It's Wednesday, February 01, 2017. Welcome to February, we’re glad you made it...  ...even if Beme and Asheron’s Call didn’t. In yesterday’s news, we have Apple’s latest earnings report (expect to hear from Facebook this afternoon) and that sketchy app Adoptly is as fake as it was outrageous. Be careful where you use it  The USB-C connected 27-inch LG Ultrafine 5K display is supposed to be a perfect match for Apple’s new MacBook Pros, but it has an unusual weakness. LG confirmed reports that it shouldn’t be placed within two meters or so of a wireless router, as that can make the display unstable or even unusable. There’s no word yet on a possible fix, so keep that in mind before shelling out $974 for one. | | Is that a home button or a USB-C port?  All we really know so far is that thanks to the Galaxy Note 7 meltdown, we won’t see a new Galaxy S phone at Mobile World Congress next month. Samsung is still inviting us to a press conference, with an image that appears to hint at a new Galaxy Tab. Whatever it is, we’ll be there to check it out on February 26th. | | Bring a bot to the table Carnegie Mellon’s “Libratus” AI took on Jason Les, Dong Kyu Kim, Daniel McAulay and Jimmy Chou in poker for 20 days and some 120,000 hands, and ultimately came out collectively ahead $1,766,250 in chips. Its creator, professor Tuomas Sandholm, said “This is the first time that AI has been able to beat the best humans at Heads-Up No-Limit Texas Hold'em. More generally, this shows that the best AI's ability to do strategic reasoning under imperfect information has surpassed that of the best humans.” | | Alternative feeds After last year’s fake news freakout, Facebook is getting serious about the issue. It’s finally implementing changes that should lower the visibility of clickbait content and pages that beg for engagement. It’s also tweaking the algorithm to respond faster in real-time, so a post about your favorite team’s game-winning goal is more likely to appear right away. | | Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook and Ford were already on the list Amazon. Evernote. Reddit. Y Combinator. The list of tech companies coming out vocally against Donald Trump’s executive order temporarily cutting off US immigration and travel from seven majority-Muslim countries, and from refugees worldwide, keeps growing every time we look. | | They like it  As the iPhone goes, so goes Apple's overall financial health. The good news, then, is that sales of its iPhone 7 family grew five percent compared to last year. Mac sales were also slightly up from last year with the introduction of new models. On the other hand, iPad sales continued a three-year slide, while revenue in its “other products” category that contains the Watch, TV, headphones and other items dropped from last year. | | If you can’t beat ‘em… change strategies? Now that former Jet.com CEO Marc Lore is running Walmart’s e-commerce, it’s cutting off the Amazon Prime-like ShippingPass beta. Instead, Walmart will promise free two-day shipping on all orders over $35, down from the previous threshold of $50. According to Lore, “In this day and age, two-day shipping is really just table stakes -- people shouldn't have to pay for it and certainly not a membership.” | | Those battery cells aren’t just for cars  Southern California Edison (SCE) teamed up with Tesla to bring one of the world's largest electron-storing solutions to life in less than six months. The 20-megawatt Mira Loma energy storage station in Ontario, California, is capable of powering up to 15,000 homes for four hours during peak times, or roughly 2,500 homes for an entire day. | | But wait, there's more... | | |
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