Author: ITlines

Several prominent media and entertainment organizations, including Apple and ViacomCBS, paid tribute to the call for racial equality and justice in the United States amid the recent protests, some violent, by pausing regular services and company events on what they are calling “Black Out Tuesday.”    According to Reuters, CBS said it would spend the day reflecting on “building community,” putting business ventures temporarily “on pause.”     The company also said it would broadcast 8 minutes and 46 seconds of breathing sounds with the words “I can’t breathe,” echoing the last words of George Floyd, a man killed last week in Minneapolis.     Floyd’s death has caused international outrage and days of protests across the nation, many turning violent. The officer present at the time of Floyd’s death, Derek Chauvin, has been arrested and charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter.     Black Out Tuesday was initially organized by the music community, the AP reports, although the movement quickly spread across social media to include sports stars, such as Lebron James, and other prominent cultural icons like Kylie Jenner.     There has been some criticism on social media, however, that people tagging #black lives matter on the post has pushed the protest content and resources out of sight and actually has obscured it, rather than help to amplify it. They charge that this approach is not well conceived and is harming the cause rather than helping it.    Rapper Little Nas X called for more exposure, saying the black-out effect shields the public from “what’s going on.”     “This is not helping us,” he tweeted.    Apple Music and iTunes both featured the group Black Lives Matter on their homepage, while streaming service Spotify created black logos for several of their most popular playlists, each captioned with the phrase “black lives matter.”     The company added that it, too, would feature an 8 minute and 46 second track in select playlists and podcasts, and that it would halt social media publications.     Eight minutes and 46 seconds is the length of a video capturing Floyd’s death.     Several artists took to Instagram, posting black squares, some using the hashtag #TheShowMustBePaused or encouraging people to vote.     Grammy-nominated singer Kehlani expressed doubts about the movement’s efficacy on Twitter, citing the various messaging surrounding the event.“The messages are mixed across the board and i really hope it doesn’t have a negative effect,” she tweeted.Several artists and record labels also announced that the release of new singles and albums would be delayed due to … “Music Industry Pauses for ‘Black Out Tuesday’  “ →

Facebook employees walked away from their work-from-home desks on Monday and took to Twitter to accuse Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg of inadequately policing U.S. President Donald Trump’s posts as strictly as the rival platform has done.Reuters saw dozens of online posts from employees critical of Zuckerberg’s decision to leave Trump’s most inflammatory verbiage unchallenged where Twitter had labeled it. Some top managers participated in the protest, reminiscent of a 2018 walkout at Alphabet Inc’s Google over sexual harassment.Twitter Adds ‘Glorifying Violence’ Warning to Trump Tweet Trump, a prolific Twitter user, has been at war with the company since earlier this week, when it applied fact checks to two of his tweets about mail-in ballotsIt was a rare case of staff publicly taking their CEO to task, with one employee tweeting that thousands participated. Among them were all seven engineers on the team maintaining the React code library which supports Facebook’s apps.”Facebook’s recent decision to not act on posts that incite violence ignores other options to keep our community safe. We implore the Facebook leadership to #TakeAction,” they said in a joint statement published on Twitter.”Mark is wrong, and I will endeavor in the loudest possible way to change his mind,” wrote Ryan Freitas, identified on Twitter as director of product design for Facebook’s News Feed. He added he had mobilized “50+ likeminded folks” to lobby for internal change.Twitter Fact-Checks Trump Tweet for First Time The blue exclamation mark notification prompts readers to ‘get the facts about mail-in ballots’ and directs them to a page with news articles and information about the claims aggregated by Twitter staffers A Facebook employee said Zuckerberg’s weekly Friday question-and-answer session would be moved up this week to Tuesday.Katie Zhu, a product manager at Instagram, tweeted a screenshot showing she had entered “#BLACKLIVESMATTER” to describe her request for time off as part of the walkout.Facebook Inc will allow employees participating in the protest to take the time off without drawing down their vacation days, spokesman Andy Stone said.Separately, online therapy company Talkspace said it ended partnership discussions with Facebook. Talkspace CEO Oren Frank tweeted he would “not support a platform that incites violence, racism, and lies.”Social justiceTech workers at companies including Facebook, Google, and Amazon.com Inc have pursued social justice issues in recent years, urging the companies to change policies.Employees “recognize the pain many of our people are feeling right now, especially our Black community,” Stone … “Facebook Staffers Walk Out Saying Trump’s Posts Should be Reined in” →

Should President Donald Trump and Twitter ultimately part ways, his campaign has a backup plan at the ready to get his voice out.   Tensions between Trump and the messaging platform escalated last week after Twitter began to label some of his tweets with a fact-check. Trump responded with an executive order that threatens to curtail some legal protections enjoyed by social media companies.   Trump’s campaign has been building an alternative channel for him for months, a smartphone app that aims to become a one-stop news, information and entertainment platform for his supporters, in part because of concerns that the president would lose access to the Twitter platform, said his campaign manager, Brad Parscale.   The Trump app, which was launched in April, has since often placed among the Top 10 in Apple’s rankings of news apps, sometimes above those of individual news organizations such as CNN, the New York Times and Reuters.   “We have always been worried about Twitter and Facebook taking us offline and this serves as a backup,” Parscale told Reuters.   He spoke before Twitter for the first time prompted readers to check the facts in Trump’s tweets last week, warning that his claims about mail-in ballots were false and had been debunked by fact checkers.   For supporters, the new app is where they can get the latest campaign news, watch campaign-produced, prime-time shows hosted by Trump allies and earn reward points for making phone calls or signing people up for the app.   For the campaign, it is a pandemic-proof substitute to Trump’s signature rallies, and a key tool to collect crucial data that can help micro-target voters ahead of November’s election. Trump will face presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden in the Nov. 3 contest.   With millions of Americans stuck at home and campaign rallies paused due to the coronavirus, successful digital organizing can make a difference, digital strategists in both parties say.   Signing into the app requires a cellphone number, which then allows the campaign to send the user regular text messages lauding Trump or asking for donations.   “The most important, golden thing in politics is a cellphone number,” said Parscale, who ran Trump’s digital efforts in 2016 before leading the 2020 campaign. “When we receive cellphone numbers, it really allows us to identify them across the databases. Who are they, voting history, everything.”   Reward points … “With Rallies Halted And Tweets Fact-Checked, Trump Campaign Turns to Smartphone App” →

President Donald Trump posted identical messages on Twitter and Facebook this week. But while the two social platforms have very similar policies on voter misinformation and glorifying violence, they dealt with Trump’s posts very differently, proof that Silicon Valley is far from a united front when it comes to political decisionsTwitter placed a warning label on two Trump tweets that called mail-in ballots “fraudulent” and predicted problems with the November elections. It demoted and placed a stronger warning on a third tweet about Minneapolis protests that read, in part, that “when the looting starts the shooting starts.”Facebook left the posts alone.“Facebook doesn’t want to alienate certain communities,” said Dipayan Ghosh, co-director of the digital platforms and democracy project at Harvard’s Kennedy School. “It doesn’t want to tick off a whole swatch of people who really believe the president and appreciate his tweets.”Twitter, on the other hand has a history of taking stronger stances, he added, including a complete ban on political advertisements that the company announced last November.That’s partly because Facebook, a much larger company with a broader audience, caught in the crosshairs of regulators over its size and power, has more to lose. And partly because the companies’ CEOs don’t always see eye to eye on their role in society.“Our position is that we should enable as much expression as possible unless it will cause imminent risk of specific harms or dangers spelled out in clear policies,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a post on his social network Friday.FILE – Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaks on the second day of the Munich Security Conference in Munich, Germany, Feb. 15, 2020.Referring to the president’s comments about the Minneapolis protests, Zuckerberg said that he had “a visceral negative reaction to this kind of divisive and inflammatory rhetoric.” But Facebook decided, he said, to keep the president’s comment’s on the site because “we read it as a warning about state action, and we think people need to know if the government is planning to deploy force.”More broadly, Zuckerberg has often said Facebook does not seek to be “the arbiter of truth.”Still, Facebook has long used fact checks on its site, done by third-party news organizations such as The Associated Press, and it constantly uses algorithms to decide what to show its 2.5 billion users. And it is setting up an oversight board to decide whether to remove controversial posts.FILE – Twitter … “Online Divisions: Twitter, Facebook Diverge on Trump’s Words” →

U.S. President Donald Trump President Donald Trump speaks before signing an executive order aimed at curbing protections for social media giants, in the Oval Office of the White House, May 28, 2020.The order requires the Federal Communication Commission to clarify a section of the Communications Decency Act that largely exempts online companies from any legal liability concerning users’ content. It also directs the White House Office of Digital Strategy to redouble its efforts to collect complaints of online censorship and submit them to the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department.The president, in the Oval Office, decried social media companies as monopolies that have become more influential than newspapers and broadcasters.”We can’t let this continue to happen. It’s very, very unfair,” Trump said.The president’s ire is aimed in particular at Twitter, which earlier this week placed a fact-check warning on two of his tweets.”If it were able to be legally shut down, I would do it,” Trump said of Twitter.When Twitter, Google, Facebook and other platforms choose to fact check or choose to ignore certain posts that is “political activism,” according to the president. “I’m sure they’ll be doing a lawsuit,” he said.”If you weren’t fake,” Trump said in reply to a reporter’s question about why he just does not delete his personal Twitter account. “If we had a fair press in this country, I’d do that in a heartbeat.”The order’s interpretation of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act “is not expected to hold up in court, but it has the effect of giving political permission to attack social media companies if they apply content moderation or fact-checking rules to Trump’s statements or those of his supporters and allies,” Rebecca MacKinnon, director of Ranking Digital Rights, told VOA.President Donald Trump listens as Attorney General William Barr speaks before Trump signs an executive order in the Oval Office of the White House, May 28, 2020.Trump said he was directing U.S. Attorney General William Barr to cooperate with the states to enforce their own laws against deceptive practices by social media companies, who now have what the president characterized as power “tantamount to monopoly. Tantamount to taking over the airwaves.”The president added: “We’re fed up with it. It’s unfair.”Barr, in the Oval Office with Trump for the signing of the executive order, said the administration is preparing legislative proposals regarding social media companies and also will pursue litigation.Senator Ron Wyden, the highest-ranking Democrat on the … “Trump Signs Order to Try to Tighten Social Media Controls” →

Fourteen Democratic members of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Energy and Commerce Committee are requesting that Federal Trade Commission regulators investigate the popular video app TikTok for violations of children’s privacy.The Energy and Commerce Committee conducts oversight on the FTC’s privacy unit. The lawsuit filed Thursday follows claims submitted by the Center for Digital Democracy, the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood and others that TikTok failed to remove videos posted by children under the age of 13, which it had previously agreed to do in a 2019 agreement with the FTC.The FTC fined TikTok $5.7 million in February 2019 over lax enforcement of measures designed to ensure children’s privacy.In addition to removing videos of underage children, the FTC also required the company to comply with all aspects of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) in the future.The 2019 case alleged that TikTok neglected to implement blocks against the collection of tweens’ personal data and did not permit parents to request that their child’s data be deleted — if the parents were even aware that personal data was being collected in the first place.After the FTC ruling, TikTok introduced an under-13 section of the app that does not permit the dissemination of personal information. Last month, the Family Pairing feature was announced, which provides parents with a way to implement restrictions on all teenage accounts, not just those under 13.The Democratic lawmakers say that failure to comply with the FTC’s mandate violates COPPA.”The blatant disregard for the consent decree could encourage other websites to fail to adhere to settlements made with your agency, thereby weakening protections for all Americans,” the letter to the FTC said.The Chinese-owned app has been downloaded 1.9 billion times internationally, including 172 million times in the United States, The New York Times reported. Its popularity has soared since the onset the coronavirus pandemic and worldwide shelter-in-place orders, achieving record first-quarter growth.Suspicions over data collectionThe U.S. government has previously expressed doubts regarding the trustworthiness of the app, citing its Chinese origins. Several branches of the U.S. military, for example, have prohibited personnel from creating an account, and at least one senator has proposed legislation to ban use for federal employees.The lawmakers’ letter to the FTC comes after two Republican members of the Energy and Commerce Committee wrote a letter to the CEO of TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance.Representatives Greg Walden and Cathy McMorris Rodgers requested that the company … “Democratic Lawmakers Raise Concerns Over TikTok Privacy Regulations” →

QUESTION: What is Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act?ANSWER: Section 230 “is one of the most valuable tools for protecting freedom of expression and innovation” on the internet, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a U.S.-based global nonprofit digital rights group.The original purpose of the 1996 Communications Decency Act was to restrict free speech on the internet, the EFF said. The Supreme Court, however, struck down anti-free speech provisions after objections from the internet community, including the EFF.Section 230 says, in part, that “no provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.”Q: What is an interactive computer service?A: An interactive computer service is partially described in the CDA as “any information service, system, or access software provider that provides or enables computer access by multiple users to a computer server, including specifically a service or system that provides access to the internet.”This means internet service providers such as AT&T, Comcast and Verizon are subject to CDA regulations.A variety of interactive computer service providers that generally include any online service that publishes third-party content are also required to comply with CDA regulations. Examples are Twitter, YouTube and Vimeo.Q: Does the CDA provide protections for online intermediaries? If so, what are they?A: Section 230 protects them from civil liability. It says, “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected; or any action taken to enable or make available to information content providers or others the technical means to restrict access to material described in paragraph.”In summary, Section 230 protects online intermediaries against multiple laws that could otherwise hold them legally accountable for the content and actions of others. Regular ISPs are protected, as are essentially any online services that publish third-party content.While the measure protects them from some of their users’ content, it does not completely do so, as they must still comply with certain intellectual property and criminal laws.Q: Do other countries offer legal protections to interactive computer services, as Section 230 of the CDA does in the U.S.?A: Many other countries do not have similar laws, according to the EFF. While Canada, … “What is Section 230 of Communications Decency Act?” →

U.S. President Donald Trump will sign an executive order Thursday regarding social media platforms, after Twitter tagged a pair of his tweets with a fact-check warning.Sources close to the White House say the president’s executive order would require the Federal Communication Commission to clarify a section of the Communications Decency Act that largely exempts online companies like Twitter and Facebook from any legal liability from any content posted by their users.The order also directs the White House Office of Digital Strategy to redouble its efforts to collect complaints of online censorship and submit them to the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department.Trump Threatens Action Against TwitterPresident lashes out at social media platform after it put fact-check alert on pair of his tweets about mail-in ballotsTrump on Wednesday threatened to “strongly regulate” or shut down social media platforms.  He said that Republicans feel that “Social Media Platforms totally silence conservative voices.” He alleged that social media sites attempted — and failed — during the 2016 election to stifle conservatives’ voices. “We can’t let a more sophisticated version of that happen again,” Trump wrote on Twitter.On Tuesday, an unprecedented alert on the @realDonaldTrump tweets about mail-in balloting prompted the president to accuse Twitter of interference in this year’s election and of “completely stifling” free speech.“I, as President, will not allow it to happen,” he concluded..@Twitter is now interfering in the 2020 Presidential Election. They are saying my statement on Mail-In Ballots, which will lead to massive corruption and fraud, is incorrect, based on fact-checking by Fake News CNN and the Amazon Washington Post….— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 26, 2020When those viewing Trump’s flagged tweets on Tuesday clicked on the warning placed by Twitter, they were taken to a notification titled: Trump makes unsubstantiated claim that mail-in ballots will lead to voter fraud.The alert, linked to stories from CNN and The Washington Post, and also included a fact box:What you need to know- Trump falsely claimed that mail-in ballots would lead to “a Rigged Election.” However, fact-checkers say there is no evidence that mail-in ballots are linked to voter fraud. – Trump falsely claimed that California will send mail-in ballots to “anyone living in the state, no matter who they are or how they got there.” In fact, only registered voters will receive ballots. – Though Trump targeted California, mail-in ballots are already used in some states, including Oregon, Utah and Nebraska.”Social media … “Trump to Sign Executive Order Aimed at Reining in Twitter” →

Vietnam’s financial hub is setting aside land to develop what locals call a new “Silicon Valley,” a reference to the area of California where a lot of new technology is developed, but with not-so-California characteristics, such as state planning and a lack of venture capital. The Home Affairs Department of Ho Chi Minh City filed a plan this month to the city’s Communist Party committee for merging three districts into a single zone for development as a tech center, domestic media outlet VnExpress International says. The plan followed a meeting May 8 between city officials and Vietnam’s Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, the news outlet says.   City leaders had begun in 2017 planning a 22,000-hectare (54,300-acre) zone to monetize scientific and technical research, the news outlet says. More than 1 million people already live along the flat swathe of land along the Saigon River. The zone will appeal foremost to internet and software developers, including an estimated 40 financial technology firms, as well as their employees who hope to live near work, analysts on the ground say. The zone is taking shape as tech-educated Vietnamese in their 20s start companies. “Vietnamese are very entrepreneurial,” said Jack Nguyen, a partner at the business advisory firm Mazars in Ho Chi Minh City. “They see something work in other countries, or in the U.S., they’ll give it a shot here in Vietnam.” Vietnamese entrepreneurs, some educated overseas, are taking advantage of a largely “mobile” culture in the Southeast Asian country as well as low-paid local engineers to build up their bases in Ho Chi Minh City, Nguyen added.   Ho Chi Minh City’s tech zone includes a slice of its financial center, modern apartment tracts and a nearby polytechnic university. Those perks should make the zone more attractive for techies, said Phuong Hong, a native of the city who lives in the zone.   “These three districts have the level of living, and transportation is also very, very convenient,” she said, referring to the three administrative tracts to be merged. Tech workers are likely to take advantage of that convenience, said Frederick Burke, Ho Chi Minh City-based partner with the law firm Baker McKenzie.    “The fact that they give extra incentives to locate there creates an ecosystem where some employees live in the neighborhood,” Burke said. “Therefore, an engineer can jump from one job to another more easily.”   Central government leaders have tried over the past decade to steer Vietnam’s export-led economy Electricity needs are rising as Vietnam’s economy grows, adding challenges for the … “Why Vietnam’s ‘Silicon Valley’ Won’t Be Like California’s” →

Amazon.com Inc is in advanced talks to buy self-driving startup Zoox Inc, in a move that would expand the e-commerce giant’s reach in autonomous-vehicle technology, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday.The deal will value Zoox at less than the $3.2 billion it achieved in a funding round in 2018, the Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.An agreement may be weeks away and the discussions could still fall apart, the report added.Amazon has stepped up its investment in the car sector, participating in a $530 million funding round early last year in self-driving car startup Aurora Innovation Inc.Both Amazon and Zoox declined a Reuters request for comment.    …

Italy’s new contact tracing app for the coronavirus is about to be launched in a number of pilot regions. It will be available to everyone in the country on a voluntary basis and will guarantee the privacy of users, officials who commissioned its development say.   Italians will be able to download the contact tracing app on their mobile phones that will help combat the spread of the coronavirus, starting May 29.  “Immuni” was developed at the request of Italy’s Ministry of Innovation Technology and Digital Transformation. Paolo de Rosa, its chief technology officer, says the app can speed up the process of finding people who have had contact with the coronavirus.      “The app is able to do that in a privacy-preserving way so it is not like the traditional approach where you need to identify people. In this case there is only an alerting of people that have been in contact with someone that result positive,” de Rosa said.     How contract tracing apps work  Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can download this video to view it offline. Embed” />Copy Those alerted they have come close to someone that has tested positive for the coronavirus can quickly take action and contact health authorities or their personal physician.   De Rosa stressed that privacy is guaranteed as special measures have been taken and it would be extremely difficult to identify anyone using the app. The only data that a user must provide is the territorial province to which he or she belongs.   For the app to be fully effective, de Rosa said, there needs to be a significant amount of people using it, up to 60 percent, but that is only if one does not take into consideration other factors like social distancing. In any case, de Rosa is convinced that it will be a useful tool to have on one’s phone. “This is a very bleeding edge technology, very few countries in the world have used it,” he said.      Creating the app was no easy matter, de Rosa said, adding trade-offs had to be made between the requirements of health authorities and privacy. Knowledge was shared with many other countries as well, but no one really knew what the best app needed to look like. With such a highly infectious virus, the need for a tool that … “Italy’s New COVID-19 App Tracks Contacts and Protects Privacy” →

Cyberattacks have been flying fast and furious around the world during these days of global uncertainty because of the coronavirus. Countries accuse each other of engaging in cyber warfare, and each of the accused also claims to be a cyber victim. International organizations dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic have also been targeted. Linda Gradstein reports for VOA from Tel Aviv, Israel.  Camera: Ricki Rosen    Video editor: Marcus Harton …

A New England teenager is collecting old devices to connect loved ones to patients quarantined in hospital rooms. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us this good news story from New England. …

The first astronauts launched by SpaceX are breaking new ground for style with hip spacesuits, gull-wing Teslas and a sleek rocketship — all of it white with black trim.   The color coordinating is thanks to Elon Musk, the driving force behind both SpaceX and Tesla, and a big fan of flash and science fiction.   NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken like the fresh new look. They’ll catch a ride to the launch pad in a Tesla Model X electric car.   “It is really neat, and I think the biggest testament to that is my 10-year-old son telling me how cool I am now,” Hurley told The Associated Press.   “SpaceX has gone all out” on the capsule’s appearance, he said. “And they’ve worked equally as hard to make the innards and the displays and everything else in the vehicle work to perfection.”   The true test comes Wednesday when Hurley and Behnken climb aboard a SpaceX Dragon capsule atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and, equipment and weather permitting, shoot into space. It will be the first astronaut launch from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center since the last shuttle flight in 2011.   It will also mark the first attempt by a private company to send astronauts into orbit. Only governments — Russia, the U.S., and China — have done that.   SpaceX employees work on the Crew Dragon spacecraft that will astronauts to and from the International Space Station, from American soil, as part of the agency’s commercial crew Program, in Hawthorne, Calif., Oct. 10, 2019.The historic send-off deserves to look good, according to SpaceX. It already has a nice ring. Musk named his rocket after the “Star Wars” Millennium Falcon. The capsule name stems from “Puff the Magic Dragon,” Musk’s jab at all the doubters when he started SpaceX in 2002.   SpaceX designed and built its own suits, which are custom-fit. Safety came first. The cool — or wow — factor was a close second.   “It’s important that the suits are comfortable and also are inspiring,” explained SpaceX’s Benji Reed. a mission director. “But above all, it’s designed to keep the crew safe.”   The bulky, orange ascent and entry suits worn by shuttle astronauts had their own attraction, according to Behnken, who like Hurley wore them for his two previous missions. Movies like “Armageddon” and “Space Cowboys” stole the orange look whenever actors were “trying to pretend to be astronauts.”   On launch day, Hurley and Behnken will get ready inside Kennedy’s remodeled crew … “SpaceX’s 1st Astronaut Launch Breaking New Ground for Style “ →

Adjusting to online education could be tough. For deaf and hard of hearing students and educators, it’s probably more so. Now teachers are creating their own online resources in American Sign Language to overcome this difficult time. VOA’s Calla Yu has more.Camera: Austin Ao    …

As she settled down to work from home when India announced a lockdown in March, Shweta Andrews thought exultantly “this is the way to go.” After all she no longer had to do the grinding commute between office and home in the Indian capital that took up two hours daily.Two months on, the digital editor of a publishing house is nostalgic about that ride. “I miss my colleagues and believe it or not, I miss travelling in the Metro. I miss the rush. I miss the crowd.”The unprecedented experiment of work from home that began in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic has prompted some Indian companies to explore the possibility of scaling up remote work as they eye long term benefits such as smaller office spaces and lower rentals.But at a time when a long, stringent lockdown has intensified social isolation, many are finding that an interactive office environment is hard to replace at home.Apoorva Bapna says office spaces generate energy that cannot completely be replaced by online connections. (Photo Courtesy: Apoorva Bapna)A New Delhi-based senior professional in a global company, Apoorva Bapna, dismisses the notion that remote work could be the “new normal” and points out that while flexi-hours are welcome, online connections cannot replace the energy generated by professional spaces.“There is just that much of bouncing of ideas I can do on a video call or a phone call. Sometimes you just need to sit across the table and have that heated conversation or a debate or just exchange ideas,” says Bapna.India’s Information Technology sector appears to be blazing the trail for adopting the work-at-home model as the industry gears up to have nearly half the country’s four million I-T workers operate remotely – up from an average of 20 percent before March. The country’s biggest technology company Tata Consultancy Services says that it will have 75 percent of its workforce operating from home by 2025.Some companies that rely heavily on online work could make the shift much sooner because they found it to be an efficient model in the last two months.“From a purely productivity standpoint, we have seen a fairly smooth transition in work from home,” says Raghav Gupta, managing director, India and Asia Pacific with Coursera, a U.S. based online learning platform. He gives an example. “If I would go to Bangalore and meet two sets of people in a day, I can do … “Initially Thrilled to Telework, India Workers Miss the Office” →

China has responded to a new U.S. ban targeting telecom giant Huawei, threatening to retaliate through a series of countermeasures, including putting U.S. companies such as Apple, Qualcomm and Cisco on an “unreliable entity list” that would seriously impede their sales in Chinese markets.   The U.S. Commerce Department on Friday threw a one-two punch at China’s high-tech efforts by announcing a new ban on global chip supplies to Huawei, while allowing a Taiwanese semiconductor producer to open a next-generation plant in the United States.   In an FILE PHOTO: A Huawei company logo at Shenzhen International Airport in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, China, July 22, 2019. REUTERS/Aly Song/File PhotoA ban tailored for Huawei The U.S. Commerce Department issued a statement on Friday to amend an export control rule that “strategically targets Huawei’s acquisition of semiconductors that are the direct product of certain U.S. software and technology.”   Under the new rule, foreign companies using U.S. semiconductor and chipmaking equipment will be required to obtain a license to supply chips to Huawei or its affiliates. The rule has a 120-day grace period.  …

Worries about the breach of individual privacy rights could undermine Louisiana’s ability to quickly pinpoint those who have encountered someone infected with COVID-19, a tracking plan that public health experts say is critical to slowing the spread of the coronavirus disease.Gov. John Bel Edwards has started reopening much of Louisiana’s economy, saying residents have done well with staying home and apart from others that the state’s no longer at risk of overwhelming its hospitals with COVID-19 patients.  Loosening restrictions means more people are moving around, visiting salons and restaurants, attending churches and encountering others. To avoid overwhelming spikes in coronavirus cases, infectious disease specialists say, requires robust testing to locate virus hot spots and widespread contact tracing to determine who has come into close contact with someone infected so they can be urged to self-isolate.Dr. Alex Billioux, leader of Louisiana’s public health office, said he knows some people will find the process of contact tracing “scary,” to be asked about their interactions with people and businesses or to find out someone else has shared information about where they’ve been.”The goal here, though, is to help protect you. The goal here is to identify where you have risk,” Billioux said.But word that the Edwards administration hired nearly 300 contact tracers on top of 70 already employed — and could eventually build up to 700 disease detectives to track the virus— quickly raised concerns about collecting personal medical information and spreading it improperly.Rep. Raymond Crews, a Shreveport Republican, told health care officials he’s heard a lot of reluctance to contact tracing from people who “put a big, big premium on liberty.””My constituents are very leery. They think it opens a Pandora’s box and it’s going to be very scary,” Crews said.Realizing that widespread reluctance to respond to contact tracers could hamper Louisiana’s efforts to contain the virus, Edwards has appealed to people to be “good neighbors” by participating.The Democratic governor said people who test positive for the coronavirus will be asked to identify people they recently came into close contact with for 15 minutes or more. A contact tracer, working from home, will call those people and tell them they should get tested if they’re symptomatic and should isolate for 14 days even if they’re not showing symptoms.”You can rest assured that your information will remain confidential,” Edwards said.Billioux stressed the contact tracers will follow federal laws for protecting personal health information. … “Analysis: Privacy Worries Could Derail Virus Tracking Plans” →

Facebook likely knows a lot about you already. So would you fill out a survey on the social media site about how you are feeling today?What if that information could help researchers and officials navigate the current pandemic? If it meant local businesses, parks and beaches might reopen sooner rather than later, would that make a difference?That’s the idea behind several efforts to tap into people’s social media and internet use to find hot spots and forecast outbreaks of the virus well before hospitals are inundated.As society begins to open up after months-long closures, government officials are looking for leading indicators — data that may forecast that an outbreak is coming — to help them make key decisions about what to open and when.One indicator is through a symptom survey created by Carnegie Mellon University researchers. The survey appears at the top of a person’s Facebook newsfeed and asks whether he or she has experienced COVID-19 symptoms including fever, cough and shortness of breath.Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can download this video to view it offline. Embed” />CopyThe survey is live globally through a partnership with the University of Maryland and is very active in the U.S.“We’re getting something like 150,000 responses a day,” said Laura McGorman, a Facebook policy lead.Carnegie Mellon researchers update the data daily on the university’s  COVIDcast website. Visitors to the site can look at specific counties by date and by data set.“The real-time estimates we’ve derived correlate with the best available data on COVID-19 activity,” Ryan Tibshirani, co-leader of Carnegie Mellon’s COVID-19 Response Team, said in a statement.The information “gives us confidence that we may soon be able to give health care officials forecasts” several weeks into the future, he said.Map of changesFacebook is also sharing user mobility data with the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, helping researchers create a map of daily changes in population movement by state and county. People using Facebook’s mobile app with the location history turned on contribute to this data.Policymakers can use this information to understand how communities are responding to physical distancing measures and whether additional measures may be needed.Researchers caution that datasets are merely another layer of information pointing to possible trends in the disease’s spread. They’re not conclusive on their own.“No matter where you are in the world, hopefully some aspect of our data can be useful … “Facebook Data Help Track COVID-19 Spread” →

The Trump administration on Friday moved to block shipments of semiconductors to Huawei Technologies from global chipmakers, in an action ramping up tensions with China.The U.S. Commerce Department said it was amending an export rule to “strategically target Huawei’s acquisition of semiconductors that are the direct product of certain U.S. software and technology.”The reaction from China  was swift with a report saying it was ready to put U.S. companies on an “unreliable entity list,” as part of countermeasures in response to the new limits on Huawei, FILE – A security personnel stands near the logo of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd (TSMC) during an investor conference in Taipei, July 16, 2014.The rule change is a blow to Huawei, the world’s No. 2 smartphone maker, as well as to Taiwan’s Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd, a major producer of chips for Huawei’s HiSilicon unit as well as mobile phone rivals Apple and Qualcomm. TMSC announced late Thursday it would build a $12 billion chip factory in Arizona.TSMC said Friday it is “working with outside counsels to conduct legal analysis and ensure a comprehensive examination and interpretation of these rules. We expect to have the assessment concluded before the effective date,” the company said, adding the “semiconductor industry supply chain is extremely complex, and is served by a broad collection of international suppliers.”Huawei, which needs semiconductors for its widely used smartphones and telecoms equipment, is at the heart of a battle for global technological dominance between the United States and China.Huawei, which has warned that the Chinese government would retaliate if the rule went into effect, did not immediately comment on Friday. U.S. stock market futures turned negative on the Reuters report.”The Chinese government will not just stand by and watch Huawei be slaughtered on the chopping board,” Huawei Chairman Eric Xu told reporters on March 31.The United States is trying to convince allies to exclude Huawei gear from next generation 5G networks on grounds its equipment could be used by China for spying. Huawei has repeatedly denied the claim.Huawei has continued to use U.S. software and technology to design semiconductors, the Commerce Department said, despite being placed on a U.S. economic blacklist in May 2019.FILE – A chip by Huawei’s subsidiary HiSilicon is displayed in Fuzhou, Fujian province, China, March 21, 2019.Under the rule change, foreign companies that use U.S. chipmaking equipment will be required to obtain a U.S. license before … “US Moves to Cut Off Huawei From Global Chip Suppliers” →

A Taiwan-based company is planning a $12 billion semiconductor factory in the U.S. state of Arizona.Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. is the world’s largest contract manufacturer of computer chips.The firm said Friday the factory will create as many as 1,600 jobs. Thousands more jobs are expected to be created along the supply lines to support production of the 5-nanometer chips.The factory will be able to produce 20,000 of the wafers each month. They’re used in an array of consumer electronics, including the iPhones and defense equipment.Construction of the facility is to begin next year, and the location in Arizona has not been determined.“This project,” the company said, “is of critical, strategic importance to a vibrant and competitive U.S. semiconductor ecosystem that enables leading U.S. companies to fabricate their cutting-edge semiconductor products within the United States.”The firm has another U.S. factory in Washington state.U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross lauded the plan as showing the success of President Donald Trump’s programs.The company’s plan to set up the facility, he said, “is yet another indication that President Trump’s policy agenda has led to a renaissance in American manufacturing and made the United States the most attractive place in the world to invest.”Also praising the move was Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who said the facility will “increase U.S. economic independence, bolster our safety and competitiveness, and strengthen our leadership in high-tech manufacturing.”“This historic deal also strengthens our relationship with Taiwan, a vibrant democracy and force for good in the world,” he said.TSMC’s stock rose more than 1.5 percent Friday morning which outperformed the 0.8 percent gain in the main Taiwan stock market.   …

It’s a race against time.As communities start to open, governments are rushing to put together smartphone apps that can be part of their arsenal to curtail the spread of COVID-19.But the apps — and the technologies they rely on — vary, and for many that has led to confusion about what to expect.“It’s overwhelming how many proposals are coming out,” Gennie Gebhart, associate director of research at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), said. “There’s total alphabet soup of different acronyms, of different technologies. And it’s hard to understand exactly what is what. And I think that’s because it’s still early days.”Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can download this video to view it offline. Embed” />CopyGennie Gebhart, associate director of research at the Electronic Frontier FoundationTracking your proximity to an exposureAt the moment, there’s not yet an app available in the United States that lets someone know if they’ve been exposed to someone testing positive for COVID-19. Around the world, Singapore, Australia and other nations have released apps that do this but with varying success.The main proposal for a consumer app comes from Apple and Google, which together create the operating systems for most smartphones in the world. They have joined forces to release software tools so that governments can make an app that will help with letting people know if they’ve been exposed to COVID-19.Their approach relies on Bluetooth, a short-range radio frequency inside a smartphone. Phones with the app will store the Bluetooth beams they receive from other phones and check daily a database of those who have reported testing positive. If there is a match – that someone has been too close for too long to a person with a confirmed diagnosis of COVID-19 – the person learns about it and can contact a health professional to find out the next steps to take.Privacy advocates such as the ACLU and EFF support this approach, which keeps data decentralized and anonymized. Bluetooth doesn’t provide information to public health departments.GPS location data approachBut some states, such as North and South Dakota, as well as Utah, are looking to apps for a different purpose — to help with their contact tracing efforts. That’s when public health workers contact people who have been exposed to someone with COVID-19. These apps rely on GPS location data, which can reveal information about a person’s movements, as well … “The Scramble to Create COVID-19 Apps” →

An Australian parliamentary report has debunked a conspiracy theory linking COVID-19 to 5G technology. Anti-lockdown protesters in Australia and beyond have claimed a connection between the new coronavirus and the rollout of the mobile communications standard.The COVID-19 pandemic has brought disparate groups of conspiracy theorists together. Some believe the disease was deliberately spread around the world to force vaccines on to the population as a form of control. Others assert that a Harvard University professor was arrested for creating and selling the coronavirus to China. Still others insist that 5G technology is the true cause of COVID-19. It was a view that was reportedly first promoted in a social media video in March and has been shared widely on the internet.However, linking the new coronavirus to radio waves simply is not true, according to a report by an Australian parliamentary communications committee. It found that 5G technology was safe. E-communications experts said linking COVID-19 to radio waves “has no basis in science” and is “biologically and physically impossible.” This is a view shared by the World Health Organization and other authorities. They have found that 5G radiation can’t penetrate skin or allow a virus to penetrate skin.In Australia, New South Wales state health officials have asserted that COVID-19 was not spread through mobile networks or wireless technology but through infected droplets from coughing or sneezing, or by contact with contaminated hands, surfaces or objects.Australia’s chief medical officer, Brendan Murphy, has also dismissed a link between 5G networks and the disease.“There is unfortunately a lot of very silly misinformation out there,” Murphy said. “There is absolutely no evidence about 5G doing anything in the coronavirus space. I have unfortunately received a lot of communication from these conspiracy theorists myself. It is complete nonsense. 5G has got nothing at all to do with coronavirus.”Academics say that fake news and misinformation seem to be spreading as fast and as far as the virus itself. Uncertainty and fear breed confusion, and, as one expert said, “conspiracy theories offer an emotionally satisfying narrative” if even they are not true.There have been small protests in Australia by groups angry at lockdown measures, and at the government’s coronavirus mobile phone tracing app. Demonstrators in Melbourne also sought to link an outbreak of the virus at a meat plant to a nearby telephone tower.Efforts are being made to sort the truth from the misinformation. YouTube has said it … “Australia Parliament Debunks 5G COVID-19 Conspiracy Theory” →

An Australian parliamentary report has debunked a conspiracy theory linking COVID-19 to 5G technology. Anti-lockdown protesters in Australia and beyond have claimed a connection between the new coronavirus and the rollout of the mobile communications standard.The COVID-19 pandemic has brought disparate groups of conspiracy theorists together. Some believe the disease was deliberately spread around the world to force vaccines on to the population as a form of control. Others assert that a Harvard University professor was arrested for creating and selling the coronavirus to China. Still others insist that 5G technology is the true cause of COVID-19. It was a view that was reportedly first promoted in a social media video in March and has been shared widely on the internet.However, linking the new coronavirus to radio waves simply is not true, according to a report by an Australian parliamentary communications committee. It found that 5G technology was safe. E-communications experts said linking COVID-19 to radio waves “has no basis in science” and is “biologically and physically impossible.” This is a view shared by the World Health Organization and other authorities. They have found that 5G radiation can’t penetrate skin or allow a virus to penetrate skin.In Australia, New South Wales state health officials have asserted that COVID-19 was not spread through mobile networks or wireless technology but through infected droplets from coughing or sneezing, or by contact with contaminated hands, surfaces or objects.Australia’s chief medical officer, Brendan Murphy, has also dismissed a link between 5G networks and the disease.“There is unfortunately a lot of very silly misinformation out there,” Murphy said. “There is absolutely no evidence about 5G doing anything in the coronavirus space. I have unfortunately received a lot of communication from these conspiracy theorists myself. It is complete nonsense. 5G has got nothing at all to do with coronavirus.”Academics say that fake news and misinformation seem to be spreading as fast and as far as the virus itself. Uncertainty and fear breed confusion, and, as one expert said, “conspiracy theories offer an emotionally satisfying narrative” if even they are not true.There have been small protests in Australia by groups angry at lockdown measures, and at the government’s coronavirus mobile phone tracing app. Demonstrators in Melbourne also sought to link an outbreak of the virus at a meat plant to a nearby telephone tower.Efforts are being made to sort the truth from the misinformation. YouTube has said it … “Australian Parliamentary Committee Debunks 5G COVID-19 Conspiracy Theory” →

Retailers are turning to robots to perform essential tasks that employees are no longer able to do because of social distancing regulations. The robots are cutting costs and helping to reduce the spread of infections. But as VOA correspondent Mariama Diallo reports, some fear the growing use of automation threatens jobs just as unemployment soars. …

Colombia’s commerce regulator will be investigating whether Chinese-owned social media app TikTok complies with laws on the collection and treatment of children’s and adolescents’ personal data.The announcement Tuesday came four days after the Dutch Data Protection Authority (DPA) said it would begin looking into how TikTok handles the data of its millions of young users.TikTok has achieved monumental success during the COVID-19 outbreak, with millions of people worldwide using the platform for entertainment and content creation during the crisis.Owned by Chinese company ByteDance, TikTok is estimated to have between 500 million and 1 billion users. The platform allows these users to create and share short videos using filters and effects provided by the app.The app has come under increasing scrutiny by governments across the globe.”The superintendency is seeking to establish if TikTok Pte Ltd. has demonstrably implemented the principle of responsibility in the treatment of data from Colombian citizens who use its services,” the Columbian Superintendency of Industry and Commerce said in a statement posted on its website.Minors, who are the app’s largest demographic, are afforded special protections under Colombia’s constitution, the statement said.The Dutch watchdog, DPA, has also expressed concerns about TikTok’s protection of its users’ private information.  “For many users, this is an important way of staying in touch with friends and spending time together, particularly during the current coronavirus crisis,” the DPA said. “The rise of TikTok has led to growing concerns about privacy.”The DPA highlighted the vulnerability of minors online and is poised to investigate if the app clearly states how it uses data and whether “parental consent is required for TikTok to collect, store and use children’s personal data,” and “examine whether TikTok adequately protects the privacy of Dutch children,” it said in a statement.   …