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eBay takes on Amazon with guaranteed 3-day shipping
In an effort to deal with formidable rival Amazon, eBay has launched a new program giving shoppers guaranteed three-day shipping on 20 million products. Called "Guaranteed Delivery," it also includes free shipping on "millions" of those items, according to eBay, and will roll out in the US starting this summer. The online marketplace also revamped its home page today to provide a more personalized experience for shoppers.
Google Home works with eBay's ShopBot to price your stuff
RJ Pittman, eBay's chief product officer, has demoed an interesting Google Home feature at the tech titan's Cloud Next conference. He asked the speaker if he could speak to eBay, which activated the e-commerce company's shopping bot that's aptly named ShopBot. "Hi, I'm eBay," the speaker replied, "I'm the world's price guide. You can ask me what something is worth." eBay originally launched ShopBot for Facebook Messenger last year. But unlike the Messenger version, Home's seems to focus on helping you price goods you might want to sell instead of finding more stuff to buy.
Tech titans back transgender student's Supreme Court case
Apple has officially signed an amicus brief in support of Gavin Grimm's case that's hitting the Supreme Court later this month. In addition, Cupertino has successfully helped convince other tech titans to support the transgender student's fight for the right to use the bathroom that matches his gender identity. According to TechCrunch, the company worked with non-profit org Human Rights Campaign to reach out to potential signatories in the tech industry. Their crusade was so successful, tech corporations ended up dominating the list of 53 companies that signed the brief.
Apple, other tech giants will support transgender student's case
Several tech titans plan to sign an amicus (friend of the court) brief in support of a 17-year-old transgender student's fight in court, according to Axios. Apple, Microsoft, IBM, PayPal, eBay, Airbnb, Box, Yelp, GitHub, Salesforce, Slack and Tumblr are expected to back Gavin Grimm's legal battle against his school board for the right to use the bathroom that matches his gender identity. The amicus brief, created by LGBT organization Human Rights Campaign, will be filed in favor of Grimm for the Supreme Court hearing scheduled to take place on March 28th.
eBay and LinkedIn founders back research into ethical AI
Some big names in the tech world aren't just fretting over the possibility of dangerous AI, they're taking steps to make sure it doesn't happen. LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman and eBay founder Pierre Omidyar (through his Omidyar Network) are pouring a total of $20 million into a newly created Ethics and Governance of Artificial Intelligence Fund that will fuel research into the social considerations around AI. The organization wants to be sure that machines aren't just guided by "engineers and corporations" -- they should consider the input of everyone from social scientists through to economists and politicians.
Amazon helps you sell your old goods, but only in India
India has lately received a slew of distinct internet services that you can't find elsewhere, and Amazon is eager to pitch in. It just launched a Sell as Individual test service in India (specifically, Bangalore) that promises to take the headaches out of selling your old goods. Amazon will not only list your offerings, but pick them up, pack them and deliver them elsewhere in your city -- no awkward meet-ups or makeshift packaging here.
Snapchat's Spectacles won't make you look like a Glasshole
try{document.getElementById("aol-cms-player-1").style.display="none";}catch(e){}You would have thought that after the spectacular failure of Google Glass and the virulent public rejection its users experienced, other companies would be wary of developing and marketing camera glasses. But 2016 has been that kind of year. Earlier this week, Snapchat, they of the wildly popular messaging app, began rolling out its first wearable, Spectacles, through a series of pop-up vending machines. The $130 glasses are already a hot commodity, fetching upward of $900 on eBay. I managed to get my hands on a pair (don't ask how) and have some thoughts on the matter.
eBay teams up with Facebook Messenger to launch shopping bot
Bots are one of the big buzzwords of 2016; Google, Microsoft and Facebook have all made them major parts of their strategy this year. Yes, they might not all be panning out quite as planned, but that doesn't mean bots are out of style yet. Take eBay: the company just launched a shopping bot for Facebook Messenger in beta appropriately called Shopbot.
Tesla Roadster prototype up for auction starting at $1 million
Tesla's Roadster is a seminal electric car, but it's not exactly a vintage model -- it first went on sale in 2008. So how does user "Jester944" justify the $1 million minimum bid for a Roadster prototype in his eBay auction? "A million dollar Tesla may be crazy today but ... imagine what the first Ferrari prototype models would go for. Take that 30 years into the future when most cars are electric and they'll be able to trace their history back to Tesla," he says.
Facebook opens Marketplace to take on eBay and Craigslist
If you visit Facebook today, the chances are that you'll come across someone trying to sell something. It could be a friend looking to make some money from an old smartphone or a thousand-strong parenting group looking to trade items for their little ones. Facebook has slowly introduced features to make it easier for people to list their items, but today the company has launched Marketplace, a new way for users to "discover, buy and sell items" with other people in their area.
eBay Quick Sale is an easy way to sell your used phone
There are plenty of places to sell your used phone, and eBay has traditionally been one of them. But the online auction giant is now offering its own trade-in program that buys your old-gen handsets without you having to go to the trouble of auctioning it off yourself. The new Quick Sale feature accepts devices from dozens of brands, including Apple, Samsung, HTC, ZTE, Motorola and Nokia, as well as smaller companies such as Kyocera, blu, Pantech and DOOGEE.
Google's speeding up mobile web search results for all sites
The time you spend waiting for mobile search results to load is about to drop drastically. Google announced on Tuesday that it is expanding the scope of its Accelerated Mobile Pages program to include non-publishing websites.
Florida man gets four years in prison for selling Vitamixes on eBay
41-year-old Kevin Wain, of Tampa, Florida, has been sentenced to four years in federal prison for running a credit card fraud operation that netted him more than $881,000 over the course of three years. Using counterfeit credit cards -- made with with a magnetic card reader/writer that he'd bought on eBay -- Wain bought hundreds of high-end home goods at Williams Sonoma and Bed, Bath & Beyond stores that he would turn around and sell for profit on eBay.
ICYMI: Man-made meteor showers and live molar video
#fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-338559{display:none;} .cke_show_borders #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-338559, #postcontentcontainer #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-338559{width:570px;display:block;} try{document.getElementById("fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-338559").style.display="none";}catch(e){}Today on In Case You Missed It: Startup Star-ALE wants to create man-made meteor shower tech in time for the Tokyo Olympics in 2020. The Prophix is a video toothbrush tool that can live stream your choppers and save pictures of them to an app in case you're obsessed with the way your teeth look.
eBay has a virtual reality shop in Australia
eBay is giving Australians another high-tech way to spend their money. The e-commerce company has teamed up with Myer, a department store in the country, to launch a virtual reality shop. It can be accessed through existing headsets like Samsung Gear VR, though they also seem to be giving away 20,000 Google Cardboards called "Shopticals." The shop contains goods sold through Myer, complete with 3D models for the top 100 items in each category. Its most interesting feature, however, is a system eBay developed called "Sight Search."
StubHub app uses VR to show how good (or bad) your seats are
You're about to buy tickets for an upcoming baseball game, but before you check out, you have to choose your seats. Should you cough up $100 more for club level or should you go for the bleachers and cross your fingers your view isn't totally horrible? It's a decision that many a sports fan have faced. But thankfully, StubHub is about to make the process a lot easier. Starting today, the online ticketing service is venturing forth into VR, letting customers get a 360-degree view from available seats before purchase.
eBay bug lets hackers embed malicious code into auction pages
Security firm Check Point Software has discovered an eBay vulnerability that gives attackers a way to use the website to phish unsuspecting users or to infect their devices. So long as attackers use a programming technique known as JSFUCK, they can bypass a key restriction that prevents people from embedding JavaScript codes into auction pages. Those codes will run when the page is opened on either a mobile or a desktop browser. In the video below, for instance, someone sent an eBay link to a mobile user, who was then prompted to install a malware masquerading as a "discount app" upon viewing the item's details.
Government testing smart parachutes that stay on target
GPS is not foolproof -- especially on the modern battlefield, where electronic warfare systems can interfere with the satellite guidance. And when packages miss their mark, soldiers often have to venture into hostile territory to retrieve them. That's why the US Army is developing a joint precision airdrop system, or JPADS, that guides equipment towards its target using only visual cues.
The Q.rad warms your home with microprocessor waste heat
Microprocessors generate a surprising amount of heat during the course of their number crunchings -- especially when you cram a slew of them together in a modern data center. While major tech companies like Google, Facebook and eBay have long reclaimed that waste heat for other uses, French startup Quarnot is now bringing those recycled benefits to consumers. The company showed off its Q.rad home heater on Monday at CES Unveiled. The Q.rad harnesses the waste heat generated by its onboard microprocessors to warm your house.
Shyp will now deliver your eBay packages, with no fee
Delivery startup Shyp has teamed up with eBay to deliver items, just in time for the holiday shopping season. The process seems fairly straightforward: Sellers simply need to connect their eBay account to the Shyp app, select the sold items that need to be delivered and a Shyp worker will be around in 20 minutes to "take care of the rest." The best part is, the delivery service will be waiving the standard $5 fee up until January 31st. As TechCrunch notes, eBay users tend to rate sellers based on the timeliness of package delivery, so the incorporation of such a quick and convenient service would help in maintaining seller statistics and customer satisfaction. Shyp will be available to eBay merchants well after the holiday season, but post-January 31st, the promotional period will end and you'll have to pay the standard fee.[Image credit: Shyp]
