It’s Twitter vs the Government in a Battle Over Free Speech
As if President Trump’s relationship to tech wasn’t already fraught enough, Twitter announced yesterday that it is filing a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security for attempting to unmask the anonymous user (or users) behind the @ALT_USCIS account. One of the several rogue government agency accounts that have popped up since the election to […]
Dogtown Media Happy Hour to Benefit Blood Cancer Patients
Blood cancer. It’s something that happens to other people, right? Unfortunately, it’s all too common, and can strike at any time — a fact that hit close to home for us at Dogtown this past December, when the brother of one of our team members was diagnosed with a rare for of leukemia. The fight […]
Dogtown’s Rob Pope Will Speak at Internet of Things World
The market for internet of things devices is booming right now. In 2015, there were 15.4 billion IoT devices installed around the world; that number is expected to more than triple by 2021. People love the idea of a life made more efficient by a network of interconnected devices, but there are mounting concerns over […]
New Universal Music Group Deal Moves Spotify Closer to IPO
All the hype about the resurgence of vinyl and cassettes aside, the majority of revenues in the music industry now come from streaming. Since the early days of Napster, iOS app developers have heard the American music industry discussed as if it were on death’s doorstep, but streaming revenues have given it something of a […]
Facebook Looks for New Approaches to the Fake News Problem
Merriam-Webster’s word of the year for 2016 was “surreal.” The Oxford English Dictionary went with “post-truth.” The Australian Macquarie Dictionary settled on “fake news.” No matter what term social media app developers prefer to use to define it, 2016 was the year that the conspiracies, propaganda, and outright hooey that used to be the purview […]
Tech Giants Stand Up for Clean Energy in the Trump Era
Silicon Valley’s attitude toward Donald Trump on the campaign trail was decidedly less than enthusiastic. Sure, contrarian Peter Thiel stood with the loose cannon Republican candidate, but his politics have always leaned further right than most of his colleagues. The vast majority of the tech world viewed Trump with skepticism, uncertain of what his approach […]
Musk’s Neuralink Venture May Connect the Human Mind to AI
The tech world is abuzz this week with chatter about Elon Musk’s latest privately-funded venture Neuralink. Details about the “medical research” company are scant, but everyone seems to be in agreement that the purpose of the venture is to pursue Musk’s dream of “neural lace” technology. The idea is to create a direct connection between […]
Lyft Leans Into “Woke” Image In an Attempt to Unseat Uber
As Uber struggles to shake the bad press that has come to define its year so far, its primary competitor Lyft is seizing its moment and trying to move out of a distant second place in the rideshare market. Ever since the #DeleteUber commotion in January, Lyft’s strategy seems to be to present itself as […]
Facebook Raids Snapchat’s Stories Feature for Its Main App
Facebook has not been subtle in its desire to cut into whatever edge Snapchat has in the startup world, blatantly copying the ephemeral messaging app’s Stories feature for Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp. Now the company’s mobile app development team is rolling out its take on Snapchat’s innovations on the latest update of the main Facebook […]
Self-Driving Car Crash Adds to the Pile-Up of Bad Uber News
Uber has spent the early months of 2017 in crisis, and from the look of things, that’s not changing anytime soon. App developers who once found inspiration in the unicorn’s impressive ascent now look on with a blend of horror and fascination as the controversies multiply. From the #DeleteUber controversy to the shocking revelations about […]