American consumers are quite familiar with many of the big-name foreign products — Toyota, Samsung, to name a couple — but brands from China are virtually invisible.
The big picture: Chinese companies doing business in the U.S. are doing their best to hide where they come from. If they're not actively masking their home country, they're certainly not leading with it.
Twitter announced in a new blog post that it will allow global users to hide replies to their tweets in an effort to help people "feel safe and comfortable" on the platform.
The big picture: This isn't the social media company's first attempt to curb harassment and encourage online civility, but it is the first push to give users control over the tone and topic of a Twitter thread before it is derailed by irrelevant, insulting or unnecessarily unpleasant commentary.
FCC chairman Ajit Pai offered a path forward Wednesday for the cable industry to gain access to auto airwaves for WiFi after a long-running spectrum battle with automakers.
Yes, but: The move will pit the FCC against the Department of Transportation, which wants to see these airwaves fully dedicated to auto safety communications.
After months in which the Commerce Department indicated it might ease some trade restrictions on Chinese tech giant Huawei, some U.S. companies are beginning to receive waivers allowing them to supply Huawei with components, according to reports in the Wall Street Journal and elsewhere.
Why it matters: U.S. companies were making millions of dollars selling chips, software and other components to Huawei until the Trump administration put the company on a trade blacklist, largely over national security concerns.
Target and Amazon have different approaches to appease impatient customers who want same-day delivery.
The big picture: Target wants to fill more orders from its store inventory, which is cheaper than fulfillment centers. When it comes to same-day shipping, CEO Brian Cornell told CNBC yesterday that “90% of the cost goes away” when customers order online and pick up at a store, use curbside pickup or select shipping via Shipt for same-day delivery.
Some Uber drivers have independently been putting ad displays on top of their cars, but now the ride-hailing company has teamed with startup Cargo for a small test of officially deploying ads to drivers in Atlanta.
Why it matters: This could be a new revenue source for Uber, which has been under heavy pressure to move towards profitability.
President Trump hosted Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and board member Peter Thiel at a White House dinner in October that was not disclosed, the social network giant confirmed to NBC late Wednesday.
Details: NBC notes that it's "unclear why the meeting was not made public or what Trump, Zuckerberg and Thiel discussed."
Google announced Wednesday it is making changes to its political ads policy to restrict audience targeting for verified political advertisers globally. It's also expanding the scope of its U.S. political ads policy and clarifying its existing rules on misleading content and political ads.
Why it matters: The announcement comes a few weeks after Twitter announced it would be banning political ads. Facebook VP of Marketing Solutions Carolyn Everson told Axios Monday that the company is still considering changes to its ads policy and nothing, including changes to ads targeting, is off the table.
Upstart internet provider Starry is trying to help small- and medium-sized cities accelerate investment in high-speed internet.
Why it matters: When it comes to fast, reliable broadband, installing fiber in the ground is the gold standard.
But fiber is too expensive for a lot of towns. Starry and others are offering "fixed wireless" service as an alternative that is cheaper and faster to deploy. It's also a potential competitor to incumbent broadband providers.
In separate responses to congressional inquiries released Tuesday, Amazon disclosed the breadth of its Ring subsidiary's partnerships with local police departments, and admitted that it used sales data from third-party products to help decide which products to start selling under its own name.
Why it matters: Both disclosures will give fresh ammunition to the company's critics.
While robots upend blue-collar factory work and trucking in the middle of the country, AI and machine learning are poised to deeply alter white-collar jobs in superstar coastal cities.
Why it matters: No one is immune to the shockwave of automation in the workplace.
