Einstein’s Gravitational Waves Have Been Detected For The First Time

Today, scientists announced that, for the first time in history, gravitational waves have been detected.

Gravitational waves are ripples in spacetime throughout the universe. What’s truly remarkable about this discovery is that Albert Einstein predicted the existence of gravitational waves 100 years ago, but scientists have never been able to detect them, until now.

The discovery came out of the U.S. based Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO). The mission of LIGO was to directly measure gravitational waves. In order to do that, LIGO scientists needed to construct the most precise measuring device the world had ever seen.

The LIGO project, which began in 1992, was the largest scientific investment the National Science Foundation (NSF) has ever made.

At an NSF press conference this morning, LIGO Laboratory Executive Director, David Reitze, said “This was a scientific moon shot. And we did it – we landed on the moon.”

Facebook Ordered To Stop Tracking Non-Users In France

Yet more privacy problems for Facebook in Europe. Now the French data protection authority, the CNIL, has issued the company with a formal notice to get its house in order and comply with European data protection law or face possible referral to the CNIL’s select committee which could then choose to pursue a sanction against the company.

Facebook has been given three months to make the changes deemed necessary by the CNIL. If it does so to the DPA’s satisfaction it will not face any sanctions, the DPA said yesterday.

TechCrunch understands Facebook is in the process of reviewing the order from the CNIL. A spokesperson provided the following statement regarding the action: “We are confident that we comply with European Data Protection law and look forward to engaging with the CNIL to respond to their concerns.”

Those concerns are multiple, and were unearthed by an investigation triggered afterFacebook amended its privacy policy in fall 2014. Specifically, the CNIL is unhappy that Facebook collects the browsing activity of Internet users who do not have a Facebook account.

“Indeed,” the CNIL notice reads, “the company does not inform Internet users that it sets a cookie on their terminal when they visit a Facebook public page (e.g. page of a public event or of a friend). This cookie transmits to Facebook information relating to third-party websites offering Facebook plug-ins (e.g. Like button) that are visited by Internet users.”

It also notes that Facebook collects user data concerning sexual orientation, religious and political views “without the explicit consent of account holders”. Nor does it inform users on the sign up form “with regard to their rights and the processing of their personal data”.

Advertising cookies are also set by Facebook “without properly informing and obtaining the consent of Internet users”, the CNIL asserts, noting that users are not offered any tools to prevent the compilation of info for targeted advertising — which it says “thereby violates their fundamental rights and interests, including their right to respect for private life”.

Perhaps most surprisingly, Facebook also stands accused of continuing to use the now illegal Safe Harbor data transfer mechanism, which was invalidated by the European Court of Justice last October — so a full four months ago.

And although Europe and the US have apparently agreed a new deal (called the EU-US Privacy Shield), this has yet to come into force, so cannot yet be relied up on by companies wanting to legalize data transfers across the Atlantic. And, last week the head of the CNIL, who also heads up the WP29 group of European DPAs, reiterated that Safe Harbor is not an option — stressing that companies continuing to use the invalidated framework are “in an illegal situation” and could face sanctions from DPAs.

Alternative data transfer methods were detailed by the European Commission last fall, after the Safe Harbor strikedown, so it’s rather surprising that Facebook has apparently not switched to using one of these alternatives to govern its Europe to US data transfers. We’ve asked Facebook about this point and will update this story with any response.

Update: Facebook claims it is not in fact using Safe Harbor to transfer data — pointing to prior comments it made last year, in which it said: “Facebook, like many thousands of European companies, relies on a number of the methods prescribed by EU law to legally transfer data to the US from Europe, aside from Safe Harbor.”

The CNIL goes on to add that it has made its formal notice against Facebook public due to “the seriousness of the violations and the number of individuals concerned by the Facebook service” — noting the site has more than 30 million users in France.

Its action follows a lawsuit brought against Facebook by the Belgian data protection authoritylast summer, which was also concerned with how it tracks non-users. The Belgian legal action led to the threat of daily fines for Facebook if it did not amend the operation of its tracking cookies — which it subsequently did, switching to requiring users to log in to view pages on the site.

As well as investigations by the French and Belgian DPAs, Facebook is also being probed by Spanish, Dutch and German (Hamburg) data protection authorities. This working group of five DPAs was set up in March 2015 explicitly to investigate its new privacy policy.

The CNIL notes that investigations by all the respective DPAs are “ongoing at the national level and within an international administrative cooperation framework”. So Facebook’s problems in Europe associated with its amended privacy policy look to be far from over.

The new EU-US Privacy Shield is also at least two months out from being approved by the WP29, so there’s no quick fix for companies needing to legalize transatlantic data transfers (although there are a range of alternative mechanisms that can be used, such as standard contractual clauses and model contracts).

Facebook Climbs To 1.59 Billion Users And Crushes Q4 Estimates With $5.8B Revenue

By courting users and ad dollars in the developing world, Facebook continued its growth streak. It hit 1.59 billion users today and crushed the street’s estimates in its Q4 2015 earnings with $5.841 billion in revenue and $0.79 earnings per share. That’s up from 1.55 billion users and $4.5 billion in revenue last quarter. Even with Q4 being the holidays, that 29.8% QoQ revenue growth is stunning, and it’s up 51% vs Q4 last year.

Facebook’s monthly user count grew a bit slower at 2.58% quarter over quarter fromQ3’s extremely strong 4.02% growth. It shows Facebook is hitting saturation in some markets but still has room to grow in many developing countries.

Though not as flashy as the big monthly number, daily user count is a better way to chart Facebook’s progress. Facebook’s DAU hit 1.04 billion compared to 1.01 billion in Q3, up 2.97%. Facebook’s DAU to MAU ratio, or stickyness, held firm at 65%. That means users aren’t visiting less even as the service ages.

Mobile now makes up a massive 80% of Facebook’s advertising revenue, up from 78% in Q3. $5.63 billion of its total revenue came from advertising, overshadowing Facebook’s old payments business. Mobile-only users now number 827 million, up a swift 13.2% from 723 million last quarter. That’s a testament to Facebook growth in the developing world that largely skipped the full-sized computer age.

Microsoft To Launch “Minecraft Education Edition” For Classrooms This Summer, Following Acquisition Of Learning Game

Microsoft is further expanding on its investment in Minecraft, bought in 2014 for $2.5 billion, by acquiring a learning game called MinecraftEdu for an undisclosed sum. The game, produced by a company called Teacher Gaming LLC, allows teachers to use Minecraft in the classroom, and includes a library of lessons and activities used to teach subjects including STEM, history, language, and art. Microsoft says it will use this acquisition to build out its own “Minecraft Education Edition,” which will launch into free trials as of this summer.

Minecraft is already known for being a tool that encourages kids to learn more about game design and programming, among other things, but MinecraftEdu was specifically designed with the goals of educators in mind. Teachers could adapt the product to their own curriculum needs, while also eliminating the need to set up or manage their own hardware, thanks to the tool’s hosted environment.

Plus, the learning game offered a range of activities created by other teachers, as well as hands-on workshops and courses, and technical support.

Already, notes Microsoft when detailing the acquisition, over 7,000 classrooms in more than 40 countries worldwide use Minecraft as part of their curriculum today. The launch of its own supported Education Edition could easily increase those numbers.

The company says that by having students create virtual worlds in Minecraft, they can learn a range of skills, like digital citizenship, empathy, social skills, and can even improve their literacy, while also getting real-time feedback from their teacher. Some examples of Minecraft in the classroom today include elementary school students learning about city planning and engineering; middle schoolers learning the building blocks of computer science in a Minecraft coding camp; or college students learning the history of the New Zealand and its people by re-creating historic landscape and events in the program.

Microsoft notes that following this deal’s close, it will roll out a new version of this game that will include an expanded feature set focused on empowering educators to “foster deeper student engagement and collaboration,” says Anthony Salcito, vice president of Microsoft Education in a blog post.

Uber Makes First Big Expansion In China As It Aims To Reach 100 Cities In 2016

Fresh from raising new funding, Uber China — Uber’s dedicated business in the world’s largest country — is embarking on its largest expansion to date which will increase its coverage to 37 cities, up from 22.

Uber China has slowly expanded its coverage of China with launches in large cities thus far. In a change of approach, it said today that it will launch in 15 new cities in Sichuan, China’s fourth most populous province, before Chinese New Year on February 8.

Sichuan, a 485,000 km square region with a cumulative population of over 80 million people, is already a hotspot for the company. Provincial capital Chengdu is Uber’s top city worldwide, based on weekly completed trips, and it reached the number one spot just nine months after Uber launched there. And there’s apparently promise of more: Uber said its volume in second city Mianyang, where it launched in November, is forty-times higher than Chengdu was at that stage of launch. (Uber didn’t give raw figures for either city, though.)

Now, it is zoning in on the region and expanding its coverage into tier-two and tier-three cities in Sichuan. Uber told TechCrunch it already ‘soft-launched’ in five cities, but it is targeting an additional ten in order to fully cover the main cities in Sichuan ahead of Chinese New Year, which is the largest annual migration on the planet as urban-based Chinese return en masse to their hometowns for the holidays.

More broadly though, this expansion is a sign of things to come for Uber in China this year.

The company declined to disclose specific expansion plans for the year when we asked — citing the need to keep information confidential and away from competitors — but last year it revealed it would take its coverage to more than 100 cities in 2015. This move in Sichuan looks like phase one.

“2015 was Uber China’s ‘Year of Localization’ and 2016 will be our ‘Year of Growth’,” Zhen Liu, who is Uber China’s Head of Strategy, said in a statement.

“We have built a strong foundation across the country and have put in place an excellent local team that will drive our growth in the year ahead… our goal is to be in 100 cities across China by the end of the year,” Liu added.

Reaching 100 new cities inside twelve months is a huge task, but even if Uber is able to pull it off, the company will still trail local leader Didi Kuaidi on total national coverage. Didi Kuaidi, which is valued at $16.5 billion versus Uber China’s $8 billion tag, is present in over 360 cities and towns — and is reportedly at break-even in more than 100 of them.

That’s not quite all from Uber China in Chengdu. The company also said it is opening up ride-stations in “well-known” landmarks across the city. The idea is to create designated areas where drivers can meet passengers — similar to ‘suggested pickup points’ it is testing in the U.S. — because it can be surprisingly hard to rendezvous, particularly if a passenger is new to, or visiting, the city and not familiar with its road system.

The stations have been added to Baidu maps, the service that is China’s top mapping app andrun by Uber investor Baidu.

Tesla Model S Can Now Drive Without You

Well, authorities in Hong Kong aren’t going to like this one bit. Back in November, they told Tesla to remotely disable its semiautonomous driving technology until they can confirm that the features, released in mid October, are safe. They were concerned (sort of understandably) by widely reported hijinks by drivers who were using Tesla’s new Autopilot software to shave and sit in the backseat of the car, among other things.

Tesla complied. That doesn’t mean the company isn’t moving forward at full speed, though. Today, it released version 7.1 of its software for the Model S and X that includes a “Summon” feature that enables the car to drive itself without anyone inside.

More specifically, using their key fob, Tesla owners can now direct their cars to park themselves in a spot within 39 feet, and to drive themselves into and out of their parking garages.

In a nod to safety concerns, the company has also now restricted its Autosteer technology on residential roads and roads without a center divider. When Autosteer is engaged on a restricted road, Model S’s speed will be limited to the speed limit of the road, plus an additional 5 mph.

The site Electrek was first to publish the news. Tesla says the following in its release notes for v7.1:

Tesla says that Autosteer’s lane keeping has been improved near highway exits and when the lane markings are faded.

Autopark features in the Tesla Model S have been updated with a ‘beta’ version of its Summon feature as well. Here’s how it works:

You can cancel the procedure by tapping the center button on the key fob. If you’ve set up your Model S with Homelink, it will open and close garage doors for you as well.

Back at an October press briefing, when Tesla’s last software update enabled cars to steer, change lanes, and park on their own, Tesla CEO Elon Musk had said he envisioned fully driverless cars.

He said then that while its still “important to exercise great caution at this early stage,” in the long term, he added, “people will not need hands on the wheel — and eventually there won’t be wheels and pedals.”

For now, the wheels and pedals remain. For the beginning and end of the drive, however, the humans are now optional.

Lenovo Is Making The First Google Project Tango Phone

Lenovo announced at CES that the company would be producing the first Project Tangophone. As a reminder, Project Tango is an ambitious project that adds depth as well as a bunch of sensors to your device’s camera.

Now the conference was a little short on details. All we know is that Lenovo is going to release a phone that is going to cost less than $500. The device is going to be released this Summer and the company doesn’t have a final design just yet. The picture you can see above is just one out of the five designs they are currently working on.

Also new today, Google announced an app incubator program to motivate developers. The best apps will be pre-loaded on Lenovo’s phone.

The only remaining question is whether Lenovo is an exclusive partner or Google is going to announce more phones with other OEMs in the coming months. Project Tango is still a brand new thing and Google is probably not going to roll out Tango to millions of Android phones just yet.

In case you need a refresher, we played with the development kit that was released last year and are going to show you a video tomorrow.

Ford Is Adding Support For Apple CarPlay And Android Auto To Its Vehicles

At last, at last, at last. Ford is finally adopting Apple’s CarPlay and Android Auto for its in-car infotainment system, so the carmaker announced ahead of the CES event in Las Vegas this week.

We reviewed Ford Sync 3, the third iteration of the company’s connected car technology, last year, and that system will soon include support for both Google and Apple’s in-car platforms. Ford revealed that all 2017 vehicles equipped will Sync 3 will gain the support, while its 2016 Sync 3 vehicles will get an upgrade option later this year. That means iPhone owners can access Siri, Apple Maps and more, while those with Android Auto compatible devices get the Google services suit.

The move has long been anticipated. Ford expressed an interest in working with Apple back when CarPlay was first unveiled in March 2014, and this announcement is sure to boost its appeal given that iOS and Android pretty much account for the entire North American consumer mobile market.

That’s not quite all from Ford today, however. The auto giant has also added a slew of new apps to its AppLink platform — including AAA member services, Concur expense tracking and location-based service Eventseeker — and new 4G-powered Sync Connect feature that enable customers to remote start their vehicle, unlock doors, check fuel level and locate their car via their phone.

Ford said it has 15 million vehicles with its Sync technology (that includes earlier versions, too) on the road.

We expect to see and hear a lot more auto-related news from CES — you can follow all of our coverage from the event here.

And, one final plug, check out our Ford Sync 3 hands-on review for more details of what the company is up to in the connected car space.