, in 2018 alone of Equifax, Twitter, Quora, Facebook, and many others, has ensured our collective desensitization to this issue. We find ourselves in an era when it’s not a question of if but when you’ll get hacked. So, this is also an appropriate moment to stop, look at the state of cybersecurity, and declare — especially for consumers and small businesses — enough is enough!...

From the day I was born, my life has been shaped by the automobile. You see, I was born and raised in Los Angeles. Regardless of the tired clichés, it is true, LA is a dominant car culture and that translates into music, art, cinema, and even cuisine. Having spent my early years in Southern California, many of my formative memories were captured within the confines of an automobile. I can still recall the weekly trips with my parents traversing the LA freeway network from Pasadena to Culver City to visit my relatives....

The Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security–Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) arrived at Bennu late in 2018, and has been studying the asteroid ever since. The asteroid containsome of the building blocks of life, making this mission vital in the search for answers to how life began on Earth, and — potentially — other worlds. “OSIRIS-REx spectrometer data show absorptions (“fingerprints”) of complex organic molecules and carbonate minerals on Bennu’s surface… The presence of organics on Bennu suggests that asteroids like Bennu may have brought organic molecules to Earth,” researchers describe in an article published in the journal Science....