The corner convenience store is being disrupted, driven by the increasingly familiar consumer desires for technology-driven convenience and healthier products.
Why it matters: Global, national and even regional brands need to plan accordingly as the next generation of convenience stores starts to gain traction with millennial consumers and investors. This could prove yet another example of technology hollowing out working-class jobs, as convenience store clerks go the way of gas station attendants.
Just hours after Europe's new online privacy policy went into effect, Facebook and Google are already facing their first complaints, filed by none other than European privacy advocate Max Schrems.
Why it matters: Schrems, via a non-profit, has filed complaints against Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Google's Android on behalf of unnamed individuals, arguing the companies are violating the GDPR through their "all or nothing" user consent prompts.
The emails cluttering your inbox this past week with privacy settings updates are happening for a reason: A sweeping new European data privacy law goes into effect today that is having a profound impact on American businesses.
Why it matters: The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which the European Commission passed more than two years ago, was at first largely ignored by U.S. companies and regulators. But it's now becoming the global standard for how businesses mine and use consumer data, in part because of recent data breaches and scandals, like Cambridge Analytica's misuse of Facebook data.
A Portland couple asked Amazon to investigate when they learned their Amazon Alexa smart speaker had recorded them talking and then sent the recording to the phone of a random Seattle person in their contacts, KIRO reports.
Amazon told the station: "We investigated what happened and determined this was an extremely rare occurrence. We are taking steps to avoid this from happening in the future."
Why it matters: Everyone jokes about smart speakers as surveillance devices, but when that actually happens, even by accident, it's chilling. "Rare" isn't so comforting when what you want is "never."
Although Apple downplayed complaints its iPhone 6 was more prone to bending than previous models, the company apparently knew that the phone was bendier, according to internal documents reported by Motherboard.
Why it matters: The issue is the subject of a class-action lawsuit and also could affect Apple's credibility in the future as new issues arise.
Facebook turned on its new political ad transparency regime on Thursday.
Why it matters: After the 2016 election manipulation scandal, Facebook's efforts to police ads on its platform will be closely watched ahead of the midterms. In a call with reporters, the company indicated it's paying close attention to developments regarding political ad regulation.
SoftBank is investing in Getaround, a peer-to-peer car rental service that is raising around $100 million in new funding, Axios has learned from multiple sources.
All in the family: SoftBank's backing of Getaround shouldn't be a total surprise—the latter has a partnership with Uber, which is one of SoftBank's largest investments.
What they're saying: The National Transportation Safety Board stated that Uber engineers had intentionally disabled the Volvo's emergency braking system while the car was operating autonomously, because it lessens the "potential for erratic vehicle behavior." Instead, Uber relies on the human backup driver to take over, but "the system is not designed to alert the operator," NTSB added. The system noticed the woman 6 seconds before the car struck her and would have needed only 1.3 seconds to stop in time, the report says (The timing in this sentence has been corrected from earlier versions.)
A pecking order is evolving in the newest stage of the digital era: aggressive early adopters of artificial intelligence are reporting elevated earnings and may be forming "an insurmountable advantage" over rivals, according to the McKinsey Global Institute.
Why it matters: Companies failing to quickly embrace AI to improve growth risk falling further and further behind, paring their ability to attract top talent and leading to more concentration of market power within a few "superstar" firms.
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