Dan Kedmey

Opening an email could become a thing of the past, if 'Inbox' can get the right information up front

Google launched a new email app called “Inbox” Wednesday that strips essential information from your incoming messages, displaying it in a stream similar to a social media newsfeed.

Rather than display messages by subject line, Inbox cuts straight to the body of your emails and attempts to prune out everything but the essential bits, such as flight times, event invitations and attached photos. A flight, for instance, will have your flight times clearly displayed up front without the airline’s preamble. The app can also draw pertinent information from the web, such as your flight’s status. The app also attempts to automatically populate to-do lists and calendar appointments, sparing you from copying the details, flipping to a new app and pasting the information into all of the related fields.

The question remains how well a machine can gauge “pertinent” information to a human user. Early hands-on demonstrations suggest an intuitive user experience. For now, only a select group of users will get to use Inbox by invitation only, who, in turn will be able to invite friends and collectively will decide whether this app will replace regular email for good.

Name calling and humiliation are pervasive, but stalking and sexual harassment disproportionately affect young women

Four out of 10 adults have experienced some form of online harassment, but some of the most alarming variants — stalking and sexual harassment — disproportionately affect upon young women, according to a Pew survey released Wednesday.

The survey breaks down online harassment into six categories, from name calling and humiliation to physical and sexual threats. The milder attacks crossed gender lines and occurred so pervasively that many respondents said they chose to ignore their attacker rather than engage or withdraw from the forum.

But beneath the white noise of insults, experiences varied dramatically depending on the respondents’ age and gender. Roughly one-quarter of women aged 18 to 24 said they have been stalked or sexually harassed online, making them visible stand-outs from an otherwise level field of insults.

The Pew survey also exposes deeper divides that can exact a greater emotional toll on Internet users. “Those who exclusively experience less severe forms of harassment report fewer emotional or personal impacts,” the study authors write, “while those with more severe harassment experiences often report more serious emotional tolls.” It lends empirical weight to the argument that there’s no comparing male and female harassment online.

State health officials warned that pot-laced edibles posed a heightened risk to children

Colorado health officials are urging lawmakers to consider a statewide ban on all appetizing pot-laced products,short of “lozenges and tinctures,” according to a statement released Monday by the state’s health department.

“Edibles pose a definite risk to children,” read the statement, first covered by local news broadcaster WDBJ7, “and that’s why we recommended limiting marijuana-infused products to tinctures and lozenges.”

The proposal comes on the heels of a video posted to the Denver Police Department’s official YouTube account warning parents of trick-or-treaters to watch out for marijuana-infused candy this Halloween.

ISIS-affiliated social media accounts posted sarcastic "thank you" notes to social media

A U.S. airdrop intended to arm Kurdish fighters in northern Syria ended up in the hands of Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) fighters, local activists said Tuesday, underscoring the challenge of arming Kurdish fighters along fluid and ill-defined battle lines.

ISIS-affiliated social media accounts filled with images of what appeared to be the intercepted weapons cache, which included ammunition and rocket-propelled grenades, along with sarcastic thank you notes to “Team USA.” Activists for the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told Associated Press that ISIS fighters had seized at least one package.

The U.S. deployed three C-130 cargo planes on Monday to airdrop supplies to the embattled bordertown of Kobani, as Kurdish forces struggled to repel an onslaught of IS fighters near the Turkish border.

[AP]

2014 marked the deadliest year for Afghan forces struggling to take control of the country

More than 4,000 Afghan troops died in combat in 2014, a record high since the U.S.-led invasion began in 2001, according to new casualty figures released by the Afghan defense ministry.

The new figure marks the first update to the death toll since 2013, when a mounting number of casualties prompted officials to suspend the count rather than risk doing harm to troop morale, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The updated tally counts roughly 4,380 casualties suffered by Afghanistan soldiers and police since the beginning of 2014, underscoring an escalating battle between Taliban rebels and Afghanistan’s fledgeling administration, which is racing to gain control of the country before the last remaining US combat troops withdraw by the end of 2014.

[WSJ]

The share price on Takata Corp. nosedived after U.S. regulators warned drivers to have the airbags fixed "immediately"

Shares of the Takata Corporation dropped 23% on Tuesday following news that the airbag manufacturer had supplied potentially defective parts to a range of automakers, including Toyota, Honda and General Motors.

The market reaction was swift and decisive, the Wall Street Journal reports, after U.S. regulators issued an unusually urgent public warning to “act immediately” to resolve the defect.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is investigating two deaths and a number of other incidents that indicate the airbags might explode under conditions of high humidity, potentially sending scraps of metal flying into passengers.

The warning prompted Toyota to recall 247,000 vehicles on Monday and warn passengers to avoid sitting in the passenger seat.

[WSJ]

'I really wasn't planning on it'

President Barack Obama held his own against a jealous boyfriend in Chicago on Monday.

“Mr. President, don’t touch my girlfriend,” said a man identified by CNN as Mike Jones, as Obama cast his early ballot in the Illinois state elections next to a woman named Aia Cooper.

“I really wasn’t planning on it,” Obama said, without looking up from his ballot, as Cooper laughed. A visibly embarrassed Cooper then offered an apology on behalf of her fiancé. Obama was sympathetic, though, joking “there’s an example of a brother just embarrassing me for no reason.”

After a brief conversation as the two finished voting, the video shows, Obama gave Cooper a quick kiss on the cheek, to give Jones “something to talk about.”

[CNN]

Read next: Obama Votes Early in Chicago

The four-year-old firm Magic Leap aspires to blend computer generated images into the physical world

Google and several other leading tech firms have pooled $542 million in venture capital funding for Magic Leap, a secretive, Florida-based startup that is rumored to be working on virtual reality eyewear.

The deal, one of the largest venture capital fundraisers to date, would value the company at nearly $2 billion, two sources close to the negotiations told the Wall Street Journal. Two senior Google executives will join Magic Leap’s board of directors.

Little is known about Magic Leap beyond an eye-popping video of what the company hopes to achieve with its technology: a projection of life-like imagery that seamlessly blends with the physical surroundings. This deal echoes Facebook’s acquisition of Oculus Rift, a virtual reality headset that immerses users in graphically rendered 3-D worlds.

Both technologies point to a gamble within the tech industry that interfaces will ultimately break free from the confines of 2-D screens and form more immersive user experiences.

[WSJ]

Potentially the latest in a string of high-profile data thefts

The world’s biggest office-supply retailer is investigating reports of a possible data breach of Staples customers’ credit cards after banks detected a pattern of unusual charges concentrating on a group of shoppers.

Staples acknowledged on Tuesday that it had launched an investigation and requested assistance from law enforcement officials, Bloomberg reports.

Reports of fraudulent charges recently surfaced on an independent security blog, which noted that the bulk of the card data appeared to come from a group of stores clustered in the northeast, including seven in Pennsylvania, three in New York and one in New Jersey.

The security concerns come amid a wave of breaches in the past two years against retailers like Home Depot, Kmart and Target. The latter said in August that its breach was expected to cost some $148 million.

[Bloomberg]

JPMorgan will pay the lion's share, followed by UBS and Credit Suisse

The European Commission levied a $120 million fine against JPMorgan, UBS and Credit Suisse on Tuesday, for manipulating key interest rates through an illicit cartel.

JPMorgan incurred the largest fine, $79 million (62 million euro), for fixing the Swiss franc Libor interest rate, Reuters reports. The bank will pay an additional $13 million (10.5 million euro) for participating in a cartel with UBS and Credit Suisse to rig interest rates on derivatives.

UBS and Credit Suisse will pay $16 million and $12 million fines, respectively, though Royal Bank of Scotland escaped sanctions for alerting European regulators to the price fixing scheme.

[Reuters]