Fake News Sites Banned from Buying Ads on Facebook

Fake news sites have grown in number due to the the rapid pace of advances in technology and the increase in social media sites allowing instant updates on breaking news and trending stories. Everyday, we are swamped with news stories whenever use a smart phone or log onto Facebook or email. It is also easy to pass these news stories on to other people by simply clicking on the share button. With a single click, a fake news site story can be sent to thousands of people around the world. The 2016 U.S. election shows us just how fast a fake news site story can reach millions.

Ford and Domino's are testing self driving cars for delivering pizza.

The two companies are partnering on a test trial with Ford cars to deliver pizzas to Domino's customers. They want to know if customers will react to this idea favorably and be willing to deal with autonomous car service.

The car in question is the Ford Fusion Hybrid Autonomous car, and it will have pizza containers that are outfitted by a third company, Roush Enterprises. The containers will keep the pizzas warm, and the new self-driving cars are programmed to unlock once the customer inputs a unique delivery code. Random customers in the Ann Arbor, Michigan area will be selected to participate in the pizza delivery test trial.

Amazon's Prime membership program is highly popular among consumers but the cost can be prohibitive for some. The company has just launched a low-cost version to address this issue. This new offer will be provided to US residents who hold a valid Electronic Benefits Transfer card. The EBT card is often used for the disbursal of various government assistance funds. Now it can discount the use of Prime, though not cannot be used to pay for membership or make purchases on the site.

Prime's regular cost is $10.99 per month. The card can slash this to just $5.99. Despite the discount, membership will still come with full perks such as free photo storage, content streaming, Kindle library access, and many more. The goal is to take Prime closer to low-income households, breaking the notion that the Amazon membership program is a luxury. The company believes that it can provide value to this segment of the population, particularly when it comes to shopping for essential items.

Paypal, the famous online payment website has expanded its services. Venmo, Paypal's newest peer-to-peer payment platform, provides an easy to use app that allows easy financial transactions.

Venmo and Paypal dominate the cyber world of peer-to-peer and b2b payments. The goal of these services, provide easy and flexibility. Today, people are using their mobile devices for all types of payments. Mobile devices, including cellular telephones, are the center from which housewives, entrepreneurs, and executives of all types conduct their business of all types.

Paypal's Venmo app allows users to request and make payments from a mobile device. The easy of use is a major key to Venmo's success.

Paypal's success started a decade ago. When consumers started shopping through websites like Ebay or Amazon they needed a secure way to ensure the transaction was both legitimate, legal, and safe.

With the underwhelming performance of Nintendo's Wii U, it is natural to be leery about the company's latest console: the Nintendo Switch. Skepticism is warranted based on its limited launch library and bare bones functionality, but the games released thus far already provide an amazing gaming experience.

First, the downsides. The Switch's menu is full of empty square blocks that seem to be awaiting functionality in the future. While it is only natural to expect increased functionality as developers spend more time with the hardware, obvious features such as Netflix are currently absent. Any games you have are displayed, but the included eShop offers a total of nine games. If you are not interested in any of them, your options may seem lacking.

Quality is more important than quantity, however, and the Switch has one universally praised gem. Zelda: Breath of the Wild is an extremely versatile title with a large open world that caters to a wide range of playing styles, from combat specialists to stealth fanatics. There is so much to explore that you may not need another game for a long time.

Vine is closing down, so remember to get your videos exported today.

As announced initially in October, Twitter will shortly close its' looping video application down, and its' social media network Vine. At first, the firm suggested that it would remove the Vine application from app stores, however subsequently, it decided to change this to a newer, easy to maintain application known as Vine Camera. In advance of this, Vine's application and website were upgraded to enable the exportation of Vines, if you don't want them to be deleted.

It is possible to export Vines until later today. This can be done from the Vine website, or from Android or iOS applications. At the moment, the Vine website states that Vines can be downloaded up until the 17th January 2017, at which point the applications will convert to the Vine Camera. However, the banner for the mobile application states that the application will be upgraded tomorrow.

The streaming service, VidAngel, may be getting shut down for federal violations.

VidAngel is a company in Ohio that has been streaming various videos after filtering out all of the nudity, violence and foul language. Organizations such as Fox, Disney and Warner Bros. have gotten together and sued this small business. The reason for the suit is that the business took their copy written material, altered it and then streamed it to customers who paid them. In all fairness, that is not a legal process. VidAngel would have needed a special license to do what they did, and they did not have such a license.

Netflix plans to increase original content by 20 shows in the next year.

Netflix has been slowly releasing original content in recent years. The company has been doing it to rave reviews. They have stated that their long-term goal is to have half of the streamable content be comprised of original material. The goal is 1,000 new hours of content each year developed by Netflix. The first year for this will be 2017.

For comparison, Netflix offered 600 hours of self-produced content in 2016 and 450 in 2015. As you can see, the increase in incremental, but the increments are aggressive. They plan to spend $6 billion on original programming next year.

There are a few reasons they are planning on doing this. The first is competition. Streaming entertainment companies are getting more competitive. Netflix used to stand out from Hulu and other similar services in their offerings. This is not true anymore. They believe by increasing their own content they will distance themselves from these other companies.

Reddit CEO confesses that he changed comments made by supporters of Donald Trump

Steve Huffman, American entrepreneur, web-developer, and the CEO of Reddit, has confessed that he edited comments made about him on the website from Donald Trump supporters. Born in Lansing Michigan, Huffman also co-founded the now defunct airfare search site Hipmunk.

Huffman claimed that he altered references to him in several of the comments inside the website's biggest forum for the next President, however not the comments themselves. Nonetheless, by doing this, he brings up previous worries that Reddit can not work with its' users.

"Yes. I changed the 'screw ups' remarks, editing them for roughly sixty minutes" wrote Huffman, who founded Reddit in 2005 with Alexis Ohanian.

Fake news sites dot the landscape on platforms like Facebook and Google. Unfortunately, such sites play a dangerous game of misinformation. They've even proved lucrative for the perpetrators. Facebook and Google recently took efforts to ban fake news sites, though. With these efforts, perhaps the flood of fake news will lessen in a noticeable way.

On social media, fake news rose to popularity with the US election more so than ever before. Such sites found their way into Google search results and Google News. This type of news spreads inaccurate information on purpose rather than pushing a particular opinion or belief.

Google's policies now state that sites cannot misstate or misrepresent information. If a site breaks the policy, then it could lose Google AdSense privileges. Of course, fake news sites depend upon Google AdSense revenue in order to turn a profit from misinformation.