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The US’ Internal Revenue Service (IRS) says Facebook intentionally “downplayed” intellectual property (IP) it transferred to a subsidiary in Ireland in 2010. Facebook valued that IP, which reportedly includes software and trademarks, at $6.5 billion. The IRS, on the other hand, maintains that number should’ve been closer to $21 billion. [READ: Czech gov wants to slap a 7% ad tax on internet giants like Google and Facebook] Tax authorities say the move essentially shifted a huge chunk of Facebook’s profits from the US to Ireland, which meant the social media giant avoided paying America’s 35% corporate tax rate on its deflated numbers — instead being liable for just 12....

Well, an initiative being run by a trio of firms including cryptocurrency swap exchange service ChangeAngel, crypto-clothing store CryptoBantam, and cryptoartist Trevor Jones, is doing just that. Please like & share and lets hit 300+ and raise more $$$ for @WarChildCan @pennyappeal & LittleEdi Raffle organised by @changeangel_io #bitcoin #cryptoart pic.twitter.com/hA51sJCaYp — Trevor Jones ? (@trevorjonesart) July 31, 2019 The raffle style event is auctioning one of Jones’ Bitcoin-inspired artworks, called “The Ecstasy....

I don’t usually write about personal and revealing matters, but recently I’ve noticed something I don’t like about myself — I check email too often. This confession doesn’t come easily, because, ironically, I am the author of a book titled Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products. It is a guidebook for designing technology people can’t put down. There’s just one problem — I can’t put my technology down. I ritually check email when I wake up in the morning....

Earlier this week the embattled number 45 put on one of the strangest performances of his presidency as he spoke to media outside the White House. Starring as both narrator and lead, the President acted out what it might look like if he directly responded to inquiries raised by US Ambassador Gordon Sondland during the ongoing impeachment hearings. It has to be seen to be believed, here’s a video from C-SPAN: But if you’re not able to watch right now, the President reads from a notepad bearing large, handwritten words that bear a striking resemblance to the set lists musicians use during live performances as he launches into a throaty, poetic performance of his notes....

Researchers from the University of Colorado and Duke University have developed the neural net that can accurately classify images in 11 emotional categories. To train the model, researchers used 2,187 videos that were clearly classified into 27 distinct emotion categories including anxiety, surprise, and sadness. The team extracted 137,482 frames from these videos and then excluded sets of a particular emotion that had less than 1000 samples. After the training, the team used 25,000 images to validate their results....

The system, called Audeo, analyzes top-down videos of someone tickling the ivories to predict which keys are being pressed in each frame. It then produces a transcript of the music, which a synthesizer translates into sound. The researchers trained and tested the AI on footage of pianist Paul Barton playing tunes by famous composers. They then evaluated the accuracy of the Audeo’s compositions by playing them to music-recognition apps, such as Shazam and SoundHound....

Twitter threads are fun to follow when someone’s writing an exciting story or describing a news event. However, if there are plenty of tweets in a thread, it can be a bit cumbersome to read. Thankfully, we have just the right tool that will help you read the whole thread on a single page. The thread reader turns all tweets of a thread into a more readable webpage. Here’s how you can use it:...

While we all agree that it was a magical journey to get us to season eight in the first place, it’s here where two camps begin to form: some who believe the finale was a solid conclusion, and others who, well, don’t. The latter camp has even gone so far as to collect nearly 1.5 million signatures in hopes that HBO will reshoot the final season. (Don’t hold your breath....

But as Facebook and Twitter become a conduit for bad actors to manipulate news, set agendas, and propagate noxious viewpoints, they’ve moved far from being just a space to share “what’s on your mind.” Now, Finnish Public Broadcasting Company, Yle, aims to give users a taste of the information operations on social media, where likes and shares are weaponized to sow bias and distrust, intentional or otherwise. Called Troll Factory, the tool taps into the power of gamification to bring about awareness and “illustrate how fake news, emotive content and bot armies are utilized to affect moods, opinions, and decision-making....

Over a period of seven years, astronomers have observed the star HD 158259 — invisible to the naked eye — discovering six planets in orbit around it in near-perfect synchronization. The extrasolar planets (exoplanets) consist of one ‘Super-Earth’ and five ‘Mini-Neptunes’ with exceptionally regular spacing and timing. Their regimented order gives researchers a hint as to how the system may have formed. The study, led by researchers from the University of Geneva (UNIGE), was conducted with the aid of the SOPHIE spectrograph and observations from the TESS space telescope and is published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics....

In the spirit of discovery, TNW – together with supporting partner We Are Live – is excited to introduce Couch Conferences: Our way to inspire and connect the tech community around areas of change and growth during the coronavirus crisis. Whether working to find your brand’s voice in these times, or defining a strategy for your new digital product, there’s an online event that adds value to your organization. Arguably the best part is that you can enjoy Couch Conferences from the comfort of your living room....

The French-owned company Bluecity said its £5 per-half hour EV car sharing platform will officially close on February 10 in the city, the Evening Standard reports. Bluecity first entered the London market back in 2017 with its fleet of recognizably branded red cars. Since then, the company was only able to arrange deals with three London borough councils. [Read: Scientists invent a faster and cheaper way to repurpose EV batteries] As Bluecity is a point-to-point service, vehicles must be picked up and dropped off at dedicated locations....

Let’s dig into the nonsense spouting from my fingers further. What is this B2002 thing all about? Well, the folks at MacRumors noticed Apple filed a product entry on the Bluetooth SIG database under ‘B2002’ in October. Now, the company has put a trio of M1-equipped Macs under the same listing. But B2002 is still there. “Okay,” I imagine you saying, “but what the hell does that mean — or have to do with anything?...

Transport for London (TfL) has secured a £1.8 billion (US$2.3 billion) government bailout to keep services running until March 2021. The funding will ensure TfL can absorb the impact of Covid-19 and comes less than two weeks after London Mayor Sadiq Khan accused Prime Minister Boris Johnson of lying to Parliament over the transit operator’s finances. Responding to the new agreement, Mayor Khan said the negotiations were “an appalling and totally unnecessary distraction at a time when every ounce of attention should have been focused on trying to slow the spread of Covid-19 and protecting jobs....

Last month, the social network expanded the experiment to Italy. Now, it’s rolling it out in India — which has more than 400 million internet users. — Kayvon Beykpour (@kayvz) June 9, 2020 These ephemeral updates, just like Stories features of Instagram, disappear after 24 hours. The company didn’t specify how many people are using this feature. But given that it’s making it available in another country suggests that at least some users are interested....

But the firm’s not trying to making money from NFTs yet. It’s simply giving away 140 of them for free. Twitter posted seven tweets yesterday showing off these pieces of digital art — so 20 copies of each are going for no cost. — Twitter (@Twitter) June 30, 2021 What do you have to do to get one? Nothing super complicated, just reply to any of these tweets. That also means that you’ve got a slim chance of winning one, given thousands of users are replying to these tweets....

— Spaces (@TwitterSpaces) March 2, 2021 Like Clubhouse, Spaces gives Twitter users a place where they can actually talk to people using audio. It’s kind of the 2021 take on a conference call – if a conference call is done largely with strangers. It does feature a few unique features too, like AI captions for conversations. Unfortunately, Twitter isn’t providing the full breadth of the Spaces’ functionality to Android users just yet....

A new way to have a convo with exactly who you want. We’re starting with a small % globally, so keep your ? out to see it in action. pic.twitter.com/pV53mvjAVT — Twitter (@Twitter) May 20, 2020 It’s pretty straightforward, from what we can tell. It seems to work a bit like Facebook — you’ll see an option on your tweet that tells you who can reply to you. Select this and you’ll be able to limit it to people you follow, or to only the people you mention in the tweet....

Twitter will start nudging high-profile political accounts to ramp up their login security ahead of the 2020 US election. In a blog post, the company announced a select group of Congress members, government officials, news outlets, and even individual journalists will soon start receiving notifications, prompting them to strengthen their password if necessary and activate two-factor authentication. [Read more: These tech trends defined 2020 so far, according to 5 founders] “Starting today, these accounts will be informed via an in-app notification from Twitter of some of the initial account security measures we will be requiring or strongly recommending going forward,” the company said in a statement....

Gmail is slowly bringing some of those features into its main client, but there are still missing bits and pieces. So, I’ve tried to find an email client for Mac that works well for me. Since last year, I’ve tried Boxy for Gmail, which almost mimics its web interface, and Edison Mail, which has nifty features such as a tab for unread emails, and a handy unsubscribe button. For the last month, I’ve been using Twobird, a collaborative email app from makers of the Notability....