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US government grills Zuckerberg over Facebook's cryptocurrency plans
Mark Zuckerberg has attempted to explain and justify Facebook's plans for its Libra cryptocurrency before an unsympathetic United States Congress (The Verge). House Financial Service Committee chair Maxine Waters, along with many other lawmakers, expressed doubts about Facebook's reliability and trustworthiness, telling Zuckerberg that “we have serious concerns about your plans to establish a global digital currency that would challenge the US dollar.”
Tesla pulls into profit as it prepares for Shanghai Gigafactory opening
Tesla made a profit of $143 million in the third quarter of 2019, driven by the delivery of 97,000 of its electric cars to customers and the production of 95,200 vehicles (Ars Technica). The company also told investors that its Shanghai Gigafactory is now making test vehicles and is ready to start regular production runs of the Model 3 as soon as it has all required licences and approvals from the Chinese government.
Google accused of spying on its workers' attempts to organise
Google workers say their employer is developing a surveillance tool that they're concerned will be used to monitor efforts to unionise, discuss labour rights and organise protests (Bloomberg). Staff who've taken an interest in its development say the tool say it will automatically report any attempt to create a calendar event with more than 10 rooms or 100 participants. A Google representative told Bloomberg that it's “a pop-up reminder that asks people to be mindful before auto-adding a meeting to the calendars of large numbers of employees.”
Inside the messy collapse of the UK's unworkable porn block
When the porn block finally came crashing down, even the regulator tasked with enforcing it wasn’t given much warning (WIRED). In the adult entertainment industry, the news of the porn block’s demise was met with a mix of confusion and derision. And so, after more than two years of preparations, many in the industry are left wondering: how did it all go so wrong, and, crucially, what happens next?
YouTube is about to launch its own interactive show
YouTube has released a trailer for its first original interactive special, A Heist With Markiplier, due out on October 30, with 61 videos and 31 possible endings (Variety). YouTube creators, including Markiplier have been making interactive videos on the platform for years, although many of the earliest examples no longer work due to YouTube's removal of the annotations feature they relied upon.
Boilers, porn and planes
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This article was originally published by WIRED UK
