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Facebook paid contractors to transcribe Messenger calls

Facebook last week halted a program in which it was paying third-party contractors to listen to and transcribe audio clips from its users, the company said Tuesday. Earlier in the day, Bloomberg reported on the existence of the program and the fact it had been stopped. The contractors had no knowledge of where the audio was being recorded or how it …

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FAA prohibits recalled MacBook Pros from flights

Some Macbook Pros have been banned from flights by US aviation safety regulators. The move comes less than two months after Apple recalled the older laptops over a risk of battery fire. The Federal Aviation Administration, confirming an earlier report by Bloomberg, said it was “aware of the recalled batteries that are used in some Apple MacBook Pro laptops” and …

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Adobe promises Lightroom performance boost thanks to GPU chip

Adobe’s Lightroom, long dogged by complaints it’s grown sluggish at editing and organizing photos, got a performance boost Tuesday by tapping into the processing power of the graphics chip in Windows and Mac computers. The August release of Lightroom Classic should speed up editing and make the software more responsive in general, said Josh Haftel, principal product manager at Adobe, …

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Best Buy is offering up to $200 off Lenovo Yoga laptops

Attention, back-to-school shoppers! Best Buy continues to offer discounts on some admittedly older Lenovo Yoga two-in-one laptops, including the Yoga 730 and Yoga C930 — two of the better convertible laptop/tablets on the market. You can save up to $200 on a Yoga 730 and $150 on a Yoga C930. And students can save an extra $100 the Yoga 730 and …

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Stop drowning in Google Chrome browser tabs

Google’s new tab-grouping feature for the Chrome browser on desktop just might be the answer to your prayers. If you’re one of those people who always has 25 tabs open on one screen, the new tool will organize them so you’re not clicking through tabs like a mad person trying to find that email you opened five minutes ago. While …

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iOS AR app Wonderscope teaches kids about bullies in space

 Wonderscope, an augmented reality storytelling app for Apple devices, added a new interactive experience to its library of immersive, educational stories Tuesday: Clio’s Cosmic Quest brings young readers along for a journey with a cute purple space particle (who’s dealing with a jerk in her nebula) as she learns about stars, supernovas and our solar system.  Wonderscope is one of the first …

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Google job search service draws antitrust complaint

Google faces another antitrust allegation in the European Union — this time focused on its job search service. A group of 23 job search websites sent a letter to EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager saying the search giant abused its dominant position at their expense, according to Reuters. The company launched the service in 2017, and later amped it up …

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Meet the AI that could replace your baseball umpire

Arguing with an umpire might be a thing of the past. Take it up with this computer umpire who’s never wrong. The introduction of computer-aided refereeing in professional sports has been a mixed bag to say the least. But the hope of inching ever closer to ensuring the right call is made seems like a result worth working toward. Of …

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