If you’ve been using Google’s messaging app, Allo, it’s probably a good time to start thinking about switching to something else. The app isn’t getting dropped in a Google-style “Spring Cleaning,” but development on the app is being “paused.” Specifically, the new head of the communications group at Google, Anil Sabharwal, has made the decision to “pause investment” in Allo and move that team over to focus on Android Messages.

Until now, the international shipping industry has been excluded from the Paris Agreement and the Kyoto Protocol, despite its major contribution to global emissions.

The most desirable career of the 21st century, with numerous advantages over other fast-growing occupations such as hospice carer and rickshaw driver, is being a billionaire. Prior to the incorporation of US Steel in 1901, the world didn’t have a single billion-dollar company, much less a billion-dollar individual. Today, more people than ever are becoming billionaires – 2,000 and counting have made the great leap upward, according to the “global wealth team” at Forbes. And the US’s hottest billionaire factory is located in the most hyped yet least understood swath of suburban sprawl in the world: Silicon Valley.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has released his latest annual shareholder letter. In the letter, Bezos stressed the importance of having high standards in running a business. By setting high standards, companies are able to live up to "ever-rising customer expectations," he said. "How do you stay ahead of ever-rising customer expectations? There's no single way to do it – it's a combination of many things. But high standards (widely deployed and at all levels of detail) are certainly a big part of it," Bezos wrote in the letter.

Jeff Bezos has built an empire based on exploitation.

But CEO Mitch Lowe has said the company will be profitable by 2019

Netflix Inc’s blitz of original programs attracted a surprisingly high 7.4 million new customers from January to March, reassuring investors who are betting the video-streaming pioneer’s massive spending will fuel growth around the world.

For years we've documented how the internet of broken things industry and evangelists have contributed to a global privacy and security shitshow... By Karl Bode. (Apr. 16, 2018)

Starbucks wants to add training for store managers on “unconscious bias,” CEO Kevin Johnson said Monday, as activists held more protests at a Philadelphia store where two black men were arrested when employees said they were trespassing. Johnson, who has called the arrests “reprehensible,” arrived in Philadelphia this weekend after video of the arrests gained traction online. He said he hopes to meet with the two men in the next couple of days and apologize to them face-to-face.

It has been almost exactly three years since Google made its new email client available to the whole world. Inbox by Gmail was sold as a "completely different type of inbox, designed to focus on what really matters," and while I think this mission was a huge success, the client never really caught on the way Gmail itself did. Fast forward to today, Inbox has become stagnant and Gmail is being regularly updated to compete with modern email clients. In fact, with the recent revelation of an upcoming new Gmail design, including several features straight from Inbox...

A seven-month "60 Minutes" investigation into Allegiant Air, the Las Vegas-based ultra-low-cost carrier, found more than 100 serious incidents involving mechanical issues. The airline issued a brief statement to CBS News before the story aired, but in a response posted after the airing and in an internal memo, the airline alleged the segment was a "false narrative."

The streaming giant's growth in the quarter was due mostly to its expansion into foreign markets. Netflix added 7.4 million new customers to its streaming service in the first quarter, besting the company's projection that it would add 6.35 million on a worldwide basis, the company said Monday. Netflix's growth in the quarter was due mostly to its expansion into foreign markets, as it added 5.46 million international subscribers while analysts expected roughly 5.02 million.

Toys “R” Us has made headlines as of late with news of its bankruptcy proceedings and talk of impending U.S.-based liquidations in the coming weeks ahead. However, in a last-ditch effort to help save the drowning operations, billionaire toy tycoon Isaac Larian put up a bid totaling $890 million USD to keep over 300 stores throughout the U.S. and Canada from closing.

Coinbase has made headlines this week, buying one of the most well-funded startups in the cryptocurrency space, Earn.com which is being purchased by the wallet and exchange giant for over $120 million making Balaji Srinivasan the companies first CTO while the transition takes place. For a long time, Coinbase has sought to expand its involvement within the cryptocurrency and blockchain world. Having recently announced the creation of a venture capital fund for startup companies looking to develop their ideas.

The fleet of delivery ladies used to have to drag along heavy carts all day.

Oracle's co-CEO tried to persuade President Trump to not award a massive Department of Defense cloud contract to rival Amazon Web Services.

This new service makes 500 cookbooks and 100,000 recipes searchable, and cooking an even more social experience.

They destroy jobs, distort markets, and trample on liberties. It's time we directed technological change rather than the other way around. By William A. Nitze.

The 2018 UEFA Champions League final in Kyiv will mark the end of a very successful and fruitful 10-year partnership between Konami and the UEFA Champions League. The UEFA Champions League offered the perfect media and activation platform for Konami and has been a key feature within its world-renowned Pro Evolution Soccer video game.

It has been nearly three years since Microsoft announced plans to make older Xbox games playable on Xbox One, and if there’s one area in which the company has pulled ahead of its competition in the console wars, it’s in backward compatibility. You can’t play your PSOne, PS2, or PS3 discs on a PlayStation 4, and the Nintendo Switch doesn’t even have a disc drive, but Microsoft has slowly been adding Xbox One support for older games in the Xbox library since 2015...

"Just click accept, ignore those settings." By Josh Constine.

Nerdwriter

Apple recently sent a lengthy memo warning employees about leaking. As you might have guessed, that memo got leaked. On Friday, Bloomberg News published what it described as an "internal blog" post in full. The memo warned that Apple "employees, contractors, or suppliers—do get caught, and they’re getting caught faster than ever." The post also reportedly noted that, "in some cases," leakers "face jail time and massive fines for network intrusion and theft of trade secrets both classified as federal crimes," adding that, in 2017, "Apple caught 29 leakers, and of those, 12 were arrested."

Oil giant Shell was aware of the consequences of climate change, and the role fossil fuels were playing in it, as far back as 1988, documents unearthed by a Dutch news organisation have revealed. They include a calculation that the oil company’s products alone were responsible for 4 per cent of total global carbon emissions in 1984. They also predict that changes to sea levels and weather would be “larger than any that have occurred over the past 12,000 years”.

Coastal towns would benefit from an oil spill in the pristine Great Australian Bight because the clean up would boost their economies, energy giant BP has claimed as part of its controversial bid to drill in the sensitive marine zone. BP, which has since withdrawn the drilling plan, also told a federal government agency that a diesel spill would be considered “socially acceptable”.

Grand Theft Auto V has brought in over $6 billion since its launch in September 2013. According to MarketWatch, that leaves it as the most profitable commercial entertainment product of all time. Selling better than any album, book, movie, or video game, GTA V is now the biggest entertainment product ever.

A fire-ravaged home in San Jose is selling for a staggering $800,000, local Fox affiliate KTVU reports. The high asking price is for both the abandoned home and the 5,800 square foot lot surrounding it.

Goldman Sachs analysts attempted to address a touchy subject for biotech companies, especially those involved in the pioneering "gene therapy" treatment: cures could be bad for business in the long run. "Is curing patients a sustainable business model?" analysts ask in an April 10 report entitled "The Genome Revolution."

Dick's Sporting Goods is destroying its inventory of unsold assault rifles in the wake of its decision to quit selling the firearms. Retailers typically return unsold merchandise to the manufacturer, but Dicks is opting to destroy the weapons instead. "We are in the process of destroying all firearms and accessories that are no longer for sale as a result of our February 28th policy change," a spokeswoman told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. "We are destroying the firearms in accordance with federal guidelines and regulations."

Elon Musk’s Boring Co said on Monday it raised $112.5 million in equity, with 90 percent coming from Musk himself, as the company seeks to build underground tunnels for its hyperloop transportation project. In a regulatory filing, the company listed 31 unnamed investors as participants in the funding round. Besides Musk, the rest of the investors were early Boring employees, according to the company.

Why must we choose between the worst president of our lifetimes and a rapacious corporate enterprise, asks political analyst and author Thomas Frank.

Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg will endorse on Tuesday legislation to give the government more power over political advertisements on internet platforms. Twitter and Google are much less enthusiastic. By Kate Irby.

Reacquired Volkswagen and Audi diesel cars sit in a desert graveyard near Victorville, California, March 28, 2018. Volkswagen has taken parking lots to a whole new level in the United States - and will not be emptying them soon.

As it visits the 20 cities on the shortlist for its second headquarters, Amazon is asking specific questions about education.

Last month, a press leak revealed that Google has been working with the U.S. Department of Defense on a drone program called “Project Maven,” which is being developed to scan images in drone footage and identify targets. Prior to it being reported in the news, this project was unknown to most Google employees, even those who were working on different aspects of the project.