Facebook exempts news outlets from political ads transparency labels

Facebook pissed off journalists earlier this year when it announced that ads run by news publishers to promote their articles involving elected officials, candidates, and national issues would have to sport “paid for by…” labels and be included alongside political campaign ads in its ads transparency archive that launched in June, albeit in a separate section. The News Media Alliance representing 2000 newspapers including the New York Times and NewsCorp plus other new organizations sent a letter to Mark Zuckerberg in June protesting their inclusion. They claimed it would blur the lines between propaganda and journalism, and asked Facebook to exempt news publishers.

Now Facebook has granted that exception. Legitimate news organizations who publish with bylines and dates, cite sources, and don’t have a history of having stories flagged as false by third-party fact checkers will no longer have their ads appear in the Ads Archive. They also won’t have to carry a “Paid for by…” label when they appear in the News Feed or Instagram. The change will also allow news outlets to run “dark post” ads that target specific users but don’t appear on their Pages. This will allow them to secretly test different ad variants without being exposed to potential criticism or competitors looking to copy their ad strategies.

Facebook will be using its recently built news publisher index that outlets can apply to to decide which ad buyers are exempt. That index is up and running in the US and will expand to other countries, but for now Facebook is using a third-party list of legitimate UK news outlets who’ll be exempted.

Facebook’s political ads archive of campaign ads will no longer include publications promoting articles about politics or issues

The change comes as Facebook rolls out enforcement of its political ads transparency rules in the UK today. “Now political advertisers must confirm their identity and location, as well as say who paid for the ad, before they can be approved to run political ads on Facebook and/or Instagram” Facebook tells TechCrunch. These ads will also feature the “Paid for by…” label. Facebook hoped that by self-regulating ads transparency, it might avoid more heavy-handed government regulation, such as through the US’s proposed Honest Ads Act that would bring internet political advertising to parity with transparency rules for television commercials.

Facebook’s “Paid For By…” labels will no longer appear on news publishers’ ads on Facebook or Instagram

The hope is that by determining who is paying for these ads, properly labeling them, and exempting journalists, Facebook will be able to better track foreign misinformation campaigns and election interference. Meanwhile, users will have a better understanding of who’s funding the political and issue ads they see on Facebook.

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Google Assistant will now be nicer if you say “Please” and “Thank you”

Is barking orders at our AI-powered voice assistants turning us into jerks? Are our kids growing accustomed to commanding the Google Homes and Siris of the world to turn on the lights without the politeness of a “please”?

Perhaps. With that in mind, from here on out, Google Assistant will be a bit more cheery if you take the time to say “please” or “thank you”.

If, for example, you say “Hey Google, please set a timer for 10 minutes”, Google Assistant will respond “Thanks for asking so nicely! 10 minutes, starting now.”

To be clear: it’s totally optional. Prefer to be curt? That’s okay — Assistant won’t chastise you. But if these are habits you’re trying to instill in a little one or polish up yourself, Assistant will respond in kind.

Google first mentioned that they’d be adding this feature, which they call “Pretty Please”, at I/O in May. Amazon rolled an almost identical feature into Alexa back in April of this year.

Google Assistant is picking up a few other new tricks this morning:

• You can say “Hey Google, Call Santa” to have a chat with ol’ Saint Nick himself. That’s been around a while, but they’ve added a new storyline (and visuals, if you have an Assistant device with a display.)
• They’ve added a bunch of Christmas stories to Assistant’s story time feature, so you can say things like “Hey Google, read me ‘Twas the night before Christmas'”, or ‘Hey Google, tell me a Christmas story’ to kick things off.
• You can now add things to a specific list, such as your wish list or Christmas dinner shopping list, via Assistant. Say “Hey Google, add ‘Kindle for mom’ to my gift list” and it’ll know what you mean. You can also create new lists via Assistant, and Google notes that they’ll soon support third party services Any.do, Bring!, and Todoist.
• If you have a Assistant device with a display built-in, it can now double as a lil’ Karaoke machine — ask it to play a song via Google Play Music, and the lyrics should now appear in sync.
• If you have an Assistant device with a display built-in and a Nest doorbell, you can now chat with whoever’s at the door thanks to a new two way talk button.

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Check out Prague’s Old Town in this 405 gigapixel photo

Jeffrey Martin takes massive panoramic photographs of the world and his photos let you go from from the panoramic to the intimate in a single mouse swipe. Now he’s truly outdone himself with a 900,000 pixel wide photo of Prague’s Old Town that took six months to build.

The photo, viewable here, has a total spherical resolution of 405 gigapixels and amazing. Martin used a 600mm lens and 50MP DSLR to take photos of nearly everything in the Old Town. You can see the Cathedral, Castle Hill, and even spot street signs, building signs, and pigeons. It’s a fascinating view of a beautiful city.

Martin said it took him over six months to post-process the picture and it required thousands of photos and tweaks. He said the files are six times bigger than anything Photoshop can manage so he found himself working with delicate fixes as he stitched this amazing photo together.

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Loro’s mounted wheelchair assistant puts high tech to work for people with disabilities

A person with physical disabilities can’t interact with the world the same way as the able, but there’s no reason we can’t use tech to close that gap. Loro is a device that mounts to a wheelchair and offers its occupant the ability to see and interact with the people and things around them in powerful ways.

Loro’s camera and app work together to let the user see farther, read or translate writing, identify people, gesture with a laser pointer and more. They demonstrated their tech onstage today during Startup Battlefield at TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin.

Invented by a team of mostly students who gathered at Harvard’s Innovation Lab, Loro began as a simple camera for disabled people to more easily view their surroundings.

“We started this project for our friend Steve,” said Loro co-founder and creative director, Johae Song. A designer like her and others in their friend group, he was diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, or ALS, a degenerative neural disease that paralyzes the muscles of the afflicted. “So we decided to come up with ideas of how to help people with mobility challenges.”

“We started with just the idea of a camera attached to the wheelchair, to give people a panoramic view so they can navigate easily,” explained co-founder David Hojah. “We developed from that idea after talking with mentors and experts; we did a lot of iterations, and came up with the idea to be smarter, and now it’s this platform that can do all these things.”

It’s not simple to design responsibly for a population like ALS sufferers and others with motor problems. The problems they may have in everyday life aren’t necessarily what one would think, nor are the solutions always obvious. So the Loro team determined to consult many sources and expend a great deal of time in simple observation.

“Very basic observation — just sit and watch,” Hojah said. “From that you can get ideas of what people need without even asking them specific questions.”

Others would voice specific concerns without suggesting solutions, such as a flashlight the user can direct through the camera interface.

“People didn’t say, ‘I want a flashlight,’ they said ‘I can’t get around in the dark.’ So we brainstormed and came up with the flashlight,” he said. An obvious solution in some ways, but only through observation and understanding can it be implemented well.

The focus is always on communication and independence, Song said, and users are the ones who determine what gets included.

“We brainstorm together and then go out and user test. We realize some features work, others don’t. We try to just let them play with it and see what features people use the most.”

There are assistive devices for motor-impaired people out there already, Song and Hojah acknowledged, but they’re generally expensive, unwieldy and poorly designed. Hojah’s background is in medical device design, so he knows of what he speaks.

Consequently, Loro has been designed to be as accessible as possible, with a tablet interface that can be navigated using gaze tracking (via a Tobii camera setup) or other inputs like joysticks and sip-and-puff tubes.

The camera can be directed to, for example, look behind the wheelchair so the user can safely back up. Or it can zoom in on a menu that’s difficult to see from the user’s perspective and read the items off. The laser pointer allows a user with no ability to point or gesture to signal in ways we take for granted, such as choosing a pastry from a case. Text to speech is built right in, so users don’t have to use a separate app to speak out loud.

The camera also tracks faces and can recognize them from a personal (though for now, cloud-hosted) database for people who need help tracking those with whom they interact. The best of us can lose a name or fail to place a face — honestly, I wouldn’t mind having a Loro on my shoulder during some of our events.

Right now the team is focused on finalizing the hardware; the app and capabilities are mostly finalized but the enclosure and so on need to be made production-ready. The company itself is very early-stage — they just incorporated a few months ago and worked with $100,000 in pre-seed funding to create the prototype. Next up is doing a seed round to get ready to manufacture.

“The whole team, we’re really passionate about empowering these people to be really independent, not just waiting for help from others,” Hojah said. Their driving force, he made clear, is compassion.

 

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The Coinmine One is a box that mines crypto at home

For $799 you can start mining cryptocurrencies in your home, a feat that previously either required a massive box costing thousands of dollars or, if you didn’t actually want to make any money, a Raspberry Pi. The Coinmine One, created by Farbood Nivi, soundly hits the sweet spot between actual mining and experimentation.

The box is about as big as a gaming console and runs a custom OS called MineOS. The system lets you pick a cryptocurrency to mine – Monero, for example, as the system isn’t very good with mature, ASIC-dependent currencies like BTC – and then runs it on the built in CPU and GPU. The machine contains a Intel Celeron Processor J Series processor and a AMD Radeon RX570 graphics card for mining. It also has a 1 TB drive to hold the massive blockchains required to manage these currencies.

The box mines Ethereum at 29 Mh/s and Monero at 800 h/s – acceptable numbers for an entry level miner like this one. You can upgrade it to support new coins, allowing you to get in on the ground floor of whatever weird thing crypto folks create tomorrow.

I saw the Coinmine in Brooklyn and it looks nice. It’s a cleverly-made piece of consumer tech that brings the mystery of crypto mining to the average user. Nivi doesn’t see this as a profit-making machine. Instead, it is a tool to help crypto experimenters try to mine new currencies and run a full node on the network. That doesn’t mean you can’t get Lambo with this thing, but expect Lambo to take a long, long time.

The device ships next month to hungry miners world-wide. It’s a fascinating move for the average user to experience the thrills and spills of the recent crypto bust.

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Revolut is ready to launch in Singapore and Japan

Fintech startup Revolut has been teasing Asian market expansions for more than a year, but it sounds like it might finally happen. The company has secured licenses to operate in Singapore and Japan. It now expects to launch its service in Q1 2019.

In Singapore, the company was granted a Remittance License by the Monetary Authority and a Stored Value Facility approval — these two things combined let Revolut users hold money as well as send and spend money. In Japan, the company has been authorized to operate by Japan’s Finance Service Agency.

According to Revolut, those approvals are enough to launch the service in those countries. But not all features will make their way to Singapore and Japan. Regulation varies from one country to another, so the company might not be able to provide the same limits and feature set everywhere.

At launch, Revolut will focus on the electronic wallet and the payment card. You won’t be able to buy cryptocurrencies, create business accounts and more. Limits should be more or less the same in local currency equivalent.

In Japan, Revolut says that it has already signed deals with Rakuten, Sompo Japan Insurance (SJNK) and Toppan. It sounds like there will be new insurance products, special card designs and more.

Revolut plans to open its APAC office in Singapore. Let’s see if Revolut ends up convincing expats to sign up or if they can have a real impact outside of Europe.

And if you’re a potential user in the U.S. or Canada, you’ll have to wait a bit more. Revolut says that there will be more news in the coming weeks.

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5 Entertaining Cyber Week Deals that End Today

There are many reasons to like the holiday season: food, family, movies, sports, and so on. But between the highlights, there’s often a lot of time to fill. Here are some fun products at MakeUseOf Deals that should keep you entertained through the holidays, now with up to 93% off. Be quick — these Cyber Week prices expire tonight.

Retro Gaming Console

Graphics are great, but nothing can compete with classic gameplay. This NES lookalike lets you enjoy over 600 retro titles on any HDMI display. The console comes with two controllers for multiplayer fun, and it’s portable enough to take on the road. Normally $299.99, the console is now just $44.99 — and use code CMSAVE20 for an extra 20% off.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

There’s nothing better than sharing a mission with your buddies, and this FPS classic lets you wage warfare through the holidays. The single player mode takes you around the world on a campaign to stop ultranationalists and civil war. Worth $19.99, Modern Warfare is now $9.99 for a limited time.

Trainz: A New Era Platinum Edition Bundle

The world’s leading railroad simulator is back, and it’s packed with amazing new content. The Platinum Edition includes 16 new routes, three bonus train sets, and much more besides. In addition, train lovers will relish the extensive editing features and realistic physics. Worth $327, this bundle is now $19.99 with this deal.

Raspberry Pi 3B+ & 37 Sensors Starter Kit

What better way to spend the holidays than learning about electronics? With parts and step-by-step instructions for 35 projects, this Raspberry Pi starter kit should keep you busy well into 2019. Along with a Raspberry Pi 3B+, you get 37 sensors and useful accessories. You can get the kit now for $129.99, saving $20.

1MORE Dual Driver In-Ear Headphones

If music is your salvation, the 1MORE headphones should be on your wishlist. With dual drivers inside each aluminum alloy earpiece, they deliver rich sound with amazing clarity. In addition, these headphones are beautifully designed. The ergonomic shape makes them comfortable to wear, and the Kevlar-core cable should last for years. They’re worth $59.99, but you can grab them today for $45.99.

Read the full article: 5 Entertaining Cyber Week Deals that End Today

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Instagram Can Now Describe Photos to Visually Impaired Users

Instagram has added two new features designed to make it easier for visually impaired people to use Instagram. These features mean screen readers will be able to accurately describe what’s in photos uploaded to Instagram.

There are hundreds of millions of people in the world with visual impairments. And while this can make everyday life challenging, it makes using the internet almost impossible. However, things are improving as more companies rise to the challenge.

Instagram Makes Itself More Accessible

Instagram is making itself more accessible to people who have visual impairments in two ways. The first relies on Instagram users to add detailed descriptions of what’s in their photos. The second uses artificial intelligence to describe what’s in the photos.

The first method is custom alternative text, which relies on users adding descriptions to their photos. Anyone using a screen reader will then be able to hear this description when they view the photo, helping them to see the photo through the words chosen.

We’re proud to improve Instagram for people with visual impairments. Starting today, we are automatically adding alternative text to photos on Feed, Explore and Profile so people who use screen readers can hear what’s in the photo. pic.twitter.com/IRsiw8F23V

— Instagram (@instagram) November 28, 2018

You can add alternative text to an Instagram photo when creating a new post. Just click “Advanced Settings” at the bottom of the page. Then click “Write Alt Text”. Then write a detailed description where you paint a picture with words.

The second method is automatic alternative text, which uses object recognition technology to describe what’s in the photos being viewed. This is meant to be the back up for when people don’t add their own alternative text.

Let’s Help Everyone Enjoy the Internet

Instagram should be applauded for this move, even though it has taken years to implement such a feature. As the world moves increasingly online, it’s important that we, both tech companies and the people who use their services, don’t leave anyone behind.

If you are blind or visually impaired we have previously listed a number of different ways to browse the web. We have also offered guides to the accessibility options on Windows 10 and the accessibility options on a Chromebook.

Image Credit: KimmahOney/Flickr

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YouTube Offers Discounts for Students

YouTube is following in the footsteps of other streaming media services by offering discounts to students. Eligible students can get money off both YouTube Premium and YouTube Music, making YouTube’s paid-for services a more attractive option.

For the uninitiated, Google launched YouTube Premium and YouTube Music in May 2018. YouTube Premium is the new name of YouTube Red, and YouTube Music is the new name of Google Play Music, although Google Play Music is sticking around for the time being.

Get YouTube Premium and YouTube Music Premium

YouTube Premium usually costs $11.99/month and YouTube Music Premium usually costs $9.99/month. However, students attending an accredited college or university in the U.S. can now get YouTube Premium for $6.99 and YouTube Music Premium for $4.99.

On top of that, YouTube is currently running a special promotion. This means that if you sign up to before January 31 you can get YouTube Premium for just $5.99/month. And this price will remain in place all the while you remain a student.

Now students can access ad-free videos, our new music streaming service, @YouTubeMusic, and a library of YouTube Originals for only $5.99/month! Introducing the YouTube Premium student plan: https://t.co/JvqQxYQwGI. pic.twitter.com/27iYYamObP

— YouTube (@YouTube) November 27, 2018

While this is a significant saving for students it’s worth taking a look at exactly what you get with YouTube Premium and YouTube Music Premium. After all, there’s no point paying for something you’re unlikely to use.

A YouTube Music Premium subscription gets you ad-free music, the option to listen in the background, and music downloads. A YouTube Premium subscription gets you all of the above, plus ad-free video, the option to play in the background, and video downloads.

YouTube Wants to Grab You While You’re Young

These student discounts aren’t YouTube feeling generous. Instead, the company is trying to grab people while they’re young. If you get used to watching YouTube without ads and streaming music via YouTube you’re unlikely to switch once you leave school.

Even if you aren’t eligible for the student discounts, it’s worth considering whether YouTube Premium is worth the money. And if you do sign up, these are the best YouTube Originals to watch on YouTube Premium. Just watch how much data YouTube uses.

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Facebook staff discussed selling API access to apps in 2012-2014

Following a flopped IPO in 2012, Facebook desperately brainstormed new ways to earn money. An employee of unknown rank sent an internal email suggesting Facebook charge developers $250,000 per year for access to its platform APIs for making apps that can ask users for access to their data. Employees also discussed offering Tinder extended access to users’ friends’ data that was being removed from the platform in exchange for Tinder’s trademark on “Moments”, which Facebook wanted to use for a photo sharing app it later launched. Facebook decided against selling access to the API, and did not strike a deal with Tinder or other companies including Amazon and Royal Bank Of Canada mentioned in employee emails.

The discussions were reported by the Wall Street Journal as being part of a sealed court document its reporters had reviewed from a lawsuit by bikini photo finding app developer Six4Three against Facebook alleging anti-competitive practices in how it changed the platform in 2014 to restrict access to friends’ data through the platform.

The biggest question remaining is how high in rank the employees who discussed these ideas were. If the ideas were seriously considered by high-ranking executives, especially CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the revelation could contradict the company’s long-running philosophy on not selling data access. Zuckerberg told congress in April that “I can’t be clearer on this topic: We don’t sell data.” If the discussion was between low-level employees, it may have been little more than an off-hand suggestion as Facebook was throwing ideas against the wall, and may have been rejected or ignored by higher-ups. But either way, now that the discussion has leaked, it could validate the public’s biggest fears about Facebook and whether it’s a worthy steward of our personal data.

An employee emailed others about the possibility of removing platform API access “in one-go to all apps that don’t spend… at least $250k a year to maintain access to the data”, the document shows. Facebook clarified to TechCrunch that these discussions were regarding API access, and not selling data directly to businesses. The fact that the discussions were specifically about API access, which Facebook continues to give away for free to developers, had not been previously reported.

Facebook provided this full statement to TechCrunch:

“As we’ve said many times, the documents Six4Three gathered for this baseless case are only part of the story and are presented in a way that is very misleading without additional context. Evidence has been sealed by a California court so we are not able to disprove every false accusation. That said, we stand by the platform changes we made in 2015 to stop a person from sharing their friends’ data with developers. Any short-term extensions granted during this platform transition were to prevent the changes from breaking user experience. To be clear, Facebook has never sold anyone’s data. Our APIs have always been free of charge and we have never required developers to pay for using them, either directly or by buying advertising.”

A half decade-later, with the world’s will turned against Facebook, the discussions of selling data access couldn’t come at a worse time for the company. Even if quickly aborted, the idea could now stoke concerns that Facebook has too much power and too much of our personal information. While the company eventually found other money-makers and became highly profitable, the discussions illuminate how Facebook could potentially exploit people’s data more aggressively if it deemed it necessary.

UK parliament seizes cache of internal Facebook documents to further privacy probe

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Facebook staff discussed selling API access to apps in 2012-2014

Following a flopped IPO in 2012, Facebook desperately brainstormed new ways to earn money. An employee of unknown rank sent an internal email suggesting Facebook charge developers $250,000 per year for access to its platform APIs for making apps that can ask users for access to their data. Employees also discussed offering Tinder extended access to users’ friends’ data that was being removed from the platform in exchange for Tinder’s trademark on “Moments”, which Facebook wanted to use for a photo sharing app it later launched. Facebook decided against selling access to the API, and did not strike a deal with Tinder or other companies including Amazon and Royal Bank Of Canada mentioned in employee emails.

The discussions were reported by the Wall Street Journal as being part of a sealed court document its reporters had reviewed from a lawsuit by bikini photo finding app developer Six4Three against Facebook alleging anti-competitive practices in how it changed the platform in 2014 to restrict access to friends’ data through the platform.

The biggest question remaining is how high in rank the employees who discussed these ideas were. If the ideas were seriously considered by high-ranking executives, especially CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the revelation could contradict the company’s long-running philosophy on not selling data access. Zuckerberg told congress in April that “I can’t be clearer on this topic: We don’t sell data.” If the discussion was between low-level employees, it may have been little more than an off-hand suggestion as Facebook was throwing ideas against the wall, and may have been rejected or ignored by higher-ups. But either way, now that the discussion has leaked, it could validate the public’s biggest fears about Facebook and whether it’s a worthy steward of our personal data.

An employee emailed others about the possibility of removing platform API access “in one-go to all apps that don’t spend… at least $250k a year to maintain access to the data”, the document shows. Facebook clarified to TechCrunch that these discussions were regarding API access, and not selling data directly to businesses. The fact that the discussions were specifically about API access, which Facebook continues to give away for free to developers, had not been previously reported.

Facebook provided this full statement to TechCrunch:

“As we’ve said many times, the documents Six4Three gathered for this baseless case are only part of the story and are presented in a way that is very misleading without additional context. Evidence has been sealed by a California court so we are not able to disprove every false accusation. That said, we stand by the platform changes we made in 2015 to stop a person from sharing their friends’ data with developers. Any short-term extensions granted during this platform transition were to prevent the changes from breaking user experience. To be clear, Facebook has never sold anyone’s data. Our APIs have always been free of charge and we have never required developers to pay for using them, either directly or by buying advertising.”

A half decade-later, with the world’s will turned against Facebook, the discussions of selling data access couldn’t come at a worse time for the company. Even if quickly aborted, the idea could now stoke concerns that Facebook has too much power and too much of our personal information. While the company eventually found other money-makers and became highly profitable, the discussions illuminate how Facebook could potentially exploit people’s data more aggressively if it deemed it necessary.

UK parliament seizes cache of internal Facebook documents to further privacy probe

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India’s Drivezy raises $20M for its on-demand vehicle rental service

It’s been a year for on-demand services in India. Drivezy today became the latest to refuel after it raised a $20 million Series B.

The round was led by existing investor Das Capital, with participation from automotive giant Yamaha, Axan Partners and IT-Farm. The deal takes Drivezy, which was formerly known as JustRide, to $31 million raised to date. In addition, the startup has also inked a $100 million asset financing deal backed by Japan’s AnyPay which will see new cars and motorbikes added to Drivezy’s fleet over the next year.

Drivezy — which graduated Y Combinator and Google’s Launchpad Accelerator program — claims to have a fleet of around 8,000 vehicles, that includes 5,000 two-wheelers (motorbikes and scooters) and 3,000 cars. That attracts around 37,000 customers every month. Abhishek Mahajan, one of the company’s five co-founders, told TechCrunch in an interview that the fleet should add a further 50,000-60,000 new vehicles, 75 percent of which would be two-wheelers, thanks to the AnyPay deal.

Mahajan said that Drivezy is currently market leader when it comes to self-drive two-wheelers — “self-drive” meaning vehicles that can be rented for a trip — with motorbikes and scooters accounting for “the bulk” of transactions but just 20 percent of revenue. (That’s opposed to 80 percent for cars.) Revenue itself is 25 percent of the cut of a rental.

Aside from the asset financing deal — which will see AnyPay’s Harbourfront Capital vehicle own the new assets — Drivezy uses peer-to-peer and dealership partners for its fleet. The peer-to-peer appeal centers around increasing the utility of vehicles (and providing additional income to owners) and that’s a similar pitch to car dealerships, who can draw income from vehicles used on Drivezy that would otherwise sit idle waiting to be purchased.

But the AnyPay deal is a “game changer,” according to Mahajan.

“When we fast forward five years, we can’t imagine a scenario that car ownership in India goes from eight percent [right now] to U.S. level of 80 percent. India will have to skip a cycle on the culture of ownership and move into sustainable sharing of cars model,” he added.

Drivezy isn’t alone in believing that future. The company’s main rivals include Revv, which raised $14.3 million led by Hyundai this year, and Zoomcar, which has raised $100 million from investors that include Ford and India’s Mahindra & Mahindra. With Yamaha jumping aboard with Drivezy, India’s on-demand rentals market has three automotive firms in the race.

For now, there’s no plan to move overseas but Mahajan said that markets like Southeast Asia could become expansion targets in the future once the India business is more developed.

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Amazon debuts a scale model autonomous car to teach developers machine learning

Amazon today announced AWS DeepRacer, a fully autonomous 1/18th-scale race car that aims to help developers learn machine learning. Priced at $399 but currently offered for $249, the race car lets developers get hands-on — literally — with a machine learning technique called reinforcement learning (RL).

RL takes a different approach to training models than other machine learning techniques, Amazon explained.

It’s a type of machine learning that works when an “agent” is allowed to act on a trial-and-error basis within an interactive environment. It does so using feedback from those actions to learn over time in order to reach a predetermined goal or to maximize some type of score or reward.

This makes it different from other machine learning techniques — like Supervised Learning, for example — as it doesn’t require any labeled training data to get started, and it can make short-term decisions while optimizing for a long-term goal.

The new race car lets developers experiment with RL by learning through autonomous driving.

We are pleased and excited to announce AWS DeepRacer and the AWS DeepRacer League. New reinforcement learning powered AWS service and racing league ML powered cars. #reInvent pic.twitter.com/9Qmmqj4Ebw

— AWS re:Invent (@AWSreInvent) November 28, 2018

Developers first get started using a virtual car and tracks in a cloud-based 3D racing simulator, powered by AWS RoboMaker. Here, they can train an autonomous driving model against a collection of predefined race tracks included with the simulator, then evaluate them virtually or choose to download them to the real-world AWS DeepRacer car.

They can also opt to participate in the first AWS DeepRacer League at the re:Invent conference, where the car was announced. This event will take place over the next 24 hours in the AWS DeepRacer workshops and at the MGM Speedway and will involve using Amazon SageMaker, AWS RoboMaker and other AWS services.

There are six main tracks, each with a pit area, a hacker garage and two extra tracks developers can use for training and experimentation. There will also be a DJ.

The league will continue after the event, as well, with a series of live racing events starting in 2019 at AWS Global Summits worldwide. Virtual tournaments will also be hosted throughout the year, Amazon said, with the goal of winning the AWS DeepRacer 2019 Championship Cup at re:invent 2019.

As for the car’s hardware itself, it’s a 1/18th-scale, radio-controlled, four-wheel drive vehicle powered by an Intel Atom processor. The processor runs Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, ROS (Robot Operating System) and the Intel OpenVino computer vision toolkit.

The car also includes a 4 megapixel camera with 1080p resolution, 802.11ac Wi-Fi, multiple USB ports and battery power that will last for about two hours.

It’s available for sale on Amazon here.

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Apple Is Offering Extra Trade-In Credit on iPhone Upgrades

Apple is trying to incentivise people to jump in and snag a new iPhone XR or iPhone XS by offering extra trade-in credit towards the purchase of one of its latest devices. The new iPhones are quite expensive, so getting some extra money towards one can make it worthwhile.

The extra trade credit only applies to iPhone 6 or newer devices, so if you’re still holding onto that iPhone 5, you’re not going to get any extra money for it. However, Apple will happily recycle your older device for free.

Up to $100 Extra Trade-In Credit for a New iPhone

Every single model of iPhone from the iPhone 6 to the iPhone 8 is eligible for some extra credit. The biggest boost comes to the iPhone 6, iPhone 6s, and iPhone 6s Plus, each of which get a $100 bonus. The next tier comes to the iPhone 6 and iPhone 7, which get an extra $75 in credit. From there, the iPhone 7 Plus gets $50 extra and the iPhone 8 gets an extra $25.

It’s important to note that you can only get the bonus credit if you’re putting it directly towards an iPhone XR, iPhone XS, or iPhone XS Max. If you trade in your device just for Apple Store credit, you won’t get the bonus money.

If you’re looking to finance your phone, you can use the trade-in credit towards taxes and fees, and the remaining balance will be given as an Apple Store gift card. Unfortunately, you can’t use this credit towards monthly payments, as they’re managed by a third-party company and not Apple.

This Extra Trade-In Is Only for a Limited Time

This deal is only available for a limited time. However, Apple hasn’t listed exactly when this deal ends, so if you’re in the market for a new iPhone, you’re going to want to jump on this as soon as possible, as Apple could pull the plug on it at any point in time.

If you’re on the fence about getting a new iPhone, make sure to check out our breakdown of what exactly what’s new with the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max.

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How iSlide Can Supercharge Your Next Presentation For Free

Anyone can use Microsoft PowerPoint to make a basic presentation, but not everyone can make a great one that stands out. We’ve all sat through a lousy presentation that offers nothing exciting, and it’s not fun.

If you want to take your presentations to the next level, you need iSlide, a free add-in for PowerPoint. Here’s what it offers and how to get started.

Meet iSlide

You can download iSlide free from its website. It supports every version of Microsoft Office from 2007 onwards, including Office 365. The tool also works with WPS Office. Windows 7 and higher are compatible.

After you’ve installed iSlide, you’ll see it integrated into PowerPoint on the Ribbon. Click the iSlide entry to access its wealth of options.

First, you should click the Login button under Account. This will let you create a free iSlide account so you can access the many offerings.

Let’s go through the sections of this tab and see what iSlide provides.

Design

Under the Standard Specification button, you can apply a uniform format to all or a certain set of slides. This lets you easily make all of your slides uniform in font, paragraph style, margins, and color for a clean look.

Design Layout includes tools to keep everything straight. You can crop, select colors, add a watermark, and more.

Click Design Tools to access a toolbar full of quick functions. You can change alignment, rotate images, move items to the foreground or background, and more, all in one place.

Resources

This is where you’ll finds the majority of what iSlide offers: plenty of theming options to make your slideshow stand out. There’s a total of 1500+ themes, 7800+ diagrams, 1900+ smart diagrams, 160,000+ icons, 12,000+ pictures, and 4100+ vectors available with iSlide.

Open the Theme Library to find tons of ready-made themes to apply to your presentation. You can filter by categories and styles, or search for something specific.

If you don’t feel confident in your color-coding abilities, you can choose a ready-made set from the Color Library. You can filter by hue or category if you’d like to drill down the options a bit.

To illustrate your data in a fresh way, check out the Diagram Library. It’s full of charts and other illustrations to display findings. You’ll find even more in the Smart Diagram section.

The Icon Library holds thousands of simple icons. Whether you want to add them to charts or just make your presentation a little more lighthearted, they can help.

Find just the right stock image in the Picture Library tab, which has thousands of royalty-free images to use. And the Vector Library provides clip art-like premade images.

Animations and Tools

Come to Animations to tweak your animations with more control than PowerPoint provides.

In Tools, you’ll find options for exporting your slideshow (such as images or a video). You can also join images inside your presentation, compress the file to save space, and more.

iSlide Pricing

iSlide’s basic features are all free. For full access, you’ll need to upgrade to the Premium subscription for $9.99/month or $39.95/year. This lets you download premium themes and diagrams, and removes the daily download limits on photos, icons, and colors.

To upgrade, click the Upgrade Premium button on the iSlide tab in PowerPoint.

iSlide Beefs Up Your Presentations

If you often work in PowerPoint, iSlide offers a ton of value. A quick and free download adds thousands of themes, images, colors, and editing tools you can use in any presentation. Give it a try and see how much better your slideshows become.

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