Interesting Reads. Industry news that you may have missed.
Mastercard Drops Its Name from Logo – The Wall Street Journal
Mastercard is going on its symbol alone. The financial service company ditched its name from its logo, leaving the interlocking red and yellow circles to represent the brand. The change is part of its effort to downplay the “card” in “Mastercard” as new payment methods and technologies spread. This also places the company among a small group of marketers like Apple, Nike, and Target that prefer to go by symbols.
Amazon Will Get Into More U.S. Cars With A New Alexa Partnership – Forbes
Amazon seems to be taking over the world. It’s reaching people from all angles: from movies and television shows, to grocery chains and e-commerce. Now, Amazon is introducing Alexa to your car. HERE technologies created a system combining Amazon’s digital assistant and shopping tool, with its own navigation as a product for vehicle companies to offer in its models.
Microsoft issues rallying cry to governments around the world to regulate facial recognition technology – The Drum
This year, Microsoft put out a call for governments around the world to initiate laws to regulate facial recognition. The technology company warns that facial recognition services will impair societal issues in about five years if nothing is done. Brad Smith, the president of Microsoft, wrote a letter on the company’s official blog stating the challenges if facial recognition technology is not regulated.
Los Angeles just released an app that can warn about earthquakes up to 90 seconds in advance, and it could one day save countless lives – Business Insider
It’s inevitable for California to have a rippling earthquake, but no one is quite sure when it will happen. Scientists refer to this upcoming quake as “The Big One” and could come from faults near San Francisco or Los Angeles. Therefore, Los Angeles created the ShakeAlertLA, an app that aims to alert residents in the event of a magnitude 5.0 earthquake or greater. L.A. is the first United States city to publicly release an early earthquake warning app.
