- Further encroaching on Walmart’s low-income consumer base, Amazon just unveiled a $5.99-a-month discounted Prime membership to people on Medicaid. “Since June, Amazon has offered the same Prime discount to people using food stamps or other government assistance through an Electronic Benefit Transfer card,” ABC News reports. “Amazon declined to say how many people signed up through that program.”
- Over the past month alone, Netflix streamed to 450 million discrete devices, CNet reports, citing fresh estimates from the media company. “With 117 million members as of the end of last year, the number of streaming devices for the average member works out to 3.9,” it notes.
- Since Satya Nadella became Microsoft’s CEO in 2014, the software giant has seen a increase in the number of ex-employees coming back into the fold. “Microsoft has always had ‘boomerang’ employees,” The Seattle Times writes. “But that number ticked up to 16 percent, or 621 boomerangs, between July 2014 and July 2015, starting a few months after Nadella took over as CEO.”
- Dating app Bumble is banning images of guns in user profiles. “The company said it would screen new and existing photos and remove pictures featuring weapons from the app,” BBC News reports. “However, military and law enforcement officers in uniform will be allowed to show weapons in their photos.”
- MoviePass is apparently gathering a lot more information about its app users that its privacy policy lets on. “I didn’t imagine that the app would be tracking your location before you even left your home, and then follow you while you drive back or head out for a drink afterwards,” writes TechCrunch’s Devin Coldewey. In a statement, MoviePass responded: “We are exploring utilizing location-based marketing as a way to help enhance the overall experience.”
- Facebook now says it was a bad idea to ask users whether adults should be allowed to solicit sexual pictures from children on its platform. As The Guardian reports, the question was included in a survey issued to select Facebook users this weekend. The question read: “How would you handle the following: a private message in which an adult man asks a 14-year-old girl for sexual pictures.” Now, Guy Rosen, vice president of product at Facebook, is calling the survey “a mistake.”
- New research suggests that tech companies are discouraging women from joining their ranks before they even finish college. After attending 84 on-campus recruiting sessions, “The researchers documented an unwelcoming environment for these women, including sexist jokes and imagery, geeky references, a competitive environment, and an absence of women engineers,” Wired reports.
- Snap would be wise to focus more energy on camera technology and less on social features, Wired writer Arielle Pardes argues. “The best part [of Snapchat] is the camera,” Pardes writes. “It’s what taught a generation how to selfie, introduced the internet to augmented reality, and primed millions to experience the world through a lens.”
- Microsoft just launched Soundscape, which Windows Central calls “an accessibility project meant to help people who are blind or have low vision navigate the world.” The free app uses 3D audio to help people navigate their environment. “As you walk around, Soundscape will call out points of interest around you using three basic modes,” WC writes.
