Facebook Beats Q3 Revenue Expectations, Rakes in an Astonishing $7 Billion

Facebook has had a stellar Q3, earning $7.011 billion in revenue– the lion’s share of which came from advertising– and $1.09 in earnings per share (EPS). That’s a whopping 56% revenue bump from the $4.501 billion it earned a year ago.

The figures far exceeded estimates from analysts, who had forecast $6.92 billion in revenue and $0.97 EPS for the third quarter, according to Techcrunch.

In September, Facebook hosted an average of 1.18 billion daily active users (DAU), marking a 17% year-over-year increase. It also had 1.09 billion mobile DAUs on average that month, up 22% percent from last year, and reached a new milestone as mobile-only users passed a billion for the first time.

As such, mobile ads accounted for 84% of its total advertising revenue, or $5.7 billion of the $6.8 billion Facebook earned from ads in the third quarter. In all, Facebook raked in $2.379 billion in profit, up a stunning 160% year-over-year.

“We had another good quarter,” said Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder and CEO, somewhat drily. “We’re making progress putting video first across our apps and executing our 10 year technology roadmap.”

Despite all of this, news that Facebook’s ad revenues had hit a peak and would taper off significantly struck a sour note with investors. “We expect to see ad revenue growth rates come down meaningfully,” said Facebook CFO David Wehner on the earnings call, which precipitated a steep 7.6% drop in Facebook shares in after-hours trading on Wednesday.

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Daylight Saving Time: How to Ensure Your iPhone Will Automatically ‘Fall Back’ an Hour

This Sunday, you’re going to be getting an extra hour of sleep. That’s right, Daylight Saving Time is coming to an end. And while that might be cause for celebration, you probably want to make sure your iPhone falls back automatically, so you’re not woken up an hour early.

Thankfully, your iOS device should, by default, fall back an hour at 2 a.m. on Sunday, Nov. 6. But users have reported in the past that their iPhone or iPad did not automatically fall back, so to ensure you get that well-deserved extra hour of sleep, you should follow these steps.

First, make sure your iPhone is not in Airplane mode. If it is, then it won’t set the time automatically. Then, go to Settings > General > Date & Time, and make sure that ‘Set Automatically’ is toggled to on.

In some cases, Location Services can cause an iOS device to skip out on falling back automatically. To make sure that everything’s working properly, follow these steps.

1. Go to Settings.

2. Tap on Privacy.

3. Tap on Location Services. Ensure ‘Location Services’ is on — while turning it off might improve battery life, it’ll need to be on for your phone to automatically fall back.

4. To make sure your Setting Time Zone works properly, scroll down and tap on System Services.

5. Ensure that Setting Time Zone is toggled on.

6. Reboot your device.

You should, of course, double-check that your phone is showing the correct time zone in Settings > General > Date & Time > Time Zone. For example, if you live in Arizona — or, for some reason, your phone is set to Arizona’s time zone — your phone won’t fall back, as the state doesn’t observe Daylight Saving Time. If your phone is erroneously set to a time zone that doesn’t observe DST, it could cause problems.

Of course, if all else fails and you’re up an hour early on Sunday, you can manually set the time by going to Settings > General > Date & Time. Turn off Set Automatically, and make sure your phone is set to the proper time.

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Apple Is Secretly Working to Make Siri Smarter, React Naturally to Strings of Difficult Commands

Way back in October of 2015, we reported on Apple’s $100 million acquisition of the artificial intelligence (AI) startup, VocalIQ — a firm that had been working to develop what the Cupertino-company lauded as one of the most intelligent, consistently accurate, and naturally responsive AI-based voice command and dictation platforms it had ever seen.

As a matter of fact, VocalIQ’s proprietary AI engine is so smart, as we noted in our earlier report, that sources who’ve seen the platform in action have deemed it more consistently accurate and responsive than either Apple’s Siri, Google Now, or Microsoft’s Cortana — which have all typically garnered about a 20-30% accuracy rating, according to TrustedReviews.

As you might imagine, Apple had acquired VocalIQ in an attempt to hone in on making its Siri platform more accurate and responsive to natural commands. And now, according to a new report published this morning in BusinessInsider, it appears that the fruits of Apple’s labor and initial investment are finally starting to ripen on the vine.

According to the BusinessInsider report, Apple currently has at least 30 research and development team members — many of whom are former VocalIQ employees — working out of the Silicon Valley tech-giant’s “top-secret” Cambridge, England-based offices, which are often referred to internally as Apple’s ‘Siri Lab’, according to Mashable.

Apple has yet to merge VocalIQ’s technology with its existing Siri platform, however, VocalIQ’s AI-based platform is intended to make communication between you and your computer, or smartphone, a more natural, altruistic experience — as opposed to making it seem like you’re just talking to a robot, even though you actually are.

There’s currently no word from Apple on an expected completion or release timeline of a VocalIQ-enhanced Siri update, however the fact of that matter is that AI, as a concept, will soon begin playing a more significant role in attracting customers to a particular mobile ecosystem. Both Google, Microsoft, and Apple all have their own voice command/dictation platform — and while they all work somewhat differently, they all have one thing in common — they could be a lot better at what they do.

And thus, the race to a truly full-fledged natural voice command and dictation platform continues, as both Apple, Google, and even Microsoft refine and sharpen their respective software — with Apple guiding the way as usual.

If you’d like to learn some of the cool new tricks and commands Siri has up her sleeve, check out our list: Top 25 New and Unique Siri Commands in iOS 10, and stay tuned for future developments as they pertain to Apple and the future of Siri.

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‘Flywheel’ Sues Uber for Monopolistic Tactics

The latest legal action against Uber comes from Flywheel, a ride-hailing upstart that evolved out of DeSoto, which is the oldest continually operating taxi company in San Francisco. Flywheel’s stated intention is to galvanize the floundering cab industry and present a united front against Uber by working with multiple taxi companies.

“I see taxis right now as a single brand. You have Uber, you have Lyft, and you have taxis,” said Mark Gruberg of the San Francisco Taxi Workers Alliance to The Daily Dot. But things haven’t gone too well for the startup, Flywheel says, due to Uber’s unfair business practices. According to the complaint, Uber controls a commanding 70% of San Francisco’s ride-hailing market whereas taxi companies have seen their ridership decline by 65% and lost over 30% of its drivers.

Mincing no words, the lawsuit accuses Uber of engaging in anti-competitive and monopolistic practices, arguing that its tactic of subsidizing rides to slash prices is “predatory” and meant to drive other services out of business.

“Uber has done little more than implement a business strategy that openly flouts the law while shifting many of the costs and nearly all of the risks of providing ride-hail services from itself to its drivers and passengers while forcing a race to the bottom through predatory pricing tactics”, Flywheel said. Uber can afford to do this, the suit argues, thanks to its multi-billion dollar war chest of venture funding.

In response, Uber is arguing that its end goal is not to destroy the competition per se, but to end personal car ownership by providing a cheap and viable alternative. “Our goal is to provide a credible alternative to the private car,” an Uber spokesperson said. “Our technology lets us make our network more efficient over time, and innovations like UberPool are further lowering prices, making ridesharing more available to more people.”

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Gawker Settles Hulk Hogan Lawsuit for $31 Million

Gawker Media has reached a $31 million settlement with former pro wrestler Hulk Hogan, bringing an end to the four-year-long invasion of privacy lawsuit that ultimately shuttered its flagship website.

“The saga is over”, Gawker founder Nick Denton said in a blog post. He added that “the most unpalatable part of the deal” was that Gawker would have to remove three stories, including the one involving Hogan, from its site.

Back in March, a Florida jury awarded $140 million to Hogan, whose real name is Terry Bollea, who had sued Gawker for publishing his sex tape without his consent. The company was forced into bankruptcy and later sold itself to Univision, which decided to do away with Gawker’s namesake website. It was later revealed that the lawsuit was being bankrolled by Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel, who was outed as gay by Gawker.

Though Gawker put on a brave and defiant face throughout the proceedings, it eventually decided that an “all-out legal war with Thiel would have cost too much, and hurt too many people,” Denton explained.

Gawker was founded in 2002 and quickly established itself as a brash and caustic media upstart, blurring the line between journalism and gossip to great effect. Its massive popularity was rooted in its promise to give its readers an unvarnished peek behind the proverbial veil and publish stories that established outlets shied away from. It cemented its reputation for brutal honesty by airing gossip and sex tapes, and liberally littering its articles with obscenities.

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Woman Receives 20 iPhones from 20 Boyfriends, Sells Them for a House

Housing prices in China have been on the up and up as of late, shattering records and making homeownership all but unaffordable to many residents of its largest cities. Nowhere is this more evident than in the unlikely story of one Shenzhen-based woman, who convinced her 20 boyfriends to buy her an iPhone 7 each, which she then sold to put a down payment on a house.

The stranger-than-fiction story first surfaced in Chinese social media, when a blogger using the pseudonym Proud Qiaoba penned a description of the hustle perpetrated by her crafty colleague, dubbed Xiaoli (also not a real name). The BBC was able to confirm the tale’s veracity, which many initially doubted.

According to the blog, Xiaoli comes from a modest financial background and was likely under immense pressure to purchase a house for her aging parents. Thinking outside the box, she concocted a scheme to convince her 20 lovers to each buy her an iPhone 7– a sentence which strains credulity on so many levels. As the BBC reports, among the many aspects of the story, Chinese netizens expressed shock that all of her hapless boyfriends were actually able to acquire iPhone 7s, which only launched in September of this year and have been selling like hotcakes.

In any event, Xiaoli took the freshly purchased iPhones to a mobile recycling plant and exchanged them for 120,000 yuan ($23,200), enough to put down a deposit on a house and earn her internet infamy. Xiaoli’s tale has generated a lot of buzz in China and beyond, where users expressed a mixture of admiration, awe, and disdain for her brazen actions. While the morality of Xiaoli’s behavior is debatable, her story certainly demonstrates both the power of creative thinking and the financial clout of the iPhone 7.

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On Nov. 14 the Moon Will Be the Biggest and Brightest It’s Been in 70 Years

Mark your calendars for November 14 — or else you’ll risk missing a record-breaking astronomical event that hasn’t happened for over 70 years.

The November supermoon will mark the closest the Moon has been to Earth since January 1948. It’ll appear to be around 14 percent bigger and 30 percent brighter than a normal full moon, according to ScienceAlert. And the next time the Moon gets this close to Earth will be Nov. 25, 2034, so you don’t want to miss it.

“The full moon of November 14 is not only the closest full moon of 2016, but also the closest full moon to date in the 21st century,“ NASA wrote in a blog post.

Supermoons themselves aren’t exactly uncommon. We just had a supermoon this past October, and another one is due to appear on Dec. 14. But November’s moon is going to be the biggest and brightest one in nearly seven decades — essentially a super-supermoon.

As NASA explains, a supermoon is caused by the Moon’s elliptical orbit. One side of the moon, called the perigee, is around 30,000 miles closer to Earth than the other side, known as the apogee. When the Sun, the Moon and the Earth line up, it’s known as syzygy. And when a syzygy occurs, and the Moon and Sun happen to be on opposite sides of each other, we get what’s called a perigee-syzygy — what is commonly known as a supermoon.

Supermoons are beautiful, of course — but not always easily visible. Overcast weather can block out the supermoon’s glow. And bright urban lights can compete with the Moon, causing it to appear dimmer than it actually is. Additionally, full moons often all appear similar to each other as there aren’t any reference points in the sky to offer scale. Similarly, low-hanging moons can often appear bigger when viewed through trees, buildings or other objects due to an optical illusion. So you might want to take these things into account if you plan on moon-watching come Nov. 14.

Besides the supermoon on November 14, there are also several other fantastic sky events this month that you don’t want to miss, according to National Geographic.

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Apple VP Reveals Design Decisions for 2016 MacBook Pro, the Company’s Bestselling Notebook in History

Apple’s Vice President of Marketing Phil Schiller has revealed the reason behind a few key decisions on the MacBook Pro. In a recent interview with The Independent, Schiller said that one of Apple’s primary designers, Jony Ive, had rejected moving Mac computers to touchscreen “many years ago.”

“If you made the Mac a touchscreen, you’d have to figure out how to make it a good experience with your finger on a touchscreen,” Schiller told The Independent. “Trust me, we’ve looked at that — it’s a bad experience. It’s not as good or as intuitive as with a mouse and trackback.”

It seems like the Mac’s user experience, which has always been reliant on “indirect manipulation and cursors and menus,” is here to stay — at least for the time being. It’s certainly one thing that sets Apple apart from the leagues of computer manufacturers that have started incorporating touchscreens into their flagship devices.

Schiller also pointed out that the SD card slot was taken off of the 2016 MacBook Pro lineup for a couple of reasons. One of them seems to be Apple’s focus streamlining — Schiller said that an SD card sticking out of a slot is “cumbersome.” He added that many cameras already support wireless photo and video transfer, and that there are plenty of third-party card readers on the market if users were dead set on using one. But that certainly doesn’t mean that Apple isn’t taking some flack for the decision.

But while the SD card slot might be gone, the 3.5mm headphone jack isn’t — something that Cupertino recently nixed from its newest flagship smartphone. Why does the 2016 MacBook Pro still have it? Schiller said it’s because many professional MacBook users — many of whom are DJs, musicians and sound engineers — rely on the 3.5mm jack for their audio gear. So the decision to leave it on the new MacBook Pro lineup seems purely pragmatic.

When asked about the new MacBook Pro’s critics, Schiller said that he hopes they’ll get the chance to try the new device for themselves. He backed up his claims that the MacBook Pro is a natural evolution of the series with the fact that Apple has had more orders for the new computer than any previous notebook.

 

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Apple Slashes Prices on SSD Storage Upgrades Significantly for (Most) Macs

In a rare move that appears to have taken effect shortly after the launch of its redesigned, late 2016 MacBook Pro, Apple’s website reflects that the company has quietly reduced the price of upgrading to either a 512 GB or 1 TB SSD on select, custom Mac configurations.

Prior to the new pricing structure revelation — news brought to us this morning courtesy of MacRumors — Apple had been charging between $200 and $500 for a 512 GB SSD storage upgrade, depending on the Mac model and base-configuration; and between $700 and $900 for a 1 TB SSD storage upgrade. In light of the recently updated pricing, however, customers in the market for a MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, Mac Mini, iMac, or Mac Pro can now save a bundle of money — between $100 and $200 — should they decide to upgrade to a higher, SSD-based storage capacity.

For instance, leveling up to a 512 GB SSD on Apple’s 21.5 or 27-inch iMacs with 4K or 5K Retina displays, respectively, now costs just $400, which is down $100 from $500 prior to the price changes taking effect. The higher-tier variant of Apple’s 5K iMac — retaining the same, $200 price of upgrading to a 512 GB SSD — also offers a $100 drop in price when customers upgrade to a 1 TB SSD, which now costs just $600.

Custom 512 GB or 1 TB configurations of Apple’s cylindrical Mac Pro are also being treated to a $100 and $200 price drop, respectively, and will now run you either $200 or $600 — down from $300 or $800 just a few days ago. Unfortunately, Apple’s 2015, 12-inch MacBook is not eligible for the discounted SSD upgrade pricing.

As for the Mac Mini, customers interested in upgrading to either a 512 GB or 1 TB SSD can expect to shell out an additional $200 or $600, respectively, which is down from $300 or $800.

Last but not least, customers looking to purchase a 13-inch MacBook Air can expect to save $100 on their upgrade to a 512 GB SSD — which now costs just $200; while purveyors of Apple’s legacy (2015) MacBook Pros can upgrade to a 512 GB or 1 TB SSD for the same $200 or $600, respectively — down from $300 or $800.

There’s been no word from Cupertino in regards to why the price reduction just recently took effect; however, as AppleInsider notes, it’s more than likely related to the price of SSD storage having declined for Apple, as the company continues to transition its entire Mac line to the considerably more quiet, smaller, thinner, and faster SSD storage chips.

Are you planning to pick up an older Mac with upgraded SSD storage capacity? Let us know in the comments! 

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Verizon Kills off Cheapest Prepaid Plans as AT&T Increases Data Allowances

Verizon has killed several of their lowest-cost prepaid plans, according to a new report. The phone company nixed its $15 and $30 prepaid plans sometime between Oct. 14 and the beginning of November. Notably, the $15 plan included unlimited mobile web and 300 minutes or texts, while the $30 plan had no data, but featured unlimited voice minutes and messaging, according to PrepaidPhoneNews.

While users with existing plans shouldn’t be affected, new prepaid accounts will no longer be able to sign up for the cheaper options. Instead, Verizon is instating a new plan that starts at $45 a month. This plan will include 2GB of data. Alternatively, a $60 plan includes 5GB of LTE data. Both plans include unlimited talk and text in the US and unrestricted text messaging to Mexico and Canada, while the more expensive plan also includes unlimited talk time for the United States’ neighboring countries, PocketNow reported.

This news seems like a stark contrast to AT&T’s recent prepaid wireless moves. Unlike Verizon, AT&T has upped the amount of data included in extension packages. Its $30-a-month plan now offers 250 megabytes of data for $5 — instead of 100 megabytes — while users of its more expensive $45-a-month plan can buy 1 gigabyte of data for $10 — instead of 500 megabytes. So while it seems like AT&T is trying to aggressively pursue the prepaid market — even at the expensive of postpaid users — Verizon seems to have taken the opposite approach. The latter company has even shied away from the prepaid market to focus more of its energy on customers who purchase postpaid plans, Fierce Wireless reported. Verizon’s roster of phones available for prepaid plans tends to be more extensive than AT&T’s, and includes new phones such as the iPhone 7 and Google Pixel.

It’s worth noting that users who have either of the nixed plans should be grandfathered — meaning that they’ll be able to keep their plans at that price point as long as they remain active.

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