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Mark Zuckerberg Heads back to Washington D.C. for Dinner with Senators

Charlotte Henry ·

On Wednesday, Axios exclusively revealed that  Mark Zuckerberg was set to return to Washington D.C. The site later reported that the Facebook CEO dined with senators Thursday evening. It was his first visit to the city since his high profile hearings on Capitol Hill.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg discussed election security and privacy with a group of senators over dinner ahead of his return to Capitol Hill Thursday, said a spokesperson for Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), who organized the meeting. Warner’s spokesperson said in a statement emailed to Axios that he organized Wednesday’s dinner at Facebook’s request. “The participants had a discussion touching on multiple issues, including the role and responsibility of social media platforms in protecting our democracy, and what steps Congress should take to defend our elections, protect consumer data, and encourage competition in the social media space.”

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Babbel Language Learning 1-Year Subscription: $69

Bryan Chaffin ·

We have a deal on a 1-year subscription for Babbel Language Learning. You can choose from 14 languages to learn, practice with 10-15 minute bite-sized lessons, and it uses speech recognition technology to keep your pronunciation on point. 1 year through our deal is $69. There’s also a 2-year option for $99.

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Apple Moves to Trademark 'Slofie'

Andrew Orr ·

Apple wants to trademark ‘slofie’, it’s term for slow-motion video clips you can now take with iPhone 11.

Apple has applied to the USPTO for a trademark on the term “Slofie” in terms of “downloadable computer software for use in capturing and recording video.” Don’t worry, it’s not trying to own the cultural landscape — rather, this is largely to prevent app developers and phone makers from ‘borrowing’ the term for their own features.

At least Apple isn’t trying to pull an Ohio State University, which was recently denied its effort to trademark the word “the.”

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California Governor Signs AB5 Bill Into Law Protecting Gig Workers

Andrew Orr ·

AB5 is a bill that could one day give full employee status to gig workers from companies like Uber, Lyft, and DoorDash. Today, California’s governor signed it into law.

While a major victory for the organized labor movement in California and in the U.S. broadly, the passing of AB5 is by no means a guarantee drivers in the state will become employees. Drivers or individual cities will need to challenge these businesses in court to apply the aforementioned ABC test, and Uber has already adopted an offensive posture in that regard, claiming that drivers are not core to the company’s business model—one of the stipulations of the ABC test.

Drivers in a ride-sharing company are not core to Uber’s business model. Wow.

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Facebook Launches New Surveillance Devices For Your Home

Andrew Orr ·

Today Facebook launched Portal video chatting devices that definitely won’t be used to spy on you and your loved ones. They will let Facebook users watch television together over a video call. Andrew Bosworth, VP of AR/VR at Facebook, said:

I think that in a couple years’ time, if you have a smart streaming device that doesn’t have a camera allowing you to video call people, you’re not going to have a competitive product. I think this is the killer feature for a device like this.

Bosworth also touted privacy protections like local processing of smart features on the devices, which means most user data will not be sent back to Facebook servers.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.