Lukman Shobowale

There’s no doubt  Twitter  is anxiously looking forward to an end to summer. Although the company share price has steadily improved since June, the months of July and August saw the company beset by another round of racist bullying and negative press. It started in late July when Internet trolls led by Milo Yiannopoulos started  a targeted harassment campaign  against  Saturday Night Live  star  Leslie Jones . The bad press for Twitter continued through August when (asshole) trolls  set their sites on the African-American gymnast (and Olympic superstar) Gabby Douglas . Twitter’s problems actually extend beyond just bullying. Several newspapers — including  The New York Times  — have noticed that Twitter is a breeding ground for disinformation. And in many cases, concerted disinformation that has been  traced back to the Russian government . As the Times’ excellent foreign correspondent  Neil MacFarquhar  w...

eBay today is  launching  a new program that aims to capitalize on the large number of older iPhones and other mobile devices poised to hit the resale market, thanks to the launch of the new iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus models, announced last week. Called “ Quick Sale ,” the new program is powered by eBay Valet – the service where eBay pairs consumers with power sellers who handle the hassles involved with selling online for you, including taking photographs, writing the listing, handling payments and shipping the product to the buyer, among other things. Starting today, consumers who want to find out what their old phone is worth can head to the  Quick Sale website  to get a quote. They’ll then receive an offer that’s based on details like the device brand, model, carrier, capacity, color and condition. If you choose to accept the offer, you can print out a free shopping label, then send the phone in to eBay Valet. Once the phone is received and verified...

Say hello to Jeff Bezos' newest addition to Blue Origin's family of rockets: the New Glenn. Named for John Glenn, the first American to orbit Earth, the two-stage New Glenn rocket is designed to be Blue Origin's first orbital-class launcher, expected to bring heavy payloads, such as satellites, and eventually people to orbit from a launch site in Florida.  "We plan to fly New Glenn for the first time before the end of this decade from historic Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral, Florida," Bezos, the founder of Blue Origin, wrote in a newsletter sent Monday.  SEE ALSO:  Jeff Bezos-backed rocket landed safely back on Earth after flying to space "New Glenn is designed to launch commercial satellites and to fly humans into space," Bezos wrote. Blue Origin is also planning to manufacture a three-stage version of the rocket that should be able to fly payloads beyond Earth's orbit, according to the billionaire founder of Amazon, the on...

one of the true surprises at last week’s iPhone 7 and Apple Watch 2 event was Shigeru Miyamoto announcing that Mario is finally making his way to the  App Store with Super Mario Run . On the run On the run And Nintendo’s iconic creator, designer, and producer is showing off some of his one-handed gaming skills in a new video. Watch as Mr. Miyamoto reveals his favorite ways to play  #SuperMarioRun  on the go! pic.twitter.com/MboONwsdsw — Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica)  September 12, 2016 Landing in December Landing in December You can sign up now to be notified when the game arrives. If you haven’t heard, the game features a one-hand mode with tapping controls that let you control Mario’s jumps, movement, and more. The goal of the game is to collect as many gold coins as you can before you move on to the next level. It’s not a full-fledged console game, but hey, we definitely don’t have any c...

Good morning! Here's the tech news you need to know to start your week. 1.  Elon Musk has announced big improvements coming to Autopilot.  Tesla vehicles' semi-autonomous mode is going to make more use of radar. 2.  A 6-year-old boy has been injured by an exploding Samsung Galaxy Note 7, The New York Post reports.  The new smartphone has been recalled by Samsung after battery faults have led to dozens of exploding phones. 3.  Apple is moving beyond smartphones by building a world where you never take off your headphones.  Its new wireless AirPods hint at a future where computers are controlled more and more by your voice. 4.   A former Tesla and Google exec who worked for George Bush has explained why he wants Republicans to vote for Hillary Clinton.   Ricardo Reyes is cofounder of grassroots network Republicans for Hillary 5.  The real Edward Snowden gives a powerful speech at the end of the new "Snowden" movie.  The film abo...

An Israeli startup called  prooV  is building what it calls the first "proof of concept" platform, which lets an enterprise test-drive a startup's technology before they sign a purchase order for it. Toby Olshanetsky, founder and CEO of prooV, has spent his 20-year career building enterprise software, mostly for startups, he says. He says the idea came "out of the pain I experienced." The process for an enterprise to buy a startup's technology pretty much goes like this: Startup pitch the tech. If the IT folks like it, they install it on their test/development computers and play with it. If they think it will work for their company, they install it in a limited fashion in a more realistic way and make it work with other their apps and devices. This is called a "proof of concept" (POC). They might even roll out a POC on their real network to limited employees to give it a bigger test drive, before spending big bucks to buy the app and...

Here are five things in technology that happened this past week and how they affect your business. Did you miss them? 1 – Facebook is giving small businesses new tools to help them acquire more overseas customers. From  Fortune : The social media giant has launched an expanded version of its free Lookalike Audiences tool, which now allows businesses the ability to target international users that most closely resemble their customer base. The idea is to cut down the time, effort, and analytics required to specifically target international customers. Why this is important for your business: If your business is active on Facebook, this is yet another way to generate new business from overseas. If your business is not active on Facebook, but you’re interested in leads from other countries, it may be time to invest resources in this platform. 2 – Microsoft’s new team-based chat tool “Skype Teams” will take aim at Slack. From  Digital Trends : It’s rumored t...

Samsung has urged owners of its Galaxy Note 7 phones to stop using or exchange the devices as they risk exploding. Samsung recalled 2.5 million phones last week after reports emerged of the device exploding during or after charging. And airline passengers were warned by US authorities not to switch on or charge the phones while on board. The South Korean company said it would replace all devices that were handed in from 19 September. A  statement by Samsung , the world's biggest mobile phone maker, said "our customers' safety is an absolute priority". "Until a replacement device is provided, Samsung asks all customers with a Galaxy Note 7 smartphone to power down your device and return it to its place of purchase at your earliest opportunity," the statement added. Earlier on Saturday, aviation authorities in the United Arab Emirates banned use of the devices on the Emirates and Etihad airlines. What makes lithium batteries catch fire? ...

Dropbox has already raised some eyebrows over its requests for  ever-deeper access  to your computer, and recent discoveries aren't helping things much.  Users now claim  that Dropbox's Mac app asks for overly broad permissions,  swipes  your password and even hacks the operating system. The cloud storage service is trying to allay those fears, though. Desktop app team member Ben Newhouse has  responded  to concerns on Hacker News  with both an explanation of design decisions and a promise to improve its transparency. The app only asks for the permissions it needs, Newhouse says. It uses the Mac's accessibility kit for certain tie-ins (such as in Office), and demands elevated access to your OS when standard programming interfaces fall short. The permissions aren't as "granular" as Dropbox would like, the developer adds. He stresses that Dropbox can't see your system's administrator password, and a privilege check on startu...

Republicans from the presidential ticket on down pounced Saturday on Hillary Clinton ’s remarks that half of  Donald J. Trump ’s supporters fit into a “basket of deplorables,” saying it showed she was out of touch with an economically hard-hit electorate. Mrs. Clinton’s comments Friday night, which were a variation of a sentiment she has expressed in other settings recently, came at a fund-raiser in Manhattan. “You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right?” she said to applause and laughter. “The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic — you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up.” By Saturday morning,  #BasketofDeplorables  was trending on Twitter as Mr. Trump’s campaign demanded an apology. His supporters hoped to use the remark as as evidence that Mrs. Clinton cannot connect to the voters she hopes to represent as pres...