The YouTuber with 26 billion views

Found on BBC News on Wednesday, 27 November 2019
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Konrad Dantas, better known as Kondzilla, has seen his YouTube music videos watched more than 26 billion times.

The 31-year-old Brazilian set up his business in 2011, and it also includes a record label.

These number-gasms make you wonder if it wouldn't actually be better if such numbers would be hidden. At some point, people view content just because many others already did, and not because of the content.

Girl Scouts join protest over sale of .org domain

Found on BBC News on Tuesday, 26 November 2019
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They are among thousands of organisations and individuals concerned about the sale of the Public Internet Registry (PIR), which runs .org.

PIR was sold last week for an undisclosed sum to private equity firm Ethos Capital.

Ethos Capital said it was "committed to keeping .org accessible and reasonably priced for all".

There is so much fishy about this. Ethos was just created for this purpose, and also involved is Fadi Chehade, who was CEO at ICANN before. So it sounds very much like an inside job to rip off nonprofits.

Elon Musk: Tesla Cybertruck already has 200,000 pre-orders

Found on Ars Technica on Monday, 25 November 2019
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The new pickup is expected to begin production in about two years. Tesla says it will start at $39,900 for a model with 250 miles of range.

The signup rate for Cybertruck pre-orders—200,000 orders in four days—isn't quite as impressive as for the Model 3 in 2016. Tesla had received 150,000 pre-orders for the Model 3 within hours of the unveiling event and had 275,000 orders in hand a few days later.

For something so ugly, every single dollar is wasted.

Why is Instagram deleting the accounts of hundreds of porn stars?

Found on BBC News on Sunday, 24 November 2019
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Ms Evans' group has collected a list of more than 1,300 performers who claim that their accounts have been deleted by Instagram's content moderators for violations of the site's community standards, despite not showing any nudity or sex.

In late 2018, adult performers say, an individual or a number of individuals started a co-ordinated campaign to report accounts to social media platforms, with the clear intent of having them removed.

"There is also a culture in Silicon Valley that tends to infantilise the audience," he says. "Facebook is launching a dating service called Crushes, while having strict rules about sexual chat, even between consensual adults and [even when it is] non-commercial."

Being two-faced is the basic problem. A single individual (or just a few) can, with enough determination, influence a lot. The people don't know who this is, and how many are behind it.

Apple 'loses money on phone repairs'

Found on BBC News on Saturday, 23 November 2019
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Apple says it loses more money than it makes when repairing customer devices such as iPhones and Macbooks.

Apple typically charges more than unofficial repair shops to fix things such as smashed screens.

"Knowing how much we pay for parts and the general labour costs of the repair industry, it seems unbelievable that they're not making money from repair services."

That is really hard to believe, especially when it's been proven that repairs can be done way cheaper.

1.2 Billion Records Found Exposed Online in a Single Server

Found on Wired on Friday, 22 November 2019
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While the collection is impressive for its sheer volume, the data doesn't include sensitive information like passwords, credit card numbers, or Social Security numbers. It does, though, contain profiles of hundreds of millions of people that include home and cell phone numbers, associated social media profiles like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Github, work histories seemingly scraped from LinkedIn, almost 50 million unique phone numbers, and 622 million unique email addresses.

“The owner of this server likely used one of our enrichment products, along with a number of other data-enrichment or licensing services," says Sean Thorne, cofounder of People Data Labs. "Once a customer receives data from us, or any other data providers, the data is on their servers and the security is their responsibility. We perform free security audits, consultations, and workshops with the majority of our customers."

"Security is their responsibility" is such a convenient excuse when you actively sell the data of people which never have knowingly agreed to. The business idea of People Data Labs and Oxydata is already shady at best.

PayPal to acquire shopping and rewards platform Honey for $4B

Found on Techcrunch on Thursday, 21 November 2019
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Instead of only competing on the checkout page against credit cards or Apple Pay, for example, PayPal will leap ahead to become a part of the deal discovery process, as well.

Currently, Honey’s 17 million monthly active users take advantage of its suite of money-saving tools to track prices, get alerts, make lists, browse offers and participate in an Ebates-like rewards program called Honey Gold.

In other words, they paid $235.29 for every single active user. Remember that next time someone tells you a service is free and they only use your data.

Senators want Zuckerberg to explain why Facebook still tracks your location even when you ask it not to

Found on CNBC on Wednesday, 20 November 2019
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Facebook released a blog post in September explaining that even if users opt out of letting Facebook collect their data, it could still determine users’ locations in other ways, like through check-ins and users’ internet connections.

The senators asked Zuckerberg to explain how Facebook collects data from users when their location settings are limited or turned off for their app. They also asked Facebook to share whether it uses location data it collects while users have turned off or restricted location services to target ads or share with third parties.

He does it because he can; and it won't stop until he gets into real trouble. A simple chat with some senators is nothing to be afraid of for him.

Thousands flock to Wikipedia founder's 'Facebook rival'

Found on BBC News on Tuesday, 19 November 2019
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The platform says it will never sell user data and relies on "the generosity of individual donors" rather than ads.

In a recent interview with the Financial Times, Mr Wales described the advertising-led business model favoured by the social network giants as "problematic".

Every bit of competition is good. Although FB will probably just try to destroy or buy it.

Boeing seems upset with NASA’s inspector general

Found on Ars Technica on Monday, 18 November 2019
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For the first time, the report also published an estimate of seat prices that NASA will pay Boeing for crewed Starliner missions to the International Space Station alongside prices the organization will pay for SpaceX's Dragon vehicle: $90 million for Starliner and $55 million for Dragon.

Boeing's response takes issue with several parts of NASA's report. But the company appears especially exercised about the claim that NASA overpaid Boeing for seats on the third through sixth Starliner missions, payment over and above what was originally agreed upon as part of the company's fixed price contract with the space agency.

That's the free market for you.