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Uber is reportedly exploring the idea of purchasing Expedia, one of the largest travel booking companies in the world, according to the Financial Times. Expedia, which is valued at $20 billion and which reported its highest-ever annual revenue in 2023, will be the company's biggest acquisition, if the deal does indeed push through. The Times says it's very early days, however, and Uber hasn't even made a formal offer for the travel company yet. It's still in the process of studying the implications of acquiring Expedia and has, over the past months, worked with advisers to figure out whether the deal is feasible and how it would be structured. The company's CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, may have to sit out deal discussions, seeing as he used to be CEO of Expedia before he was hired by the ride-hailing service in 2017. He's still in its Board of Directors, as well. It doesn't sound like Khosrowshahi was the one who suggested the potential purchase, though in its report, the Times said the idea was "broached by a third party." Uber has had plans to become a wider travel booking platform for a while now. Khosrowshahi said he wanted Uber to be the "Amazon of transportation" from the time he joined the company. Since then, the ride-hailing service has added train, bus and flight bookings in some markets, and it has also made several large acquisitions. It purchased online food delivery service Postmates for $2.65 billion and alcohol delivery service Drizly for $1.1 billion before shutting it down three years later. The company also teamed up with Waymo and Cruise to offer autonomous rides in certain markets. As the Times notes, Uber became profitable for the first time in 2023 due to a renewed demand for rides and food delivery and could be a in a good position to acquire a company as big as Expedia. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/uber-is-reportedly-exploring-an-expedia-takeover-120038754.html?src=rss
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In a barrage of Kindle hardware, Amazon might have something for anyone looking to upgrade from a basic Kindle. The biggest reveal might be the Kindle Colorsoft, its first reader with a color display. Amazon tried to ensure the reader has a good color and black-and-white experience, with high contrast, high resolution and high clarity whether you're looking at a color image or a black-and-white page. Amazon uses nitride LEDs, which work with the companys algorithm to enhance color and brightness without washing out images. Judging by the press images (and the demos we went to), these seem primed for graphic novels and comics. If youre looking for something to digitally house your comics and manga, the Kindle Colorsoft will cost you $280 and start shipping on October 30. Mat Smith Get this delivered daily direct to your inbox. Subscribe right here! The biggest tech stories you missed New Pixel updates include AI-powered theft protection Microsoft removes the $1 Xbox Game Pass trial just before Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 The JRPG-inspired Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has a stacked voice cast Kindle Scribe (2024) hands-on You can finally scribble on your books. Amazon With the original Scribe, Amazon got a lot of the basics right. It nailed latency and smoothness of the writing experience, but writing notes on your ebooks was a bit janky. Now, when you write on a page, the Scribe will generate a box for your notes. This box is embedded in the text, with the books words rearranging and flowing to accommodate it. However, its still not a simple draw on the page solution. The Kindle Scribe will be available in December, starting at $400. Continue reading. Analogues 4K remake of the N64 is almost ready The Analogue 3D costs $250 and will ship early next year. Analogue Analogue says its nailed its most complicated project yet: rebuilding the Nintendo 64 from scratch. Once again, the Analogue 3D has an FPGA (field programmable gate array) chip, coded to emulate the original console on a hardware level. Were promised support for every official N64 cartridge ever released, across all regions, but with some major upgrades. The Analogue 3D supports 4K output, variable refresh rate displays and PAL and NTSC carts. The company is also making Original Display Modes to emulate your CRT TV of yore. Continue reading. Look at Pradas NASA spacesuit Its been designed for NASAs Artemis III mission. NASA Prada and Axiom Space teamed up to design a new spacesuit, and NASA is now ready to reveal the look. This is the Axiom Extravehicular Mobility Unit (AxEMU) spacesuit, white with red and gray accents for a bit of color and excitement. The suit is almost finished, having undergone testing and simulations at Axiom Space, SpaceX and NASA facilities. It should enter a final review in 2025. Continue reading.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general/the-morning-after-amazon-finally-made-a-kindle-with-a-color-display-111533015.html?src=rss
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Marketing and Advertising
Meta is continuing its flurry of teen safety features for Instagram as the company faces mounting questions about its handling of younger users privacy and safety in its apps. The latest batch of updates are meant to tighten its protections against sextortion. With the changes, Meta says it will make it harder for potentially scammy accounts to target teens on Instagram. The company will start to send follow requests from such accounts to users spam folders or block them entirely. The app will also start testing an alert that notifies teens when they receive a message from such an account, warning them that the message appears to be coming from a different country. Additionally, when the company detects that a potential scammer is already following a teen, it will prevent them from being able to view teens follower lists and accounts that have tagged them in photos. The company isnt saying exactly how its determining which accounts are deemed potentially scammy, but a spokesperson said theyre using signals such as the age of the account and whether it has mutual followers with the teen its attempting to interact with. Meta Meta is also making changes to prevent the spread of intimate images. Instagram will no longer allow users to screenshot or screen record images shared over DMs via the apps ephemeral messaging feature and will no longer allow these images to be opened from the web version of Instagram. The app will also expanding the nudity protection feature it began testing earlier this year to all teens on the app. The tool automatically blurs images when nudity is detected in an image shared over DMs, and provides warnings and resources when such an image is detected. The changes are meant to address the realities of how sextortion scams, in which scammers coerce teens into sending intimate images that are then used to threaten and blackmail them, are often carried out over Instagram. A report from Thorn and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) earlier this year found that Instagram, along with Snapchat, were the most common platforms used by scammers as initial contact points. These scams are carried out by individuals and groups that sometimes organize on Metas own platforms. Alongside the updates, Meta said that it removed 800 groups on Facebook and 820 accounts, linked to a group known as the Yahoo Boys, that were attempting to organize, recruit and train new sextortion scammers. Metas updates come as it faces increasing pressure to strengthen safety features for its youngest users. The company is currently facing a lawsuit from more than 30 states over the issue. (Earlier this week, a federal judge rejected Metas attempt to have the lawsuit dismissed.) New Mexico is also suing the company and has alleged that Meta didnt do enough to stop adults from sexually harassing teens on its apps, particularly Instagram.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/instagram-is-adding-new-features-to-prevent-teen-sextortion-scams-111047916.html?src=rss
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Marketing and Advertising
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