Jan 29
Jan 29
Mozilla will soon start displaying the “occasional sponsored story” in the beta version of Firefox in a bid to reinvent the current model of web advertising. The sponsored story ads will be displayed via Pocket for Firefox, an in-browser tool that helps users save websites that they might want to revisit later. Mozilla acquired the web-clipping app Pocket back in February last year.
Mozilla started testing Pocket Recommendations in Firefox Beta New Tab last year, the test revealed that people started using New Tab more when this feature was enabled.
The company recently started testing personalized recommendations and Mozilla now says that it will soon experiment with showing the occasional sponsored story within Pocket Recommendations section in the New Tab Page in Firefox Beta. The company says that these stories will be shown to a small portion of users in the United States during the test period.
Mozilla doesn’t necessarily view this as a way to generate cash. It acknowledges that while advertising is the business model of the internet. “We believe the current model of web advertising is broken because it doesn’t respect user privacy, isn’t transparent, lacks control, all the while trending towards click-bait and low-quality content,” the company says.
Mozilla says that it needs to conduct experiments like this to help create change and strike a balance between commercial profit and public benefit for the overall betterment of the internet. The company says that this responsible sponsored content model delivers personalization without sharing all of the users’ personal data with others and that it puts valuable content forward that’s not driven by clicks and is worthy of the users’ time.
Firefox Starts Testing ‘Sponsored Stories’ In Browser Tabs , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
Jan 29
The Trump administration’s national security team has reportedly been floating the idea of developing a state-run centralized, secure 5G network within three years. The idea is to create a secure communications platform for AI, VR, self-driving cars, and other technologies of the future. According to a report, the team sees it as a modern reincarnation of Eisenhower’s National Highway System in a bid to create a “new paradigm” for the wireless industry by the end of Trump’s term. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai does not support the proposed state-run 5G network.
Ajit Pai, a former Verizon lawyer and now chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, has said that he opposes any proposal for the federal government to build and operate a nationwide 5G network.
“The main lesson to draw from the wireless sector’s development over the past three decades — including American leadership in 4G — is that the market, not government, is best positioned to drive innovation and investment,” he says.
Pai adds in the statement that the government can and should push spectrum into the commercial marketplace and set the rules that encourage the private sector to develop and deploy next-generation infrastructure.
“Any federal effort to construct a nationalized 5G network would be a costly and counterproductive distraction from the policies we need to help the United States win the 5G future,” he concludes.
The proposal is far from final now, though, as Reuters hears that this proposal is currently circulating at a “low level” of the administration and that it might take up to six months before Trump would have to consider it.
FCC Chairman Doesn’t Support Trump Admin’s Proposed State-Run 5G Network , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
Jan 29
The aviation industry has been experimenting with cleaner-burning fuels to lower the carbon footprint of flights. We’re far from a complete switch to biofuels but work continues to make that a possibility at some point in the future. Case in point: the world’s first biofuel flight from the United States to Australia. A Qantas Boeing 787 Dreamliner made the long-haul flight from the Los Angeles to Melbourne with 24,000 kilograms of mustard seed based blended fuel.
The QF96 flight from Los Angeles to Melbourne used biofuel extracted from the Brassica carinata mustard seed. The extraction process was developed by Agrisoma Bioscienses, an agri-tech company based in Canada.
According to reports, the fuel from this mustard seed offers over 80 percent reduction in carbon emissions compared with conventional jet fuel across its life cycle. That blend that was used in the Dreamliner flight will see a 7 percent reduction in emissions on the route as 10 percent of its tank was filled with the biofuel.
Qantas is planning on running flights regularly with biofuel by 2020. The company’s historic biofuel-powered flight comes after it was named the least efficient carrier in the region. Qantas was found to be the least efficient by the International Council on Clean Transportation and that it burnt the most carbon of all major airlines that fly across the Pacific.
Qantas 787 Dreamliner Makes Long-Haul Flight On Mustard Seed Biofuel , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
Jan 29
Jan 29
WEEI’s Alex Reimer was suspended indefinitely, the station said.
Jan 29
Apple plans to release at least three new Mac models in 2018 that will include custom co-processor chips developed in-house, new reports suggest. The Cupertino firm has long been an Intel partner when it comes to its Mac notebooks and desktops. However, in recent years Apple has been turning its newfound mobile chipset expertise to desktop use. Apple has been … Continue reading
Jan 29
The US government is considering seizing the spectrum to build a nationwide 5G network, new leaks suggest, though Trump’s own FCC chief strongly opposes the plans. 5G, or fifth-generation, networks are the next step in not only mobile broadband, promising much greater speeds than today’s 4G LTE networks, but more ubiquitous connectivity in general, as more and more devices join … Continue reading
Jan 29
It was only a few days ago that Samsung started sending out invitations to its Galaxy S9 reveal event. After months of rumors, we finally have confirmation that Samsung will reveal the phone during an Unpacked event at MWC 2018. It’s great that Samsung finally made that official, but now we shift our attention to when the company’s new flagship … Continue reading
Jan 29
A scam posing as an ICO startup company called Prodeum cut and run this weekend with a whole bunch of investor coins. They began their venture with what seemed to be good intentions. They wanted to put vegetables on the blockchain. Of course, when one realizes that doing this makes no sense whatsoever, one also starts to look at the … Continue reading
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