The Case Of The Ever-Mysterious Nonexistent Bodega Units

Bodega

Corner stores can breathe a bit easier today. Bodega, the startup that uses computer vision to sell everyday items from a cabinet, isn't off to nearly as strong a start as you were led to believe.

Bodega, which debuted to mixed reviews last week when people thought it was attempting to put beloved local corner stores out of business, initially declared it was “currently live” in more than 30 locations in the Bay Area. But the real number is approximately half of that.

BuzzFeed News discovered the discrepancy between Bodega's declared number of units and its actual number of units when trying to arrange a video shoot at one of the locations listed on a map on the company's website.

The Bodega location map

Bodega

People at six locations listed on Bodega's map told BuzzFeed News they did not have a Bodega unit on their property. Some people at listed locations said they were only in preliminary discussions with the company.

After a handful of emails back and forth, Bodega cofounder Paul McDonald told BuzzFeed News 14 Bodega units were live as of this Wednesday, with 21 expected to go live by the end of next week, and approximately 30 in the next two to three weeks.

And in a Medium post last Wednesday, McDonald disputed the notion that Bodega was encroaching on the turf of mom and pop stores. “We want to bring commerce to places where commerce currently doesn’t exist,” he said. Turns out, the public had less to worry about than it thought.

After being contacted by BuzzFeed News, Bodega changed its website copy to indicate some of the 30 locations were not yet live.

Bodega

Sonoma State University, one listed location, has no active relationship with Bodega but is looking into it, Neil Markley, its associate vice president for administration and finance told BuzzFeed News. “We do not have a Bodega unit on our campus, nor do we have a contract with Bodega,” Markley wrote in an email.

Flagship Athletic Perfomance, another of the 30 locations, told BuzzFeed News it doesn't have units in two of its locations listed on the map. “How strange, thank you for bringing that to our attention. We only had preliminary talks with them,” the company said in a Facebook message.

One Bodega location, Avenue 64 Apartments in Emeryville, California, told BuzzFeed News it did have a Bodega unit. And Business Insider found another unit inside Managed by Q, another listed property.

“We wrote the copy for the website a few weeks before launch,” McDonald told BuzzFeed News in an email. “We were going for simple with all the other things we had to do before launch.”

Quelle: <a href="The Case Of The Ever-Mysterious Nonexistent Bodega Units“>BuzzFeed

Social Media Platforms’ In-App Ad Tools Aren’t Good Enough For The FTC

Sorry, celebrities and influencers: In a Twitter chat on Wednesday afternoon, the Federal Trade Commission said that it’s not enough to rely on the built-in features provided by Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube to indicate if something is a sponsored post.

The FTC has not, until now, been specific about the issue, but during the chat (which used the hashtag #Influencers101), it came out definitively against built-in social media disclosures as being sufficient:

Instagram announced a feature in June that would allow influencers to do certain posts with a geotag that says “paid partnership with [Brand].” At the time, the FTC declined to comment when asked by BuzzFeed News if they would accept this as a good enough disclosure for sponsored posts.

The new Instagram “paid partnership with” feature, which is only available to a limited amount of influencers.

instagram.com

Other platforms were already offering similar features. Facebook launched a “tag the sponsor”-type feature at the end of 2016. It says “Katie with [Brand]” and the “Paid” below in a small font. It’s pretty easy to miss.

(I wasn't actually paid to post this to Facebook).

BuzzFeed News

On YouTube, anyone can check a small box in the bottom corner of the “Advanced Settings” that allows you to say it’s a paid ad and you want YouTube to show its disclosure feature. That disclosure feature, which launched in October 2016, is tiny white lettering that appears near the play button for the beginning of the video. It’s… not exactly super easy to see.

YouTube's “Includes paid promotion” disclaimer, which is pretty small.

BuzzFeed News

These built-in features from platforms are kind of a halfway Band-Aid approach: The platforms seem aware that these features are probably not going to pass muster with the FTC and other trade commissions like the UK’s Committee of Advertising Practices, but they don’t offer any warning to their users that using the tool isn’t enough. And that’s probably because ultimately, it’s up to the creators, celebrities, and influencers on these social platforms to be upfront about ads. On Wednesday, the FTC made it clear that it wants to see things like #ad (not vague terms like #ambassador, #hosted, or #collab) clearly placed in an Instagram caption, or superimposed on an image in an Instagram story. For YouTube videos, influencers should say in the video itself that it’s an ad, as well as in the video title and description. Facebook gives you plenty of text space in a status to mention that something is an ad or promotion.

In fact, by providing a weak way of disclosing ads, these social platforms are making things worse for influencers, who might assume that the platform’s built-in feature is good enough. They likely figure that if they check that box, then they don’t need to say #ad in a caption or elsewhere — when in fact, they do. And this means that their fans won’t all be able to discern if what they’re seeing is something their favorite celebrity is genuinely recommending, or if it's something that celeb was paid to promote.

The FTC recently cracked down — for the first time ever — on individual Instagram celebrities who were doing undisclosed advertisements (in the past, the FTC has gone after brands and marketers for undisclosed social ads, but never the individuals). On September 6, they sent letters to 21 celebrities, including Ciara, Scott Disick, Amber Rose, and Vanessa Hudgens, that warned them about undisclosed ads they had posted.

Even before Wednesday’s Twitter chat, the FTC already had guidelines on its website that said that disclosure features from social networks (they don’t get specific) aren't enough on their own. While the guidelines are long and it’s likely that not all influencers have combed through them, brands are also responsible for making sure their influencers are compliant. In the #Influencers101 chat, the FTC did say that if a brand has given an influencer the rules and they continue to flout them, they should no longer advertise with the influencer and would not be held responsible for the influencer's non-compliance.

Judging from the number of questions during the FTC's Twitter chat, influencers are still pretty confused about the rules – what counts as an ad, and how to disclose it. The fact that social platforms have tools that aren't clear enough doesn't help either. With confusion from all ends, it's still as hard as ever for regular people to know when they're seeing an ad on social media.

Quelle: <a href="Social Media Platforms’ In-App Ad Tools Aren’t Good Enough For The FTC“>BuzzFeed

Facebook Will Give Congress The More Than 3,000 Ads Purchased By A Russian Troll Farm

Sean Gallup / Getty Images

Facing mounting pressure from government officials and the public, Facebook will now provide U.S. House and Senate intelligence committees with the more than 3,000 ads it believes were purchased by a Russian troll factory during the 2016 election, a company official told BuzzFeed News.

Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg also announced in a Facebook live that the company will put an end to so-called “dark post” ads on its platform by enabling people to view the ads being run from a page. Currently, a page can target an ad at a specific group of people on Facebook, and only those people are able to view the content.

“Not only will you have to disclose which page paid for an ad, but we will also make it so you can visit an advertiser's page and see the ads they are currently running to any audience on Facebook,” he said. “We will roll this out over the coming months.”

Zuckerberg also said the company will double the size of its election integrity team, and that the company has not found evidence of any Russian-linked ad buys during the current German election.

Prior to today's announcement, Congressional investigators were frustrated by Facebook's unwillingness to hand over more information about the ads purchased by a Russian entity known as the Internet Research Agency. The company's general counsel explained in a blog post shared with BuzzFeed News why they decided to hand over the ads and information.

“We believe the public deserves a full accounting of what happened in the 2016 election, and we've concluded that sharing the ads we've discovered, in a manner that is consistent with our obligations to protect user information, can help,” he said.

Reuters previously reported that the company had handed over the content of at least some ads to special counsel Robert Mueller, and Zuckerberg appeared to confirm that during his brief live video.

“We are in a new world… and we are committed to rising to the occasion,” he said.

Quelle: <a href="Facebook Will Give Congress The More Than 3,000 Ads Purchased By A Russian Troll Farm“>BuzzFeed

These Places Are Thirsty AF To Be Chosen As Amazon's New Headquarters

Cities across North America are showing Amazon how desperate they are to be the chosen location for the company’s next headquarters.

Getty Images/Emmanuel Dunand

Amazon announced earlier this month that it is searching for a city where it will build its second headquarters — to be located elsewhere than its current home base, in Seattle.

It's not asking for much, really: Aside from a city with more than 1 million people, the company wants on-site access to mass transit, strong cell phone service, and easy access to a major highway or road. The company also wants to be within 45 minutes of an international airport.

It also wants the cities that raise their hands to provide traffic congestion figures, crime data, statistics on local workers, and information about local universities. Amazon says it is seeking a city that will give its employees “an overall high quality of life.” (In other words, don't apply unless you have bars, restaurants, and a Starbucks nearby.)

The payoff, obviously, is huge: Amazon says that its new headquarters will bring as many as 50,000 high-paying jobs to the place that it picks — as well as a potential boost of billions of dollars to the local economy.

The potential windfall that Amazon will bring to its city of choice has some places doing some pretty desperate things to stand out:

Tuscon, Arizona, a city of about 530,700 people, sent Amazon a giant cactus as a welcome gift to the company.

AP/Madge Stager

Sun Corridor Inc., an economic development group in southern Arizona working with Gov. Doug Ducey and the Arizona Commerce Authority to develop a strong proposal for the company, sent a flatbed truck carrying a 21-foot Saguaro cactus to Amazon in Seattle last week, hoping to catch the attention of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.

“We wanted to make sure Mr. Bezos and his team notice us, and send a message of ‘We have room for you to grow here for the long term’ — nothing signifies that better than a Saguaro,” Joe Snell, Sun Corridor’s president and CEO, told the Associated Press.

@amazonnews / Via Twitter: @amazonnews

Womp, Womp.

@karenaboutgary / Via Twitter: @karenaboutgary

“I know locating to me may seem far-fetched,” the city writes about itself. “But 'far-fetched' is what we do in America. It was far-fetched for 13 scrawny American colonies to succeed against the might of the British Empire. Far-fetched to land a man on the moon. Far-fetched for a business selling books out of a garage to succeed in business and philanthropy. Like Amazon, I am, once again, both a game changer and a unique opportunity.”

People in Stamford, Connecticut, are so desperate to throw their hat in the ring for Amazon’s second headquarters they’ve been flooding the city’s economic development office with phone calls, according to the Stamford Advocate.

Getty Images/Spencer Platt

The calls became so overwhelming that Thomas Madden, director of economic development with the city, drafted a boilerplate response to anyone asking the city to apply.

“We believe Stamford, and the lower Fairfield County region, is well positioned as a desirable location for Amazon’s headquarters,” Madden wrote, according to the Stamford Advocate. “Stamford is one of the few cities that has the workforce, infrastructure, and quality of life that we believe Amazon is looking for.”

Toronto has also expressed interest. And one Toronto resident made a desperate plea for Amazon to bring its billions to update the city’s train system.

@SuzanneHajdu

Hajdu, who says in her Twitter profile that she is a landscape architect and gardener, was complaining to the Toronto Transit Commission about conditions for commuters — conditions that Amazon may not be thrilled to have for its workers.

Applicants have until Oct. 19 to submit proposals. Others cities that have shown interest include Boston, Chicago, Denver, and Philadelphia.

Giphy / Via giphy.com

Quelle: <a href="These Places Are Thirsty AF To Be Chosen As Amazon's New Headquarters“>BuzzFeed

The Apple TV 4K Is The Apple TV Nobody Needs (Yet)

BuzzFeed; Apple

There are two kinds of twenty/thirty-somethings in this world: the kind who own a TV, and the kind who mooch on their friends who own TVs. And among those who do own a TV, there are only a few who have a 4K setup.

In this extremely unscientific poll aimed at people in their twenties and thirties, only 15% of the 1,229 ~yung adults~ polled said they own a 4K TV. Nearly 65% said they own a non-4K TV. Multiple commenters said that they had 1080p televisions from four or five years ago that still work, so there’s no need to upgrade.

The fact that 4K TVs are much more affordable and ubiquitous than they once were (Costco and Walmart both offer mostly 4K TVs, and for as little as ~$300-$400) doesn’t seem to matter.

What that means is if you don’t have a 4K TV, you don’t need the new Apple TV 4K (yet, anyway).

The new Apple TV will work on non-4K displays, too, but I’d just recommend getting the less expensive previous generation ($149 vs. $179 for the 4K model), unless you’re considering upgrading to a 4K TV in the future.

And if you do have a 4K TV, Apple’s new model, which ships on Sept. 22, is the most powerful — and expensive — streaming device you can buy.

It’s really only for those who want to buy content from the iTunes store, use an over-the-air tuner to watch broadcast TV (like ABC or NBC), or connect their Macs or iPhones via AirPlay. It’s also designed specifically for people who use Apple products. For example, you can turn your TV into an external monitor for your Mac with AirPlay, or use your iPhone to type in usernames and passwords so you don’t have to use the horrible on-screen keyboard. Android and Windows users don’t have these options and should consider other streamers.

Sure, the Apple TV 4K offers some extra bells and whistles, like being able to control your smart home, download third-party apps (like Panna, a cooking app, or Zova, a fitness app), or view iCloud library photos on the big screen. But the bottom line is: If you just need something to stream on-demand content from providers like Hulu, Netflix, HBO Now, or Amazon Video, the Roku ($60-$100), Fire TV Stick ($40) (the Fire TV with 4K Ultra HD is currently unavailable), and Chromecast ($35 to $69) have got you covered.

Netflix

The new Apple TV 4K is for people who have the latest tech, and are really into their home entertainment systems.

It can support displays with HDR10 (or High Dynamic Range), which doesn’t refer to resolution, or number of pixels, but how those pixels appear on screen. HDR makes colors look more vivid, and it’s available in newer 4K TVs bought within the last two years. Apple’s new media streamer also supports Dolby Vision, another HDR standard, found in newer, fancier TVs.

The Roku Ultra ($100) and Chromecast Ultra ($69) also support 4K HDR10, but not Dolby Vision.

There are some smaller refinements in this Apple TV.

It now supports gigabit ethernet for a faster wired connection. You can also use a new Apple TV remote from the Control Center in iOS 11 devices. A new feature called “One Home” syncs your homescreen across multiple Apple TVs (as long as you have the 2015 model or newer). If you have AirPods, those will automatically connect. And the Siri Remote has a raised ring around the menu button, so it’s easier to feel your way around it in the dark.

Live sports are also coming to Apple TV, and the device is expanding to new countries by the year’s end (Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Norway, Sweden, and the UK).

Nicole Nguyen / BuzzFeed News

I, admittedly, only own a 4K computer monitor — and the 4K content that is available looks great on it with the new Apple TV.

The Apple TV 4K does indeed stream content in 4K. I watched Chef’s Table and a surf/wanderlust movie called Given via Netflix. You can just ask Siri “Find me shows in 4K” or “Find me movies in 4K” to help narrow down your results. There isn’t too much there, but it’s growing. Amazon Prime Video has a decent selection of 4K content, like Manchester by the Sea and Transparent. It doesn’t have a native app for Apple TV yet, though Amazon swears it’s coming.

Notably, if you purchased movies in the past from iTunes that are available in 4K, you will be retroactively upgraded to the higher definition version, for free. Movies from 20th Century Fox, Lionsgate, Paramount, Universal, Warner Brothers, and Sony Pictures are applicable (but sadly, no Disney). There’s also a new landing page for iTunes 4K movies.

It’s not just 4K TV shows and movies that look great on the Apple TV. The text in the interface looks smooth and crisp too — and the screensavers look UNREAL.

Nicole Nguyen / BuzzFeed News

Apps and games will be updated in 4K as well. The Apple TV has been upgraded with a A10X chip, the same processor in the new iPad Pro. It’s twice as fast as the previous Apple TV released in 2015, and intended to power games. Alto’s Adventure, Crossy Road, Minecraft, and Guitar Hero Live are some fun titles on Apple TV, but it’s still not a natural destination for gamers. You’ll want an Apple TV-compatible controller (like the $50 Nimbus, sold separately), because the Siri Remote isn’t a comfortable gamepad.

Ultimately, the new Apple TV 4K is best for those who have already bought into the iTunes content ecosystem and were looking to update to 4K, since the previous version didn’t support it.

The 32GB model is $179 (best for streaming) and the 64 GB model is $199 (best for those who download movies and games).

Quelle: <a href="The Apple TV 4K Is The Apple TV Nobody Needs (Yet)“>BuzzFeed

Flynn And Trump Jr. Dominate Coverage Of Trump's Associates In Russia Investigation

Carlos Barria / Reuters

When it comes to the ongoing Trump/Russia investigations, the media — and readers — have made their interests clear: former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort may be a crucial figure, but he's nowhere near as interesting as Don Jr. or Michael Flynn.

That is according to Facebook data collected by the social media data and optimization firm Social Flow, which tracked how many stories have been written about Trump's family members and associates regarding Russia in 2017 across its network of over 300 major media companies. The company also monitored engagement across its network on Facebook, tracking average clicks per story for articles about each associate, as well as the aggregate Facebook reach of articles they're mentioned in. Taken together, the chart attempts to gauge reader interest in each player (according to Social Flow President Trump was left off the chart because his results “dwarfs everything” and skew the results).

Here's what we learned from the data:

Social Flow

The Trump associate Russia narrative is dominated by Flynn.

With regard to Russia, Flynn is by far the most covered of anyone in Trumpland (besides the President). According to Social Flow, Flynn has been mentioned in at least one Russia-related article 157 days in 2017 (out of 260 counted in the data) meaning his name has rarely been out of the news.

According to the data, Russia stories involving former national security advisor Michael Flynn and Donald Trump Jr. are far and away more interesting to readers than other associates like Manafort or even Jared Kushner. Individually, Russia stories about Flynn and Trump Jr. have an aggregate reach on Facebook of nearly 300 million users since January 1, 2017. Meanwhile, Social Flow data on Russia-related stories about Kushner shows an aggregate Facebook reach of just over 125 million users — Manafort's trails far below that with an aggregate reach on Facebook of just 50 million.

The data also shows that many prominent Trump associates whose names have been mentioned in media coverage of the campaign's potential involvements with Russia are not necessarily household names. According to Social Flow, Trump advisors Roger Stone, Carter Page, and Michael Cohen have appeared frequently in media coverage (Stone, for example, has been mentioned in at least one article about Russia 98 out of 260 days in 2017) but none have attracted the kind of substantial reach across Facebook as Flynn, Don Jr., and Kushner.

When it comes to Russia, data shows that not all Trump sons are equal.

While stories about Don Jr. have vast reach across Facebook and a high number of average clicks across the social network, Russia related stories mentioning Eric Trump have not captivated audiences. This can probably be chalked up to the coverage disparity between the two brothers (in 2017 Don Jr. has at least one Russia related article published about him on 76 days comapred to just 23 for Eric Trump) as well as the midsummer revelations of Don Jr.'s 2016 contacts with Russia.

Social Flow

There's no shortage of media coverage of Trump associates' ties to Russia.

Social Flow tracked the combined stories published each day across its network, which includes major publications like the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, BBC, Politico, and more. The data illustrates that, while coverage ebbs and flows, it never stops. Across Social Flow's network, coverage of Trump associates and Russia rarely dips below a combined 100 articles a day.

And since most of the coverage is driven by breaking news, Social Flow's chart also acts as a helpful map of the year according to Russia. The chart's spikes, for example, show some of the biggest stories of the year, including the Steele Dossier published by BuzzFeed News on January 10th, revelations on May 15th that President Trump revealed highly classified intelligence with Russian ambassadors, and the July 10th and 11th stories about Don Jr.'s contacts with Russia.

All told, however, the data seems to confirm what many already take to be true: the Trump/Russia reporting is massive, complex story that's captured the interest of hundreds of millions of readers. And it's one that doesn't appear to be going away.

Quelle: <a href="Flynn And Trump Jr. Dominate Coverage Of Trump's Associates In Russia Investigation“>BuzzFeed

Sheryl Sandberg Says Facebook Will Tweak Its Ad Platform To Eliminate Hateful Categories

Justin Tallis / AFP / Getty Images

Facebook is making changes to its ad platform in an attempt to prevent people from using it for hateful ad targeting.

On Wednesday afternoon, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg responded to a ProPublica report published last week that found advertisers could use Facebook to target people interested in topics like “Jew hater,” “How to burn jews,” and the Nazi Party. In a Facebook post, Sandberg called the targeting criteria totally inappropriate, and said Facebook will make changes to prevent similar issues from taking place again.

“Seeing those words made me disgusted and disappointed – disgusted by these sentiments and disappointed that our systems allowed this,” she said.

Here’s Sandberg’s full post:

View Video ›

Facebook: sheryl

Before last week's report, whenever someone wrote anything into Facebook's self-reported profile fields — education, employment, job title, and field of study — Facebook's ad system would automatically make that entry a targeting option. So people listing “Jew hater” in their field of study automatically turned “Jew hater” into an ad targeting option. To fix the problem, Facebook is adding human review to the process, hoping it will be a firewall against something like this happening again. ProPublica found the targeting criteria inside Facebook's ad system following a tip. there were 2,274 people in the “Jew hater” category that it discovered.

Facebook is also working on a program “to encourage people on Facebook to report potential abuses of our ads system to us directly,” Sandberg said. The company will also clarify its ad policies and tighten its enforcement of the policies Sandberg said, without providing much more detail.

Sandberg admitted in her post that Facebook was unprepared for such abuse because it hadn't considered it. “We never intended or anticipated this functionality being used this way – and that is on us. And we did not find it ourselves – and that is also on us,” she said.

Facebook's inability to anticipate how less-than-altruistic people might abuse its products has been a long-running problem and has factored into a number of its biggest crises, from its fake news scandal to the shocking level of violence that's aired on Facebook Live. As BuzzFeed News' Mat Honan put it in April, “The problem with connecting everyone on the planet is that a lot of people are assholes.”

Asked if the need to add human reviewers means there's a fundamental flaw with its technology, Facebook directed BuzzFeed News to this line in Sandberg's post: “The fact that hateful terms were even offered as options was totally inappropriate and a fail on our part.”

Quelle: <a href="Sheryl Sandberg Says Facebook Will Tweak Its Ad Platform To Eliminate Hateful Categories“>BuzzFeed

What Is The TBH App?

1. What is TBH?

It’s an app for answering questions about your friends. You’re given a (mostly) positive question, such as, “the person I relate to most,” and then it lists four of your friends who are also on the app. You have to choose which one of them the question applies to most. When one of your friends chooses you as a response to a question, you get notified that a boy or girl (there’s a non binary option, too) chose you as the answer. You don’t see the name of who chose you.

Then you can see which ones your friends (anonymously) chose you for.

2. Can it be used for bullying?

Not really. The questions are all pretty positive (“always has the best manicure”) or flirty (“Relationship goals?”) — and the ones that are slightly negative are barely so, like, “might run off to join the circus.” Unlike Sarahah or YikYak, which let you write anything anonymously, you can only answer questions the app asks.

That said, I’ve been a teen, and devious teen minds’ ability to invent mean things to do to each other should not be underestimated.

3. So this is for the teens?

Definitely.

4. Then why would I, an adult sign up?

Idk, look, it’s just fun. You get to be goofy with your friends, ok?

5. This sounds dumb, why do people like it?

It feels nice to have people say nice things about you! What more obvious and pure human emotion is there? It's currently the #1 free app in the iTunes store! People love it!

6. Who makes it?

A small company called Midnight Labs in Oakland, CA. According to the company representative I spoke with (who requested to remain anonymous because the company is a sort of egalitarian collective without any one person as its face or name), Midnight Labs had spent five years making social apps that were mostly failures, and they were almost out of money. Then this summer, they had a moment of clarity – they wanted to make something that would make people feel good.

7. How did this spread so fast?

It launched at a single high school in Georgia (TBH doesn’t require you to be in school, but they knew it would work best for teens), and after three days, students at 3,000 schools across Georgia and beyond were using TBH.

There’s a built-in incentive for a user to share the app, too. If you answer a certain number of questions in a row, you get timed out (like Candy Crush). If you want to keep going, you can wait an hour or invite more friends.

8. Why does it say it’s only in a few states?

The company says TBH will roll out to more states soon, but they don’t have an exact timeline. Apparently because it blew up so fast (2 million users signed up in the last six weeks), they just don’t have enough server bandwidth and tech support to expand any faster right now.

However, try your luck — I was able to sneak through in NY even though it said NY wasn’t available. Basically, it’s geofenced, but not that effectively.

9. Is it on Android?

Not yet, and they don’t know when it will be.

Quelle: <a href="What Is The TBH App?“>BuzzFeed

The Apple Watch Finally Feels Like A Real Smartwatch

The Apple Watch gets cellular connectivity, at last, with Series 3.

BuzzFeed News; Apple

The new Series 3, which hits stores this Friday, Sept. 22, includes a version with LTE (starting at $399), which means you can finally use your Apple Watch to make calls/shout at your wrist, wherever there’s cellular connectivity.

In 2015, I felt like an asshole for wearing an Apple Watch. It felt like a status symbol on my wrist, an escape hatch for boring conversation, a target for thieves. And it finally feels like that’s changed, two years later. I still probably look like an asshole — but at least this watch can do something now.

Now that you can use the Apple Watch to DM on Slack, order Lyfts home, and ask Siri a question, etc. without your phone… all signs points to the Series 3 as THE watch that watch people (who are you? @ me!) have been waiting for.

While it’s pretty amazing to, say, go out on a Friday night with nothing but your watch and ID, or call your bf while swimming in the San Francisco Bay, the cellular Apple Watch is, like many other cellular smartwatches, limited. Its short battery life and lack of dedicated support from third-party, non-Apple apps (wtf, Google Maps!) is particularly annoying.

It is still, unquestionably, the best smartwatch I’ve ever used, but tbh, the bar is low. Apple needs to do better before I’d recommend this watch to everyone, not just athletes and gadget geeks.

If you have a Series 2 and are happy with just GPS, the Series 3 isn't for you. Though there is a non-cellular Series 3 model available for $329, and some internal refinements (a new processor and wireless chip), the main reason to get a Series 3 is because you want cellular, or are looking to upgrade your first-generation Apple Watch.

The main event is ~cellular~ connectivity, which will cost you an extra monthly fee.

Setting up cell service on the Watch is pretty simple — you can do it on your phone, so you don’t need to go to your carrier. The cellular tab in the Watch app takes you directly to your carrier’s device management portal (you still need your login credentials, obviously), and there you can add the watch to your plan.

AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile are the first US carriers at launch (global carrier list here) and, while these carriers are offering free three-month trial periods for Apple Watch 3 customers, adding the device to your plan will cost upwards of $10 per month, not to mention any additional data incurred as a result of being able to use data in more places. That added annual cost is another thing to consider with the cellular version, in addition to the fact that it’s $70 more than the GPS-only version.

That said, the cellular performance on the Apple Watch is good, and works about as well as it does on a real phone.

The cellular connectivity also makes the watch much smarter. You can access Siri from anywhere (she still can’t take Notes for you though :thinking face emoji:) and when you leave the vicinity of your phone, for example, Find My Friends will update your location via watch instead.

Nicole Nguyen / BuzzFeed News

I decided to swim out to the mouth of the Aquatic Park in San Francisco with the watch.

Listen, I know normal people aren’t going to, like, call their mom in the middle of a long swim, but I was curious. It’s also possible that you’ll need to contact an emergency service after being bitten by a shark. Who knows!

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Quelle: <a href="The Apple Watch Finally Feels Like A Real Smartwatch“>BuzzFeed

People Are Not Thrilled About Getting An Email From Amazon About Their Nonexistent Baby Registries

An email went out Tuesday afternoon informing people that “a gift is on its way.”

On Tuesday afternoon, a lot of people received an email from Amazon about their baby registry.

Doree Shafrir

This was the email I received. Note: I do not have a baby registry on Amazon or anywhere else. In fact, I have spent the better part of the last two years trying to get pregnant. So getting this email was … unwelcome.

When I clicked through, it redirected me to the Amazon app on my phone.

Doree Shafrir

My co-worker Katie, who has an Amazon baby registry, was redirected to a blank page.

Katie Notopoulos

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Quelle: <a href="People Are Not Thrilled About Getting An Email From Amazon About Their Nonexistent Baby Registries“>BuzzFeed