Theme Digital, Tech and Online EN

FAA asks public not to attach guns, bombs, or flamethrowers to drones

Fri, 23 Aug 2019 18:13:52 +0200

Image: FAA

The Federal Aviation Administration would like you to know that drones and weapons are “a dangerous mix.” The government agency sent out a notice on Thursday “warning” the public “that it is illegal to operate a drone with a dangerous weapon attached.” A dangerous weapon is broadly defined as “any item that is used for, or is readily capable of, causing death or serious bodily injury.”

“Perhaps you’ve seen online photos and videos of drones with attached guns, bombs, fireworks, flamethrowers, and other dangerous items,” the FAA writes, nailing us to the wall. “Do not consider attaching any items such as these to a drone because operating a drone with such an item may result in significant harm to a person and to your bank account.”

The...

How to keep spam from invading your Google Calendar

Fri, 23 Aug 2019 18:08:46 +0200

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

For some time now, Google Calendar users have been vulnerable to a rather nasty type of spam that seems to have gained momentum lately. It works like this: an email containing an invitation to an event is sent by a spammer to your Google Calendar (this can apparently happen even with an email that ends up in your spam folder), and the calendar automatically puts the appointment into your calendar — even though the body of the appointment contains a spam link or some other obnoxious content.

At minimum, this is annoying. First, you have to go through the trouble of turning down the invite, which often will expose you to objectionable content. And then you will have the crossed-out appointment — which can appear as a daily appointment —...

Uber’s $1-per-ride ‘safe rides fee’ had nothing to do with safety

Fri, 23 Aug 2019 18:06:27 +0200

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Uber imposed a $1-per-ride surcharge it called a “Safe Rides Fee” in 2014, but it was a just a play for profit. The money collected by the company from the fee — estimated at around $500 million — was never earmarked specifically for safety and was “devised primarily to add $1 of pure margin to each trip,” according to an excerpt from New York Times reporter Mike Isaac’s new book Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber.

At the time, Uber was facing rising costs from insurance and background checks, so the company came up with the idea of imposing a safety fee to help boost its margins. Meanwhile, its actual safety program consisted of little more than a short video course for drivers. It wasn’t until years later that Uber began adding safety...

The Hulu documentary Jawline poignantly explores the price of social media stardom

Fri, 23 Aug 2019 18:05:37 +0200

Photo: Hulu

Welcome to Cheat Sheet, our brief breakdown-style reviews of festival films, VR previews, and other special event releases. This review comes from the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. It has been updated to reflect the film’s release on Hulu.

In the middle of the documentary Jawline, 16-year-old nano-celebrity Austyn Tester organizes a fan meetup in a mall food court. A gaggle of teen and tween girls show up, and he soaks up their rapturous affection, offering compliments, hugs, and photos. Then, the group walks the mall together in a strange parody of a first date: Austyn in front, the girls trailing behind him, phone cameras aloft.

The moment is awkward but oddly winning, which is a sentiment that could apply to much of Jawline. Jawline is...

Tech Moves: Remitly names diversity lead; Tableau hires marketing exec; ArtsFund taps interim CEO

Fri, 23 Aug 2019 17:35:24 +0200

Kim Vu. (Remitly Photo)

— Kim Vu is the new head of diversity, equity and inclusion at Remitly, a Seattle startup that makes it easier to send money across borders. Vu most recently served as the Seattle market executive for Bank of America.

“As the daughter of Vietnamese refugee parents, joining Remitly brings me a deep sense of purpose and connection to what we all do every day to connect families across global borders and boundaries,” Vu said in a statement.

Last month, Remitly raised $135 million and landed an $85 million credit line to grow its remittance service.

Jackie Yeaney. (Remitly Photo)

— Jackie Yeaney signed on with business data visualization firm Tableau as executive vice president of marketing. Yeaney is a former U.S. Air Force officer who was most recently chief marketing officer of Ellucian, which makes software for higher education. She was also a marketing executive at Red Hat and serves on the board of Avaya.

“It’s a privilege to join a company that has not only built an iconic brand but has also fostered such an incredible community dedicated to a field I’m most passionate about — the world of data,” Yeaney said in a statement. “Tableau is well known for its obsession with customer experience, culture, values, people, and beautifully designed software that truly helps anyone make an impact with data.”

Seattle-based Tableau was recently acquired by Salesforce for $15.7 billion. Following the deal, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff referred to Seattle as its new “HQ2.”

David Kuhl. (Lighthouse Photo)

— Lighthouse eDiscovery announced that chief information officer Mark King is retiring and that David Kuhl will take over the role. Lighthouse makes software that helps lawyers quickly sift through mountains of complex documentation.

Kuhl was previously an IT executive at Alaska Airlines and Expedia who has also worked for Microsoft, AT&T and Boeing. King is now a principal at 47 Degrees Consulting, according to his LinkedIn profile.

“David brings to the table a wealth of IT leadership experience from highly respected companies with large and complex data environments,” said David Binder, chief operating and financial officer at Lighthouse, in a statement. “As a company that prides itself in its client-centric approach and continuous program improvement, we are thrilled to welcome David to the team.”

Dr. Maria Huffman. (WNF Photo)

— Dr. Maria Huffman is the new director of the Washington Nanofabrication Facility (WNF) at the University of Washington. Huffman comes from Lund University in Sweden, where she headed the Lund Nano Lab (LNL).

“I am deeply honored to support the work of people pushing the boundaries of nanoscience and engineering to advance new technologies and devices at one of the world’s preeminent public universities and research institutions,” Huffman said in a statement.

WNF is part of the UW’s Institute for Nano-Engineered Systems, or NanoES.

Sue Coliton. (ArtsFund Photo)

— Sue Coliton stepped up to become interim CEO of ArtsFund, a nonprofit that supports Seattle-area arts organizations through grants. Coliton will take the reins on Sept. 9 when she succeeds Sandy McDade.

“Sue is among the most respected executives active in the Seattle arts community,” ArtsFund board chair Anthony R. Miles wrote in an announcement. “She will be a wonderful leader for the organization during this pivotal year while the search committee continues working to identify the right person to spearhead ArtsFund’s next epoch.”

Coliton formerly led the philanthropic programs for the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation and was chair of the Washington State Arts Commission.

Ron Davis. (Tenacity Photo)

— Identity verification company Ekata hired Ron Davis as director of sales. Davis was most recently the vice president of sales at Seattle-based artificial intelligence startup Xnor.ai. Prior to that, he was CEO at big data startup Tenacity, which sold to Cogito last year.

Seattle-based Ekata was created in June when Whitepages split into two separate companies. Ekata is led by former Whitepages CEO Rob Eleveld.

Riding a telemedicine wave, docs trade white coats for the tech life, testing the limits of health care

Fri, 23 Aug 2019 17:33:55 +0200

Michael Grabinski works as a physician at telemedicine startup 98point6. (GeekWire Photo)

Dr. Michael Grabinski walks into the room, but he can’t talk yet.

“I just picked up a patient,” he said. “There was someone in the waiting room.”

It takes me a second to process what he’s saying. We’re in a skyscraper in downtown Seattle, with no waiting room or patients in sight.

Grabinski is the medical director for clinical quality and outcomes at telemedicine startup 98point6, and he’s referring to the digital queue that patients enter when they open the company’s app. Later, he mentions a “clinic” that turns out to be the name of a Slack channel.

Patients access primary care through an app run by 98point6. (98point6 Photo)

Grabinski is among a growing cohort of physicians who have traded clinic jobs for the tech life. With quaffed hair, stylish glasses and sneakers, Grabinski is indistinguishable from the computer engineers who also occupy the startup’s offices.

But since leaving his job at the Polyclinic in Seattle, his day-to-day hasn’t changed as much as you might think. Grabinski still sees — or, more accurately, messages — roughly the same number of patients in a day, but he’s also involved in building an app that is trying to radically change how patients seek care.

As for those patients, most seem only too happy to sacrifice the personal doctor-patient relationship if it means on-demand convenience. “The new generation doesn’t value continuity as much,” Grabinski said.

Despite the appeal of on-demand healthcare, telehealth only accounted for a tenth of one percent of all healthcare visits in 2018. But those claims have grown 1,393 percent over the last four years, according to a report from FAIR Health.

Investors seem convinced telemedicine has a bright future. The sector made up a tenth of all deal activity in health tech and brought in nearly $900 million from investors last year, according to Pitchbook. Telemedicine is expected to grow from $38.3 billion to more than $130 billion by 2025, according to to Global Market Insights.

(PitchBook Chart)

Under the leadership of CEO Robbie Cape, a former Microsoft executive, 98point6 launched its virtual clinic last year and has raised $86.3 million to date. Its competitors include well-established telemedicine providers like MDLive and Doctor on Demand, as well as a new generation of rapidly proliferating startups. Also based in Seattle is Genneve, a telehealth service for menopausal women that recently raised $4 million.

For doctors willing to trade in white coats and clipboards for sneakers and laptops, there are perks. One is a flexible work schedule. Another is streamlined documentation, a common headache for clinicians. 98point6 has built artificial intelligence systems that automatically draft a medical chart for each patient following a visit.

The technology helps doctors “do more clinical work than busy work,” said Alexi Nazem, CEO of Nomad Health, which operates a telehealth staffing service. In theory, technology like this could alleviate the problem of physician burnout.

“Our hypothesis, although we’re still a young company, is that we will have more longevity of our clinician team,” said Amanda Cuda, who manages the medical group at 98point6. The team recruits across a range of longitudes so that nobody will have to work overnight. They even have one clinician in Hawaii.

98point6 doctors are also encouraged to spend around a fifth of their time improving the product, and the rest in the clinic.

Amanda Cuda, medical director of the medical group at 98point6. (GeekWire Photo)

There are no scheduled visits, and patients are admitted on a rolling basis. “We have the luxury of time,” Grabinski said. But that also presents a challenge for maintaining the quality of care over time, since it’s unlikely that a patient will see the same provider at a subsequent visit. The upshot is that 98point6 doctors must learn to work as a team rather than as independent providers.

There’s a lot of learning at this early stage. Charts are regularly reviewed for quality, and new guidelines are implemented regularly. The idea is to standardize the process as much as possible so that it can be automated.

Grabinski sees around 18 patients per day, a number that should, in theory, go up over time and deliver the cost savings that 98point6 was designed to create. Insurers and employers may also save by reducing the number of unnecessary ER and time spent away from work at doctor’s appointments.

98point6 employs 40 accredited physicians on staff and many more are coming on board — around 10 new doctors were brought on in the six weeks prior to GeekWire’s visit. They’ll need the staff: The number of patients that 98point6 doctors see has grown by a factor of 5 in the past year.

Trading a hospital job for telemedicine isn’t as easy as it may sound, thanks to state-by-state licensing laws. Each practitioner has to become licensed in every state. Cuda said that the company’s record for securing nation-wide licensing is five months, and most doctors take six to eight months to become fully licensed.

Nazem thinks telemedicine adoption has been slowed by an “archaic belief” in state-determined licenses. “A person in Seattle with a sore throat is no different than a person in New York with a sore throat,” he said.

Those barriers help to explain why only around 15 percent of physicians work in a practice that uses telehealth, according to a survey from the American Medical Association. But providers have a strong incentive to embrace telemedicine, which can help offset the shortage of primary care physicians. “The market as a whole is supply-constrained,” Nazem said.

If Grabinksi is any indication, physicians may be fine with the new way of working. “The quality of life here is night and day,” he said.

Why The Most Dangerous Game is this weekend’s best streaming bet

Fri, 23 Aug 2019 17:32:18 +0200

RKO Radio Pictures Inc./Photofes

There are so many streaming options available these days, and so many conflicting recommendations, that it’s hard to see through all the crap you could be watching. Each Friday, The Verge’s Cut the Crap column simplifies the choice by sorting through the overwhelming multitude of movies and TV shows on subscription services, and recommending a single perfect thing to watch this weekend.

What to watch

The Most Dangerous Game, a 1932 movie adaptation of Richard Connell’s short story of the same name. Joel McCrea plays Bob Rainsford, a big-game hunter who gets shipwrecked on a private South American island belonging to a fellow sportsman, the Russian Count Zaroff (Leslie Banks). When Rainsford meets Zaroff’s guests, he becomes smitten with...

Google spooks employee activists with new guidelines for political speech at work

Fri, 23 Aug 2019 17:22:23 +0200

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Google has updated its employee guidelines to caution against unnecessary political debate and improper disclosure of company information.

Unveiled on Friday, the guidelines direct Googlers to be respectful in all internal communications, with prohibitions against trolling or blanket statements against groups of people that make fellow employees unwelcome.

“Don’t troll, name call, or engage in ad hominem attacks,” the new guidelines read. “Be respectful in your comments about (and to) your fellow Googlers.” The previous version of the guidelines was unveiled just over a year ago in the wake of the James Damore incident.

The new version also includes language...

Facebook’s emails reveal Cambridge Analytica complaints started months earlier than originally claimed

Fri, 23 Aug 2019 17:00:53 +0200

Illustration by James Bareham / The Verge

The Cambridge Analytica scandal rocked Facebook when it came to light last year, but newly revealed documents containing internal Facebook conversations released jointly by Facebook and the District of Columbia attorney general show that the company was already investigating complaints about Cambridge Analytica potentially abusing data as early as September 2015, months before the December date that Facebook has repeatedly testified to.

“We suspect many of these companies are doing similar types of scraping, the largest and most aggressive on the conservative side being Cambridge Analytica, a sketchy (to say the least) data modeling company that has penetrated our market deeply,” an email from a Facebook employee on September 22nd,...

Why reCAPTCHA is actually an act of human torture

Fri, 23 Aug 2019 16:53:57 +0200

Like many things that start out as a mere annoyance, though eventually grow into somewhat of an affliction. One particular dark and insidious thing has more than reared its ugly head in recent years, and now far more accurately described as an epidemic disease. I’m talking about the filth that is reCAPTCHA. Yes that seemingly harmless question of “Are you a human?” Truly I wish all this called for were sarcastic puns of ‘The Matrix’ variety but the matter is far more serious. Google describes reCAPTCHA as: [reCAPTCHA] is a free security service that protects your websites from spam and…

This story continues at The Next Web

Porsche shows off the interior of its first EV ahead of September 4th reveal

Fri, 23 Aug 2019 16:42:02 +0200

Image: Porsche

Porsche has shown the first photos of the screen-laden cockpit of the Taycan, the company’s inaugural electric vehicle and the tip of the spear of parent company Volkswagen’s attempt to distance itself from Dieselgate with a massive push into EVs.

While other modern Porsches feature a mix of touchscreens and touch-sensitive control panels, the Taycan will take that idea a step further. The car can be optioned to have as many as three screens strewn across the dashboard as well as two touch-sensitive panels for controlling things like the heat and air conditioning.

Two touchscreens come standard on the Taycan. The first is the digital instrument cluster, which measures 16.8 inches and is curved so that it can be easily viewed through...

Elite athletes have poor oral health, likely due to love of sports drinks

Fri, 23 Aug 2019 16:29:27 +0200

While we think of elite athletes as being very conscious of what they put into their bodies, new research from University College London (UCL) has found evidence that this isn’t so much the case when it comes to oral health.

Publishing their findings in the British Dental Journal, researchers surveyed data from 352 Olympic and professional male and female athletes across 11 different sports, who underwent dental check-ups measuring tooth decay, gum health and acid erosion.

The researchers also asked athletes what they did to keep their mouth, teeth and gums healthy. This revealed that almost half (49.1pc) of the surveyed athletes have untreated tooth decay, with a large majority showing early signs of gum inflammation. Additionally, 32pc reported that their oral health had a negative impact on their training and performance.

Rather than not taking care of their teeth, the vast majority of athletes claimed the opposite was true. For example, 94pc said they brush their teeth twice a day and 44pc reported flossing. When asked about their diets, a significant number of athletes reported consuming sports drinks (87pc), energy bars (59pc) and energy gels (70pc).

“We found that a majority of the athletes in our survey already have good oral-health-related habits in as much as they brush their teeth twice a day, visit the dentist regularly, don’t smoke and have a healthy general diet,” said researcher Dr Julie Gallagher.

“However, they use sports drinks, energy gels and bars frequently during training and competition. The sugar in these products increases the risk of tooth decay and the acidity of them increases the risk of erosion. This could be contributing to the high levels of tooth decay and acid erosion we saw during the dental check-ups.”

Previous research undertaken by UCL’s Eastman Dental Institute also showed athletes may face an elevated risk of oral disease caused by a dry mouth during intensive training.

The post Elite athletes have poor oral health, likely due to love of sports drinks appeared first on Silicon Republic.

Sphero buys LittleBits in a bid to dominate connected educational toys

Fri, 23 Aug 2019 16:09:22 +0200

Sphero, the maker of connected STEAM toys, is buying LittleBits, another connected toy company that teaches kids to code. The companies didn’t disclose how much Sphero spent on the acquisition, but both companies have similar business models. They mainly sell to schools and have built educational support systems to assist teachers. Combined, the companies say, they’ve reached over 6 million students across 35,000 schools.

Both companies understand the importance of schools to the viability of a hardware company. Some hardware companies focus on consumer subscriptions, like the Keurig coffee pod model, but Sphero and LittleBits instead sell to teachers and offer subscription plans that cover standard wear and tear, which is essential for...

Why Minecraft and Mixer are the perfect streaming combo

Fri, 23 Aug 2019 16:03:03 +0200

I feel I should start by explaining that I am brand new to any form of streaming. I have played Minecraft a fair amount, albeit five years ago and a lot has changed in that time. Every time I turn the corner, some new feature (new to me) surprises me, I feel like I have discovered the wonder that is Minecraft all over again. It leaves me wondering why I ever stopped playing in the first place. But, I’m back now, and I’m loving it! My decision to return was driven primarily by the enjoyment I got from watching people…

This story continues at The Next Web

Hacker who sold Uber’s and Sainsbury’s customer data forced to give up $1M in cryptocurrency

Fri, 23 Aug 2019 16:01:10 +0200

A hacker has been ordered to pay back over $1.1 million (£900,000) in cryptocurrency after carrying out attacks on several well-known businesses including Uber, Sainsbury’s, and Groupon. Grant West, a 27-year-old, who lived in a caravan park in Kent, England, has been told to pay back £922,978.14 after police forfeited his stolen funds following a two-year investigation called ‘Operation Draba.’ West operated on the dark web under the ‘Courvoisier’ alias and mostly used phishing emails to gain access to financial data of tens of thousands of customers before flogging them on several illicit marketplaces. Argos, Nectar, Labdrokes, Coral Betting, and supermarket chain Asda,…

This story continues at The Next Web

Or just read more coverage about: Uber

Julien Rivoire’s 3D concepts imagine modern-day versions of retro tech

Fri, 23 Aug 2019 16:00:00 +0200

A little while ago, programmer Foone Turing shared a concept image of a portable WinAmp player that sparked intense reactions on Twitter, like, “I’ve never needed anything more in my life,” and fittingly, “it really whips the llama’s ass.” Seeing WinAmp’s skeuomorphic design translated into a physical object — one that could be folded up into a business card-sized MP3 player, no less — was nothing short of mind-blowing.

The concept was designed by Julien Rivoire, a France-based art director and 3D artist who makes everything from imagined retro tech gadgets to soothing, looping animations that provide a visual oasis from your Instagram feed. A self-taught artist, his clients include Louis Vuitton, Nike, and Fool’s Gold Records. We caught...

Telling Lies is a complex, tense mystery that you unravel yourself

Fri, 23 Aug 2019 15:58:00 +0200

In 2015, developer Sam Barlow broke away from his work on games like Silent Hill: Homecoming to release a live-action whodunnit called Her Story. It was an instant hit, praised for its true crime flair and atypical gameplay, where players unravel the story at their own pace by searching terms on a fictional police database. Four years later, Barlow has released a spiritual successor to his breakout success with Telling Lies.

Telling Lies follows the lives of four characters — played by actors Logan Marshall-Green, Kerry Bishé, Alexandra Shipp, and Angela Sarafyan — whose stories are told exclusively through recorded conversations. Much like Her Story, players search a database of video clips by casting a net of keywords and seeing what...

Battery-free IoT sensor that lasts for years could be sent to distant planets

Fri, 23 Aug 2019 15:00:22 +0200

A team of MIT researchers has unveiled a battery-free underwater sensor that can transmit data for extremely long periods of time. According to MIT News, rolling out a network of these sensors could be used to monitor sea temperatures, study climate change or even be used for underwater internet-of-things (IoT) networks on distant planets.

Explaining the technology, the team said a transmitter sends acoustic waves through water towards a piezoelectric sensor that has stored data. Each wave that hits the sensor creates electrical charge that is then stored. While early days, the sensor was able to transmit 3Kbps of data from two sensors simultaneously at a distance of 10 metres between sensor and receiver.

Speaking of its interplanetary uses, co-author of the study, Fadel Adib, said: “How can you put a sensor under the water on Titan that lasts for long periods of time in a place that’s difficult to get energy?

“Sensors that communicate without a battery open up possibilities for sensing in extreme environments.”

The team now wants to see if the system can work at farther distances and communicate with more sensors simultaneously. Furthermore, it’s hoped that the system will eventually be able to transmit sound and low-resolution images.

Scratch-proof smartphones possible with ceramic welding technology

A new ceramic welding technology developed by a team of engineers at the University of California San Diego and the University of California, Riverside, could lead to scratch-proof phone screens and metal-free pacemakers.

Writing in Science, the team said it uses an ultra-fast pulsed laser to melt ceramic materials along the interface and fuse them together. Working in ambient power at less than 50W, the laser can create welded ceramics that are biocompatible, extremely hard and shatter-resistant, making them ideal for biomedical implants and protective casings for electronics.

According to senior author Javier E Garay: “Right now there is no way to encase or seal electronic components inside ceramics because you would have to put the entire assembly in a furnace, which would end up burning the electronics.”

By optimising the laser parameters – such as exposure time and duration of pulses – and the transparency of the ceramic material, welding at room temperature was achieved.

“By focusing the energy right where we want it, we avoid setting up temperature gradients throughout the ceramic, so we can encase temperature-sensitive materials without damaging them,” Garay said.

Russia launches human-sized robot to ISS

A helpful robot named FEDOR (Final Experimental Demonstration Object Research) was launched aboard a Soyuz rocket yesterday (22 August) from Russia’s Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, with the International Space Station (ISS) as its final destination.

According to the BBC, the bipedal, human-sized robot will form part of a test for a new emergency rescue system. Weighing 160kg, FEDOR will be tasked with learning a number of new skills including “connecting and disconnecting electric cables” and “using standard items from a screwdriver and a spanner to a fire extinguisher”, according to the Russian space agency’s director for prospective programmes and science, Alexander Bloshenko.

Before its 10-day mission is up, it’s hoped that the robot could go on to do more dangerous tasks such as spacewalks.

Flying taxi start-up reveals its first commercial vehicle

German start-up Volocopter has revealed the design of its latest air taxi, the VoloCity. In an announcement, the company revealed it can hold two passengers and hand luggage, with increased flight efficiency through aerodynamically shaped rotor beams.

Now in the fourth generation of electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, Volocopter said the VoloCity will have a range of approximately 35km and a top speed of about 112kph.

“It is a result of all insights we have gathered from our extensive testing programmes over the past years,” said Florian Reuter, CEO of Volocopter. “With the VoloCity we will open the first commercial routes and bring urban air mobility to life.”

The company said its plans are to develop the ecosystem and infrastructure necessary to bring the eVTOL to cities, such as landing pads and air traffic management systems.

Want stories like this and more direct to your inbox? Sign up for Tech Trends, Silicon Republic’s weekly digest of need-to-know tech news.

The post Battery-free IoT sensor that lasts for years could be sent to distant planets appeared first on Silicon Republic.

These three companies are all aiming to land the first private spacecraft on the Moon in two years

Fri, 23 Aug 2019 15:00:00 +0200

The Moon is a hot destination right now — especially for NASA, which wants to send people back to the lunar surface, but also for the private space industry. The most ambitious private lunar exploits are still many years off, but already, three companies claim they’ll be putting small robotic landers on the Moon in the next two years, amping up a small space race.

So far, no private entity has landed something successfully on the Moon. Only three government superpowers — the United States, China, and Russia — have ever been able to gently touch down vehicles on the lunar surface, and the Indian government may become the fourth in September. An Israeli nonprofit, SpaceIL, attempted to land the first private spacecraft on the Moon in...

AWS issues are causing erratic cryptocurrency market data in Asia

Fri, 23 Aug 2019 14:55:13 +0200

Cryptocurrency exchanges are reportedly experiencing some disruption – how the tables have turned – after an outage at Amazon’s Web Services (AWS) cloud. Binance, one of the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchanges, is reportedly experiencing 500 error messages on its APIs. It says some withdrawal processing has been affected. AWS is having an issue, mostly with caching services, affecting some users globally. We are working with them and monitoring the situation closely. — CZ Binance (@cz_binance) August 23, 2019 It's causing some 500 error messages on APIs and affecting some withdrawal processing — CZ Binance (@cz_binance) August 23, 2019 The KuCoin exchange is…

This story continues at The Next Web

Indian court rejects the idea of linking social media accounts with IDs

Fri, 23 Aug 2019 14:51:20 +0200

Earlier this week, The Madras High Court in India ruled against any possibility of linking Aadhaar or any government ID with social media accounts. Justice S. Manikumar, said linking Aadhaar to emails or accounts would violate the original ruling from the Supreme Court which allows the IDs use only for government welfare schemes. The high court was responding to two public interest litigations (PIL) filed last year that sought “linking of Aadhaar or any one of the Government authorized identity proof as mandatory for the purpose of authentication while obtaining any email or user account.” The High Court has now expanded the…

This story continues at The Next Web

Vergecast: Galaxy Note 10 Plus review, Apple fall lineup rumors, and green bubble GIFs

Fri, 23 Aug 2019 14:35:46 +0200

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

We’ve reviewed the Samsung Galaxy Note 10 Plus, and this week on The Vergecast, we go in way deeper on DeX, the cameras, and more. There’s an official name for Android Q: it’s just Android 10. This week also saw Mark Gurman’s traditional rumor drop of everything to expect at Apple’s upcoming iPhone event. It’s a lot, and it’s all fodder for Nilay Patel, Dieter Bohn, and Paul Miller to talk about.

Promises we can make to you about this episode: there’s no alliteration of a thousand Q words, no discussion of Bixby actually being a secret dog butler, and no way for you to opt out of any privacy clauses by leaving a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts for this show. (But if you did the last thing anyway, we’d appreciate it.)

On top of all...

The Google Home Mini’s mute switch makes privacy deliberate

Fri, 23 Aug 2019 14:30:00 +0200

In today’s digital age, it sometimes feels like hardware has taken a back seat to the software that drives our devices. Button of the Month is a monthly look at what some of those buttons and switches are like on devices old and new, and it aims to appreciate how we interact with our devices on a physical, tactile level.

Smart home devices can make people uneasy, what with the “constantly listening to you” and the massive breach of privacy whereby paid human contractors turned out to be listening to recordings from Apple, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Facebook services without users knowing it. But I still use a Google Home Mini, and part of that is because of the physical microphone mute switch on the back that gives a kind of peace of...

Instagram is trialling back-to-back ads on Stories

Fri, 23 Aug 2019 14:25:45 +0200

If you have a scroll through the Instagram app in its current iteration, you’ll struggle to get past three or four posts without encountering an advertisement or sponsored post. In Instagram Stories, the situation is fairly similar.

Instagram apparently has no plans to change this, as the company launched a trial earlier this week that will involve showing users two different advertisements back-to-back in Instagram Stories.

A spokesperson from Facebook, Instagram’s parent company, told Adweek that the goal is to see if back-to-back ads in the Stories feature provide a more seamless experience for users and to gather feedback.

The spokesperson insisted the company’s primary focus will remain on user experience, while the secondary focus is the platform’s value for advertisers.

A number of employees at Adweek commented on the fact that roughly 25pc of their Instagram feeds were advertisements, but Facebook responded: “We are always improving the ad experience. Ad load fluctuates based on how people use Instagram. We closely monitor people’s sentiment both for ads and overall commerciality.”

Other changes

In July of this year, Instagram removed visible likes from users in Ireland and other regions. The company said that this was part of an experiment to see if it would change how users engage with the app, and if it encourages healthier habits among users.

The decision was met with disappointment and criticism among individuals who have forged careers for themselves as influencers on the platform.

A month prior to this, the company also made the decision to put advertisements on the Explore page of its app.

In a blogpost, Instagram said: “Today 80pc of people follow a business on Instagram, and Explore can help them find the next business or product that they might love. Brands are an important part of the Instagram experience for people.”

The company also said that more than 50pc of its users visit the Explore tab each month.

According to The Information, these changes are likely being made under pressure from Facebook. The publication reported that some executives at the social media company have voiced concerns that Instagram’s success is a threat to Facebook.

The post Instagram is trialling back-to-back ads on Stories appeared first on Silicon Republic.

Hackers behind Texas ransomware attacks want $2.5 million

Fri, 23 Aug 2019 14:22:22 +0200

The threat actor behind the coordinated ransomware attack against multiple Texas local governments may have gained access to its computer systems via a third-party software provider. According to NPR, which first reported the development, the attackers want a collective ransom of $2.5 million. So far, there are no indications the amount has been paid. On August 20, the Texas Department of Information Resources (DIR) said as many as 23 state-run services — including police departments and libraries — had been had been affected by file-encrypting malware. Though very little is known about the attack’s origin or the strain of ransomware used, the…

This story continues at The Next Web

Meet the data connection device that works globally—and it’s $70 off

Fri, 23 Aug 2019 14:00:00 +0200

The Tern Global Data Connection Device is the only device that allows you to stay connected anywhere in the world. Right now, this offer from TNW Deals puts this revolutionary travel necessity in your hands for just $99, an over 40 percent savings off the regular price.

Facebook’s ‘cryptocurrency’ Libra may be in more trouble than we thought

Fri, 23 Aug 2019 13:41:50 +0200

Facebook‘s ‘cryptocurrency’ Libra may be in even deeper trouble than we thought if a recent report is anything to go by. According to the Financial Times, it seems that some of Facebook‘s early backers have been spooked by increasing regulatory scrutiny. It’s being reported that at least three of Facebook‘s supporters have privately discussed ways in which to distance themselves from the project. When it was first announced, the Libra Association – the independent body responsible for overseeing the ‘cryptocurrency’ – boasted 28 members, which included several heavyweights from the financial sector (Visa, Mastercard), and technology industry (Spotify, Uber), alongside Calibra…

This story continues at The Next Web

Or just read more coverage about: Facebook

5 questions about tech careers we asked this week

Fri, 23 Aug 2019 13:30:20 +0200

How do certain sectors of the tech industry impact the entire economic ecosystem? How can you ensure you make a stellar impression from the get-go in a new role?

These are just a few of the things we pondered this week in the Careers section. We examined topics ranging from remote working to the latest jobs in the industry up for grabs. Here are the five questions we asked this week.

1. How do you make a splash in a graduate programme?

David Casserly is a science graduate who went on to become a senior associate in the data analytics and assurance department at PwC, so we caught up with him this week to hear more about his experience as a graduate with the firm.

“The PwC graduate programme provides loads of opportunities to get exposure to several different industries. I knew that I could develop my career with PwC as they provide emphasis on cultivating individuals with strong leadership, business and technical skills,” he explained.

PwC is just one of many companies that, as we discovered this week, is offering great opportunities to graduates, ranging from internships to entry-level positions.

2. How do you keep remote working teams motivated?

Remote working is becoming increasingly popular. It allows employers to cast the net more widely in their talent search and provides employees with the flexibility they crave.

Yet organising these teams comes with its own set of considerations, as Trello’s head of product Justin Gallagher told us.

3. What kind of soft skills can you develop in an Agile team?

Aoife Downey is a computer science student and intern at Fidelity Investments. From the outset, she was excited to gain hands-on experience of working in an Agile team, using the skills she learned in college and developing new technological competencies.

However, she also developed a whole host of new soft skills, which she told us about this week.

4. Is the jobs market for young people broken?

Our editor Elaine Burke took a stark look at elements of the modern employment landscape that can make it difficult for the youth of today to succeed in Dublin. A spiralling housing crisis, the rising expense of education, worker exploitation and ‘payment by exposure’ culture can all get in the way when you’re trying to get your career off the ground.

If we’re not careful, we could be edging close to another mass brain drain, similar to the one that took place in the wake of the 2008 economic crash. Some important food for thought as students return to university.

5. What jobs are out there for people who are looking?

In jobs news, marketing automation firm ActiveCampaign revealed that it is opening a new European headquarters in Dublin, creating 200 jobs. The company’s initial hires will focus on support, sales, customer success and marketing roles.

For more information on any of these stories, check out the links above.

Want stories like this and more direct to your inbox? Sign up for Tech Trends, Silicon Republic’s weekly digest of need-to-know tech news.

The post 5 questions about tech careers we asked this week appeared first on Silicon Republic.

CHEAP: Pump up the jams, fellow kidz! This Anker portable speaker is $20

Fri, 23 Aug 2019 13:14:49 +0200

Welcome to CHEAP, our series about things that are good, but most of all, cheap. CHEAP! Have you ever spotted one of these people walking around town with a speaker in their backpack, obnoxiously bumping tunes nobody else in their vicinity likes? Well, for $20 bucks, you, too, can be that person. Amazon is currently selling Anker’s Soundcore Motion B portable speaker for just $19,99. Considering those babies usually go for about $30-$50 a pop, there’s no better time than now to purchase one and annoy everyone who dares to step near you – and that, let’s be honest, is…

This story continues at The Next Web

‘Managed retreat’ from coasts our best option to tackle climate crisis

Fri, 23 Aug 2019 13:06:19 +0200

Among the many ways the climate crisis is altering our planet, rising sea levels is expected to have one of the most dramatic and impactful affects on the lives of millions of people who live along coastlines. Now, three researchers writing in Science are advocating for a “managed retreat” from coastal areas, not as a sign of defeat in tackling the climate crisis but as a necessary, proactive step for the greater good.

“We need to stop picturing our relationship with nature as a war,” said AR Siders from the University of Delaware, who co-wrote the piece along with colleagues Miyuki Hino (Stanford University) and Katharine J Mach (Stanford and University of Miami).

“We’re not winning or losing, we’re adjusting to changes in nature. Sea levels rise, storms surge into flood plains, so we need to move back.”

Highlighting the example of a typical emergency response to an environmental disaster, Siders said that evacuations are typically done inefficiently and haphazardly. Instead, the researchers argue for it being more strategic.

An economic argument

“Retreat is a tool that can help achieve societal goals like community revitalisation, equity and sustainability if it is used purposefully,” Siders said. “People sometimes see retreat as defeatist, but I see it as picking your battles.”

The researchers also argued that when disaster strikes, it is common for wealthier residents of an area to relocate, leaving poorer residents struggling to find the resources to move.

Hino said: “One major challenge with retreat is that we’re so focused on getting people out of harm’s way, we miss the chance to help them move to opportunity.”

Specifically addressing the climate crisis, the researchers said that while a managed retreat is a good idea, it may not be a step that’s necessary this year or even this decade.

Mach said: “The story of retreat as a climate response is just beginning. Retreat is compelling because it brings together so many aspects of how societies work, what individuals are trying to achieve and what it takes to ensure preparedness and resilience in a changing climate.”

The post ‘Managed retreat’ from coasts our best option to tackle climate crisis appeared first on Silicon Republic.

If medical wearables want to save lives, they should be ‘invisible’

Fri, 23 Aug 2019 13:00:56 +0200

One of the latest updates to the Apple Watch included FDA-approved ECG monitoring, and it made waves in both the consumer and medical communities. Many people thought this was impossible. Some were worried about false positives. But most were excited about the potential good that a widely used device with an ECG monitor might be able to do. Once the product was released, users quickly saw the benefits, and some even credited the watch with saving their lives. In theory, Apple’s ECG monitor shouldn’t cause such a stir. After all, the Apple Watch isn’t the first device of its kind…

This story continues at The Next Web

Errors in cellphone location evidence force Denmark to review 10,000 verdicts

Fri, 23 Aug 2019 12:58:38 +0200

Errors in cellphone location data have prompted authorities in Denmark to review 10,700 court cases to see if flawed evidence lead to incorrect convictions. The New York Times reports that the issues date back in 2012, and consist of two bugs. The first relates to how raw data from phone companies is converted into evidence by Danish police, and the second is a bug that could result in cellphones being linked to the wrong cellphone towers. Cases where errant data was a deciding factor in the conviction could end up being retried.

The issues discovered in Denmark could have broader impact on the use of cellphone location data as evidence in future cases. One legal expert quoted by the NYT said that lawyers don’t typically question the...

VMware acquiring Carbon Black for $2.1bn and Pivotal for $2.7bn

Fri, 23 Aug 2019 12:52:10 +0200

On Thursday (21 August), VMware announced its intent to make two hefty acquisitions, amounting to a total cost of $.4.8bn.

The publicly traded software company, of which Dell is the majority shareholder, provides cloud computing and virtualisation software and services.

As it announced that its revenue for the last quarter reached $2.44bn, VMware said that it would acquire Carbon Black for $2.1bn and Pivotal for $2.7bn.

Carbon Black is a publicly traded security company that provides services to modern cloud-native workloads. Using big data and behavioural analytics, Carbon Black is used to protect clients against cyberattacks.

In a statement, VMware said that the acquisition of Carbon Black “represents the evolution of VMware’s intrinsic security strategy, where security features are built into the infrastructure and across workloads, clients and applications”.

The company noted that the Carbon Black deal will be an all-cash transaction for $26 per share.

VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger said: “By bringing Carbon Black into the VMware family, we are now taking a huge step forward in security and delivering an enterprise-grade platform to administer and protect workloads, applications and networks.”

Addressing tech priorities

Pivotal, which provides tools for software developers, will also be acquired by the company at $11.71 blended price per share and $15 per share for public stockholders. As with VMware, Dell is also the controlling stakeholder in Pivotal Software.

“For the last six years, Pivotal has been at the leading-edge of modern software development, helping organisations transform how they build and run their most important applications,” VMware said in its statement.

“Pivotal offers a powerful set of assets including a leading developer-centric platform, tools and service that accelerate modern app development.”

Rob Mee, CEO of Pivotal, said: “The time is ideal to join forces with VMware, an industry leader who shares our commitment to open source community contributions and our focus on adding developer value on top of Kubernetes.”

Looking ahead, Gelsinger added that acquiring the two companies would help VMware build “on another solid quarter”.

“These acquisitions address two critical technology VMware Inc priorities of all businesses today – building modern, enterprise-grade applications and protecting enterprise workloads and clients. With these actions we meaningfully accelerate our subscription and SaaS offerings and expand our ability to enable our customers’ digital transformation.”

Both deals are set to close by January 2020.

The sign at the entrance to VMware’s offices in Silicon Valley. Image: SundryPhotography/Depositphotos

The post VMware acquiring Carbon Black for $2.1bn and Pivotal for $2.7bn appeared first on Silicon Republic.

Samsung allegedly removed a women’s sexual health stall from a women in tech event

Fri, 23 Aug 2019 12:19:28 +0200

Yesterday, Samsung hosted an event in San Francisco on the “Growth and Innovation in the Wearable Device Market.” Co-hosted with SF Women in Tech, the conference showed off some of the biggest new innovations in tech — but apparently drew the line when it came to women’s sexual health. Liz Klinger, the co-founder and CEO of Lioness, a women-led company designing tech-driven sex toys whose mission is to destigmatize pleasure, was asked to remove her stall from the event, even though she was allegedly previously approved to attend. I am at the @Samsung event with #womenintechSF for @LionessHealth and was…

This story continues at The Next Web

Or just read more coverage about: Samsung

How to Create Videos That Sell

Fri, 23 Aug 2019 12:00:56 +0200

Do you use videos to sell your products or services? Looking for a proven model to help you sell with videos? To explore how to create videos that sell, I interview Owen Video on the Social Media Marketing Podcast. Owen is a speaker, live-stream host, and event MC. He’s also the founder of The Video […]

The post How to Create Videos That Sell appeared first on Social Media Marketing | Social Media Examiner.

Facebook is tightening its grip on Instagram

Fri, 23 Aug 2019 12:00:00 +0200

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

When Instagram first hit the news this week, it was over a hoax. A host of celebrities had posted to their timelines a battered image declaring that Instagram would soon make our deleted photos and messages public, and use them against us in court, unless we created a post to the contrary. It wasn’t true, of course, but it seemed true enough to some of our biggest stars — such as Beyoncé’s mother, and the man responsible for our nation’s nuclear arsenal.

The digital content industry debunked the copypasta, celebrities posted sheepish apologies (or didn’t), and we all resumed waiting for the next dumb thing to come along and briefly preoccupy us between stories about the burning rainforest in the Amazon and the president’s effort to buy...

‘Surprising’ discovery suggests more variety of life on exoplanets than Earth

Fri, 23 Aug 2019 11:52:57 +0200

Dr Stephanie Olson of the University of Chicago has said her team’s research into what other worlds may look like has returned a “surprising conclusion”. Presenting her findings at the Goldschmidt Geochemistry Congress in Barcelona, Olson said there is evidence to show that some exoplanets may have better conditions for life to thrive than our own planet.

Reaching across light years with remote sensing tools, the research showed that this increased biodiversity could occur with favourable ocean circulation patterns that would create a more bountiful planet.

“NASA’s search for life in the universe is focused on so-called ‘habitable zone’ planets, which are worlds that have the potential for liquid water oceans,” Olson said.

“But not all oceans are equally hospitable – and some oceans will be better places to live than others due to their global circulation patterns.”

Olson and her team modelled likely conditions on exoplanets using ROCKE-3D software developed by NASA to simulate the climates and ocean habitats on a whole number of exoplanet variants.

The conditions we need to look for on exoplanets

One of the key indicators of potential life on a planet that the team was looking for in potential alien oceans was something called upwelling. On Earth, this process returns nutrients from the deepest depths of an ocean to the higher reaches that receive sunlight and where photosynthetic life lives.

“More upwelling means more nutrient resupply, which means more biological activity,” Olson said. “These are the conditions we need to look for on exoplanets.”

In trying to identify which type of exoplanets stand the best chance of having a thriving biosphere, the team found that ones with higher atmospheric density, slower rotation rates and the presence of continents all yield higher upwelling rates.

Earth does not fall into this ideal category, meaning it is possible that there are planets more hospitable than our own.

“We should target the subset of habitable planets that will be most favourable to large, globally active biospheres because those are the planets where life will be easiest to detect – and where non-detections will be most meaningful,” Olson said.

With the number of exoplanet discoveries numbering in the thousands, the team hopes that its research will help inform future telescope design so that they could look for the tell-tale signs of a potentially biodiverse planet.

The post ‘Surprising’ discovery suggests more variety of life on exoplanets than Earth appeared first on Silicon Republic.

Chicago police pilot Samsung DeX as replacement for bulky in-car computers

Fri, 23 Aug 2019 11:26:58 +0200

Image: Samsung

Police in Chicago’s West Side 11th district are piloting Samsung DeX as a replacement for their existing in-car computer systems, the Chicago Police Department and Samsung announced this week. Officers will have a Samsung Galaxy Smartphone which they can use to access dispatch alerts, notifications from gunshot detection systems, and real-time viewing and control of security cameras. Officers can then dock their phones in the car or police station to benefit from a larger screen and keyboard when entering collected evidence. All officers in Chicago’s 11th should be using the DeX system by the end of the year.

At a press conference announcing the initiative, Chicago Police Department Chief Jonathan Lewin said that the main benefit of the...

Google Photos now lets users copy and paste text from images

Fri, 23 Aug 2019 11:07:01 +0200

On Thursday (22 August), it emerged that Google has quietly begun the roll-out of new AI features for its Lens image recognition platform.

9to5Google reported that the company is making use of its optical character recognition (OCR) technology, which can recognise and pull text from any image.

Google Photos, much like Apple Photos, already recognises objects, events, people and pets that users had photographed. Both photo management platforms also incorporate GPS data, allowing users to search for photos based on the location where they were taken.

The Twitter account run by the Google Photos team confirmed that OCR would now allow users to search for photos based on the text captured in them, as well as allowing users to copy and paste that text.

Venture capitalist Hunter Walk tweeted: “Wow, Google Photos has OCR to turn screenshots into copy/paste text … Nicely done Google team!”

In response, the company said that it is “rolling out the ability to search your photos by the text in them”. “Once you find the photo you’re looking for, click the Lens button to easily copy and paste text,” the tweet added.

You spotted it! Starting this month, we’re rolling out the ability to search your photos by the text in them.

Once you find the photo you’re looking for, click the Lens button to easily copy and paste text. Take that, impossible wifi passwords quantitative futurist – a “silly, made-up-sounding title”, she says. You could be forgiven for not immediately grasping what a futurist actually does, but she likens it to something more akin to a journalist, except one that reports on trends that they see flowering on the edges of society, as opposed to the here-and-now news.

Webb’s professional background is varied. She spent her first year after high school studying clarinet and piano. “So I dropped out, changed schools and studied game theory, economics, political science, computer science and sociology,” she tells Siliconrepublic.com.

After graduating, she spent her 20s working as a journalist in China and Japan. “But I became interested in uncertainty and decision science, and specifically how the choices we make today would shape the future. That led me to study strategic foresight and to found the Future Today Institute 15 years ago.”

Now, she advises leaders in Fortune 500 companies and the US government about emerging threats and opportunities. She collaborates with screenwriters, producers and showrunners on TV and film. “And, of course, I write books about the future.”

‘What happens to society when we transfer power to a system built by a small group of people that is designed to make decisions for everyone?’
^{– AMY WEBB}

Webb’s latest book, The Big Nine, examines the development of AI and how the ‘big nine’ corporations – Amazon, Google, Facebook, Tencent, Baidu, Alibaba, Microsoft, IBM and Apple – have all taken control over the direction that development is heading. She says that the foundation upon which AI is built is fundamentally broken and that, within our lifetimes, AI will begin to behave unpredictably, to our detriment.

“AI is the next era of computing, and because it intersects with so many other facets of everyday life it became a focus of our research about a decade ago. During the normal course of building models and scenarios, I found that I kept coming back to the same few companies over and over.

“That got me wondering: what happens to society when we transfer power to a system built by a small group of people that is designed to make decisions for everyone? The answer isn’t as simple as it may seem, because we now rely on these companies – and they are entrenched into our economies and systems of governing.”

One of the main issues is that corporations have a much greater incentive to push out this kind of technology quickly than they do to release it safely.

“There is tremendous pressure for these companies to build practical and commercial applications for AI as quickly as possible,” Webb says. “Paradoxically, systems intended to augment our work and optimise our personal lives are learning to make decisions that we ourselves wouldn’t.”

Misplaced optimism

Webb says that when it comes to AI, both the optimism and fear about it are “misplaced”. Personally, she leans towards not being optimistic about how AI is going to influence our society.

She points out that on a corporate level, the incentive for firms is to push out technology quickly, as opposed to safely. However, she also argues that laying the blame solely at the feet of these companies is a little reductive.

“It isn’t only the big tech companies doing damage. This is a systemic problem, one that involves our governments, financers, universities, tech companies and everyday people.”

She adds that while certain nations are developing frameworks to address AI, they aren’t collaborating enough internationally. Universities, she argues, have been slow to incorporate ethics training into the curricula of students who will go on to build AI systems.

The solution that she envisions is a global one that involves the creation of an international entity to oversee AI. “This body would be responsible for setting guardrails for AI and enforcing standards, testing advanced systems before their commercial release, and monitoring activity as AI progresses from narrow to general to super intelligence.” This, she hopes, could help to keep the ‘Big Nine’ in check.

“The tech giants should prioritise our human rights first and should not view us as resources to be mined for either profit or political gain. The economic prosperity AI promises and these companies deliver should broadly benefit everyone.”

Want stories like this and more direct to your inbox? Sign up for Tech Trends, Silicon Republic’s weekly digest of need-to-know tech news.

The post Futurist Amy Webb envisions how AI technology could go off the rails appeared first on Silicon Republic.

12 ways small businesses can protect their data this storm season

Fri, 23 Aug 2019 11:00:22 +0200

Without the proper precautions in place during storm season, businesses, especially smaller ones, that are hit by bad weather can potentially face massive data loss if their sites are compromised. Companies can spend months working to reconstruct documents, billing information and records — especially if that information only existed in one location. Planning for how to deal with disasters — natural, financial or otherwise — is a part of running a small business. And while storm season does provide an impetus, a company should always have a backup plan in mind in order to mitigate potential data loss. That’s why I…

This story continues at The Next Web

Satoshi Nakaboto: ‘Bitcoin trading patterns similar to early 2017’

Fri, 23 Aug 2019 10:58:45 +0200

Our robot colleague Satoshi Nakaboto writes about Bitcoin every fucking day. Welcome to another edition of Bitcoin Today, where I, Satoshi Nakaboto, tell you what’s been going on with Bitcoin in the past 24 hours. As Faraday used to say: Talk to a stranger on a bus! Bitcoin Price We closed the day, August 22 2019, at a price of $10,131. That’s a minor 0.11 percent decline in 24 hours, or -$11.46. It was the lowest closing price in seven days. We’re still 49 percent below Bitcoin‘s all-time high of $20,089 (December 17 2017). Bitcoin market cap Bitcoin’s market cap…

This story continues at The Next Web

Or just read more coverage about: Bitcoin

Overstock’s blockchain mad CEO resigns after disclosing romantic relationship with suspected Russian spy

Fri, 23 Aug 2019 10:54:48 +0200

The blockchain-mad CEO of online retailer Overstock has stepped down amid a confession that he was romantically involved with a suspected Russian spy. Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne issued a letter to shareholders yesterday explaining his decision. He will no longer serve as CEO or sit on its board of directors, effective immediately. Byrne has taken the decision after divulging that he was romantically involved with suspected Russian spy Marina Butina, who is now in prison for not registering with the US government as a foreign agent, Observer reports. Earlier this month, Byrne also confirmed to Fox News that he was…

This story continues at The Next Web

Google follows Apple with its own anti-tracking policy for Chromium-based browsers

Fri, 23 Aug 2019 10:34:11 +0200

Google has announced a new initiative that aims to “fundamentally enhance privacy on the web.” The proposal — dubbed “Privacy Sandbox” — is a stab at preventing extensive tracking of users on the web through cookies and other covert techniques like tracking pixels, link decoration, and device fingerprinting. In creating a new standard that puts users in control over their data, Google hopes it would strike a balance between personalization and privacy. The changes, if implemented, are bound to have major implications for the whole ad tech ecosystem. “Technology that publishers and advertisers use to make advertising even more relevant to people is…

This story continues at The Next Web

Or just read more coverage about: Apple,Google

Motorola launches a $195 phone with a GoPro-like wide-angle action cam

Fri, 23 Aug 2019 10:29:08 +0200

Motorola launched its One Action phone in India today, with a dedicated wide-angle action camera. The brand, which once dominated India‘s mid-range segment with its G series of phones, has only just launched its third phone for the year in the country. The phone starts at Rs 13,999 ($195), and has pretty standard budget-phone specifications. The only thing that’s remarkable about it is the action camera on the rear, which is meant to open video capture capabilities similar to what a GoPro might offer. Specifications Screen: 6.3-inch Full HD+ screen, 21:9 aspect ratio Processor: Samsung Exynos 9609, clock speed up to 1.6…

This story continues at The Next Web

Or just read more coverage about: Motorola

YouTube cuts off 210 channels for spreading Hong Kong protest disinformation

Fri, 23 Aug 2019 10:19:39 +0200

YouTube said it disabled more than 200 videos this week that appeared to be part of a coordinated effort to spread misinformation about the ongoing protests in Hong Kong. The video removals come just days after Twitter said it had suspended more than 200,000 accounts it linked to a Chinese government influence campaign against the protests.

Facebook also said it had suspended accounts and removed pages after being notified by Twitter. Google, which owns YouTube, did not explicitly implicate the Chinese government but said the videos were related to the similar disclosures from Facebook and Twitter.

Social media companies have faced criticism about the spread of misinformation on their sites and have taken actions to combat the issue in recent months.

In a blog post, Shane Huntley, director of software engineering for Google Security’s Threat Analysis Group, said: “Earlier this week, as part of our ongoing efforts to combat coordinated influence operations, we disabled 210 channels on YouTube when we discovered channels in this network behaved in a coordinated manner while uploading videos related to the ongoing protests in Hong Kong.

“We found use of VPNs and other methods to disguise the origin of these accounts and other activity commonly associated with coordinated influence operations.”

The decision comes just a few days after Google and other major web browser providers challenged plans by the Kazakhstan government to track its citizens’ activity online by asking them to install a state-backed security certificate.

If installed, privacy advocates warned that the government would be able to intercept, decrypt, analyse and reanalyse all encrypted HTTPS traffic.

Parisa Tabriz, senior engineering director for Google Chrome, said: “We will never tolerate any attempt, by any organisation – government or otherwise – to compromise Chrome users’ data. We have implemented protections from this specific issue and will always take action to secure our users around the world.”

– PA Media, with additional reporting by Colm Gorey

The post YouTube cuts off 210 channels for spreading Hong Kong protest disinformation appeared first on Silicon Republic.

15 lessons in productivity to set you up for success

Fri, 23 Aug 2019 09:50:59 +0200

One of the greatest challenges we can be faced with at work is keeping our productivity levels afloat. Naturally, there are certain times of the day when your focus can drop or you feel as though you’re not giving 100pc.

Thankfully, Resume.io has pulled together a list of top tips from the world’s most successful founders, so that we can rethink our daily work routines for the better.

1. Minimise interruptions

To facilitate critical thinking in the office, make it a rule that when someone is speaking, they shouldn’t be interrupted. Ensuring everyone is on the same page here creates an all-hands-on-deck environment that fosters teamwork and critical thinking during meetings.

2. Do the most difficult tasks first

It’s important to remember not to prioritise immediate satisfaction over long-term rewards, such as responding to an email instead of writing a report. Identifying the best use of your time ultimately maximises your productivity. Author Brian Tracy argues that if you do your difficult tasks first, your other tasks won’t seem so bad.

3. Incorporate meetings realistically

According to a Harvard Business School survey, 71pc of senior managers said their meetings were inefficient and 65pc believed that meetings kept them from completing their own work. A useful way to minimise disruptions is to create discrete meeting-free periods that everyone is aware of, marked down as scheduled blocks in the working day, to allow for deep-thinking work.

4. Set decision deadlines

The longer you wait to make a decision, the riskier it becomes. When you wait you miss opportunities, meaning your competition can catch up or even pass you out. Setting a deadline to make a decision will motivate you to act earlier.

5. Achieve productivity through punctuality

Being punctual maximises the time you can spend on a task. The power of 10 extra minutes per morning is demonstrated by the fact that being 10 minutes late each day is the equivalent of a week’s paid leave over a year.

6. Dedicate space if working from home

A Stanford study showed that working from home increases productivity by 13pc as a result of saved energy from commuting, the greater comfort of one’s surroundings and flexibility in choosing when to work. To improve your productivity when working from home, set up a dedicated workspace like a home office or desk.

7. Delegate

Blocking off time in your schedule away from other people and distractions gives you the space to focus on deeper thought rather than simply reacting to immediate issues. Delegating takes less important but more time-consuming tasks off your plate, freeing up your time.

8. Don’t ruminate on mistakes

Dwelling on mistakes is unproductive and keeps you from accomplishing more important tasks. Research shows that dwelling on shortcomings and mistakes increases the risk of mental health problems. Think about why the mistake happened, what you can do differently next time, and what you can learn from it, then let it go.

9. Learn to say ‘no’

That simple two-letter word can help relieve stress, burnout and even depression, allowing you to minimise your obligations and give them greater focus. Try talking to your manager about your capacity and priorities or suggest another person who could pick up on the task.

10. Pare down information

Put effort into considering an issue from all angles before rushing into a decision. The extra time spent will ensure less time is wasted on future readjustments. As co-founder of Microsoft Bill Gates advised: “Don’t make the same decision twice. Spend time and thought to make a solid decision the first time so that you don’t revisit the issue unnecessarily.”

11. Be clear about response times

Being clear about response times means that at a single glance you can order the priority of your communications and quickly focus on projects that require immediate attention.

12. Sleep your way to success

A Harvard report showed that the effects of a lack of sleep include reduced efficiency and productivity, and more errors and accidents. For a good night’s sleep, minimise external noise, light and artificial lights from devices. Keeping a regular schedule around meal times, exercise and work can help too.

13. Embrace automation

Utilising automation means you can concentrate on more important tasks and combat decision fatigue, which is a deterioration of our decision-making ability. Put your chores on autopilot by creating a weekly list that breaks them down into small segments, making the tasks seem less daunting.

14. Switch off notifications

Turning off notifications is proven to improve focus and increase productivity. The average person touches their phone 2,617 times a day, checks email 74 times and receives 46 notifications.

15. Reward yourself

Choose a daunting task and set a reward, such as a nice dinner, a new video game or tickets to a gig, to give you something to focus on and an immediate benefit for completing it.

For more ideas, check out this infographic Resume.io has pulled together, with tips from some of the most successful tech founders. You can view the infographic in full here.

Infographic: Resume.io

Want stories like this and more direct to your inbox? Sign up for Tech Trends, Silicon Republic’s weekly digest of need-to-know tech news.

The post 15 lessons in productivity to set you up for success appeared first on Silicon Republic.

Facebook and the grand challenge of digital ethics

Fri, 23 Aug 2019 09:00:28 +0200

As I ramp up efforts at Forrester to refresh our report on the top technology trends to watch, one of the things I find most interesting is how technologies build upon and accelerate each other (see Ray Kurzweil’s ‘law of accelerating returns’).

As a society, we wrestle with a number of moral dilemmas that I consider part of digital ethics. Facebook, Inc – encompassing the Facebook app, Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook Audience Network, and its other apps, services and hardware – is the best example. It has become a new world superpower but, instead of nukes, it combines technologies to accelerate disruption and expand its influence at a scale we simply can’t grasp.

This is forcing us to pay attention to digital ethics and wonder what the new reality that Facebook is helping to create means for businesses and consumers.

Facebook’s dominance

Despite fumbles, Facebook is growing because options are limited. Analyst Jessica Liu has laid out Facebook’s dilemma: How can a company that repeatedly mistreats its users still be a growth darling of Wall Street?

One problem is that consumer momentum changes slowly, and so many people (around 2.7bn) used at least one of Facebook’s apps in December 2018.

Another problem is that regulators move too slowly, letting the tech giant stay one or two steps ahead. While we know from additional research that marketers are frustrated with the monopolistic way Facebook deals with them, they feel they have nowhere else to go for reach and continue to funnel advertising dollars into Facebook’s family of apps. And so, Facebook’s revenue grew to nearly $17bn in Q4 2018.

Facebook achieved this dominance by combining social media, mobile, cloud and big data technology. Its phenomenal rise to power happened on the back of emerging technologies, not individually but together. Cloud-enabled big data and mobile helped deliver influence through social media, all made possible by the internet and the world wide web. It’s a classic example of explosive growth on the back of tech-driven innovation that taps into an unmet customer need.

‘What 2.7bn people see and interpret as truth daily will be “governed” by a single for-profit company’
^{– BRIAN HOPKINS}

Facebook already has a bigger daily impact on the lives of some people than their government. In some respects, it has just as much influence.

Now, what 2.7bn people see and interpret as truth daily – and the approximately $40bn that firms spend in advertising each year – will be ‘governed’ by a single for-profit company. Compounding this concern, consider that Facebook, through preferred stock, is entirely controlled by one person.

Today, Facebook’s skill in artificial intelligence (AI) technology means that machine learning algorithms decide a lot of who sees what, and these often unintentionally pick up the bias of their developer. Now, Facebook is appointing what Zuckerberg calls a ‘supreme court’ for resolving content censorship issues. This oversight board is supposed to be independent, but it will be appointed by Facebook and is thus fraught with conflict of interest.

These moves challenge our notion of a free press and free speech and the role of companies and governments in protecting these rights. These move also contribute to the controversy made famous by Apple: Is code speech?

Currency and identity

Facebook’s foray into cryptocurrency is even more problematic than it appears. When I learned about the company’s plans for its Libra cryptocurrency, my first thought was that this could make it the most powerful financial institution in the world in addition to being the biggest media company. Then I dug into the actual technology and heard from a few colleagues, and my view turned even darker.

Our expert on distributed ledger technology, Martha Bennett, told me: “Facebook’s token will be backed by a basket of [real-world] currencies, short-term government securities and other assets. That distinction is important because of the implications of Libra in the context of global financial stability.”

As Bennett explained, whereas bitcoin in its current form doesn’t pose a direct risk to financial stability (indirect risk has been managed effectively by regulators), Libra, if successful, will be different. Some commentators are even conjuring up the spectre of the Lehman Brothers: instead of ‘too big to fail’, it would be ‘too big to bail’.

‘That puts Facebook in the position of being able to police the digital identities of everyone who wants to play in its sandbox, and that’s dangerous for a whole host of reasons’
^{– FATEMEH KHATIBLOO}

This has implications on digital identity and privacy. Privacy expert Fatemeh Khatibloo made an insightful connection between Libra and digital identities:

“Facebook is saying that Libra will be linked to ‘pseudonymous’ wallets but later says it plans to do identity verification – which, of course, it must do as it’s attached to fiat currencies. However, that also puts Facebook in the position of being able to police the digital identities of everyone who wants to play in its sandbox, and that’s dangerous for a whole host of reasons.”

The bottom line is 20th-century tools for protecting a free society won’t work for 21st-century tech giants.

In essence, Facebook is flexing its muscle as a new type of world superpower by adding AI and distributed ledger technology on top of social media, mobile, cloud and big data. Its moves call into question our current stances on freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the role of financial regulation, the applicability of antitrust laws, taxation and a bunch of other tools we have to maintain a free society.

What happens if giants like Facebook that influence what we see and buy – and are willing to move fast and break things – now handle billions in payments with digital currency tied to our financial system? The downside of exponential business means potential global system failures at a speed we cannot comprehend. Our ethical norms and laws have never had to deal with the likes of Facebook. Now, they do.

This trend must be on your radar, because the decisions that governments make, customer trends in response to privacy concerns, and the new ethical norms that the digital era ushers in will create an environment in which you will either flourish or go out of business.

By Brian Hopkins

Brian Hopkins is a vice-president and principal analyst at Forrester, serving CIO professionals. His coverage of technologies includes edge computing, edge intelligence, quantum computing, insight and big-data platforms, and systems of insight. He is a contributing author to the insights-driven business playbook and the IT transformation playbook.

A version of this article originally appeared on the Forrester blog and was compiled from internal discussions among analysts including Jessica Liu, Martha Bennett, Fatemeh Khatibloo, Brigitte Majewski, Sucharita Kodali and Benjamin Ensor.

The post Facebook and the grand challenge of digital ethics appeared first on Silicon Republic.

How an AI in China helped nab a suspected murderer – with a face scan

Fri, 23 Aug 2019 08:39:54 +0200

We’ve read plenty of stories of how AI can be horrible, but it can also be surprisingly useful. According to a report by the South China Morning Post, a person accused of murder was caught by an AI after he tried to scan his dead girlfriend’s face to get a loan sanctioned. The report notes that a 29-year-old man in Fujian province was suspected of killing his girlfriend after an argument over finances. He tried to scan her face in a lending app called Money Station. The app uses AI to verify applications, and it asks them to wink during the…

This story continues at The Next Web

OnePlus says its TV will have a 55-inch QLED panel

Fri, 23 Aug 2019 07:10:52 +0200

OnePlus is continuing the dripfeed of information about its upcoming TV, following news of its September release date and the revelation that it’ll be called the OnePlus TV. Now we know the first technical details of the product, courtesy of a tweet from OnePlus India: it uses a 55-inch QLED panel.

Previous filings have suggested Android-based models of between 43 and 75 inches in size, with the 43-inch variant seemingly also bound for India. This announcement doesn’t necessarily rule any of that out, but it does at least confirm that India is getting a 55-inch version. The 75-inch model is likely to come to the US and China.

QLED is Samsung’s marketing term for quantum-dot LED screen technology — it’s nothing like OLED, despite the...