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Facebook and Twitter have discovered a network of accounts believed to have been operated by the Chinese government. The accounts were created to sow political discord around the protests taking place in Hong Kong and have now been suspended. There were 936 accounts on Twitter and seven pages, three groups, and five accounts on Facebook. One of the pages had 15,500 followers and at least one of the groups had 2,200 members. Facebook and Twitter are forbidden in mainland China, but not in Hong Kong. Protests broke out in Hong Kong earlier this summer as citizens opposed a Chinese bill that would allow people living in the special administrative region to be extradited to China for trial. The protests have escalated in recent weeks. Twitter has been criticized for accepting ads from Chinese state media, but it has now stated that it will no longer accept advertising from state-controlled media entities. State-backed media accounts will still be free to continue to use Twitter without advertising abilities.
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Facebook and Twitter uncover Chinese trolls spreading doubts about Hong Kong protests
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AutoX, a Hong Kong-based company founded by a former Princeton professor, has applied for a permit to drive self-driving vehicles without an in-car backup driver in California. If successful, AutoX will be able to test self-driving cars with only a remote human operator as a backup. AutoX is currently one of four firms that hold a license to test carrying passengers in the presence of a human backup driver. Waymo is the only company so far to have a license for testing without a safety driver. Other companies such as Uber and General Motors are vying for breakthroughs in the self-driving vehicle market. AutoX counts China's Dongfeng Motor Group and Alibaba among its main investors. It has deployed 100 RoboTaxi vehicles in 10 cities including Shenzhen, Shanghai, and San Jose. US regulators have been clamping down on Chinese tech players looking to come to the United States.
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Exclusive: Alibaba-backed startup AutoX applies for driver-less test permit in California
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NASA successfully landed its InSight mission on Mars, after six and a half months of travelling through space, using a supersonic parachute to decelerate from 12,000 miles per hour to just 5 miles per hour on impact. The probe will deploy a seismometer to listen for earthquakes and a drill to dig beneath the Martian surface and explore the Martian interior.
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NASA's InSight successfully lands on Mars after 'seven minutes of terror'
NASA successfully landed its InSight mission on Mars, after six and a half months of travelling through space, using a supersonic parachute to decelerate from 12,000 miles per hour to just 5 miles per hour on impact. The probe will deploy a seismometer to listen for earthquakes and a drill to dig beneath the Martian surface and explore the Martian interior.
Tools, Media, & Open Source
Sites, tools, podcasts, videos, open source libraries, and other interesting stuff you should check out
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Elon Musk has announced that Tesla's Cybertruck will be unveiled on November 21 in Los Angeles, the same location and month as in the opening credits of the movie 'Blade Runner'. The truck includes features such as a power outlet that will allow the use of heavy-duty 240V high power tools in the field all day without the use of a generator. Tesla currently sells three vehicles: the Model S, Model 3, and Model X. It is planning to release the Model Y by the end of 2020. A Tesla Roadster and a Semi truck have been planned for release after the Model Y. Tesla delivered a profit in Q3. It is ahead of schedule for its new factory in Shanghai and its Model Y crossover. Tesla will start manufacturing cars at its European Gigafactory in 2021.
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Tesla will unveil its Cybertruck pickup on Nov. 21 in LA, Elon Musk says
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The Food and Drug Administration is targeting Juul Labs for illegally marketing its vaping products as a less harmful alternative to traditional cigarettes. The health effects of e-cigarettes are not yet established but the high levels of nicotine in Juul's products may affect brain development and serve as a gateway to smoking in teens. There has been a rise in the use of vaping products by teenagers. However, Juul claims that it does not directly target teenagers with its marketing. Its 'Make the Switch' campaign has been criticized for representing vaping as a smoking cessation option. Juul denies these claims, saying that the ads only served to switch people over from cigarettes to vaping products without making any claims about cessation. Lawmakers have yet to decide how to regulate e-cigarettes, but the deadlines for vaping companies to submit research concerning their products is drawing near.
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Juul Illegally Marketed E-Cigarettes, F.D.A. Says
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Apple's AR[T] Walk is a new program at Apple stores that takes people on an actual walk through a city while displaying digital art that can only be seen through an iPhone. The aim of the project is to promote augmented reality technology. AR[T] walk is available in six Apple stores in major cities, including New York, Hong Kong, and Paris. It takes about two hours to complete the walk. Reservations are made online, but if there are available spots, Apple will accommodate people who are there, so it is worth seeing if there are open spaces even if you can't make a reservation. During the walk, everybody is allocated a loaned iPhone XS Max with the non-public AR[T] app and a pair of Beats Solo headphones. The tour guides are able to control the experience from an iPad pro, and they also lead discussions about the artwork that is displayed. The walks will be available until at least the end of 2019.
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Apple took us on a surreal walk through San Francisco, looking at digital art on an iPhone
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Scientists have been able to create artificial memories in lab mice, resulting in mice that responded to a stimulus that they haven't been trained on before. In the experiment, mice were artificially trained to associate the smell of cherry blossoms with a foot shock. The mice had their cherry blossom smell-detecting nerves stimulated artificially along with nerves that were important for the aversive reaction to foot shocks. They were not exposed to the actual smell of cherry blossoms or real shocks. When tested, the mice responded to the real cherry blossom odor by showing avoidance. The study showed that the stimulation in these specific areas in the brain led to activity in other regions of the brain that were associated with memory formation. Memory transfer has been observed before in sea slugs through RNA and has been partially successful in experiments involving rodents through transferring recordings of electrical activity. However, in this study, the memories were completely artificial.
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A Successful Artificial Memory Has Been Created
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Signal is an end-to-end encrypted messaging service owned and operated by a non-profit foundation. It has wide-ranging security protections and it is endorsed by figures like Edward Snowden, who uses the app every day. People have been increasingly using Signal as trust in the authorities continues to decline. It has been used extensively during the recent US protests and in Hong Kong after China imposed a controversial national security law. Signal's privacy features include tools to blur people's faces out of photos, servers that don't store user information, encrypted phone calls, and more. The app has not been popular with the authorities, who aren't able to demand that the service turn over information as the service doesn't retain any. This article follows Signal's story so far, exploring how the app was developed with privacy in mind and how it continues to maintain its stance despite governmental pressure.
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The Inside Story of How Signal Became the Private Messaging App for an Age of Fear and Distrust (15 minute read)
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Sweden's Riksbank has begun testing the e-krona, a digital currency that will be used for payments, deposits, and withdrawals from a digital wallet. The current test project aims to show how an e-krona could be used by the general public. The central banks of Britain, the euro zone, Japan, Sweden, and Switzerland have joined forces to assess the case for issuing central bank digital currencies. CBDCs are traditional money issued and governed by a country's central bank but in digital form. Cryptocurrencies are produced by solving complex math and are governed by online communities rather than a centralized body. Digital payments have become prevalent, and central banks around the world have been forced to consider issuing their own electronic currencies. Sweden is the least cash-dependent country in the world, with only 1% of the Swedish GDP existing in banknotes in 2018. The pilot will run until February 2021 and will use blockchain technology.
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Sweden starts testing world's first central bank digital currency
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Netflix had just over 12 million subscribers paying $9 a month at the beginning of the 2010s. Today, the company has a market cap of close to $148 billion, making it one of the most valuable US companies. The stock has risen 4,181% since it was listed. Netflix runs on a thin operating margin as it is expensive to buy and invest in entertainment, and competitors are forcing Netflix to spend more to stop customers from moving to other services. It projected that it would spend $15 billion on content in 2019. Netflix has borrowed close to $10 billion in the past two years, more than doubling its debt. Some shareholders are concerned as competitors, such as Disney+, are introduced to the market. Netflix is projecting that its cash burn will drop off starting next year.
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Netflix was the best-performing stock of the decade, delivering a more than 4,000% return (10 minute read)
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The navigation systems of the Tesla Model 3 and Model S were tested with the aim of exposing potential flaws within the software. The Model S was found to be less susceptible to GPS spoofing attacks as it used different navigation software to the Model 3. Tesla’s Model 3 uses Navigation on Autopilot, which can suggest and make lane changes with driver supervision. The requirement for driver confirmations on lane changes can be waived. As the Model 3 depends heavily on GNSS reliability, GPS spoofing resulted in the navigation system behaving erratically. Tesla responded to information about the potential vulnerability by pointing out that this was a general problem with GNSS-based GPS systems, and that they plan to implement features to minimize the issue. According to security experts, attackers can potentially take over the GPS system of any autonomous driving vehicle and alter its route.
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Tesla Model 3 Spoofed off the highway – Regulus Navigation System Hack Causes Car to Turn On Its Own
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Elon Musk unveiled SpaceX's prototype spaceship, Starship, a vessel that is roomy enough to fit 100 passengers that will be powered by a massive, reusable rocket. Starship will be involved in multiple missions to carry people to different cities on Earth as well as to the moon and Mars. The unveiling event marks 11 years since SpaceX reached orbit for the first time with the earliest version of its Falcon rockets. Last month, a Starship prototype levitated about 500 feet into the sky and then glided down. Musk aims to have the prototype fly to 65,000 feet within one to two months, and in orbit within six months. While SpaceX has demonstrated that it can reliably deploy satellites and cargo to space, it has never launched people. NASA, SpaceX, and Boeing are each building their own transportation systems to carry astronauts to and from the International Space Station, but the projects are behind schedule.
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SpaceX Has Starry-Eyed Ambitions for Its Starship
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Last year, Cloudflare launched their 1.1.1.1 service on April 1, aiming to create the fastest, most secure, and most privacy-respecting DNS server on the internet. Today, 1.1.1.1 is now about to become the second largest public DNS service on the internet, with half the latency of Google's servers, while still upholding its values of privacy and security. In November, Cloudflare launched a mobile app for 1.1.1.1 in preparation for today's launch of Warp. Warp is a new service designed for mobile internet and is essentially a VPN that will encrypt all data traffic, rather than just DNS traffic. It also has features that will help mobile users save data and battery. While Cloudflare aimed to launch Warp in its entirety today, there were some issues with the rollout. However, users can still sign up to a waiting list through the 1.1.1.1 app.
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Introducing Warp: Fixing Mobile Internet Performance and Security
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Chip Huyen used interviews from Glassdoor in order to answer the question of what percentage of people who attended machine learning interviews received an offer, as well as what percentage of people accepted the offer. While Glassdoor data suffered from many biases, it was hoped that the volume of data helped to smooth out the noise. 15,897 reviews from 27 major tech companies were analyzed. It was found that the difficulty of interviews rose depending on the level of expertise required. 18.83 percent of candidates at Google received offers, with 70 percent of applicants accepting these offers. There was a high correlation between onsite offers and offer acceptance rate. Companies tended to select candidates more often through referrals for senior roles, whereas candidates for junior roles were sourced mainly through campus recruiting. Candidates who were interviewed for junior positions were more likely to report a better experience than ones who interviewed for more senior roles.
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What Glassdoor interview reviews reveal about tech hiring cultures (12 minute read)
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Many of the predictions about what 2020 would be like for families didn't pan out, but things have definitely changed in the last couple of decades. Women are working more, the number of people choosing not to have children is increasing, and same-sex and transsexual parents are becoming more common. As reproductive technology develops, the definition of a typical family is likely to change significantly. Science will soon be able to create artificial sperm and eggs, as well as wombs. A change in the process of reproduction may mean that women can continue to work while being 'pregnant', and people who could not produce their own children previously (eg. single men, transgender and same-sex couples) can have their own children. Genetically modified designer babies will also likely become a reality. Many other factors such as an aging population, increased travel, and economic inequality will also affect the future of the family unit.
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The family in 2050: artificial wombs, robot carers and the rise of single fathers by choice (10 minute read)
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The Space Kingdom of Asgardia is a project to set up a nation that exists entirely in space. It currently has more than 300,000 members paying its residency fees and a parliament of 150 elected representatives. Asgardia aims to transport people to a space station by 2043 in order to build a new democratic society. The space nation has considered approaching Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos in order to help them to get into outer space. Asgardia aims to be a fully functioning and independent society, with its own constitution, national symbols, laws, and currency. It was founded in 2016 by billionaire Russian scientist and politician Igor Ashurbeyli, who has invested $12 million of his own money into the project to date. Asgardia plans to take a neutral stance on all Earthly matters.
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A self-declared space nation called Asgardia is planning a fully functioning space economy and wants help from Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos
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A subsidiary of the antivirus giant Avast called Jumpshot sold highly sensitive web browsing data to many of the world's biggest companies. Jumpshot says it has data from 100 million devices, which it received from Avast. The data includes Google searches, location lookups and GPS coordinates in Google Maps, and browser history information. Using the data, it is possible to identify individual users and the search terms they used on a wide range of sites, including YouPorn and PornHub. The data doesn't contain users' names, but there is enough specific browsing data to deanonymize certain users. Avast collected the data via a browser plugin designed to warn users of suspicious websites. It claimed to have stopped sending customer data to Jumpshot after the data collection was publicly exposed in 2015, but documents indicate that the data collection is still ongoing through the antivirus software itself. Jumpshot sells a variety of different products based on the data.
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Leaked Documents Expose the Secretive Market for Your Web Browsing Data
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A group of Silicon Valley investors and executives visited Shenzhen and Beijing, China. They were struck by how fast everything moves. The speed of development is faster, and startups will raise money every six months as opposed to every 18-24 months for US based startups. China's AI development is much faster due to lax privacy laws and robust government support. Chinese startups have a concept of 996, 9am to 9pm, 6 days a week. Chinese companies tend to be more top down, while US companies give smart employees more freedom to be creative. They are much less concerned about the social impact of technology and cooperate fully with governmental efforts to track citizens. Facial recognition software is everywhere. Lan Xuezhao of Basis Set Ventures says "I live in San Francisco, but I find it helpful to visit the other parallel universe from time to time. To some degree, it’s like looking into the future."
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Crazy Work Hours and Lots of Cameras: Silicon Valley Goes to China
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Google has officially released details on its Stadia game service. Stadia will be released in November in 14 different territories, including the US, UK, and Canada. At least 31 games from 21 publishers will be launched with the service. A $130 ‘Founder’s Edition’ hardware kit will launch with Stadia, which includes a Chromecast Ultra and a limited-edition dark blue version of the Stadia controller. The subscription service will be $10 a month after a 3 month included subscription with the Founder’s Edition kit. A free tier will be launching in 2020. Google eventually intends to have a backlog of free games that comes with the subscription service, but Stadia is not primarily a subscription service for games. Customers will still have to purchase games to play on the platform. A list of the countries Stadia will be launched in and the games that will be available at launch is available in the article.
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Google’s Stadia Game Service is Officially Coming November: Everything You Need to Know
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TikTok has been building a new music streaming service to compete against Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music. It recently announced a licensing deal with Merlin, a global agency that represents hundreds of thousands of artists, to use the labels' music legally on TikTok anywhere that the app is available. TikTok has secured deals with other major labels but has been restricted from going public on the details. The licensing deal with Merlin covers TikTok's upcoming music subscription service, Resso. Resso was first spotted in the wild as a test app in India and Indonesia. Despite being one of the most popular apps, TikTok still struggles to gain revenue, and a music streaming app is one way for it to generate revenue. It has been working on ways to become independent from China as it continues to face regulatory scrutiny for its acquisition by ByteDance.
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TikTok inks licensing deal with Merlin to use music from independent labels in videos and new Resso streaming service
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CES is over, and while there doesn't seem to be a clear 'Next Big Thing', there is an abundance of new ideas. TV makers are continuing to look for the next expensive thing to encourage consumers to upgrade. Rolling TVs, 8K, and radical bezel-less or ultra-thin designs were common at CES. While foldable screens still seem to be a while away, flexible screen technology has improved significantly. The battle between AMD and Intel seems to be ramping up, with both companies striving to create hardware for new form factors. Many companies presented concept designs at CES, but most didn't seem to have a firm purpose or direction. Smaller companies are feeling the pressure from large companies like Google, and some lawsuits were filed just hours after CES opened. Sex technology is becoming less taboo at the show. AI, 8K, and 5G are becoming more normalized and less worshipped as a technology.
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Eight big takeaways from CES 2020
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A federal court jury has dismissed the $190 million claim brought against Elon Musk by a British cave explorer, Vernon Unsworth. Musk had called Unsworth a 'pedo guy' during a disagreement on Twitter. Unsworth, 64, claimed that Musk's statement would overshadow his relationships and job prospects for years to come. Musk's lawyers argued that the comments were off-hand insults in the middle of an argument that no one would take seriously. Unsworth failed to demonstrate that any harm came from the Twitter comments. In 2018, Musk's erratic Twitter behavior ended up with him paying a $20 million settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission. For most of 2019, his public statements have largely focused on Tesla's new Models and improved profitability, as well as SpaceX's technical progress.
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Tesla boss Elon Musk wins defamation trial over his 'pedo guy' tweet
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Epic's request for a temporary injunction in its case against Apple was heard recently. The case centers around Epic's contention that Apple's control over the iOS App Store constitutes an illegal monopoly that hinders competition. Apple argued that iOS is just one of the many platforms available for Fortnite, so there was no monopoly. Other competing platforms charge the same 30 percent fee that Apple charges. Players who aren't able to play Fortnite on iOS can still play on other platforms, though they might not have the means to do so. Epic argues that even if Apple is allowed to maintain control of its App Store, it should allow developers to make and use their own payment systems. Apps like Uber can charge customers without using the in-app purchase system, and Epic wants the same opportunity for its games. Epic was reprimanded for the actions that led to the court case as the company deliberately broke its agreement with Apple.
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Apple vs. Epic hearing previews a long, hard-fought trial to come
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A team of researchers in the Netherlands has discovered 14 metabolic substances in the blood that predicted whether people were likely to die within the next five to 10 years. Over a period of nearly 17 years, the scientists measured 226 different substances in the blood of 44,168 people aged 18 to 109, of which 5,512 died during the study. After the study, the scientists used the 14 markers to predict the deaths of a group of 7,603 Finnish people who were surveyed in 1997. The measurements were 83 percent accurate at predicting death within five to 10 years. Accuracy dropped for people aged 60 and over. The biomarkers may be helpful for guiding patient care and to help prognosis. All the data in the study came from people of European descent, so it may not be applicable to other groups.
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Researchers are creepily close to predicting when you’re going to die
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Google announced a series of updates to its product range at its I/O conference. All Google Home devices have now been rebranded as Nest devices. Alarms in Google Nest Hub (previously Google Home) can now be stopped just by saying the word ‘stop’. Maps now has an incognito mode, and Pixel users will start seeing augmented reality walking directions in the app. Google will now let users opt to automatically remove data at certain intervals. New Pixel phones were announced at $399 for the Pixel 3a and $479 for the Pixel 3a XL, with both phones boasting a 30 hour long battery life. Google Assistant has received a massive speed boost and features a new driving mode that provides less distraction for drivers. Android Q will have a live caption capability that works on videos offline and it will also feature a dark mode. Other improvements to AR features and Duplex were also announced.
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Everything Google Announced at I/O 2019 That Matters (10 minute read)
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Government backed rocket launches generally cost between $150 million and $300 million. SpaceX was able to get costs down to about $60 million per launch. By using smaller rockets, Rocket Labs is able to send up satellites for a cost of just $5.7 million per launch. Rocket Labs' Electon Rocket is 56 feet tall compared to 230 feet for SpaceX's Falcon 9. Rocket Labs launches out of a remote sheep farm turned spaceport on New Zealand’s North Island. Rocket Labs had sent up two test flights in May 2017 and January 2018, but this was its first real commercial launch. It carried up 6 satellites for other companies, an entire ecosystem of startups with shoebox-sized satellites for imaging, science missions and communications is now starting to spring up around this new affordable launch service.
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Rocket Launch in New Zealand Brings Quick, Cheap Space Access
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Coinbase is the first cryptocurrency company to gain principal membership with credit card giant Visa. The membership was awarded in December but was only recently revealed to the public. This partnership means that Coinbase will be able to issue debit cards that will allow users to spend their own cryptocurrency anywhere Visa is accepted. It will increase the liquidity of cryptocurrency as it makes the fiat conversion process simple. Coinbase will issue its card in 29 countries, mostly in Europe and the UK. The card will not be available to US residents. Nine cryptocurrencies will be available on the card, including Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash, and BAT. The EU doesn't require spenders to pay tax on the difference in price between when a cryptocurrency was purchased and when it was spent, unlike the US. Merchants pay a fee to accept Visa transactions, and the partnership could mean that Coinbase's fees might be reduced.
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Visa Grants Coinbase Power To Issue Bitcoin Debit Cards
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21,717 people were surveyed on their views on the JavaScript ecosystem in 2019. The raw data is available for download. Most respondents were from the US, Canada, and the UK, with a median salary of between $50k-$100k. 91.3 percent of the respondents were male. Jest, TypeScript, Express, React, Mocha, and Redux were highly recommended technologies to adopt. JavaScript is constantly adding new features, and there are many that haven't been adopted into mainstream use. Typescript is still the most popular JavaScript flavor. React is the leading front-end framework again, after dropping behind Vue.js last year. All other top technologies from 2018 retained their positions in 2019. The most popular resources were CSS Tricks, Medium, Stack Overflow, Udemy, Syntax, and React Podcast. Overall, most developers are happy with the way JavaScript has been developed and its future.
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State of JS (Website)
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The Colombian government has confirmed that a banana-killing fungus has invaded the Americas. Farmers cannot breed disease resistance into commercial bananas as these bananas are sterile and are populated by cloning. The most popular variety of banana in the first half of the 1900s was nearly wiped out by a fungus. It was replaced with the Cavendish banana, which had a natural resistance to the fungus. The Cavendish is not resistant to the new type of fungus, but scientists are working out how to give the banana resistance. To save the Cavendish, scientists are looking into adding genes for resistance, switching on existing but dormant genes that will give resistance, or shutting off the genes affected by the disease. Even if scientists are successful with creating bananas that are resistant against the fungal outbreak, it will still be some time before they are approved for sale by government regulators.
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CRISPR might be the banana’s only hope against a deadly fungus
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This is a demo video for smart glasses called Focals made by an Amazon and YCombinator backed startup called North. The glasses look pretty stylish and a bit hipsterish (the frames are on the thicker side, but they're definitely glasses that you would see people wearing without thinking twice). It does basically anything an Apple Watch can do, like check the weather, read text messages, call an Uber or use Alexa which is built in. Information is displayed using tiny bits of light, and it will look to you like there is text floating roughly an arm's length in front of your face. The only thing that seems clunky is that it isn't voice activated, you have to wear this ring which has a joystick to let you activate and control Focals. You can get them with a prescription, and they cost $1,000 (they'll be available by the end of the year).
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Amazon-Backed Smart Glasses For $1,000: First Look (3 minute video)
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Chris Urmson, the CEO of Aurora, a company that makes self-driving car software for automakers, predicts that the technology will be prevalent within the next 50 years. In this interview, Urmson discusses the barriers to mass adoption of self-driving cars, whether it is possible to test the technology safely in real-world conditions, and why the ideal shape for a self-driving car is a cone. People currently do not view the technology is safe, so demand is low. While existing infrastructure probably doesn’t need any modification, self-driving cars will require cities to develop special maps which indicate where objects such as traffic lights and lanes are. Self-driving software is tested extensively through different stages of realism before the technology is deployed into real-world conditions. A cone is an ideal shape for a self-driving car as passengers would have an increased field-of-vision for safety and entertainment.
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How Close Are We to Self-Driving Cars, Really?
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Without naming any names, Tim Cook warned that our personal data has been "weaponized against us with military efficiency" by the "data-industrial complex". He explicitly called for federal regulation, saying that Apple would fully support "comprehensive, federal privacy law." He argues for a four pronged approach: data minimization (companies should de-personalize or simply not collect personal data wherever possible), transparency (users should know what is being collected), right to access (users should always be able to get a copy of what data a company has on them), and right to security. Cook also addressed the tension between respecting privacy and getting the data needed to improve AI, saying "For artificial intelligence to be truly smart it must respect human values — including privacy. If we get this wrong, the dangers are profound. We can achieve both great artificial intelligence and great privacy standards. It is not only a possibility — it is a responsibility."
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Apple's Tim Cook makes blistering attack on the 'data industrial complex'
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China has accused Apple of endorsing and protecting protestors in Hong Kong because of an app in its App Store that tracks the movement of police in the city. HKmap.live is an app that crowdsources the location of police and anti-government protestors and displays the information as hotspots on a map. It was originally rejected by Apple, but the decision was reversed and it was approved on October 4. The app is the most downloaded app in the iOS App Store under the Travel category for Hong Kong. People's Daily, a Chinese Communist party mouthpiece, has criticized Apple's decision to distribute the app and allowing an unofficial anthem sung by protestors to be available for download in the Apple Music store. The protests are now in their 18th week. China has targeted other foreign companies over their support of Hong Kong's protestors, including NBA's Houston Rockets and Tiffany & Co.
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'Protecting rioters': China warns Apple over app that tracks Hong Kong police
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The Firefox DevTools team has built many tools so that designers and developers can be more efficient and creative. Grid Inspector aids users in examining CSS Grid layouts using a grid outline, which helps developers visualize how their code changes the layout of a site. Shape Path Editor helps developers to easily edit shapes into code by directly clicking and dragging shapes on the page. Fonts Editor automatically detects custom axes on fonts and allows developers to adjust and visualize them. Flexbox Inspector allows developers to inspect elements and view and change the sizing of items. The Changes Panel assists developers with exporting changes to CSS code. An Inactive CSS feature grays out CSS that doesn't affect the page and also shows a tooltip to explain why that property as no effect. The Accessibility Panel has been changed into a powerful inspection and auditing tool that can run different types of checks on a page. Instructions and tips on how to use these tools are available.
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A Guide To New And Experimental CSS DevTools In Firefox (14 minute read)
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SpaceX launched 60 new Starlink internet satellites into orbit on the ninth Falcon 9 rocket flight of the year. It has been almost three months since SpaceX's last launch. The Falcon 9 rocket, which had been used three times already, was able to complete its fourth landing. Falcon 9 rockets are designed to be used 10 times. This is the first time SpaceX has reused a payload fairing. Starlink aims to provide internet connectivity to areas where there is little coverage and to compete with existing internet providers in well-covered areas. Other companies, including OneWeb, TeleSat, and Amazon, are also working to provide low-Earth orbit satellite internet. Starlink may be available in the US by mid-2020. Astronomers are concerned with Starlink's presence, saying that it will impede their research and make the night sky less enjoyable.
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SpaceX Just Launched 60 Starlink Satellites (And Nailed a Milestone Rocket Landing)
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Icefin is a remotely operated robot submarine. It was sent to investigate an area where the Thwaites glacier meets warm ocean water, causing it to start melting. The Thwaites glacier is roughly the size of Britain and currently accounts for four percent of the world sea-level rise each year. Satellite data shows that it is melting increasingly rapidly, and it could eventually raise the world sea level up by more than half a meter. It takes teams whole weeks to get to the glacier, which makes it difficult to study and understand. Before the Icefin expedition, only four other people, the advance party for the Icefin team, have ever been at the front of the glacier. The ice in Antarctica holds 90 percent of the world's freshwater. Researchers hope to find out what is causing the aggressive melting of the Thwaites by using Icefin to study the water underneath the ice.
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Antarctica melting: Climate change and the journey to the 'doomsday glacier' (11 minute read)
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Samsung unveiled the Samsung Galaxy S20, S20 Plus, S20 Ultra, and Z Flip foldable phone at its Unpacked 2020 event recently. New Galaxy Buds Plus were also announced, with speakers that are 40 percent bigger than the previous generation. Voice quality has been improved, with three microphones built into the buds. They will have 11 hours of battery life. Google Duo will be available on the S20 and Z Flip devices. The Galaxy S20, S20 Plus, and S20 Ultra will all support 5G, feature a Snapdragon 865 processor, and will be able to record in 8K. Samsung's new Z flip foldable phone will feature a 6.7-inch foldable AMOLED display and will launch on February 14 for $1,380.
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All of the biggest announcements from Samsung’s Galaxy S20 event
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Russia passed a law in November 2019 that will require all smartphone devices to preload applications that provide information about its users back to the government. The information harvested includes location, financial, and message data. Unless Apple complies with the regulation, which kicks in during July 2020, it will have to pull out of Russia. The law is part of Vladimir Putin's goal to create a sovereign internet. Apple has yet to release a statement about the changes. Making these changes would go against Apple's principle of honoring user privacy over the interest of federal governments. Its position on privacy has landed the company in trouble with the US government in the past. Preloaded apps would pose just as real a threat as an official backdoor. Apple has recently changed Ukraine to be part of Russia in its weather reporting, a move that was heavily criticized on Ukrainian social media. The choices that Apple faces highlight the increasing power that large tech companies' decisions have on geopolitics.
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Apple has a Vladimir Putin problem
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Apple's WWDC will be presented this year in a new digital-only format. iOS 14 is expected to be announced, with a focus on performance and stability rather than on new features. Several home screen improvements, the ability to set third-party apps as the iOS defaults, new apps, and more are also expected in the update. A new feature for the Apple Pencil will automatically convert handwritten notes into standard text. watchOS 7 will add sleep tracking, blood oxygen tracking, the ability to share customized watch faces, a new Infograph Pro watch face, and better parental controls. Details on macOS 10.16 have been kept under wraps, but Apple will likely be announcing the switch to using ARM chips for its Macs. Updates are expected for tvOS, the iMac, and Apple TV. The long-rumored AirTags might finally be announced.
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Apple WWDC 2020: iOS 14, ARM Macs, hardware rumors, and what else to expect (10 minute read)
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Zynn is a TikTok clone app that has recently reached number one in both Apple's App Store and Google's Play Store. Its interface is identical to TikTok's except that there is a timer that fills up with points as a user watches videos. The points can be redeemed later for cash or gift cards. Zynn originated in China by a startup called Kuaishou. It hopes to make more money selling ads than it pays out to users. Kuaishou recently received a $2 billion investment from Tencent, who hopes the investment will help it compete against ByteDance. Zynn has a referral scheme that promises $110 to users if they can get five people to sign up and use the app regularly. Users must link the app to an existing phone number, Google, Facebook, or Twitter account to receive rewards. A PayPal account is required to cash out rewards.
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A new TikTok clone hit the top of the App Store by paying users to watch videos
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The Mars Helicopter Delivery System was created to help NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter safely navigate the final five inches from the Perseverance rover to the surface of Mars. Ingenuity weighs about four pounds and is packed with technology that makes stowing and deploying it a challenge, especially since powered controlled flight on Mars has never been attempted. Mission engineers decided to store the helicopter in Perseverance's belly. Two months after Perseverance lands, the rover will drop the Mars Helicopter Delivery System onto a suitable location, and six days later, the deployment process will begin. Once a good drop is confirmed, the helicopter will begin recharging its batteries with its solar panel, and then the flight test program will begin. If the technology is successful, the helicopters might be used in future missions to act as scouts, carry payloads, or investigate the environment.
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How NASA's Mars Helicopter Will Reach the Red Planet's Surface
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Uber has announced a new division called Uber Money which will offer a digital wallet and debit and credit cards. The service will allow its drivers to have access to a mobile bank account to get paid after each ride. By building a financial ecosystem, it could keep drivers and riders loyal to its platform. Many of Uber's customers use credit cards to pay for rides and food orders, and these services could eventually remove costs related to financial middlemen and generate new revenue streams. Uber's debit card is essentially a no-fee bank account and allows drivers to have access to funds immediately. A no-cost $100 overdraft feature allows drivers to pay for gas to kick off a working day. More and more tech companies are beginning to offer financial services. Apple has recently launched a credit card with Goldman Sachs and Facebook has revealed plans to launch its cryptocurrency, Libra. Uber's credit card will be a joint product with Barclays.
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Uber announces deeper push into financial services with Uber Money
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The US Navy has plans to use a fleet of uncrewed warships to hunt and destroy submarines. It is in the process of issuing contracts for up to 40 medium unmanned surface vehicles (MUSVs). MUSVs are significantly cheaper to build and maintain while still being deadly effective at their jobs. Anti-submarine warfare can involve long periods of drudgery, as it is a process that involves sometimes waiting for months for possible enemy submarine contact. Freeing up manned cruisers, destroyers, and submarines from anti-submarine warfare and assigning the task to MUSVs would free up billions of dollars worth of warships to do other tasks. While it sounds like a good idea, the results could be disappointing. Previous attempts at automating sea mine-hunting took nearly a decade to produce results, and moving targets will be much more challenging.
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The Navy May Use Robo-Ships to Hunt and Kill Enemy Subs, Terminator-Style
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We Company will complete its initial public offering by the end of the year despite canceling its launch this week due to concerns over lack of interest by investors. It faces issues over its corporate governance standards, as well as the sustainability of its business model. We Company relies on a mix of long-term liabilities and short-term revenue, which may pose a problem during an economic downturn. In January, We Company was valued at $47 billion, but recent valuations set the company at between $10 billion to $12 billion. We Company has recently made changes to its corporate governance, reducing the CEO and co-founder Adam Neumann's grip on the company. Neumann will now have less voting power and any future successor will be selected by the board. The WeWork brand is strongly tied to Neumann and he had planned to have his wife, WeWork's co-founder and We Company's current chief brand officer, to become his successor.
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WeWork parent says IPO still on despite setbacks
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Yelp has been redirecting customer calls through Grubhub owned numbers before connecting with the restaurant in order to enforce a referral fee of between 15 and 20 percent of the order total. Restaurants may not be aware of the routing until they try to call themselves through the app. Grubhub offers marketing and delivery services to restaurants, and it claims that restaurants would not have received orders if the restaurant was not listed in its directory. It has also created thousands of websites in restaurants' names in order to drive more online orders and commissions for itself. Restaurants have complained that Grubhub's tracking systems were inaccurate as sometimes customers called without placing orders. Employees are also unaware that they are being recorded. In response to the backlash from restaurants, Grubhub has extended the window in which restaurants can dispute charges from 60 days to 120 days.
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Yelp is Screwing Over Restaurants By Quietly Replacing Their Phone Numbers
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Collapse OS is an operating system designed to work on Z80 8-bit microprocessors. The Z80 8-bit microprocessor was chosen due to its wide availability, as it is used in desktop computers, cash registers, musical instruments, graphing calculators, and many more electronics. Collapse OS was created for a future where mass-produced electronics no longer exist. In a scenario where electronics systems are no longer common or easily maintained, those who still have access to computer systems would hold an enormous source of political and social power. People who could scavenge electronics and reprogram them would have a huge advantage over those who couldn't. The aim of Collapse OS is to build a system that can run on minimal and improvised machines, interface through improvised devices, edit text files, compile assembler source files for a wide range of processors, read and write from a wide range of storage devices, and replicate itself.
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'Collapse OS' Is an Open Source Operating System for the Post-Apocalypse
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Top Korean firms are rolling out artificial intelligence in hiring, and job seekers are learning how to beat the bots. Career consultants are now offering classes on how to handle recruitment screening by computers. These systems use facial recognition technology to analyze potential employees, so job seekers have to learn techniques, such as smiling with their eyes, in order to deal with the AI. Nearly a quarter of the top 131 corporations in Korea currently use or have plans to use AI in hiring. AI video interviews analyze people's emotional responses to questions and also their performance in a certain set of tasks. Some tests don't really have a correct answer, as the goal is only to analyze behavior. Many students are feeling disheartened with the introduction of AI as they feel like they are underprepared for these types of interviews, and they are concerned because the systems can easily detect if they make something up.
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'Smile with your eyes': How to beat South Korea's AI hiring bots and land a job
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Elon Musk announced in a meeting with scientists on Monday that he'd like to collaborate with astronomers on developing the next generation of space-based telescopes. Musk was speaking at the meeting to address concerns about interference from large satellite constellations like Starlink. The Starlink constellation has interfered with some astronomical observations over the past year. A potential fix was suggested that used sunshades to block reflections from the sun. Musk suggested using an orbital planet-imaging observatory to avoid the issue of interference from Starlink satellites. The Starlink network has grown to over 400 satellites, and SpaceX has permission from the FCC to launch over 12,000. Musk has previously stated that he sees 20,000 to 30,000 as the ideal number of satellites to blanket the planet in low-latency broadband internet access.
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Elon Musk wants SpaceX to launch the next generation of space telescopes
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LG has revealed its third dual-screen smartphone, the V60 ThinQ 5G. It features Qualcomm's latest processor, 5G data, 8K video, a hi-fi headphone jack, dual-screens, and more. The screens are 6.8-inch FHD+ OLED panels and the hinge can be rotated to any angle, turning the phone into a mini-laptop of sorts. Users will be able to use Google apps in the wide-view mode that spans both displays at once. When held horizontally, one display can be used as a full-screen keyboard. The phone is best suited for multitasking with different apps on each screen, for example, ride-share drivers can run Uber and Lyft apps at the same time on each screen. Pricing and availability has not been announced yet, but it is expected to be released in spring.
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LG’s new V60 ThinQ 5G shows steady evolution for a company in need of big change
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The VC model is simple: raise enough capital to grow faster than competitors and regulators can catch up. Founders are now beginning to question whether buying into the boom or bust VC game is a good idea. Some companies like Wistia (video hosting) and Buffer (social media posting) have bought back their investors' shares to pursue more sustainable growth. New small VC funds like indie.vc and Earnest Capital are now giving funding with buyback clauses to allow companies to buy out investors with profits down the line. Bootstrapped startups like collaboration tool Notion believe they can achieve ambitious goals like challenging Microsoft without any venture capital backing. Entrepreneur Mara Zepeda says "The tool of venture capital is so specific to a tiny, tiny fraction of companies. We can't let ourselves be fooled into thinking that's the story of the future of American entrepreneurship."
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More Start-Ups Have an Unfamiliar Message for Venture Capitalists: Get Lost
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SpaceX has gained approval from the FCC to fly their Starlink satellites at a lower altitude of 550 kilometers. By operating at this orbit, Starlink will have a much shorter signal latency and will also require 16 fewer satellites. There have been objections to the approval by other companies such as OneWeb, who are developing their own satellite internet network, and Kepler Communications. They claim that Starlink will use similar signals to their satellites and will cause interference, and that there would be a higher chance of satellites colliding at that orbit. The FCC ruled that interference would not be an issue, and SpaceX claims that their satellites have thrusters and will be able to navigate out of the way of other objects. SpaceX aims to launch a total of 12,000 satellites, with at least 6,000 in the next six years.
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FCC approves SpaceX’s plans to fly internet-beaming satellites in a lower orbit
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Bush-meat hunters have been setting up rope-and-branch snares in Rwanda’s Volcanoes National Park, where endangered mountain gorillas live. Last week, an infant was caught in one of the traps and died due to snare-related wounds. Trackers from the Karisoke center comb through the forest for snares in order to dismantle them to protect the gorillas. During an expedition this week, trackers attempted to dismantle a snare near a known gorilla tribe but the gorillas warned the trackers to stay away from the trap. The gorillas then dismantled the trap and another one near it, which the trackers had missed. While gorillas have demonstrated intelligence and the ability to learn, it is against the ethos of aid groups to teach the gorillas skills as it would mean interfering with the populations and affecting their natural behavior.
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Gorilla Youngsters Seen Dismantling Poachers' Traps—A First
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A Facebook content moderator had a heart attack and died while on the job after reporting high levels of stress, constantly fearing that he would lose his job. The content moderation site he worked at in Tampa, Florida was the worst-performing site in North America. Previous reports into these moderation facilities have shown that employees are working under sub-optimal conditions. Employees are constantly reminded that they are replaceable. Some employees who work in content moderation did not initially aim to work in the department. They were hired for other jobs and then ‘promoted’ into these roles. Others applied for jobs that promised normal working hours, bonuses, regular schedules, and a good work-life balance, but were then put into working night shifts. It seems that the company’s strategy is to fill its centers with bodies in order to moderate their content, without a care for how the person is hired, treated, or cared for after working in such a traumatizing role.
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Bodies in Seats (28 min read)
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Pfizer's coronavirus vaccine was more than 90% effective at preventing COVID-19 in those without evidence of prior infection. The FDA had set a threshold of 50% effectiveness for a vaccine to merit approval. There haven't been any serious safety concerns reported yet in a trial of 43,538 participants. US stock futures skyrocketed in response to the news, with some airline and cruise company stocks jumping up as much as 30%. The vaccine requires two doses, with protection achieved 28 days after the initial vaccination. It could be available as early as late December, and widely available by the third quarter of 2021. Pfizer expects to produce up to 50 million vaccine doses in 2020, and up to 1.3 billion doses in 2021.
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Pfizer, BioNTech say Covid vaccine is more than 90% effective
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The ability to correctly communicate an idea or concept in a way that others can understand is by far the most important skill to have as someone working in a software-based small business. Programmers have developed their own jargon to communicate with each other which people outside of the programming world might not understand. The simplest explanation that includes the most important information is usually the best. Using jargon to try to demonstrate intelligence and superiority is usually the wrong way to go about conveying an idea. Being respectful to others goes a long way in getting them to want to understand you. Practicing pitching ideas to non-technical friends can help you receive useful feedback. Techniques like analogies, anecdotes, and metaphors are great tools for getting ideas across. It's ok to admit when you don't know something, and it is often better than losing respect for getting something wrong, as long as you take the initiative to self-educate.
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Words Are Hard - An Essay on Communicating With Non-Programmers (10 minute read)
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Severe bleaching events have led to the widespread death of coral in the Great Barrier Reef. Researchers at Australia's Southern Cross University are planning to put millions of 'turbo-charged' coral babies into the reef's most degraded areas. Scientists collected millions of coral sperm and eggs during the most recent mass spawning event and co-cultured the coral larvae with a type of algae called zooxanthellae. This greatly increased the chances of the coral surviving. The algae gives the coral the potential to acquire more energy and possess higher thermal tolerance. If this technique is successful, it could serve as a blueprint for reef restoration efforts around the world. Scaling the operation will require a lot of work. The current method is only able to patch up small parts of a reef, rather than whole kilometers.
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"Turbo-charged" coral to breathe new life into the Great Barrier Reef
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Amazon critics are saying that the company's decision to split its second headquarters into two (one in New York and one in Washington DC) showed that the bidding process for HQ2 was a farce. Some believe that the decision was made long ago and that the bidding process was just a ruse to extract concessions and kickbacks. Others have been saying all along that HQ2 would be split into multiple locations that Amazon would again play against one another to strengthen its bargaining position. One critic says "It's tempting to roll your eyes at this soap opera, but Amazon will walk away from this stunt with a cache of incredibly valuable data. It's learned all kinds of things from the bidding cities like their future infrastructure plans that even their citizens are not privy to. Amazon will put this data to prodigious use in the coming years as it looks to expand its market power and sideline the competition."
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Was Amazon's Headquarters Contest a Bait-and-Switch? Critics Say Yes
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Uber drivers across France have occupied or shut down many of the company's Greenlight Hubs in order to negotiate better working conditions. Greenlight Hubs are facilities where new drivers can be registered and be onboarded, and where existing drivers can get in-person support. Uber has attempted to move its operations over to hotels and co-working spaces. As the company grew, it increased its own cut of fares and decreased the minimum fares for trips. The drivers have nine demands in their protest. They want a driver cap and a study on Uber's market effects, dynamic pricing instead of fixed pricing, an increase in the minimum driver fare, pay for time spent driving to pick up passengers, an increase in the base pay rate, union representation, removal of the penalty for cancelling trips, the ability to review trip prices and destinations before cancelling, and a driver verification system.
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We Spoke To Uber Drivers Who Have Taken Over The Company’s Offices In France (11 minute read)
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In 1935, Albert Einstein and Erwin Schrödinger debated over the implications of the new theory of quantum mechanics. One area in particular, the inability to describe two quantum systems or particles independently after they have interacted, or entanglement, was one of the main focuses of their discussion. Schrödinger’s cat was created in order to help articulate an idea during these talks. Einstein later wrote in a paper that year about quantum nonlocality, where once two quantum systems have met and separated, it is impossible to measure one without changing the properties of the other. In 2013, a team at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem reported entangling photons that had never coexisted, demonstrating entanglement over time. The implications of this experiment are strange, as it could mean that the measurement of photons now could affect the photons that were being measured back through time.
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If You Thought Quantum Mechanics Was Weird, You Need to Check Out Entangled Time
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Studies have shown that open floor office plans decrease face-to-face time and increase the number of email interactions. Employees experience increased stress levels, conflict, blood pressure, and higher turnover rates when working in an open floor office. Companies such as ROOM and ZenBooth have started offering office pods, personal cubicles which are minimal in design, containing a chair, a table, outlets, a skylight, glass doors, and soundproofed walls. Pods can vary in sizes and accommodate individual users or small groups of people. ZenBooth was started due to the founder finding it difficult to work in an office with an open floor plan. Pods can be delivered to an office within 10-15 business days and set up in under an hour while constructing office walls can take more than three months. Some pods are already tested to meet fire regulations, and the costs are less than renting traditional sectioned offices.
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The Often-Hated Open Floor Plan Gets a New Savior: The Office Pod
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China will send a trio of spacecraft to Mars on July 23rd on top of the Long March 5 rocket. An orbiter will study Mars from above, while a lander and rover will be sent to the surface. Tianwen-1 will be China's first big interplanetary mission. China has recently landed a rover on the far side of the Moon and has other space projects planned for the future. The spacecraft will reach Mars sometime in February 2021 where it will stay in orbit for about two or three months before deploying the lander and rover. Tianwen-1's rover will map out Martian geography, look for water-ice in the soil, measure the climate of the surface of the planet, and more. It is equipped with a ground-penetrating radar that can identify different rocks and search for reservoirs of water-ice underneath the surface.
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China is about to launch a trio of spacecraft to Mars — including a rover
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Telegram will start sending out its Gram currency to investors within two months. The 200 to 300 million global users of Telegram's messaging app will soon have access to a Gram digital wallet. Regulators are concerned that cryptocurrencies could be useful for unlawful activities and have started to shut down smaller cryptocurrency projects, citing them for violations of securities law. Telegram has developed its Cryptocurrency mostly in secret. The company has always operated with a degree of disregard for the opinions of government authorities. Its messaging app is designed to make it easy to encrypt messages between phones, making it unpopular among governments. Once Gram is released, it will be a decentralized currency, meaning that it will be controlled by a network of peers and not any one central authority. There will be no currency backing Gram, and like Bitcoin, its value will be determined by the market.
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Telegram Pushes Ahead With Plans for ‘Gram’ Cryptocurrency
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Researchers at the Deep Carbon Observatory have been conducting a 10-year study of subterranean life on Earth; it turns out there is way more than previously thought. They estimate that despite extreme heat, no light, little nutrition and intense pressure, there are between 15 billion and 23 billion tons of micro-organisms living underground. No matter how deep scientists dig, they keep finding more life; they've already dug down 5 kilometers. Some micro-organisms live for thousands of years, barely moving except with shifts in tectonic plates, while others don't use any energy from the sun, relying on chemical processes to produce methane to replace or repair broken parts. One researcher says "We must ask ourselves: if life on Earth can be this different from what experience has led us to expect, then what strangeness might await as we probe for life on other worlds?"
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Scientists identify vast underground ecosystem containing billions of micro-organisms
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Less than 1% of fresh water in the world is available for human use, and 70% of that is used for agriculture. Demand for food is rising, so new ways to cultivate crops are needed. Two 24-year-old scientists have formed a company, Agrisea, to produce salt-tolerant rice and floating ocean farms by 2021. Over 700 million tons of rice is produced each year. The crop feeds billions of people every day. Scientists have been trying to manipulate the rice genome for decades to improve its nutrition, efficiency, drought resistance, and to reduce methane production. Genetically modified foods are controversial, even though the technology could be used to save billions of lives. Agrisea aims to eventually create a portfolio of salt-resistant crops that will grow in farms around the world.
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You May Find Salt-Tolerant Rice Growing In The Ocean By 2021
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An analysis of 103 cases of the new coronavirus has revealed that there are two strains of the virus, an L-type and an S-type. Viruses constantly mutate, and there are small changes every time the virus infects a new host. Both are involved in the current global outbreak. The L-type, which is more prevalent and thus probably more aggressive, is likely to have evolved from the S-type. Scientists have not identified differences in the viruses yet other than its infection rates. It is important to know how many strains of the virus exist when developing vaccines, as the vaccines will have to be able to target all strains of the virus. Some scientists say that the changes in the virus have been trivial so far and that there is no evidence that the disease has gotten any worse. It is expected that new strains will evolve as people develop immunity to the old strains.
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Coronavirus: Are there two strains and is one more deadly?
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FL 16.78-109 is a type of strawberry that is white with red seeds that has appeared recently on random store shelves. It has a sweet flavor, sometimes tasting similar to grapes. The berries are a result of cross-breeding with a type of berry from Japan. It has taken years of work and hundreds of thousands of dollars to develop. Today’s berries are significantly sweeter and larger than what they used to be due to scientific farming. While there are many different types of strawberries, most supermarkets lump them into the same label. New types are being continually developed to improve taste, health, and appearance. Most farmers use cross-breeding techniques, rather than direct genetic modification. This means that the process is usually significantly slower. Only one in about 30,000 seedlings will become a new variety of strawberry.
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The scientist making Florida strawberries bigger, sweeter and sometimes grape-flavored
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At the International Academy of Astronautics Planetary Defense Conference, NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine opened his keynote with a warning about the likely scenario that we will have to deal with an asteroid impact within our lifetimes. In 2013, a 20 meter meteor exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia, damaging thousands of buildings and sending more than 1,500 people to the hospital. There were three of these events in the 20th century, with one in 1908 causing damage to more than 2,000 square kilometers. NASA is currently attempting to track 90 percent of asteroids 140 meters and larger. It has enlisted the help of SpaceX to develop a rocket that will hopefully be able to steer asteroids off their course if they are aimed at Earth. NASA currently knows of no asteroid or comet that is on a collision course with Earth.
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NASA head warns: Expect a major asteroid impact in your lifetime
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Tesla's Autopilot can control and navigate a car through a highway, and its Summon feature can move a vehicle from a parking spot directly to the driver. It doesn't use lidar or high-definition maps. Everything is based on computer vision and machine learning on the raw footage from the cameras on the vehicle. Most of Tesla's neural networks have a shared backbone as having an individual network for each task would be too resource-heavy. Each of these shared networks is called a Hydra-net. Multiple Hydra-nets can work together to make collaborative predictions. Training all these neural networks is an expensive task. It takes about 70,000 GPU hours to compile the neural network stack for Autopilot. Most of the training process can be automated, as long as the data sets are continually improved. Tesla's custom hardware allows them to train neural networks at a higher magnitude for a low cost.
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PyTorch at Tesla (11 minute video)
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Juul Labs will stop advertising its e-cigarettes in the United States. Kevin Burns has stepped down as Juul's CEO and will be succeeded by K.C. Crosthwaite. Crosthwaite has stated his intention to work with regulators, policymakers, and other stakeholders in order to regain public trust in Juul's products. At least 530 people have recently developed vaping-related lung diseases, and nine people have died. Experts have not yet linked the outbreak to any specific product or type of e-cigarette, but many of the illnesses are connected to people who have used black market marijuana vaping products. Juul is under investigation to see whether its marketing to teens was a violation of consumer protection laws. The FDA will release its policy regarding the sale of flavored vaping products in the coming weeks.
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Juul Accepts Proposed Ban On Flavored Vaping Products As CEO Steps Down
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API services can seem like magic when you query an endpoint for it to return back some data or complete some functionality. All API services should use usage-based pricing with automatic volume discounts. Using this model, a customer will only pay for how much they use a particular service. It means that customers will use your service more as it provides more value to them, and vice versa. This incentivizes both the customer and service provider to act in everyone's best interest as the service provider improves its service to increase value, and customers are benefitting from discounts the more they use your service. Customers who have high volume are also less likely to drop in volume as they will pay more for using the service less. Other types of pricing models usually create a situation where the customer is always paying more for your service than they want to, as they will never use their full allowances. This incentivizes people to use your service less as they want to minimize costs down to the lowest tier.
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The Only Type of API Services I'll Use
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Users on the SecretSanta subreddit organize a gift exchange every year, and this year, a woman named Shelby was the lucky recipient of a package from Bill Gates. Shelby received an 81-pound box on December 18 along with a donation to the American Heart Association to honor her late mother. Gates has been participating in Reddit's Secret Santa gift exchange for more than five years. He makes it a point to find personal gifts for each recipient based on the questionnaire they fill out when signing up for the exchange. Shelby's mother had died unexpectedly in March, so Gates' donation to the AHA was the most meaningful gift to her. Inside the 81-pound box, Shelby found a personal placard with a written message from Gates and a collection of gifts based on her interests.
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Bill Gates played secret Santa for a lucky person on the internet — here's everything she got in her 81-pound package
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Two experimental treatments for Ebola have proved so effective that they are being offered to all patients in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The treatments have a 90 percent success rate, giving hope that the epidemic in the eastern Congo can soon be stopped. A recent epidemic that started last month has infected around 2,800 known patients, killing more than 1,800 of them. People are distrustful of health workers and underreport occurrences of the disease or hide sick family members. Both REGN-EB3 and mAb-114 are cocktails of synthetic monoclonal antibodies that are infused intravenously into the blood. When treated, less than 11 percent of patients died, compared to an over 70 percent mortality rate when untreated. The epidemic has been made worse due to violence and political turmoil in the area.
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A Cure for Ebola? Two New Treatments Prove Highly Effective in Congo
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Two critical vulnerabilities for Zoom's software that allows hackers to spy on users' calls are on the market for $500,000. The zero-day exploits are present in Zoom's Windows and macOS clients. Remote Code Execution bugs are sought after as they allow hackers to break in without having to rely on the target falling for a phishing attack. RCE exploits generally also allow hackers to access the target's whole machine. The Windows bug is an RCE exploit, while the macOS bug isn't, which means that the MacOS bug is less dangerous and harder to use in a real hack. Government bodies have issued warnings not to use Zoom due to privacy issues. Give feedback by replying here or messaging me on Twitter @tldrdan! If you don't want to receive future editions of TLDR, please click here.
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Hackers Are Selling a Critical Zoom Zero-Day Exploit for $500,000
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Elon Musk has changed his username to 'Treelon' on Twitter after donating $1 million worth of trees to a campaign that aims to plant 20 million trees by the start of 2020. The campaign owner responded to Musk's pledge by praising him as 'Treelon Musk', which prompted the name change. Musk's name change has already spawned memes on Reddit and other social media. He is known for his unpredictable Twitter presence where he has previously revealed breaking news about his companies, clashed with high-profile figures, and made statements that have landed him in trouble with shareholders and government agencies. The #TeamTrees campaign has attracted attention from other prominent figures besides Musk. However, Musk's donation is by far the largest so far.
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Elon Musk changed his username to 'Treelon' on Twitter after pledging to donate $1 million to a YouTuber's tree-planting cause
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In late 2018, Asher Burke started Ads Inc., a company that placed ads for products purposed to trap customers into a subscription. Using a network of rented Facebook accounts, Ads Inc. was able to create unlimited misleading Facebook ads. They eventually started selling the rented accounts for $800 a login. Users whose accounts were being sold were paid $15-$30 a month. Ads Inc.'s practices violated Facebook's terms of services, but it was difficult to monitor their actions. Their ads were able to avoid Facebook's detection systems through a cloaking strategy that directed ad reviewers to 'safe' pages. Facebook began shutting down some accounts after this activity was revealed. Over the past decade, the Federal Trade Commission has gone after perpetrators who have stolen more than $1.3 billion through subscription trap scams.
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How A Massive Facebook Scam Siphoned Millions Of Dollars From Unsuspecting Boomers (26 minute read)
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### Content:
Several startups and a major tech company are now developing brain-computer interfaces, with some rudimentary versions already popping up in online stores. The concern for these devices is that they are able to read thoughts, which might open up the possibility of discrimination based on what goes on inside a person's head. Devices can already recognize basic emotional states, unspoken words, and imagined movements. The technology has been applied to the area of prosthetics, allowing people to regain control of their limbs. Companies are aiming to create devices that allow typing with thoughts or even merging with AI. These devices will generate huge amounts of neural data, which is potentially one of the most sensitive forms of personal information. This data could be exploited for marketing and has the potential to be used against people who show particular brain patterns, for example, it can be used to tell whether a person had propensities for addiction, depression, or neurological disease.
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Brains are the last frontier of privacy
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### Content:
A Boeing employee has spoken on a radio show about the state of the company on the promise of anonymity. The employee primarily worked on the 777X model. However, when commenting on the 737 Max, which is currently embroiled in controversy, the employee stated that he wouldn’t risk letting his family on one of the aircraft. The company is currently experiencing low morale, as management has been unclear on the direction of the company with employees, and there are rumors of upcoming layoffs. Boeing claims that companies which purchase airplanes were responsible for training pilots correctly. As the training isn’t mandatory, some pilots are unaware of essential systems, such as the MCAS system that failed in two airplanes, causing crashes. While the employee trusts his colleagues and the work they do, he is unsure about the management, and still has reservations about the 737 Max planes.
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Boeing employee: I would not put my family on a Max plane right now
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### Content:
Amazon has unveiled the Kindle Kids Edition, its first-ever e-reader aimed at children. It costs $20 more than a normal Kindle and comes with one of four colorful cases, a two-year guarantee, and one year's access to FreeTime Unlimited. Amazon will replace the device for free if anything happens to it under the two-year guarantee. FreeTime Unlimited offers 20,000 kid-friendly books, videos, and apps. It is $4.99 per month or $2.99 per month for existing Prime subscribers. The Kindle Kids Edition includes a feature called Word Wise that will automatically define difficult words, as well as turn any word that a child looks up into a flashcard for later review. Kids can earn achievement badges, as well as decorate their Kindle with fun wallpapers. It is available for pre-order now and will ship on October 30th.
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Amazon announces its first-ever Kindle for kids
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### Content:
Google has released three apps that are designed to help you manage your time on your phone. These experimental apps are part of its Digital Wellbeing initiative. Envelope transforms users' phones so that they can only perform simple, specific functions. For example, users can choose to only be able to make and receive calls through a basic keypad interface, or to only be able to take photos or record video. Users can print out specially designed paper cases that help limit the function of their phones. Envelope is open-sourced on GitHub, so developers can alter the app if they want. Envelope is currently only designed for use with Pixel 3A devices. Activity Bubbles and Stopwatch are both apps that change users' home screens so that they can monitor their usage. Activity Bubbles creates bubbles on the phone background, with bigger bubbles indicating more time spent on the phone, and Stopwatch displays a timer for how long a phone has been unlocked.
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Google designed an envelope you can use to hide your phone from yourself
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### Content:
By finding the shortest paths for drivers to take, Waze has unleashed chaos onto the roads, turning regular streets into something that resembles a freeway, often making it very difficult for people to leave their driveways. Waze would save everyday users a few minutes here and there, but it has come at a price. Local residents are distraught by the amount of traffic that is being sent to what were once quiet streets. People have been proposing legal action against Waze and Google. Waze has interfered with the city’s traffic plans, residential neighborhoods, and public safety. Council members have commented that Waze's responses so far have been inadequate and their solutions nonexistent. If nothing is done, Waze could lead everyone on a race to the bottom, where traffic plans are ignored, and every street is gridlocked.
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Waze Hijacked L.A. in the Name of Convenience. Can Anyone Put the Genie Back in the Bottle? (15 minute read)
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### Content:
A lawsuit filed by Tesla claims that Guangzhi Cao, a former engineer at Tesla, stole more than 300,000 files related to autopilot technology before leaving the company and joining Xiaopeng Motors Technology Company Ltd, a Chinese self-driving car startup. Xiaopeng has released a statement claiming they did not know about Cao's misconduct and were conducting an internal investigation on the matter. As Tesla is currently building a vehicle assembly facility in Shanghai, Xiaopeng is now a direct competitor in the world's largest electric vehicle market. Tesla has also filed a separate lawsuit against another four former employees and a US self-driving car startup, Zoox Inc, alleging the employees stole proprietary information and trade secrets for developing warehousing, logistics, and inventory control operations.
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Tesla sues former employees for allegedly stealing data, Autopilot source code
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### Content:
A former Juul executive claims that the startup shipped out one million contaminated e-cigarette pods earlier this year without telling customers or issuing a recall. The executive has filed a lawsuit against Juul, claiming that he was retaliated against for raising concerns about the contaminated shipment. He had other concerns about the actions of the company, including the company shipping out pods that were almost a year old. Juul claims that the executive was terminated due to a lack leadership qualities. The company says that that the allegations about the safety and quality of its products are meritless. A nationwide lung injury outbreak now stands at 1,604 cases and 34 deaths. These illnesses are likely linked to vaping black-market THC. However, the connection to nicotine vaping products, such as those produced by Juul, has not been fully ruled out.
### Headline:
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Juul Shipped At Least A Million Contaminated Pods, New Lawsuit Says
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### Content:
The conventional wisdom surrounding AI is that the company with the most data wins. Now, startups are using blockchains to democratize data so that data remains under the user's control instead of Google's or Facebook's. Ocean Protocol is a Berlin-based startup that allows anyone to set up a data marketplace, with users of data paying for the data with digital tokens. Revel is a company that pays out tokens in exchange for training data sets, like collecting pictures of taxis. Oasis is a medical information blockchain using advanced encryption techniques such that no company, not even the one using the data, will have access to it. Researchers will be able to run the data through their machine learning algorithms and prove that calculations are done correctly all without ever having access to the underlying data. SingularityNET is a blockchain of AIs, so that if one AI cannot come up with an answer, it can pay another AI to help.
### Headline:
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How the Blockchain Could Break Big Tech's Hold on A.I.
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### Content:
Darknet markets for assassinations allow people to anonymously order killings online. A serialized essay called 'Assassination Politics' written in 1995 details a system where people could anonymously pledge money towards a bounty for killing someone, and another party could 'predict' a death and collect the pool. The implication was that the best way to predict a death was to cause it yourself. The invention of Bitcoin and the dark web made this system possible. Many 'murder marketplaces' have popped up on the darknet, but most turn out to be scams. As the technology is relatively new, law enforcement agencies have some difficulties investigating cases. Many people who had been named as potential targets on these sites were unaware of their predicament, even if law enforcement knew their names were on a list. Some cases of suicide have been linked to these websites, and people have been arrested for ordering murders online.
### Headline:
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Click Here to Kill (34 minute read)
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### Content:
Elon Musk made some big announcements at Tesla's Battery Day event. Tesla will manufacture its own 'tabless' batteries designed to improve its vehicles' range and power. The tabless cells will be six times more powerful and increase range by 16 percent compared to current batteries. The Model S Plaid will have a range of 520 miles, get 0-60 mph in under 2 seconds, and have a top speed of 200 mph. It will cost $139,990 and be available in late 2021. Tesla plans to open a new cathode plant in North America that will make cathodes 76 percent cheaper and produce zero wastewater. It will eliminate the use of cobalt in its cathodes. Tesla's end goal is to produce a $25,000 electric car.
### Headline:
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Here are Tesla’s biggest announcements from Battery Day
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### Content:
A town near Morocco's sunny Atlantic coast is Africa's first completely solar-powered village. Id Mjahdi is being pitched as a blueprint for how to power remote villages. Africa currently produces less than one percent of the world's solar energy. Morocco is aiming to increase its use of renewable energy to 52 percent by 2030. The project to outfit Id Mjahdi with solar power has resulted in clean water and more time for the villagers, which means they are able to produce more work and spend more time on education. These mini-grids can be maintained by the villagers, so the project can be scaled and replicated in other villages. There are 800 villages without electricity in Morocco alone, and the World Bank estimates that 650 million people worldwide will still lack access to electricity in 2030.
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Africa's 'first fully solar-powered village' wants to be a model for a renewable future
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### Content:
Instacart gig workers will refuse to accept orders until Instacart increases their pay by $5 an order, provides free safety gear, and expands paid sick leave to include workers with pre-existing conditions who have been advised by their doctors not to work at this time. The strike will last until Instacart agrees to their terms. Instacart corporate employees have full benefits and do not have to work in the front lines, while the gig workers have no guarantees or protections. Like many other companies that depend on gig workers, Instacart has offered two weeks of paid sick leave if a worker tests positive, but the offer only lasts until April 8, before the worst of the pandemic is set to hit. Many workers live paycheck to paycheck, so this may force workers to work while sick. Instacart plans to hire an additional 300,000 gig workers in the next three months.
### Headline:
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Instacart’s Gig Workers Are Planning a Massive, Nationwide Strike
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### Content:
Many employees will be working from home in the coming months because of the coronavirus outbreak. During this period of change, it is normal to feel bad. The switch from working in an environment with co-workers to one where you are alone all day can be tough for many people. There is also the stress of dealing with the outbreak itself. If you are feeling bad, try to reconnect with the world with a few small interactions. In our technological world, there are many ways we can still interact without requiring a physical presence. Get dressed for work, and remember to maintain a routine. Designating a special work area will help you keep focused. Remember that as you are working from home, you will need to have systems in place to monitor yourself. Improve your video setup so you can communicate better with others. Finally, don't fall into the trap of overworking. Working from home means you need to set clear boundaries on when you are working so you don't burn out.
### Headline:
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Work in the Time of Corona (10 minute read)
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### Content:
SpaceX has announced a new, low-cost program to launch small satellites into a Sun-synchronous orbit. Satellites weighing up to 150kg can be launched into space for the price of $2.25 million. The Falcon 9 will be carrying these satellites into orbit at regularly scheduled intervals. SpaceX has previously flown rideshare missions using the Falcon 9, but these were organized by a third-party provider, Spaceflight Industries. The cost of launching a satellite with SpaceX is less than half of the cost of launching with other competitors, and the regular service means that smaller companies will be able to launch their satellites on time, rather than risk delays. The entry into the commercial market by SpaceX will put pressure into an already crowded field, and it means that foreign satellite launch options, such as the pseudo-commercial space companies in China, will look less attractive.
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SpaceX enters smallsat launch market with a very low price
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### Content:
Masayoshi Son has disclosed the extent of SoftBank Group Corp.'s losses on WeWork and Uber Technologies Inc. SoftBank reported its first quarterly operating loss in 14 years at around $6.5 billion, with $4.6 billion in losses attributed to WeWork. Son's $100 billion Vision Fund had contributed over $14 billion in mostly paper gains over the past two years, but its high exposure to businesses that prioritize growth over profitability is starting to have a negative effect. Despite the hits, SoftBank has still made money for its investors. SoftBank continued to invest more money into WeWork in a deal that included making WeWork's founder Adam Neumann resign from the company's board. Analysts are concerned with Son's investment strategy due to WeWork's poor performance.
### Headline:
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SoftBank Notches a $6.5 Billion Loss on Plunging WeWork and Uber Valuations
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### Content:
The SpaceX Software Engineering team comprises of four separate teams. The Flight Software team develops code for Falcon 9, Grasshopper, and Dragon vehicles, and simulation, communications, and analysis software. They work with Mission Control to support active missions. The Enterprise Information Systems team mainly focuses on an internal web application that nearly every person in the company uses. The Ground Software team develops the GUIs used in Mission and Launch control for engineers to monitor vehicles and equipment. The Avionics Test team writes software for testing hardware and catching problems with the hardware earlier. Software for the mission, including SpaceX's Chromium and JavaScript-based Dragon 2 flight interface, had to go through various certifications. Every mission-critical input has a physical button underneath the touch display in case of a malfunction. A real-time operating system is used for Mission Critical applications as they have a faster interrupt response and better memory protection compared to regular operating systems.
### Headline:
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Software Engineering Within SpaceX (10 minute read)
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### Content:
The Mars 2020 rover will look for traces of life in a 3.5 billion-year-old river delta on the red planet. It is currently in the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's clean room, which has strictly controlled temperature, humidity, and operating procedures to minimize airborne dust, particulates, and biological contamination that could interfere with electronics and Martian experiments. People must go through a meticulous cleaning and preparation routine in order to access the room. Keeping the Mars 2020 rover clean has been a unique challenge for JPL, and it is important as the focus of the mission is on astrobiology. The rover will launch from Cape Canaveral during a July/August window for a planned landing on February 8, 2021. Its mission will run for one Mars year and cover an area of 12 miles.
### Headline:
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Meet Mars 2020, NASA’s rover for finding life on Mars
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### Content:
Tesla Model 3 owners in China recently started to notice that their cars were being equipped with an older generation computer chip despite being told that the cars came with the newest chip installed. The Chinese government had ordered Tesla to shut down its Shanghai Gigafactory at the end of January. It re-opened on February 10, but the company is still trying to recover from the disruption. Tesla executives were summoned to explain the issue to China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, who ordered them to rectify the problem according to related regulations. Tesla has offered a free hardware upgrade for customers once production recovers, but some owners are looking at forming a class action suit. The newest chip is 21 times faster than the older generation chip, but Tesla insists that this makes almost no difference to the driver experience.
### Headline:
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Tesla got hauled in by Chinese government after it quietly downgraded the chips in some of its Model 3 cars
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### Content:
The highest-resolution ever image of the sun, taken by the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope in Maui, has been released. Astronomers built the DKIST to make precise measurements of the sun's magnetic field throughout the corona in order to find out why the corona is millions of degrees hotter than the sun's surface. It can observe structures on the sun as small as 18.5 miles. The telescope is still under construction, and in the next six months, it will have the capability to record temperature, velocity, and solar structures. DKIST has one of the world's most complex solar-adaptive optic systems. It uses deformable mirrors that adjust 2,000 times per second to offset distortions caused by Earth's atmosphere. A swimming pool of ice and 7.5 miles of pipe-distributed coolant is used to cool down the telescope during operation.
### Headline:
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This is the highest-resolution photo of the sun ever taken
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### Content:
As the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide approaches 410 parts per million, researchers are still trying to find an economically feasible method to clean up our air. Temperatures have risen nearly above 1˚C since pre-industrialized levels, causing intensified droughts, wildfires, and other natural disasters, and it looks like the problem is only going to continue to grow. One of the main issues with removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is the high cost. Estimates put the cost at between $600-$1000 per ton, which discourages people and companies from wanting to help clean the air. Klaus Lackner and other researchers have been working on ideas to lower the cost, aiming to reduce it to $15-$50 a ton, at which point it would be economically feasible for companies to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
### Headline:
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One man’s two-decade quest to suck greenhouse gas out of the sky
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### Content:
The Assembly Bill 5 in California uses an 'ABC test' to determine whether independent contractors qualify as employees, and if they do, employers are required to give them the same rights and benefits as employees. Uber has claimed that ride-share drivers aren't doing work that is core to its business, so they don't qualify as employees under the new law. The main business of Uber is to serve as a technology platform for different types of digital marketplaces. Uber is not concerned about an increase in lawsuits due to the new bill. It has partnered with Lyft to lobby to create a new classification for ride-share drivers so that drivers will still get more protections, just not the same ones as normal employees. If Uber was forced to reclassify drivers under AB5, it would likely start rostering drivers, meaning that drivers would have less flexibility on when they can work.
### Headline:
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Uber argues its drivers aren’t core to its business, won’t reclassify them as employees
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### Content:
Jack Poulson, a senior research scientist working in Google's research and machine intelligence department resigned to protest Project Dragonfly, a search engine Google built which is designed to remove content that China's authoritarian government views as sensitive, such as information about political dissidents, free speech, democracy, human rights, and peaceful protest. Once news of Dragonfly spread through Google, there were protests inside the company, and a petition with 1400 signatures demanded that an ombudsman be appointed to assess the "moral and ethical issues" posed by Dragonfly. However, Poulson believes he is one of only 5 employees to quit in protest over Project Dragonfly. He says, "It’s incredible how little solidarity there is on this. It is my understanding that when you have a serious ethical disagreement with an issue, your proper course of action is to resign."
### Headline:
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Senior Google Scientist Resigns Over "Forfeiture of Our Values" in China
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### Content:
The U.S. Supreme Court is hearing arguments on Monday as to whether or not app buyers are allowed to sue Apple for the App Store being an illegal monopoly. The court is deciding whether or not the case can go forward, the case itself will be decided in lower courts if the Supreme Court decides that the case is allowed to go forward. The class action lawsuit alleges that "Apple's intentionally closed system prevents competition, which enables the App Store to collect a higher price than if Apple were forced to entice app seekers in a competitive market." Apple originally got the case thrown out by arguing that its customers were actually app developers, as they were the ones buying Apple's distribution, so the app buyers could not sue. This ruling was reversed by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which said that Apple acts like a retailer that buys products from developers and resells them to customers.
### Headline:
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Supreme Court to rule if customers can sue Apple claiming App Store is illegal monopoly
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### Content:
The first recorded death by a fully autonomous vehicle happened in March 2018, when a self-driving Uber car hit and killed a jaywalking pedestrian. An investigation into the accident found that the code didn't recognize the person as a pedestrian as they did not cross at an obvious designated crossing. The car had detected their presence, but it ignored them, classifying the person as a non-threatening object. At the time of the accident, the vehicle had a human driver at the wheel, but the driver was looking away from the road moments before the accident. The National Safety Transportation Board is set to hold a public meeting on November 19 to determine the probable cause of the collision. Uber will continue to improve the overall safety of their system by training it in scenarios that involve jaywalking, hard braking, and unprotected turns.
### Headline:
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Remember the Uber self-driving car that killed a woman crossing the street? The AI had no clue about jaywalkers
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### Content:
A $15 an hour minimum wage for Whole Foods employees was enacted by Amazon on November 1. Team members who were being paid less than the $15 an hour saw a raise to at least that figure, while other employees received a $1 an hour raise and team leaders received a $2 an hour raise. Since the wage increase, many employees have seen their hours cut significantly, with part-time employees seeing their hours cut from around 30 hours a week to 20 hours a week, and full-time employees seeing a 3-4 hour a week decrease in their rosters. Amazon has also cut stock vesting plans and bonuses. These cuts have drawn complaints from employees, who say that there are not enough staff on the floor to properly serve customers and that some employees have had to take up second jobs to make ends meet. Many team members are now claiming their current compensation is lower than before the wage increase.
### Headline:
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Whole Foods cuts workers' hours after Amazon introduces minimum wage
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