Tuesday, February 14, 2017

YouTube's biggest star goes dark. It's The Daily Crunch.

THE DAILY CRUNCH
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 14 2017 By Darrell Etherington

PewDiePie is a scumbag, Apple's new reality show looks like it might actually work, and OK Cupid asks the tough questions. All that and more in The Daily Crunch for February 14, 2017. And it's Valentine's Day – so go chase snakes or something. Or wait that's Patrick, isn't it?

1. YouTube's biggest star loses series and studio over anti-Semitic behavior

YouTuber PewDiePie's appeal is hard to understand for anyone outside of his cored demographic, but the biggest YouTube star as measured by subscribers has crossed a line in a way that's easy to grasp: Felix Kjellberg has posted multiple videos that contain anti-Semitic clips, including one in which he pays men in Sri Lanka to hold up a sign that says "Death to All Jews."

Kjellberg claims the videos were just part of his offbeat attempts at humor, and not intended as anti-Semitic behavior, but if he really believes that he's guilty of idiocy as well as discriminatory behavior. Luckily both YouTube and Disney (which owns MakeStudios) have cut ties with the YouTuber, but the fallout isn't likely to end here.

2. Apple's Planet of the Apps looks... good?

I have not been very optimistic about Apple's forthcoming Planet of the Apps series, but the first trailer for the show gives me a popcorn reality TV Shark Tank vibe that I'm actually pretty okay with. I think as long as you don't take this too seriously it's going to be a lot of fun.

3. OK Cupid is adapting to the Trump age

Dating app OK Cupid is using this manufactured 'holiday' to promote its forthcoming redesign. But it's also tweaking its built-in Tinder clone feature to be more about substance, and it added questions that let you know right away whether or not someone's a Trump supporter, which is probably the number one deal-breaker in the dating world at the moment I have to hope.

4. Amazon launches a video conferencing service

Amazon has a new cross-platform video conferencing and voice meeting service, which is a reasonable way to make use of AWS and other tech it developed for its live support features for Amazon Fire devices. Good work leveraging those existing resources to tackle a lucrative space, Amazon.

5. Tech workers demonstrate against Trump in SF

It seems like ages ago that Donald Trump issued his executive order on immigration, since every minute now expands to feel like decades like we're all trapped at the event horizon of a black hole. But actually it hasn't been that long, and there's still plenty of active protest taking place, including a demonstration Monday in San Francisco organized and attended by Silicon Valley's tech workers.

6. Watch this autonomous car handling rainy conditions at night

Drive.ai's self-driving car tech is impressive, especially considering this is still an independent startup going it alone. The company showed off its first video of the car driving itself around Mountain View, during a storm at night, which is challenging for computers – just like it can be for humans.

7. Twitter is scaling back its ad offerings

Watching a company slowly collapse is a weird experience, especially when you're also using that company's product daily as perhaps the most important tool in your arsenal. So it is with Twitter, which is cutting back its ad offerings in its latest move to contain its downward spiral.

Get more stories at techcrunch.com 

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