Now you can turn your favorite emoji into a domain name

Did you know that typing a few heart emojis into your address bar actually goes to a domain name? No? You're not alone.

Last week GoDaddy held an internal hackathon. The winner was a new Emoji Domain Registration search engine, which allows people to both search for and purchase domain names that are made up entirely of emoji. And they work just like any other URL.  The service works best using a mobile browser on your iPhone or Android device, but you can also do it with the emoji toolbar on a Mac (you access that by pressing CTRL + Command + Spacebar).

Curious how it works? The group posted a rundown of how things are handled from a technical side here. You can register your own domain name there through GoDaddy (we have our eyes set on that triple poop emoji option). EP

Uber's head of finance, Guatum Gupta, is stepping down in July to join another San Francisco company, according to the Wall Street Journal. His departure comes as the e-hail giant begins to narrow its losses: Uber reportedly took a loss of $708 million in the first quarter, down from $991 million the quarter prior. Revenues are also up 18%, totaling $3.4 billion. Still, Uber faces challenges, not least of which include hiring a chief operating officer and a chief financial officer amid allegations of a "broken" company culture. And there are also big questions about Uber's business model and its ability to deliver returns for investors.

The announcement of Guatum's departure comes a day after the company fired the head of its self-driving unit, Anthony Levandowski, who refused to comply with a request to hand over documents that Google's Waymo unit had accused him of stealing. Several other executives have left the company during its time of turmoil. In March, Uber president Jeff Jones quit, citing differences over "beliefs and approach to leadership." Ed Baker, Uber's VP of product and growth, also left in March, and Uber's head of public policy, Rachel Whestone, left in April. Amit Singhal, Uber's SVP of engineering, was asked to leave earlier in the year after failing to disclose that he'd left his previous employer, Google, over disputed sexual harassment allegations. 

Despite a hiring spree last year, a flood of departures may not be entirely surprising. Earlier this month, The Information reported, longtime employees of Uber found it easier to quit the company, thanks to a change in policy that gives ex-employees more time to exercise their stock options. 

[Photo: Flickr / TechCrunch] RR

Hillary Clinton on Wednesday said false stories spread on Facebook and Twitter had helped to influence the outcome of the 2016 election, and called Trump's unusual Twitter activity part of an effort to "divert attention."

"It's like 'covfefe'—trending worldwide!" she said at Recode's Code Conference in California. "Maybe for a minute you'll forget about [the White House] conspiring with Russia, or the trillion-dollar mathematical mistake in their budget, or depriving 23 million of health care," she said. "It's the circus, right? It's what a classic authoritarian does."

Clinton said Twitter had provided "positive information, quick turnaround information to a very large audience. But I think it has become victimized by deliberate efforts to shape the conversation and push it toward conspiracies, lies, false information." Facebook, she said, also had to "help prevent fake news from creating a new reality." She noted that it was "hard not to" believe that the Trump campaign had not coordinated with Russia in spreading disinformation.

In November, university researchers reported that a quarter of all election related Tweets were spread by bots, and that pro-Trump hashtags got five times as much traffic from those accounts as hashtags that were pro-Clinton. 

In questioning Trump's use of Twitter, Clinton herself mentioned a report that has since been debunked: that Trump's Twitter account had gained millions of bot followers in recent days. The increase in followers was far lower than that, and it's not yet clear who the followers are. According to the website Twitteraudit, only 51% of Trump's Twitter followers are thought to be real; Clinton's ratio of real Twitter followers is 61%.

People in covfefe houses shouldn't throw covfefe. https://t.co/M7oK5Z6qwF

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) June 1, 2017

[Photo: Marc Nozell / Flickr] CGW

"I think Jeff Bezos saved the Washington Post," Hillary Clinton told Recode's Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg at the website's annual Code Conference today, during a discussion on the media industry. Why? Because Bezos cares about making the newspaper a viable business with hard-hitting journalism, and because newspapers, she said, "still drive news" online and on TV. 

Bezos, who bought the 144-year-old paper in 2013 for $250 million, has taken a largely hands-off approach. Amid sinking revenues across print media in recent years, the paper's numbers have ballooned. Its digital ad revenue has exceeded $100,000, reports the New York Times, and it saw over 800 million page views last month, along with a steady growth in subscriptions. Among the Post's recent big scoops was a report that White House adviser Jared Kushner had discussed a secret communications channel with Russian officials. 

Conversely, Clinton said she is worried about conservative-leaning organizations purchasing local TV stations. She also weighed in on the influence that Russia had on digital media during the election, saying she is "leaning" in a direction that suggests that Moscow and the Trump campaign had coordinated. "The Russians, in my opinion . . . could not have known how best to weaponize that information unless they have been guided . . . by Americans," she said. 

[Photo: Flickr / Esther Vargas] CGW

"The president and a small group of people know exactly what he meant," said White House press secretary Sean Spicer, when asked the mysterious, viral tweet President Trump sent late last night.

Spicer on 'covfefe' tweet: "The president and a small group of people know exactly what he meant." https://t.co/URM4mW8pmO

— MSNBC (@MSNBC) May 31, 2017

Predictably, the vague explanation drew laughter from the press and more scorn on Twitter, where commentators had previously joked about the press secretary being forced to explain what most assumed to be a typo.

Covfefe has been up for nearly 30 mins. We can only assume from this that he tweeted exactly what he meant to. Spicer will explain tomorrow.

— Matt Bevan 🎙 (@MatthewBevan) May 31, 2017

bet he tweeted covfefe just to watch Spicer lie about it.

— Ariel Dovas (@eviloars) May 31, 2017

Meanwhile, Wikipedia users attempted to interpret Trump's coinage on a page devoted to the word. "The most common theory is that given the context, Trump meant to type 'coverage,'" according to Wikipedia. "Others have put forth the possibility that it could be a codeword, neologism, or proper noun. The lack of punctuation suggests that Trump may have been interrupted mid-tweet. Some Trump supporters hailed the tweet as an example of how Trump expresses what he really thinks rather than looking to polls or focus testing before putting forth his ideas and new words." SM

Amazon, hungry for content for its Prime Video service, has inked a new deal to develop original documentaries with Investigative Reporting Productions, a nonprofit documentary production company connected to the University of California, Berkeley.

The deal will give Amazon "first look" rights to IRP's projects, while the university will retain intellectual property rights. "For the first time since the serious decline in journalism's economic model, there is a commercial market for reliable nonfiction production," John Temple, managing editor of the journalism school's Investigative Reporting Program, told Nieman Lab earlier this month. "Why not take advantage of that?" 

Lowell Bergman, the legendary investigative reporter and the company's chairman, said the deal was "huge." "Anybody who's familiar with my work knows that I've been looking to create a new model to support investigative journalism," he wrote on the IRP website. 

The Berkeley deal, whose terms are confidential, is Amazon's first big step toward news publishing. CEO Jeff Bezos is already deeply invested in journalism. In 2013 he bought The Washington Post for $250 million, and last week donated $1 million to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, a group that provides legal support to journalists.

Meanwhile, Amazon's spending on video doubled during the second half of 2016 compared to the same period in 2015. The company also nearly tripled the new TV shows and movies it offers to Amazon Prime members, and is estimated to spend $4.5 billion on video this year as it competes with other streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, and YouTube. [Monday Note via Geekwire]

[Photo by Steve Jurvetson] AP

Earlier today, Mary Meeker unveiled her "Internet Trends" report for 2017. Over the past few years, Meeker's annual data dump has indicated that, globally, the internet is growing more slowly. In India, however, things are looking up: In the past year, internet users grew by 28% to 355 million people, which means India is still second only to China in terms of total internet users. 

And that's not all: India is also the biggest audience for Android phones after China, and as data plans get cheaper, data usage is climbing quickly. Since last fall's demonetization, the exponential growth of digital payments has been accompanied by a rise in e-commerce.  PM

Audi will be the first car company to demonstrate its driverless car technology in New York, announced Governor Andrew Cuomo today. Its road test is scheduled for June 13, in Albany, and Cuomo opened up application submissions for autonomous driving trials at the beginning of the month. 

[Photo: Audi] RR

Ethiopia has blocked access to the internet to prevent leaks as grade 10 students sit for exams, reports the Guardian. The nation also shut down access to some social media sites last year after university entrance exam questions were posted online—and has previously cut off internet access to curb political protests, according to Quartz. The government did not offer an official explanation for the outage.

'Cos of the blackout: Banks are out of service, Bulk SMS services are not available, GPS services are not accessible …

— Zelalem Kibret (@zelalemkibret) May 31, 2017

Blocking websites to prevent cheating isn't unique to Ethiopia. Algeria also denied access to social sites last year after exam questions were posted online, according to the BBC. 

Nationwide internet blackouts are also increasingly being used to stem political discussion and protest. In the past year, Ethiopia, Uganda, Congo Republic, and Cameroon have blocked internet access on political grounds; in Turkey, social media users have had their feeds obstructed. In a resolution passed last year, the United Nations Human Rights Council said that restrictions of internet access are a violation of human rights.

This is what internet traffic to Ethiopia looked like during the outage period, according to Akamai:

SM

This morning, the Tesla CEO was mocked on Twitter for recently tweeting that he had talked to President Trump and was confident that the administration would adhere to the sweeping climate change agreement. When asked for a response to reports that Trump is preparing to pull out of the Paris accords, Musk fumed that he would "have no choice but to depart councils in that case."

Will have no choice but to depart councils in that case

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 31, 2017

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Look out, yogis: in your quest to pursue the ancient art of yoga, you can now purchase $300 Bluetooth-enabled pants that help you nail the triangle pose. 

Wearable X spent two years developing these pants with 50 yoga instructors and 50 testers. Known as the Nadi X, the pants contain imperceptible neoprene strips embedded with haptic technology. An accompanying app contains 40 poses, plus music, and the pants will help the wearer perfect each move. 

Next up, Wearable X is launching a sports bra that will help you improve your meditation practice by guiding your breathing. 

[Image via Wearable X] ES

Several slides in Mary Meeker's 2017 Internet Trends report present the most compelling response to the Trump administration's harsh stance on immigration. Among the 60% of companies cited in that slide are Apple (Steve Jobs was 2nd-generation Syrian), Google (Sergey Brin is 1st-generation Russian), and Oracle (Larry Ellison is 2nd-generation Russian).

In addition, 50% of the most highly-valued private tech companies were founded by 1st-generation immigrants.
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