Elon Musk Says He'll Leave Presidential Councils If Trump Quits Paris Climate Accord

AP Photo/Evan Vucci Tesla and SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk will step down from several of Trump administration advisory councils if the president pulls the US out of the Paris climate agreement, he tweeted on Wednesday. Musk sits on an economic advisory council as well as a manufacturing group. Tesla's stated mission is "to accelerate the world's transition to sustainable energy." He previously said serving on two of Trump's advisory councils would "serve the greater good." Musk wouldn't be the first tech leader to step down from Trump's advisory groups. Uber CEO Travis Kalanick resigned from Trump's economic advisory council in February after facing backlash from users and protests outside the ride-hail company's San Francisco headquarters. BuzzFeed News reported in January that some Tesla customers had canceled their Model 3 orders over Musk's relationship with Trump. Nate Erickson Tesla did not immediately return a request for comment. via BuzzFeed - Tech http://ift.tt/2qGtFzI If new feed item from http://www.buzzfeed.com/tech.xml, then send me an email at gocukx.faster@blogger.com

Trolls Are Targeting Indian Restaurants With A Create-Your-Own Fake News Site

Shrina Begum, the owner of Karri Twist, and the fake news story that's ruining her business. Laura Gallant / BuzzFeed Shrina Begum couldn't understand why people were calling her Indian restaurant to accuse it of selling human meat. The calls started on May 11, and by the next day Begum says she and her staff had answered hundreds of them. "Both of our phone lines went off and people starting screaming, 'Why are you selling human meat?'" she told BuzzFeed News. Business at Karri Twist, her restaurant in London, soon dropped by half. Begum had to reduce hours for some staff, and she feared the business might not survive the false rumor. "During one of the calls, [my employee] managed to calm a person down to find out where they'd seen this, and they were like, it's been sent to them via Facebook. I just couldn't believe it whatsoever." Begum eventually tracked down the origin of the false rumor: A website called Channel23news.com had published a story claiming that her restaurant, Karri Twist, was caught selling human meat and that its owner had been arrested. The completely fake report, replete with spelling mistakes and the wrong name of the owner, featured a picture of Karri Twist and said nine bodies had been found on the premises in the freezer. The story looked like any other news report when shared on Facebook, and it quickly spread on the site, as well as on Twitter and WhatsApp. People who clicked on the link were brought to a page with the story, and beside it was text that read, "You've Been Pranked! Now Create A Story & Trick Your Friends!" Channel23News.com's homepage is in fact a form that enables anyone to create a fake news story, add an image, and instantly share it on Facebook. Channel23News.com Thanks to a fake article someone had created on the site, an Indian restaurant that has been in business since 1957 was in danger of closing. "I had planned to do some renovation work — which we had saved for — and now I'd had to cut some staff hours because on the weekend I basically had nobody in," Begum said. A search of Channel23News.com's archives also found that Begum's restaurant was one of at least six Indian restaurants targeted with fake stories claiming they served human meat. Five of the stories used almost the exact same text as the original hoax about Karri Twist. Channel23news.com isn't an isolated make-your-own-fake-news site. Using domain registration records, BuzzFeed News identified two separate networks that together own at least 30 nearly identical "prank" news sites and that published more than 3,000 fake articles in six languages over the past 12 months. They're also generating significant engagement on Facebook: The sites collectively earned more than 13 million shares, reactions, and comments on the social network in the last 12 months. Some of the sites' biggest viral hits of the past year in English include fake stories about a Popeyes manager being arrested for "dipping chicken in cocaine-based flour to increase business" (over 429,000 Facebook engagements), Beyoncé giving birth to twin boys (141,000 engagements), the FBI announcing it found evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia (38,000 engagements), two great white sharks being found near St. Louis (201,000 engagements), and President Obama passing a law that requires grandparents to care for their grandchildren each weekend (515,000 engagements). Begum is also by no means the first business owner or organization to scramble to deal with the aftermath of a fake story generated on one of these sites. The mayor of Annapolis, Maryland, was the subject of a fake story claiming he had made racist statements, and a park in Colorado was targeted with rumors that it was closing on June 1. "The post was shared thousands of times, so now officials are doing damage control to stop the rumor from spreading any further," according to a local news report. Police in Middlesbrough, UK, recently spent time looking into false rumors about a high school after teens there began creating and spreading hoaxes about each other and at least one teacher using one of the sites. "I think people are using it to bully people," one unnamed mother told a newspaper. She added, "My worry is people will not realise it is fake and something bad will happen to my son." Meanwhile, officials in Joplin, Missouri, also had to deal with a spate of false stories created about the area on Channel22News.com, a sister site of the one that hosted the hoax about Begum's restaurant. A Facebook spokesperson told BuzzFeed News it will continue to roll out programs and product updates to make it harder for spammers and fake-news creators to make money from its platform. "A huge motivation for the spammers who trade in false news is their own profit — and we've recently launched new updates to disrupt their financial incentives and curb the spread of this type of material," they said. "There's more work to do, and people should know we remain absolutely committed to it." Recent fake stories published on Channel23News.com. Channel23News.com The owner of Channel23News.com and at least 18 other sites like it is listed in domain registration records as Korry Scherer. He's a 25-year-old based in Milwaukee who told BuzzFeed News he prefers to go by the name Korry Tye. In a phone interview he said he's spent the past five years figuring out ways to make money from the internet. He started by using MySpace pages to advertise products, then eventually shifted his focus to Facebook. At the beginning of this year, Tye decided to launch his first so-called prank news site. "I just thought it could be something that might do well and would be fun and user-driven and take off on its own," he said. The first site's success led him to launch more. He now owns 19 prank news websites with domains such as Channel23News.com, Channel22News.com, and Channel45News.com. Since February they've published at least 724 fake news stories, generating a total of more than 2.5 million shares, reactions, and comments on Facebook. Tye says for the most part "people make pranks about their schools or their coworkers." "There's times that people abuse the platform, like all platforms get abused, and at that point people reach out to me and I have things removed right away," he said. "It's not meant for people to slander people's names or bully people or do disrespectful things that could negatively affect someone's life or ruin their day — that's not cool." (Tye did not respond to a subsequent email noting that the story about Begum's restaurant was still online nearly three weeks after being published.) He acknowledged that on Facebook the prank stories from his sites look like any other news article. But Tye said most people will click on the stories they're inclined to believe. "By the time they actually go check it out they're gonna realize it's all in fun," he said. "Not everyone is as savvy as everyone else on the internet, but it's pretty much there before your eyes." He says the vast majority of stories posted on his prank sites are created by users, though in the early days he sometimes posted fake news stories gathered from other sites to try to raise awareness for his. Hoaxes from elsewhere continue to be copied and uploaded to his sites. The fake story "Man accused of ejaculating in his boss' coffee everyday for 4 years" was first published on World News Daily Report and appeared on Channel34News.com a few days later. (Tye also owns other sites that often publish viral hoaxes that originated elsewhere.) "Initially I never really set out trying to mess with fake news," he said. "This prank site for the most part is people making stories that affect them and their friends ... I definitely took advantage of online hoaxes and viral hoaxes over the years, I can't deny that. It's a way to make money." Popular fake stories from two of Nicolas Gouriou's sites. Media Vibes Though he's quickly built up a large network of make-your-own-fake-news sites, Tye isn't the originator of what he calls the "prank news" concept. That may be Nicolas Gouriou, a man based in Belgium who owns at least 11 prank news sites that publish in English, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, and Italian. The oldest of his sites has been online since at least March of 2015. Gouriou did not respond to multiple emails from BuzzFeed News requesting an interview, or to a list of questions. Both men's sites feature similar forms for uploading a fake news story, as well as instructions that are almost word for word. One difference is that Gouriou's sites feature a disclaimer: "Any bullying, racist, homophobic or pornographic jokes are prohibited. Do not hesitate to report any inappropriate content by contacting us via the Contact Form." In spite of the warning, Gouriou's sites have been the subject of critical news stories in several countries where he offers language-specific versions. A website run by El Pais, one of the largest newspapers in Spain, published a story about the Spanish-language hoax site 12minutos.com. It noted that the site is a source of political hoaxes, and one fake story even caused a real journalist to ask a politician about it. France TV has examined Gouriou's French-language fake news operation, and BuzzFeed Germany recently published a story to warn people about his German-language hoax site. Gouriou's operation generates significant engagement on Facebook. Using data from Buzzsumo, BuzzFeed News found more than 2,300 stories published on his 11 sites in the past 12 months alone. Together they generated more than 10.5 million shares, reactions, and comments on Facebook. Those same stories generated more than 22,000 shares on Twitter during the same time period. These sites continue to see strong engagement on Facebook in spite of the social network's efforts to crack down on what it calls "false news" and clickbait. Based on his experience with Facebook, Tye said he thinks his sites' success probably won't last. "Facebook does a lot of stuff to combat anything that's doing well in the world, period," he said. "As quick as it does good, Facebook damages the reach and affects the way it propagates." He said the reasons for this is partly the company's crackdown on fake news, and partly because he believes Facebook diminishes the organic reach of content in order to push publishers to pay to promote their content. "Facebook's changed a lot and made it hard on a lot of people, but at the same time they created an opportunity and a space for people like me and others to make a ton of money, and it's life-changing in some cases," he said. "It might not be as sweet as it used to be, but it's still great." Tye said he'd be happy to follow whatever rules Facebook has for his pages and sites, but he's been unable to speak with anyone from the company about it. "I aim to, and would like to, establish more of a working relationship with Facebook," Tye said. "I have a healthy budget to spend with them." A photo of the original Indian restaurant opened by Shrina Begum's father in 1957. Laura Gallant / BuzzFeed His complaint about not being able to reach Facebook was also echoed by Begum, the restaurant owner whose business suffered after a hoax on his sites. "I was really angry because I had no way of getting in touch with Facebook — no way whatsoever to tell them that they need to do something to take this down or stop it from spreading," she said. She suggested the company create a hotline that people being affected by fake news or scams can call. "They make literally billions and billions of dollars globally, and the cost of this would be small." Today, a little more than two weeks since the story first went viral, Begum says her business is still suffering and she continues to receive angry phone calls accusing her of selling human meat. "It's been a very, very slow process of recovery, and at the moment my year-on-year sales are completely shot to pieces, it's really terrible," she said. "People are still believing this story — it's still being propagated. "For people, it's like one screenshot they're passing on to each other," she continued. "It's a couple of clicks and they don't think anything more of it, but the human cost is horrible. I'm not sleeping or eating because of this — I don't know what I'm going to do." via BuzzFeed - Tech http://ift.tt/2shUJpX If new feed item from http://www.buzzfeed.com/tech.xml, then send me an email at gocukx.faster@blogger.com

Uber Fires Engineer Accused Of Stealing Self-Driving Car Secrets From Google

Anthony Levandowski Afp / AFP / Getty Images Uber has fired Anthony Levandowski, the engineer at the center of a self-driving lawsuit from Alphabet's autonomous vehicle unit Waymo, an Uber spoksperson confirmed. Levandowski's termination, which is effective immediately, was earlier reported by The New York Times. Levandowski's dismissal comes amid a bitter trade secrets lawsuit from Waymo, where he worked before departing to start his own self-driving truck company called Otto, which Uber acquired last year. Waymo alleges Levandowski downloaded thousands of files related to its self-driving program before departing, and that Uber is now benefitting from that information. Levandowski has pleaded the 5th Amendment and for months was not complying with the company's investigation into Waymo's claims. Uber has maintained in court documents and hearings that Waymo's information has not crossed into its systems. Uber first demoted Levandowski on April 27, citing the need to remove him from leadership over work involving LiDAR – the technology at hand in the lawsuit – pending a trial. (LiDAR, which stands for light detection and ranging, is a laser system that helps self-driving cars see.) Uber then installed Eric Meyhofer as its self-driving program's leader. With Levandowski now out of the company, his direct reports will also fall under Meyhofer. US District Judge William Alsup told Uber that it had no excuse to "pull any punches" to force Levandowski to comply with a legal investigation into Waymo's claims that he stole its trade secrets on May 15. The ride-hail company took the court's directive to heart. Earlier this month, legal filings showed that the ride-hail giant threatened to fire Levandowski if he did not cooperate with an investigation into allegations that he stole trade secrets from Alphabet's Waymo, his former employer. An Uber spokesperson said the company for months pressed Levandowski to comply with its internal investigation into the allegations, and set a deadline the engineer failed to meet. Here's Uber's full termination letter to Levandowski: This is a developing story. Check back for updates. via BuzzFeed - Tech http://ift.tt/2sbcqIC If new feed item from http://www.buzzfeed.com/tech.xml, then send me an email at gocukx.faster@blogger.com

The British Prime Minister Wants To Pressure Tech Companies To Fight Terrorism

Justin Tallis / AFP / Getty Images Today at the G7 summit of world leaders in Sicily, British Prime Minister Theresa May called on those in attendance — including President Trump — to pressure social networks to crack down on terroristic and extremist content. May's decision to call for a session on digital policing comes just days after a deadly suicide attack in Manchester on Monday evening that killed 22 people and wounded dozens more. An official close to May told the Evening Standard that the threat of harm from terrorists and extremists has moved from "the battlefield to the internet." The official also noted that internet materials circulated by extremist organizations "has in the past been linked to acts of violence and the less of this material that is on the internet, that is clearly for the better." May's call to action today during the Summit did not single out any tech companies specifically. Instead, she urged world leaders to put pressure on "communication service providers and social media companies to substantially increase their efforts to address terrorist content." And this morning The Guardian reported that May "apparently had the backing of Trump" for the session. When reached for comment on May's call to action, some of tech's biggest companies expressed their desire to partner with governments, while also highlighting the work they've been doing to try to combat extremism. "We are committed to working in partnership with governments and NGOs to tackle these challenging and complex problems, and share the government's commitment to ensuring terrorists do not have a voice online," Peter Barron, Google's VP Communications for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, told BuzzFeed News in a statement. The rest of the statement is below: "We are already working with industry colleagues on plans for an international forum to help accelerate and strengthen our existing work in this area. We employ thousands of people and invest hundreds of millions of pounds to fight abuse on our platforms, and will continue investing and adapting to ensure we are part of the solution to addressing these challenges" Monika Bickert, the Head of Global Policy Management at Facebook, touted the company's own technology and human reviewers in its fight to police digital extremism on its platform and urged that the problem "can only be tackled with strong partnerships." Here's Facebook's full statement: "We want to provide a service where people feel safe. That means we do not allow groups or people that engage in terrorist activity, or posts that express support for terrorism. Using a combination of technology and human review, we work aggressively to remove terrorist content from our platform as soon as we become aware of it — and if there is an emergency involving imminent harm to someone's safety, we notify law enforcement. Online extremism can only be tackled with strong partnerships. We have long collaborated with policymakers, civil society, and others in the tech industry, and we are committed to continuing this important work together." Others, like the Anti-Defamation League's CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, praised May's move: And while May's session at the G7 has been universally lauded, the task of ridding the internet of terroristic and extremist content remains a herculean problem that Silicon Valley has struggled to solve for years. In March, Twitter — which has vigorously policed its platform for terroristic content — announced it purged 376,890 accounts promoting terrorism between July and the end of December 2016. Since August 2015, Twitter says it has removed 636,248 accounts for terrorism alone. And just a few months ago, Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter, and YouTube partnered to create a shared industry database to police terroristic content. The database contains "hashes" or unique digital fingerprints for images and videos that are produced or simply just used by terrorist organizations, including ISIS. The goal of the partnership is to help all four companies identify and slow the spread of terrorist content across the internet. Twitter, AT&T, and Comcast did not immediately respond to a request for comment. via BuzzFeed - Tech http://ift.tt/2rHFYAa If new feed item from http://www.buzzfeed.com/tech.xml, then send me an email at gocukx.faster@blogger.com

Another Setback For Uber In Self-Driving Car Lawsuit

Anthony Levandowski Afp / AFP / Getty Images A magistrate judge on Thursday ordered Uber to hand over to Waymo by the end of the day an unredacted version of the term sheet agreement for its 2016 acquisition of Otto, the self-driving truck start-up last summer. Otto and its founder, former-Google engineer Anthony Levandowski, are at the center of an increasingly contentious legal battle between Uber and the Alphabet-owned Waymo, which alleges the ride-hail giant stole its self-driving trade secrets. Magistrate Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley's order forcing Uber to disclose the terms of its Otto purchase is a small victory for Waymo, which has argued that the document likely includes information material to its case. The company has also been pushing for Uber to disclose the due diligence report it conducted ahead of the Otto acquisition. Uber has so far refused to do so, claiming the document contains confidential information and is protected by attorney-client privilege. The high-profile trade secrets lawsuit between the two tech giants is scheduled to go to trial on October 2. Uber has maintained throughout the case that Waymo's proprietary information never crossed into its systems and that it has built its own LiDAR technology – the laser system that helps self-driving cars see and navigate the world, which is at the center of the case. Waymo is also arguing for the court to require Uber to provide its due diligence report on Otto's acquisition. Waymo's lawyers have called Otto a ruse, and argued in court that the startup was created so Uber could acquire it and bring on Levandowski – and the information he allegedly took from Waymo. (Uber has since dropped the name Otto.) Given that Levandowski has invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in the case, Waymo's lawyers argue that those documents could shed more light on the issue of what Uber might have known about his alleged actions when it was buying his company. Perhaps crucially, that report also includes an interview with Levandowski. On Wednesday, US District Judge William Alsup — who is overseeing the case and recently referred it to federal prosecutors — slammed Levandowski for responding to Waymo's request for documentation with information he essentially called gibberish: "one thousand pages, over twenty thousand entries, and appeared to be two spreadsheets generated by automated data compilation with no intelligent review or analysis involved." Reached for comment, Uber directed BuzzFeed News to an earlier statement on the matter saying its due diligence report on Otto "is protected by Attorney Client Privilege, which is the most sacred and important privilege in our entire legal system. The law simply does not support Waymo's attempt to gut those privileges." Waymo has not yet provided comment. Uber last week threatened to fire Levandowski if he did not cooperate with the investigation into Waymo's allegations, following a court order that directed the company to do everything in its power to compel his participation. Levandowski's lawyers have argued that the order violates his 5th Amendment rights. The court has ordered Uber to return any allegedly stolen documents to Waymo by May 31. via BuzzFeed - Tech http://ift.tt/2rYsNby If new feed item from http://www.buzzfeed.com/tech.xml, then send me an email at gocukx.faster@blogger.com

Mark Zuckerberg Positions Himself As The Anti-Trump In Speech To Harvard

Paul Marotta / Getty Images Mark Zuckerberg has said he's not running for president. And maybe he's not. But the 33-year-old Facebook CEO laid out a clear political platform in a commencement speech at Harvard Thursday. Zuckerberg's message was far from subtle: He positioned himself as the anti-Trump, preaching a form of compassionate globalism that could make a system of free trade and open immigration work for those it's left behind — a stark contrast from President Trump's inward-looking approach. "This is the struggle of our time," Zuckerberg told the crowd. "The forces of freedom, openness, and global community against the forces of authoritarianism, isolationism, and nationalism. Forces for the flow of knowledge, trade, and immigration against those who would slow them down. This is not a battle of nations, it's a battle of ideas." It was difficult, if not impossible, to hear these words without conjuring Trump's proclamation from his inaugural address: "From this moment on, it's going to be America First." Zuckerberg's were the opposite. Zuckerberg hasn't shied away from expressing his dismay about the resurgence of nationalism across the globe — one that helped Trump get elected in the US, Brexit become reality in Britain, and Marie Le Pen force a runoff in France. "I hope that we have the courage to see that the path forward is to bring people together, not push them apart," he said in a keynote at Facebook's F8 conference last year. And he isn't hiding his desire to put Facebook to work to help improve the global system, so more people will buy in. "The most important thing we at Facebook can do is develop the social infrastructure to give people the power to build a global community that works for all of us," Zuckerberg said in a letter titled "Building Global Community" in February. But Zuckerberg also appears to understand it will take more than one technology company to solve the widespread job loss and income inequality largely blamed on the global system. Making it work "for everyone," as Zuckerberg put it, is no easy task. Zuckerberg formed the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative with his wife Priscilla Chan, in part, to help. He will donate nearly all his money to the initiative, whose stated goals are "advancing human potential and promoting equal opportunity." But he won't stop there. The Harvard speech appeared to be a moment for Zuckerberg, who created Facebook in a dorm room not far from the commencement ceremonies, to lay out a number of policy positions he believes will create better global systems. But implementing these policies requires government — Facebook or the Chan Zuckerberg initiative don't have the power to accomplish it on their own. Zuckerberg addressed economic inequality, for instance. "There is something wrong with our system when I can leave here and make billions of dollars in 10 years while millions of students can't afford to pay off their loans, let alone start a business," he said. To help, he proposed exploring universal basic income, providing affordable childcare, and offering healthcare not tied to a single employer. He discussed immigration, tearing up when speaking about an undocumented student interested in social justice. "It says something about our current situation that I can't even say his name because I don't want to put him at risk," Zuckerberg said. "If a high school senior who doesn't know what the future holds can do his part to move the world forward, then we owe it to the world to do our part too." Zuckerberg also discussed technological automation, a major economic concern that candidates barely acknowledged during the 2016 election. "Our generation will have to deal with tens of millions of jobs replaced by automation like self-driving cars and trucks," Zuckerberg said, calling for a "generation-defining public works" shortly afterward. While the public works programs of the 1930s spent billions to build roads, schools, and airports, Zuckerberg said this generation should be invested in "manufacturing and installing social plans" to help stop climate change, to work to cure disease, and, controversially, to build a system that allows people to vote online. "Let's do big things, not only to create progress, but to create purpose," Zuckerberg said. Instead of his go-to grey T-shirt, Zuckerberg wore a suit. He delivered the speech in a more lively, animated, and emotive manner than how he's spoken in the past. He called on members of the audience to stand up, discussing their personal stories with the crowd as examples of resilience and courage. If Zuckerberg ever runs for office, it will almost certainly look a lot like the man that spoke today. For now though, he's simply asking for your Like. via BuzzFeed - Tech http://ift.tt/2rES1y6 If new feed item from http://www.buzzfeed.com/tech.xml, then send me an email at gocukx.faster@blogger.com

Facebook's Closed Captioning Malfunctioned And Turned Zuckerberg's Speech Into A Jibberish Tone Poem

"CECEOKOK wasn't the first thing I built" - Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg. Mark Zuckerberg built Facebook. And Facebook built a closed captioning system for its auto-play and livestream videos. But today, that closed captioning system apparently malfunctioned — just as Zuckerberg was giving his commencement speech at Harvard University. And it ruled. View Entire List › via BuzzFeed - Tech http://ift.tt/2r2gNaG If new feed item from http://www.buzzfeed.com/tech.xml, then send me an email at gocukx.faster@blogger.com

Is Shazam's Game Show The Future Of Unscripted TV?

Jamie Foxx with contestants on the new show Beat Shazam. Michael Becker / FOX On a recent afternoon at CBS's Studio 36 in LA, at the center of a glowing teal and purple set lit up like the inside of a Poké Ball, the actor, comedian, and musician Jamie Foxx was whipping an eager game show audience into a froth. Rebounding after a commercial break, he leaned into a shopworn catchphrase, and the crowd, on cue, shouted back with glee. "The money's going!" "Up!" "The money's going!" "Up!" Onstage with Foxx — who was loose and charismatic in a red, white, and black biker jacket, closely cropped haircut, and sculpted beard — were Christina and Steve, romantic partners and contestants on the game show, called Beat Shazam, which premieres tonight on Fox. They'd reached the final round of the game, in which teams compete — first against each other, and then against the titular name-that-song app — to rapidly identify popular songs. Only one song stood between them and the grand prize of $1 million — one song, that is, and Shazam, which is represented in the game by an enormous, circular, smoke-spouting monitor that looms over the stage like an angry deity, or a less-homicidal upgrade of HAL 9000, the sentient computer from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Christina, from Brooklyn, had tan skin and chest-length, wavy brown hair. Steve, from Nashville, was lanky with round cheeks and a goatee. As on any decent primetime game show, they faced a burdensome choice: take on Shazam and go for the $1 million, or walk away with what they'd earned up to that point in the game — a less transformative but still substantial $197,000. If they challenged Shazam and lost, their money would be halved. In the audience, the air went thick and quiet with suspense. A sober look fell over Steve's face, as if the weight of the world sat on his shoulders. "Are you going to beat Shazam, or are you going to walk away?" Foxx asked Christina. She paused, and then declared, cocking her neck from side to side on each syllable, "I'm going to Beat. Sha. Zam!" The room erupted. "Beat! Sha! Zam! Beat! Sha! Zam! Beat! Sha! Zam!" Its existence underscores growing interest in franchises with appeal across platforms. Since it launched in 2002, Shazam's willingness to march to its own beat has helped the company navigate more than a decade of transformation in both the music and mobile app businesses. Its 300 million users, who use the app over 20 million times per day to identify songs playing in public spaces — bars, coffee shops, on the radio — at the touch of a button, have grown accustomed to seeing its curlicue logo pop up in unlikely places, including in Super Bowl commercials, on cases of Coke, and, as of last year, inside Snapchat's camera function. But Beat Shazam — the first primetime TV show based on an app (a play-at-home version will launch concurrently) — is by far the company's strangest and most high-profile experiment yet. With backing from Foxx, Don't Forget the Lyrics creator Jeff Apploff, and reality TV kingpin Mark Burnett, its existence underscores both Shazam's unique cultural footing and a growing interest among tech companies and the entertainment industry in franchises with appeal across platforms. Last fall, The CW premiered a Saturday morning cooking show based on the popular recipe app Dinner Spinner, and a game show based on Candy Crush, hosted by Mario Lopez, will debut on CBS this summer. "If you've got an app that has 300 million users identifying songs, it tells you right off the bat that you've got an audience," Apploff told BuzzFeed News. Shazam CEO Rich Riley (left) with Chief Revenue Officer Greg Glenday at Shazam's NYC office. Ricky Rhodes for BuzzFeed News The first version of Shazam for iPhone — based on a pre-smartphone service where users could dial a number, hold up the mouthpiece of their phone, and receive a text message with information about whatever song was playing — was one of the mobile revolution's original success stories. After it was released in 2008, the company became a verb, built a business by collecting affiliate fees from the sales it generated for iTunes (over 1 million downloads per day at its peak), and drew investment from blue chip venture capital firms like Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, which helped fund Amazon, Google, and Snapchat. In 2012, at the height of the initial wave of interest in so-called second-screen experiences that linked mobile devices with television programming, Shazam began offering cast and episode information for TV shows — only to later roll back that functionality due to insufficient demand. Its push into advertising was more fruitful, and last year, Shazam turned its first profit, even as music sales continued to decline amid a broad shift toward streaming. The majority of the company's income now comes from brand partners, who use Shazam's in-house creative team and tech — including a new in-app camera that can recognize codes printed on packages and other surfaces — to make their promotional campaigns interactive. The company continues to evolve. Shazam was an early mover on a trend that has now seized much of Silicon Valley, in which apps on your phone promise to make sense of the world around you. In roughly the past month, both Facebook and Google have announced "augmented reality" products that use your smartphone's camera to recognize objects in your environment and overlay contextual information, like a restaurant's Yelp ratings or the name of a flower species. On a recent episode of the HBO comedy Silicon Valley, a startup providing such a service was described as "Shazam for food." But the Shazam for food in the real world, or at least the Shazam for food brands, may well just be Shazam — the company unveiled its own AR capabilities at SXSW this year. "We've never taken our eye off the ball in terms of the core of what we do, and that's allowed us to extend our leadership and extend our brand and our capabilities," said Rich Riley, CEO of Shazam since 2013 and an executive producer of Beat Shazam. "Fortunately for us, interest in music is always increasing, so I think we'll continue to innovate and look for more big partnerships." Michael Becker / FOX Whether Beat Shazam can match the popularity of its namesake remains to be seen. Apploff said he took the idea from a long-running parlor version of Name That Tune that guests play at his annual New Year's Eve party. He first approached Riley with the concept over two years ago at the behest of Fox, which, at the time, was working closely with Shazam on the hit music industry drama Empire. Knowing that viewers could dismiss the show as a corporate cash grab, or simply superfluous, the producers doubled down on entertainment value, luring Foxx — an Grammy and Academy Award winner — and promising A-list special guests and life-changing prize money. They ran through hundreds of iterations of the game before settling on the format, with three teams of two competing against each other until one is left standing to face Shazam. Test versions that featured more teams, or brought in the Shazam character earlier on, felt flat. "We taped for nine hours one Sunday and threw everything against the wall," Foxx, who said he last used Shazam to identify a "Bad and Boujee" remix at a nightclub in Budapest, told BuzzFeed News. "The good was really good, but the bad was really bad. I said, 'Guys, I fucked up. We all fucked up.' We were thinking, Is this the right thing to do?" The first hint that they'd found a winning formula came from trial contestants, who'd volunteered to help work through the kinks. "They started saying to us, 'We'll stay the whole day! We don't wanna leave! Let's play more!'" Apploff said. Foxx, who figures heavily in ads promoting the show, said he's already met at least one fan of the concept. On a recent drive in LA, he was startled by a man who pulled his car next to his and started screaming his name. "I thought this dude was trying to harm me or something," Foxx said. "But the first thing he said was 'I can beat Shazam!'" via BuzzFeed - Tech http://ift.tt/2qnzrG0 If new feed item from http://www.buzzfeed.com/tech.xml, then send me an email at gocukx.faster@blogger.com