Exclusive: Tim Berners-Lee tells us his radical new plan to upend the World Wide Web -- Fast Company

Later in the article: "“We are not talking to Facebook and Google about whether or not to introduce a complete change where all their business models are completely upended overnight. We are not asking their permission.”"

"This week, Berners-Lee will launch, Inrupt, a startup that he has been building, in stealth mode, for the past nine months. Backed by Glasswing Ventures, its mission is to turbocharge a broader movement afoot, among developers around the world, to decentralize the web and take back power from the forces that have profited from centralizing it. In other words, it’s game on for Facebook, Google, Amazon. For years now, Berners-Lee and other internet activists have been dreaming of a digital utopia where individuals control their own data and the internet remains free and open. But for Berners-Lee, the time for dreaming is over.

“We have to do it now,” he says, displaying an intensity and urgency that is uncharacteristic for this soft-spoken academic. “It’s a historical moment.” Ever since revelations emerged that Facebook had allowed people’s data to be misused by political operatives, Berners-Lee has felt an imperative to get this digital idyll into the real world. In a post published this weekend, Berners-Lee explains that he is taking a sabbatical from MIT to work full time on Inrupt. The company will be the first major commercial venture built off of Solid, a decentralized web platform he and others at MIT have spent years building."

Exclusive: Tim Berners-Lee tells us his radical new plan to upend the World Wide Web -- Fast Company

Why Snap will get acquired before 2020, probably by Amazon -- Recode

From the first episode of the new Swisher/Galloway Pivot podcast; full transcript at link below

"“People talk about how its stock has gotten crushed, but it’s still got a market cap of $13 billion,” Galloway added. “So I believe the stock gets cut in half again, but any acquisition is sort of an eight or a 10 billion dollar check. And there’s a limited number of companies that can buy a company that’s not making a lot of money for eight to 10 billion dollars.”

He ruled out Facebook and Amazon, leaving only two potential acquirers in America: Google and Amazon. And he believes Amazon, which just launched a commerce-focused partnership with Snap, makes more sense than Google, which has repeatedly failed in social media

“I think Bezos says, ‘Alright, you have a core constituency that buys stuff and buys stuff irrationally,’” Galloway said. “High-margin coffee, flying knit tennis shoes, they’re crazy. We love teenagers because they’re stupid because they spend all their money.”"

Why Snap will get acquired before 2020, probably by Amazon -- Recode

Rising Cloud Bills May Get a Breather -- WSJ

Later in the article: "Investors still should expect cloud spending levels to remain robust over the longer term as demand for these companies’ services continues to soar. Goldman Sachs estimates that, by the end of next year, 34% of enterprise workloads will be running on public cloud services of the type offered by Amazon, Microsoft and Google compared with 18% today."

"The enormous, so-called “hyperscale” networks owned by Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Amazon.com , Microsoft and Facebook demand a staggering amount of capital expenditures. That spending is now an important revenue stream for a long list of other tech companies that supply key components such as chips, software and networking gear.

It is a big food chain that’s gotten much bigger quickly. Total capital spending by the four aforementioned companies has jumped by an average of 45% on a year-over-year basis for the past six quarters. The four spent a total of $34.7 billion in the first six months of this year—up 59% from the same period last year. But analysts for Morgan Stanley expect that pace to decelerate to growth of 45% for the second half and warned in a note this week that it could slow further to “low double digits” next year."

Rising Cloud Bills May Get a Breather -- WSJ

A Wise Man Leaves Facebook -- NYT

From Kara Swisher's latest column

"Instead, many sources say, a series of changes imposed from above made it clear to Mr. Systrom and Mr. Krieger, and many others at Instagram, that their input was no longer valued. And more, that they had lost the autonomy they once had been given by Mr. Zuckerberg, who now seemed to want Instagram to use its momentum to help the big “blue app,” as the main platform is called at Facebook.

Those new changes included: Severe cutbacks ordered by Mr. Zuckerberg in how much Instagram was promoted on the main Facebook platform; a long fight over whether Instagram should offer a robust video TV service that would have competed with another on Facebook; the feeling that Instagram was understaffed compared to other less successful initiatives like Oculus; management restructurings that were perceived as moving Instagram down the pecking order; and, most of all, a growing perception that Instagram’s success, especially among young audiences, was somehow hurting the main platform."

A Wise Man Leaves Facebook -- NYT

Blasey Ford–Kavanaugh Testimony Tells a Tale of Two Internets -- Wired

First and final paragraphs from a timely reality check

"AMERICA WATCHED CHRISTINE Blasey Ford and Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh testify before Congress today. The country listened as they relayed their accounts of what happened 35 years ago, when she says he sexually assaulted her at a house party, and he says neither the party nor the assault occurred. But while viewers may have watched the same hearing, they did not interpret it through a neutral conduit. Whether you followed along with a news outlet’s livestream or liveblog, watched the event on cable news, or relied on Twitter to curate a highlight reel, your experience was mediated and shaped by the filter bubbles that dictate whose opinions you see when you read things on the web. Where some see sober, science-backed credibility, other see a circus. It’s a story that’s all too typical in this period of political polarization.
[...]
These stances are wildly, maybe disastrously, different. Each side casts the other as inappropriate and lionizes their own entrants into the fray. And as these narratives grow, change, and refract their way across the internet—being discussed and rehashed by people in their own corners of the political spectrum as they go—the gap between them is likely to widen. Partisan narrative has come to trump attempted objectivity. It’s hard to imagine a scenario where that’s less appropriate than when trying to determine whether a man is fit to be an objective arbiter of truth and justice for an entire nation."

Blasey Ford–Kavanaugh Testimony Tells a Tale of Two Internets -- Wired

SEC alleges Tesla’s Elon Musk lied to investors and seeks his removal as CEO -- The Washington Post

Job unsecured... Also see Tesla’s Board Backs Musk After SEC Sues, Seeks His Ouster (Bloomberg)

"The Securities and Exchange Commission sued Tesla chief Elon Musk on Thursday and is seeking to ban him from corporate leadership, saying he lied to investors when he claimed he had secured the funding to take the automaker private.

The legal action could prove devastating for Musk, a brash icon of tech entrepreneuralism who made Tesla into one of America’s most valuable car companies. It could also threaten a financial downfall for Tesla, Musk’s rocket firm SpaceX and his other business interests in artificial intelligence and underground trains."

SEC alleges Tesla’s Elon Musk lied to investors and seeks his removal as CEO -- The Washington Post

Oculus predicts a VR future that includes ultra-thin headsets -- Engadget

Tbd if Apple will get there first with "it just works" AR glasses

"Oculus' virtual reality ambitions extend well past standalone headsets. In a talk at Oculus Connect 5, the company's Michael Abrash updated his predictions for the future of VR headset technology. Most notably, he sees an end to the bulky headsets that define the experience today. Pancake lenses (already in use with interchangeable lens cameras) could slim down headsets or lead to ultra-wide fields of view, but the real star may be waveguide displays, where light bounces down extremely thin glass plates. You could see VR headsets that are scarcely thicker than glasses, with images that are as wide as you need. Abrash showed a concept drawing (this isn't a hint at a future product, he stressed) for a headset that would make your Rift or Go look positively ancient, although he wouldn't predict just when you might see such a device.

You would also see augmented reality glasses that are "socially acceptable," Abrash said."

Oculus predicts a VR future that includes ultra-thin headsets -- Engadget

Oculus’ $399 Quest to Take VR Mainstream -- Wired

For more details, see Introducing Oculus Quest, Our First 6DOF All-in-One VR System, Launching Spring 2019 (Oculus blog)

"That puts Quest squarely in the middle of Oculus’s other two headsets: the mobile Oculus Go, priced at $199, and the Oculus Rift, which also costs around $400 but requires a high-powered PC to use. But the Quest headset isn’t just the end result of a product differentiation strategy. It’s a showcase for potentially game-changing virtual reality technology, and part of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s lofty goal to get 1 billion people using VR, as he expressed during the event's keynote address.

The Quest hardware looks unremarkable from the outside, and it uses the same Touch controllers as the Rift. But there are four wide-angle sensors on the headset that are part of the technology that makes the Quest stand out. The Quest has six degrees of freedom—“6DoF” as it’s sometimes called—which allows your head to be tracked positionally, rather than just rotationally. In other words, you can move, not just look around."

Oculus’ $399 Quest to Take VR Mainstream -- Wired

Crypto and Cannabis Are the Perfect Post-Crisis Bubbles -- Bloomberg

From a timely reality check; on a related note, see New Weapon for Blockchain Startups: Nobel Prize-Winning Brains (Bloomberg)

"With cannabis, there are just a handful of companies available to invest in, especially if you live in the U.S. If the market stays hot, though, there’s no doubt we’ll see a wave of IPOs and secondary offerings and spinouts from existing companies. Plus, we’ll see opportunistic pivots—press releases from companies saying, “Hey! We’re a cannabis company now.” You almost have to feel sorry for (the former) Long Island Iced Tea Corp., the beverage company that bizarrely pivoted to blockchain at the very peak of the crypto hype last December. If it had waited only a few months, it could’ve announced some CBD-infused drink, and that might have made some business sense.
And then there’s that long dormant urge to gamble. When I asked Greenwald why he both invests in and trades cannabis stocks, he was crystal clear: “The answer is volatility.” The stocks can go up 10 percent or 20 percent in a day. Of course, they can crash, too. If you’re a disciplined investor, volatility is a threat, because it plays with your emotions and tempts you to make bad decisions. But if you’re a trader or gambler, and you’re looking for action, volatility is an asset. And these days it’s a rather scarce asset. The years 2017 and 2018 have been among the least volatile for the market on record."

Crypto and Cannabis Are the Perfect Post-Crisis Bubbles -- Bloomberg

The World’s Leading Electric-Car Visionary Isn’t Elon Musk -- Bloomberg

Tangentially, see Cheaper Battery Is Unveiled as a Step to a Carbon-Free Grid (NYT)

"“He’s the father of China’s electric-vehicle industry,” said Levi Tillemann, a former U.S. Department of Energy adviser and author of “The Great Race: The Global Quest for the Car of the Future.” “Without Wan Gang, it’s unlikely China would have pushed to surpass the West. That was his big idea.”

Wan, 66, who stepped down in March and now holds an academic post at a Beijing-based think tank, currently isn’t giving interviews, his office said.

After decades of hype and false starts, electric vehicles are  on course to represent a significant segment of the auto industry. This year, China’s production of NEVs is expected to reach 1 million vehicles, a 26 percent increase from last year. The U.K., France and India are proposing bans on vehicles powered by internal-combustion engines,  according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance."

The World’s Leading Electric-Car Visionary Isn’t Elon Musk -- Bloomberg

How Apple Thrived in a Season of Tech Scandals -- NYT

From a timely Apple business strategy reality check

"Because Apple makes money by selling phones rather than advertising, it has been able to hold itself up as a guardian against a variety of digital plagues: a defender of your privacy, an agitator against misinformation and propaganda, and even a plausible warrior against tech addiction, a problem enabled by the very irresistibility of its own devices.

Though it is already more profitable than any of its rivals, Apple appears likely to emerge even stronger from tech’s season of crisis. In the long run, its growing strength could profoundly alter the industry.

For years, start-ups aiming for consumer audiences modeled themselves on Google and Facebook, offering innovations to the masses at rock-bottom prices, if not for free. But there are limits to the free-lunch model.

If Apple’s more deliberate business becomes the widely followed norm, we could see an industry that is more careful about tech’s dangers and excesses. It could also be one that is more exclusive, where the wealthy get the best innovations and the poor bear more of the risks."

How Apple Thrived in a Season of Tech Scandals -- NYT

The Temptation of Apple News -- Slate

All the news that's fit to donate?...

"Chris Schieffer, Slate’s senior product manager, said Slate still makes virtually no money from Apple News even as its audience there has skyrocketed. I did one back-of-the-envelope calculation that startled me: Slate makes more money from a single article that gets 50,000 page views on its site than it does from the 6 million page views it receives on Apple News in an average month.*

An audience development director at another midsize publication agreed with Schieffer’s diagnosis: “It’s hard to monetize in any way.” Apple did pay BuzzFeed to premiere three documentary videos on Apple News before other platforms, but such arrangements are not the norm at this point. The norm is that Apple—the world’s most valuable company—is getting news stories for free from publishers, many of which are struggling to make ends meet, and giving them little to no money in return."

The Temptation of Apple News -- Slate

Exclusive: WhatsApp Cofounder Brian Acton Gives The Inside Story On #DeleteFacebook And Why He Left $850 Million Behind -- Forbes

From an extensive profile

"If walking away from $850 million feels like penance, Acton has gone further. He has supercharged a small messaging app, Signal, run by a security researcher named Moxie Marlinspike with a mission to put users before profit, giving it $50 million and turning it into a foundation. Now he’s working with the same people who built the opensource encryption protocol that is part of Signal and protects WhatsApp’s 1.5 billion users and that also sits as an option on Facebook Messenger, Microsoft’s Skype and Google’s Allo messenger. Essentially, he’s re-creating WhatsApp in the pure, idealized form it started: free messages and calls, with end-to-end encryption and no obligations to ad platforms.

Acton says that Signal now has unspecified “millions” of users, with a goal to make “private communication accessible and ubiquitous.” While Acton’s $50 million should take it a long way—Signal could afford only five full-time engineers until he came along—the foundation wants to figure out a perpetual business model, whether that means taking corporate donations like Wikipedia or partnering with a larger company, as Firefox has done with Google."

Exclusive: WhatsApp Cofounder Brian Acton Gives The Inside Story On #DeleteFacebook And Why He Left $850 Million Behind -- Forbes

Is a New Russian Meddling Tactic Hiding in Plain Sight? -- NYT

Perhaps another Russian case study in U.S. reader information literacy...

"Many of the site’s stories are similar to the divisive content that Russian trolls circulated on social media in 2016, down to their conspiratorial tone and telltale grammatical errors. (“Rabid Squirrels Is Terrorizing Florida,” read one headline.) Some of its articles appear to have been lifted word for word from legitimate American news websites.

The amateurish appearance of USAReally has led some critics to assume that it is either a bizarre vanity project or a decoy meant to attract attention away from more covert Russian campaigns happening elsewhere. But some cybersecurity experts believe the website may be a part of a retooled Russian propaganda operation that is experimenting with new tactics ahead of November’s midterm elections, and testing the boundaries of what American social media companies will allow."

Is a New Russian Meddling Tactic Hiding in Plain Sight? -- NYT

Instagram Founders’ Exit Means No One to Challenge Zuckerberg -- Bloomberg

On a related note, see Instagram’s CEO (Stratechery)

"Zuckerberg and Systrom have always had lively debates about the future of Instagram at their regular dinner meetings at Zuckerberg’s Palo Alto home. Systrom was particularly stubborn about making moves that might change the character of the app -- which is more focused on aspirational photography of vacations and lattes than the viral political news and birthday wishes that are standard Facebook fare.

But those healthy debates evolved in recent months into uncomfortable tensions as Facebook’s revenue growth started to slow. Zuckerberg has become more invested in pursuing his vision for Instagram now that products such as Instagram Stories, the ephemeral sharing tool and Snapchat rival that grew popular on the app, are turning out to be important sales drivers. Systrom had to push harder to make bets that might compete with Facebook, like the IGTV video product. In the spring, he started reporting to Chris Cox, the Facebook chief product officer who took charge of the “family of apps,” instead of Michael Schroepfer, Facebook’s CTO. That meant he had less of an avenue to speak directly with Zuckerberg on product-specific issues, the people said."

Instagram Founders’ Exit Means No One to Challenge Zuckerberg -- Bloomberg

Facebook Faces Political Hurdle Over Banned Party in China -- Bloomberg

Kai-Fu Lee's new book, AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order, is still available for $.99 (Kindle edition), if you want to learn more about recent developments in China

"The move to ban the National Party, which the government calls a risk to national security, is fueling concerns that Hong Kong’s administration wants to set a precedent for clamping down on opposition groups, eroding the city’s autonomy under the “one country, two systems” framework in place since Chinese rule began in 1997. The request also puts the Menlo Park, California-based social media company in a difficult position, and refusal could hamper any future efforts to expand in China.

While China censors media outlets and bans Facebook, Twitter Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google in the mainland, Hong Kong has relatively fewer restrictions on the press and the internet. The party’s Facebook page remained visible as of Wednesday afternoon Hong Kong time."

Facebook Faces Political Hurdle Over Banned Party in China -- Bloomberg

macOS 10.14 Mojave: The Ars Technica review

Intro paragraphs from an extensive review

"I ended last year’s review of macOS High Sierra by lamenting its invisibility but praising the much-needed work it did on the macOS foundation. There weren’t a lot of ways to tell that a Mac was running High Sierra instead of Low Sierra, but Apple quietly replaced the file system and the system’s window server and added (and later finalized) official support for external graphics, among a bunch of other tweaks. The yearly release cycle just kept Apple from actually building a whole lot of new features on top of that foundation.

Mojave, macOS version 10.14, takes the opposite approach. It still does some foundation-laying, especially around iOS apps, and it finishes up a few things that didn’t quite get finished in High Sierra. But it also includes the biggest and most consequential changes to the Mac’s user interface, the desktop, and Finder that we’ve seen in years; some brand-new apps ported over from iOS; new automation features; an overhauled App Store; and significant improvements to small but frequently-used actions like taking screenshots or using Quick Look.

I recommended against upgrading to High Sierra right away because the operating system’s early bugs weren’t offset by useful new features—Mojave has no such problem. Later betas and the GM build have been solid, and all the new stuff gives the Mac a serious and much-needed makeover. You should probably read the rest of the review before you upgrade, but it’s been quite a while since I liked a new macOS release this much."

macOS 10.14 Mojave: The Ars Technica review

Google Is Getting a Lot More Visual to Keep You on Its Site -- Wired

Also see Improving Search for the next 20 years (Google Keyword blog)

"There was another instance of Instagram déjà-vu during Monday’s presentation. Last year, Google debuted an image recognition feature, Google Lens, which lets people identify elements within a photo, like a landmark or a type of dog. In coming weeks, Google Lens is coming to Google Images. Monday’s demo used the example of searching Google Images for nursery room decorations; items within the image, like the crib, were hyperlinked to a site where you can purchase the item, just like Instagram’s shoppable posts.

But Google isn’t competing with Instagram, so much as it’s competing with everyone. The morning’s unifying theme? Let Google do that for you.

The search changes announced Monday seemed more attuned to keeping users on Google.com and pushing external links further down the page. It’s another sign of how Google has reversed its traditional goal of moving users off Google as quickly as possible to the information they want. Now, Google wants to keep users on its properties as much as possible. The strategy promises incredible convenience to consumers, but benefits Google most of all."

Google Is Getting a Lot More Visual to Keep You on Its Site -- Wired

Walmart’s Veggie-Tracking B.L.T.: Blockchain Lettuce Technology -- NYT

Perhaps getting close to peak blockchain?...

"The Walmart effort will take time to roll out. In the meantime, it is likely to face questions from critics of the technology, who are skeptical of whether the blockchains being developed by corporations are all that different from old-fashioned online databases.

“I can’t see how doing this in a blockchain data format will make this magical in any way,” said David Gerard, the author of “Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain.”

“I think it’s mostly a P.R. move, so these companies can sell themselves as blockchain leaders,” he said."

Walmart’s Veggie-Tracking B.L.T.: Blockchain Lettuce Technology -- NYT

Google plans to send a top executive to Congress after facing criticism -- The Washington Post

Maybe sometime around November 7th, for the public meeting?... Also see Google CEO Sundar Pichai to Meet With Top GOP Lawmakers (WSJ) for more details, e.g., "Sundar Pichai plans to appear at a private meeting of top GOP lawmakers on Friday and again at a public hearing this year"

"“I look forward to meeting with members on both sides of the aisle, answering a wide range of questions, and explaining our approach,” Pichai said in a statement Monday. “These meetings will continue Google’s long history of engaging with Congress, including testifying seven times to Congress this year.”

When he arrives in Washington, Pichai is sure to face a barrage of bipartisan scrutiny — on an array of topics including the company’s approach to privacy protection and its efforts to thwart foreign governments, including Russia, from spreading disinformation online. Many, including McCarthy, have blasted Google for its reported ambitions to launch a search engine in China that meets Beijing’s strict censorship rules."

Google plans to send a top executive to Congress after facing criticism -- The Washington Post

With Instagram’s Founders Out, Welcome to Facebook, Inc -- The Atlantic

Also see Instagram’s Co-Founders to Step Down From Company (NYT) and Instagram Founders Depart Facebook After Clashes With Zuckerberg (Bloomberg)

"This feels like a new phase of Facebook, Inc. Whatever the lip service, the fact is that Zuckerberg’s guys are running all the things. If leadership is such an important part of business, as most people seem to believe, then this can’t help but drive the company’s star products closer to its central node, which is Mark Zuckerberg. A company with a remarkable and unusual ownership structure that already concentrated power in Mark Zuckerberg has now doubled down by extending that power to the far reaches of the organization’s acquisitions.

It’s too soon to tell how that might be reflected in the actual apps, but the guys who built Facebook into the juggernaut that it is are now free of the founders of three beloved products, and fully in charge."

With Instagram’s Founders Out, Welcome to Facebook, Inc -- The Atlantic

The great AI duopoly (The Washington Post)

From an interview with Kai-Fu Lee, chairman of Sinovation Ventures and the president of its Artificial Intelligence Institute; his new book, AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order, was released today and is for sale at $.99 (Kindle edition) as I type this; also see If they don’t want to lose their jobs to a machine, doctors will need to become compassionate ‘human connectors’ (Recode) for an extensive interview

"Most reports and books on the subject have been written either from a technologist/researcher perspective or from a business, history or economics perspective. I come at it through all of these lenses and as someone who has extensive experience in both China and the United States — the great AI duopoly. My aim is to acknowledge and understand the critical lessons of China’s rise as a tech power, not based on misconceptions in the West about intellectual property theft or government protection. Of course, Chinese entrepreneurs had their scrappy, questionable methods in the early days. But its tech industries have evolved into a completely legitimate method of starting world class Internet and AI businesses."

 The great AI duopoly (The Washington Post)

Cryptocurrencies and Blockchains - How Are They Doing After 10 Years? -- Irving Wladawsky-Berger

Final paragraphs from a timely reality check

"Like the Internet until the early- to mid-1990s, blockchain is still in in its early stages, with pilots underway in a number of application domains like supply chain ecosystems, and industries including financial services.   “For now, however, almost all blockchain projects remain experimental,” wrote The Economist in its concluding article.  “Most will fizzle out. The less world-changing a proposed use, the better its chance of success.  For example, the cryptographic structures that make data in a blockchain hard to change are fairly easy to introduce.  When they add an extra layer of security to things like financial accounts or official documents, they could be useful…  A bigger prize awaits in the back office, reducing the time-consuming administration required for firms to talk to each other by providing a shared database which everyone can use.”

Finally, I particularly agree with the special report’s concluding paragraph: “Other compelling uses may yet emerge.  But it is worth bearing in mind that big IT projects - which is what blockchains amount to - tend to be cumbersome and slow even if they are undertaken by a single company.  If they require several companies to work together, they will take even longer.  So whatever happens, blockchain’s backers will need patience.”"

Cryptocurrencies and Blockchains - How Are They Doing After 10 Years? -- Irving Wladawsky-Berger

Making Sense of Amazon’s Alexa Spaghetti Strategy -- Bloomberg

Meanwhile, if you're looking for a Cortana-based smart speaker, see Tip: Harman Kardon Invoke is Just $50 at Best Buy (Thurrott)...

"Amazon is racing the likes of Google, Apple Inc. and Microsoft Corp. to position its technology at the center of our Jetsons-like home of the future, where everything from the washing machine to the thermostat can be controlled with voice commands. Amazon helped to pioneer this concept with the introduction of the Echo in 2014. Last week’s new products, designed to extend its advantage, fall into three main categories.

The first and most obvious constitutes the new kinds of Alexa-equipped devices aimed at consumers, like better-sounding Echo speakers, a home security camera and a wall clock receptive to verbal commands. The more Alexa stuff Amazon seeds into the market and into our lives, the stronger its case that Alexa—and not Siri or the Google Assistant—has become a ubiquitous new computing platform."

Making Sense of Amazon’s Alexa Spaghetti Strategy -- Bloomberg

News Site to Investigate Big Tech, Helped by Craigslist Founder -- NYT

See this press release for more details

"Now, with a $20 million gift from the Craigslist founder Craig Newmark, [Julia Angwin] and her partner at ProPublica, the data journalist Jeff Larson, are starting The Markup, a news site dedicated to investigating technology and its effect on society. Sue Gardner, former head of the Wikimedia Foundation, which hosts Wikipedia, will be The Markup’s executive director. Ms. Angwin and Mr. Larson said that they would hire two dozen journalists for its New York office and that stories would start going up on the website in early 2019. The group has also raised $2 million from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, and $1 million collectively from the Ford Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and the Ethics and Governance of Artificial Intelligence Initiative.
[...]
The site will explore three broad investigative categories: how profiling software discriminates against the poor and other vulnerable groups; internet health and infections like bots, scams and misinformation; and the awesome power of the tech companies. The Markup will release all its stories under a creative commons license so other organizations can republish them, as ProPublica does."

News Site to Investigate Big Tech, Helped by Craigslist Founder -- NYT

How Russia Helped Swing the Election for Trump -- The New Yorker

From a review of “Cyberwar: How Russian Hackers and Trolls Helped Elect a President—What We Don’t, Can’t, and Do Know” (to be published 10/3)

"Her case is based on a growing body of knowledge about the electronic warfare waged by Russian trolls and hackers—whom she terms “discourse saboteurs”—and on five decades’ worth of academic studies about what kinds of persuasion can influence voters, and under what circumstances. Democracies around the world, she told me, have begun to realize that subverting an election doesn’t require tampering with voting machines. Extensive studies of past campaigns, Jamieson said, have demonstrated that “you can affect people, who then change their decision, and that alters the outcome.” She continued, “I’m not arguing that Russians pulled the voting levers. I’m arguing that they persuaded enough people to either vote a certain way or not vote at all.”

The effect of such manipulations could be momentous in an election as close as the 2016 race, in which Clinton got nearly 2.9 million more votes than Trump, and Trump won the Electoral College only because some eighty thousand votes went his way in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. In two hundred and twenty-four pages of extremely dry prose, with four appendixes of charts and graphs and fifty-four pages of footnotes, Jamieson makes a strong case that, in 2016, “Russian masterminds” pulled off a technological and political coup. Moreover, she concludes, the American media “inadvertently helped them achieve their goals.”"

How Russia Helped Swing the Election for Trump -- The New Yorker

Twitch is now blocked in China -- The Verge

Tangentially, see Inside Tencent's Gambit to Dominate a $13 Billion Esports Arena (Bloomberg -- from July)

"Twitch, which is owned by Amazon, has seen a big boost in viewership this past year, especially as Epic Games’ Fortnite has exploded in popularity and top streamer Tyler “Ninja” Blevins has become a bonafide celebrity and the platform’s highest-earning and most-watched streamer. Twitch’s monthly active streamer count doubled in 2017 compared to 2016. But it didn’t have a lot of Chinese users, as its servers are based abroad, meaning that streams are delayed.

The latest censorship follows the Chinese government’s pattern of banning any Western media platform that seems to be growing in popularity, often as a cautionary measure before anything controversial has even occurred. Social media networks like Facebook and Twitter remain permanently banned, and Google, which has stayed out of China for eight years, is rumored to be developing a censored search engine to be allowed back in."

Twitch is now blocked in China -- The Verge

Adobe says it is acquiring the marketing automation company Marketo for $4.75B -- TechCrunch

Impact on the Adobe/Microsoft co-opetition relationship tbd

"It was a pretty nice return for Vista Equity partners, which purchased Marketo in May 2016 for $1.8 billion in cash. They held onto it for two years and hauled in a hefty $2.95 billion in profit.

We published a story last week, speculating that such a deal would make sense for Adobe, which just bought Magento in May for $1.6 billion. The deal gives Adobe a strong position in enterprise marketing as it competes with Salesforce, Microsoft, Oracle and SAP. Put together with Magento, it gives them marketing and ecommerce, and all it cost was over $6 billion to get there."

Adobe says it is acquiring the marketing automation company Marketo for $4.75B -- TechCrunch

Facebook’s Echo Show rival could be announced next week -- The Verge

Tbd if Facebook also plans to release a microwave oven...

"The Portal will reportedly also use this facial recognition technology to associate people with their Facebook accounts, although this technology has already proved controversial. The technology was the subject of a class-action lawsuit in the US and has only just returned to Europe after it was disabled in 2012 to comply with the region’s privacy regulation.

Beyond video chat, the device is expected to feature Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant to do everything from play music to showing cooking recipes. Two sizes of device have been mooted, priced at $300 and $400 appropriately.

The Portal would be the company’s first piece of Facebook-branded hardware, although it has released devices in the past through its Oculus VR subsidiary and through a partnership with HTC for a phone back in 2013."

Facebook’s Echo Show rival could be announced next week -- The Verge

Facebook to Give Less Direct Support to Trump in 2020 Campaign -- Bloomberg

Better late than never?...

"Facebook Inc. said that for future presidential campaigns, it will pull back from the kind of on-site support it gave Donald Trump for his 2016 presidential race -- a relationship that came under scrutiny by Congress.

The company will still offer technical support and basic training to candidate campaigns and political advocacy organizations, but it won’t visit campaign headquarters with as much frequency or provide as much strategic support as it did for Trump ahead of the 2016 election. Instead, Facebook officials said they are working to improve the company’s political advertising website to give free advice to campaigns more broadly."

Facebook to Give Less Direct Support to Trump in 2020 Campaign -- Bloomberg

Self-driving shuttles arrive in Columbus this week -- The Washington Post

The road to the future goes through Columbus

"May Mobility — which has investments from Toyota and BMW i Ventures — aims to create self-driving shuttles for college campuses and central business districts, according to Reuters.

The Columbus shuttles are the latest example and will eventually loop passengers around an area of riverfront parkland in the city’s downtown known as the Scioto Mile, according to the Ohio Department of Transportation. Sitting in a “campfire configuration,” the vehicles have six seats but are expected to hold four passengers at a time. The vehicles include a panoramic glass roof and a 49-inch digital display with vehicle and route information.

A backup operator will remain in the vehicle at all times in case there is a problem and a human driver is needed, the transportation department said. For the first year of service, the shuttles will be free to the public and operate every day of the week."

Self-driving shuttles arrive in Columbus this week -- The Washington Post

Here’s everything Amazon announced Thursday, from microwave to subwoofer to Alexa capabilities -- GeekWire

Check the full post for details; for more on new Alexa capabilities, see Alexa is Now Even Smarter—New Features Help Make Everyday Life More Convenient, Safe, and Entertaining (Amazon Press Room); also see Amazon’s blockbuster Alexa event made zero mention of privacy concerns — and that may say more about us than about them (Recode)

"Amazon officials said they had about 70 things to announce, which elicited laughs from reporters and photographers in attendance. But it turns out that number was pretty close.

Amazon showed off 13 new devices at a press event inside the Spheres building at its Seattle HQ. It also unveiled a flurry of new Alexa-related software capabilities, developer tools and other features."

Here’s everything Amazon announced Thursday, from microwave to subwoofer to Alexa capabilities -- GeekWire

Apple’s Neural Engine = Pocket Machine Learning Platform -- Tech.pinions

Check the full post for implications

"The neural engine in the A12 Bionic now has its dedicated block in the SoC and has jumped from two-cores to eight and is now capable of 5 trillion operations per second. While these cores are designed with machine learning in mind, they also play an exciting role in helping to manage how the CPU and the GPUs are also used for machine learning functions. Apple referred to this as the smart computer system. Essentially a machine learning task has three systems that work together to complete the task, the neural engine, the CPU, and the GPU. Each plays a role and is managed by the neural engine.

As impressive as the engineering is with the whole A12 Bionic, where it all comes together is in the software that allows developers to take advantage of all this horsepower. That is where Apple now letting developers use CoreML to make apps we have never experienced before is a big deal."

Apple’s Neural Engine = Pocket Machine Learning Platform -- Tech.pinions

Strap on the Fitbit: John Hancock to sell only interactive life insurance -- Reuters

Also see Life Insurance Offering More Incentive to Live Longer (NYT)

"John Hancock, one of the oldest and largest North American life insurers, will stop underwriting traditional life insurance and instead sell only interactive policies that track fitness and health data through wearable devices and smartphones, the company said on Wednesday.
The move by the 156-year-old insurer, owned by Canada’s Manulife Financial Corp (MFC.TO), marks a major shift for the company, which unveiled its first interactive life insurance policy in 2015. It is now applying the model across all of its life coverage."

Strap on the Fitbit: John Hancock to sell only interactive life insurance -- Reuters

Amazon Will Consider Opening Up to 3,000 Cashierless Stores by 2021 -- Bloomberg

Later in the article: "News of the company’s potential ambitions for AmazonGo sent shares of grocery and retail rivals lower. Walmart Inc. declined as much as 0.6 percent, reversing an earlier gain, while Target Corp. dropped about 1.5 percent and Kroger Co. slid as much as 3.1 percent." In other Amazon news, see Amazon Dominates as a Merchant and Platform. Europe Sees Reason to Worry (NYT)

"Amazon.com Inc. is considering a plan to open as many as 3,000 new AmazonGo cashierless stores in the next few years, according to people familiar with matter, an aggressive and costly expansion that would threaten convenience chains like 7-Eleven Inc., quick-service sandwich shops like Subway and Panera Bread, and mom-and-pop pizzerias and taco trucks.

Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos sees eliminating meal-time logjams in busy cities as the best way for Amazon to reinvent the brick-and-mortar shopping experience, where most spending still occurs. But he’s still experimenting with the best format: a convenience store that sells fresh prepared foods as well as a limited grocery selection similar to 7-Eleven franchises, or a place to simply pick up a quick bite to eat for people in a rush, similar to the U.K.-based chain Pret a Manger, one of the people said."

Amazon Will Consider Opening Up to 3,000 Cashierless Stores by 2021 -- Bloomberg

They put microchips in their employees. Now this company is helping parents track their children -- The Washington Post

Likely to be a popular holiday gift wish list item: smartphone Faraday bags. If you're an iPhone user, incidentally, you can already use geofence settings with the Find my Friends app. On a related note, see Does Our Cultural Obsession With Safety Spell the Downfall of Democracy? (NYT)

"Unlike microchips, with which Three Square Market is often associated, its Mom I Am Ok app does not rely on planting technology inside a user’s body. Instead, the app is wholly dependent on GPS in the user’s smartphone. If a user is separated from the device they can no longer be effectively tracked.

Lisa Damour, a psychologist and child development expert who writes a monthly column about adolescence for the New York Times, disputed the notion that the world is increasingly unsafe. But despite a national drop in violent crime, she said, surveys reveal that many adults feel less safe today than they did a decade ago.

At the same time, she said, mental health professionals have seen a spike among parents and children self-reporting feelings of anxiety in recent years.

Asked to comment on the Mom I Am Ok app, Damour said she thinks there is “a very high chance” that technology designed to reduce anxiety actually inflames feelings of unease in parents and children."

They put microchips in their employees. Now this company is helping parents track their children -- The Washington Post

Mark Zuckerberg's money manager invested $100 million in a hot startup — and it shows how Microsoft's $7.5 billion GitHub acquisition is sending shockwaves through Silicon Valley -- Business Insider

Git unicorned; also see Alphabet Backs GitLab's Quest to Surpass Microsoft's GitHub (Bloomberg)

"When Microsoft announced its intention to buy GitHub for $7.5 billion earlier this year, it started something of a gold rush in Silicon Valley, as investors looked to get in on the booming market for software developer-focused startups.

The latest evidence: GitLab, one of GitHub's chief competitors and a hot startup in its own right, announced on Wednesday a mega-round of funding to the tune of $100 million, giving it a valuation of $1.1 billion. The round was led by Iconiq Ventures — the venture capital firm best known for managing Mark Zuckerberg's money."

Mark Zuckerberg's money manager invested $100 million in a hot startup — and it shows how Microsoft's $7.5 billion GitHub acquisition is sending shockwaves through Silicon Valley -- Business Insider

Salesforce's Quip adds Slides, a collaborative spin on that deck no one is reading -- ZDNet

For more details, see Completing the suite: Introducing Quip Slides, partner apps with Box and Dropbox, and more (Quip blog)

"Salesforce's Quip is adding slides and adding commenting, collaboration tools as well as insights on what co-workers actually opened up and engaged with that deck you created.

With the addition of Slides, Quip also completes its suite of productivity tools. Quip already had docs and spreadsheets. Quip, acquired by Salesforce in 2016, isn't a direct competitor with Microsoft's Office and Google Apps, but is hoping that collaboration and integration with the Salesforce platform gives it some heft. It's also worth noting that the productivity suite space is crowded with everyone from Apple to Amazon to Cisco to Slack having some spin."

Salesforce's Quip adds Slides, a collaborative spin on that deck no one is reading -- ZDNet

Tesla Criminal Probe Into Musk Tweet Seen Opening Pandora’s Box -- Bloomberg

On related notes, see Only BMW Comes Close to China’s Electric-Vehicle Heavyweights (Bloomberg) and Here Come Tesla’s Challengers With All-Electric SUVs (WSJ)

"The “funding secured” tweet did in fact trip up bearish sellers when the company’s shares rallied more than 10 percent. Government investigators will be trying to determine whether there was any connection to that statement and his desire to hurt short sellers.

Once federal prosecutors begin looking into Musk’s comments, they may also examine other things, including why the company’s new chief accountant picked up and left after just a month on the job -- though he said at the time he had “no disagreements with Tesla’s leadership or its financial reporting.” Under securities fraud laws, prosecutors could go back five years and more if they find evidence of a conspiracy.

Very often what starts out as an investigation of one subject takes a completely different turn, said Michael Koenig, who prosecuted former Qwest CEO Joseph Nacchio for insider trading."

Tesla Criminal Probe Into Musk Tweet Seen Opening Pandora’s Box -- Bloomberg

The Taming of Initial Coin Offerings -- NYT

From a timely ICO reality check

"The message from the TokenLot’s case is that those who want to cater to investors in digital tokens will need to adhere to S.E.C. oversight of their exchanges. Although becoming a broker is costly, a firm that does so could use that status as a marketing tool by telling potential customers that they will be much safer trading through its platform than on unregulated exchanges where assets could be stolen with no recourse for the victims. Like car companies that tout their safety measures under rules they long fought, a properly registered broker can offer much greater client protection that customers may be willing to pay up for.

Initial coin offerings have raised billions of dollars over the past few years, and that much money is sure to draw the attention of the S.E.C. and the Justice Department because of the potential for scams. Any slice of the investment universe that claims not to be subject to regulation is unlikely to stay that way for long before the government demands that the players follow the same rules that apply to everyone else trying to raise money from the public."

The Taming of Initial Coin Offerings -- NYT

Trump’s tariffs won’t bite Apple, illustrating Tim Cook’s political sway -- The Washington Post

Also see For sheer idiocy, it’s hard to beat Trump’s crackdown on trade with China (The Washington Post)

"But the 57-year-old tech leader has also become one of the technology industry’s savviest political operators — a behind-the-scenes Trump whisperer, able to shape some of the administration’s economic policies in ways that benefit Apple and some of its tech peers.

Those efforts seemed to pay off Monday, after Trump unveiled tariffs on roughly $200 billion in goods imported from China, the latest salvo in the trade war Washington is waging against Beijing. The initial list of imports the White House had threatened to penalize included some of Apple’s best-known products, the company said earlier this month, such as its recently updated Apple Watch smartwatch, HomePod home assistant and AirPods wireless headphones (but not the iPhone). On Monday evening, though, those products were spared. Thousands of other imports weren’t so lucky, and Americans could soon be paying more for such things as refrigerators and toys."

Trump’s tariffs won’t bite Apple, illustrating Tim Cook’s political sway -- The Washington Post

Aibo the robot dog will melt your heart with mechanical precision -- The Washington Post

It's 1999 all over again

"What’s this feeling? Oh, yes, puppy love. And I felt it for Aibo, a new “autonomous companion” dog made by Sony.

Does that make me a sad sack? A dystopian character from “Black Mirror”? It’s open to debate. But this much is clear: The era of the affectionate robots is dawning, and Aibo offers early evidence we’re going to love them.

Aibo (pronounced “eye-bo”) is a reboot of the robot dog Sony first introduced in 1999 and laid to rest in 2006 in a tragic round of corporate cost-cutting. This new litter goes on sale in the United States this week with much more lifelike movement, artificial intelligence and a cellular connection for a gobsmacking $2,900 each. If you’re looking for justification to spend that much on a toy, the American Kennel Club says the average lifetime cost of a dog is $23,410. Also: Robot dogs don’t poop."

Aibo the robot dog will melt your heart with mechanical precision -- The Washington Post

The $1,500 iPhone -- 500ish Words (M.G. Siegler)

Excerpt:

"And here’s the thing: people are going to suck it up and pay this price. A lot of people. People like me. Three main reasons for this that I see.
First, yes this is more expensive than most laptops these days. Hell, it’s even more expensive than some Apple laptops. But this is also a device that all of us use a lot more than our laptops. And whereas you used to be able to make the case that the laptop was far more powerful than the smartphone, you can’t really make that argument anymore. If Apple stuck all of the latest iPhone internals inside a MacBook, is there any question they could charge $1,499 for such a device? Or that they would? And so perhaps I should say when…"

The $1,500 iPhone -- 500ish Words (M.G. Siegler)

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai says California net neutrality rules are 'illegal' -- CNET

On a related note, see New research shows that, post net neutrality, internet providers are slowing down your streaming (News@Northeastern)

""California's micromanagement poses a risk to the rest of the country," Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai said in a speech at the Maine Heritage Policy Center on Friday. "After all, broadband is an interstate service; Internet traffic doesn't recognize state lines. It follows that only the federal government can set regulatory policy in this area."

Last month, California's State Assembly Committee on Communications and Conveyance voted to move forward with Senate Bill 822, which provides strong protection on net neutrality. In his speech, Pai called it a "radical, anti-consumer" bill."

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai says California net neutrality rules are 'illegal' -- CNET

Expanding Security Tools to Protect Political Campaigns -- Facebook Newsroom

Also see Facebook pilots new political campaign security tools — just 50 days before Election Day (TechCrunch)

"As we have seen in past elections, candidates and elected officials, as well as their staff, can be targeted by hackers and foreign adversaries across platforms, including Facebook. However, due to the short-term nature of campaigns, we do not always know who these campaign-affiliated users are, making it harder to help protect them.

That is why, today, as part of our broader efforts to better secure Facebook, we are launching a pilot program to expand our existing protections for users associated with US political campaigns ahead of the 2018 midterm elections. Candidates for federal or statewide office, as well as staff members and representatives from federal and state political party committees, can add additional security protections to their Pages and accounts. Page admins can apply for the program at politics.fb.com/campaignsecurity and, once enrolled, they can add others from their campaign or committee. We’ll help officials adopt our strongest account security protections, like two-factor authentication, and monitor for potential hacking threats."

Expanding Security Tools to Protect Political Campaigns -- Facebook Newsroom

Amazon plans to release at least 8 new Alexa-powered devices, including a microwave, an amplifier, and an in-car gadget -- CNBC

Later in the article: "The company is reported to be working on a secretive home robot, as well, according to Bloomberg" (from April)

"Amazon is doubling down on its Alexa-powered devices, with plans to release at least 8 new voice-controlled hardware devices before the end of the year, CNBC has learned.

The devices include, among others, a microwave oven, an amplifier, a receiver, a subwoofer, and an in-car gadget, people familiar with the matter said. All of the devices will be Alexa-enabled, meaning they can easily connect to the voice assistant. Some of the devices will also have Alexa built in.

Amazon is expected to reveal some of these devices at an event later this month, according to an internal document describing the plans."

Amazon plans to release at least 8 new Alexa-powered devices, including a microwave, an amplifier, and an in-car gadget -- CNBC

The Lawyer Who Took On Uber Is Suing IBM for Age Discrimination -- Bloomberg

"Move or leave" program revisited

"Shannon Liss-Riordan has been compared to “a pit bull with a Chihuahua in its mouth.” In a career spanning almost 20 years, the Boston-based lawyer has gone after corporations that have either harmed consumers or their own employees. She’s represented workers against Amazon, Uber and Google and has styled her firm as the premier champion for employees left behind by powerful tech companies.

Now Liss-Riordan, 49, is gunning for International Business Machines Corp.

On Monday, she filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of three former IBM employees who say the tech giant discriminated against them based on their age when it fired them. “Over the last several years, IBM has been in the process of systematically laying off older employees in order to build a younger workforce,” the former employees claim in the suit."

The Lawyer Who Took On Uber Is Suing IBM for Age Discrimination -- Bloomberg

Where in the World Is Larry Page? -- Bloomberg

Manage different...

"What’s occupying Page’s time today? People who know him say he’s disappearing more frequently to his private, white-sand Caribbean island. That’s not to imply that, at 45, he’s already living the daiquiri lifestyle. He still oversees each Alphabet subsidiary, though the extent of his involvement is vague. Along with Google co-founder Sergey Brin, who’s now Alphabet’s president, Page even occasionally holds court at the company’s weekly all-hands “TGIF” meetings at its Mountain View, Calif., headquarters. He sometimes fields questions from employees, though he mostly defers to Pichai and other corporate leaders, according to current Googlers. Page has reached a point where he takes on only rare projects that deeply fascinate him, like the sci-fi pursuits at X, Alphabet’s secretive research lab."

 Where in the World Is Larry Page? -- Bloomberg

Betting Against Tesla: Skeptics Make Their Case: NYT

From a timely Tesla reality check

"There’s no doubt Tesla and Mr. Musk, the company’s high-profile chief executive, have plenty of detractors, especially on Twitter, where some critics trumpet vitriol and unsubstantiated information about the company and its business. But many of those who believe that Tesla is destined for a major restructuring — or even collapse — are buttoned-up investors. They base their view not on antipathy for Tesla or Mr. Musk, but on cold financial calculations, including its heavy debt load and voracious cash burn.
“This isn’t only about Musk,” said Mark B. Spiegel, a managing partner at Stanphyl Capital, which has a large position shorting Tesla. “It’s about a terrible capital structure, because of the debt, and a stock price that is out of whack with the demand for the product and the competition that’s coming in.”"

Betting Against Tesla: Skeptics Make Their Case: NYT

Time Magazine sold to tech billionaire Marc Benioff -- The Washington Post

Postponing the end of Time...

"Time will be a personal holding for the Benioffs, with no relationship to the San Francisco software company he founded in 1999, according to a note Time editor Edward Felsenthal posted on the magazine’s website Sunday evening.
“TIME is a treasure trove of the world’s history and culture,” Benioff said in the note released by Felsenthal. “We have deep respect for your entire organization and are honored to now have TIME as part of our family impact investment portfolio.”"

Time Magazine sold to tech billionaire Marc Benioff -- The Washington Post

The iPhone Franchise -- Stratechery

Final paragraph from a review of yesterday's Apple update; check the full post for an iPhone XR assessment and analysis of Apple's overall iPhone strategy

"That is the iPhone: it is a franchise, the closest thing to a hardware annuity stream tech has ever seen. Some people buy an iPhone every year; some are on a two-year cycle; others wait for screens to crack, batteries to die, or apps to slow. Nearly all, though, buy another iPhone, making the purpose of yesterday’s keynote less an exercise in selling a device and more a matter of informing self-selected segments which device they will ultimately buy, and for what price."

The iPhone Franchise -- Stratechery

Edward Snowden Reconsidered -- New York Review of Books

Final paragraph from an extensive Edward Snowden reality check:

"If there’s one thing Greenwald, Assange, and their followers got right, it’s that the United States became a tremendous economic and military power over the last seven decades. When it blunders in its foreign or domestic policy, the US has the capacity to do swift and unparalleled damage. The question then is whether this awesome power is better wielded by a liberal-democratic state in an arguably hypocritical way but with some restraint, or by an authoritarian one in a nakedly avowed way and with no restraint. In the five years since Snowden’s revelations, we have seen changes, particularly the election of Donald Trump with his undisguised admiration for strongmen, that compel us to imagine a possible authoritarian future for the United States. Democratic accountability, a system of checks and balances, and the rule of law may be imperfect measures but they look like our best hope for directing the American state’s power to humane ends. Previous failures are not a good reason to give up on this hope. Neither is faith in technology: it is a means; it doesn’t discriminate between ends. Technology is not going to save us. Edward Snowden is not our savior."

Edward Snowden Reconsidered -- New York Review of Books

Apple Gets FDA Approval for New Watch, Touts Health Gains -- Bloomberg

See this Apple post for more details

"The [ECG] feature "is really a game changer as the first wearable device with this feature," Evercore ISI analyst Ross Muken wrote in a note to investors. "This update really establishes the company’s increasing efforts to push the watch as a serious medical device."

The Watch has more-powerful sensors so it can spot when someone has a hard fall. It delivers an alert and calls emergency services if the user doesn’t move for one minute after a fall, Williams said. The ECG capability, available later this year, helps the device sense atrial fibrillation, an irregular heart rate that can increase the risk of stroke, heart failure and other heart-related complications.

“The FDA worked closely with the company as they developed and tested these software products, which may help millions of users identify health concerns more quickly,” FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said in a statement. Health-care products on ubiquitous devices, like smartwatches, may help users seek treatment earlier and will empower them with more information about their health, he added."

Apple Gets FDA Approval for New Watch, Touts Health Gains -- Bloomberg

Preparing for Elections -- Mark Zuckerberg

The conclusion from an approximately 3,300-word Mark Zuckerberg update on fighting election interference:

"In 2016, we were not prepared for the coordinated information operations we now regularly face. But we have learned a lot since then and have developed sophisticated systems that combine technology and people to prevent election interference on our services.
This effort is part of a broader challenge to rework much of how Facebook operates to be more proactive about protecting our community from harm and taking a broader view of our responsibility overall.
One of the important lessons I’ve learned is that when you build services that connect billions of people across countries and cultures, you're going to see all of the good humanity is capable of, and you're also going to see people try to abuse those services in every way possible.
As we evolve, our adversaries are evolving too. We will all need to continue improving and working together to stay ahead and protect our democracy."

Preparing for Elections -- Mark Zuckerberg

Oracle’s Thomas Kurian Is at Odds With Larry Ellison on Cloud -- Bloomberg

An ominous leading indicator for Oracle customers and shareholders; later in the article: "“We support the notion of increasing Oracle support for other clouds,” Brad Reback, an analyst at Stifel Nicolaus & Co., wrote in a note on Wednesday. “Given the lack of meaningful capex investments and limited traction to-date, we are not convinced Oracle can catch up with” Amazon, Microsoft and Google, he wrote."

"Oracle Corp. executive Thomas Kurian’s leave of absence, disclosed last week, stemmed from differences with co-founder Larry Ellison over the software maker’s cloud business, according to people familiar with the matter.

The growing strife between Kurian, president of product development, and Executive Chairman Ellison culminated in Kurian’s announcement on Sept. 5 that he’s taking a break, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing a private matter. Kurian wants Oracle to make more of its software available to run on public clouds from chief rivals Amazon.com Inc. and Microsoft Corp. as a way to diversify from its own struggling infrastructure, a view opposed by Ellison, one of the people said."

Oracle’s Thomas Kurian Is at Odds With Larry Ellison on Cloud -- Bloomberg

Apple Announces the 2018 iPhones: iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, & iPhone XR -- AnandTech

Check the full review for a detailed model comparison table

"The third part of the processor triumvirate – and likely where the bulk of Apple’s transistor budget has gone – is the neural engine, Apple’s name for their block responsible for processing (inferencing) neural networks for AI. Relative to the A11, Apple is promoting some huge increases in both the basic block size and in the resulting performance. The latest neural engine is described as an 8-core design, up from 2 cores for the A11. In turn, peak performance has jumped from 600 GigaOPS to 5 TeraOPS, an increase of over 8x.

Given the core count, I have no doubt that part of this outright comes down to Apple laying down a lot more silicon for the task. Which goes to show just how important Apple considers the neural engine and the workloads that run on it towards current and future iPhone applications. However the latest version of the neural engine also adds what Apple calls “multiprecision” support, better known as variable precision. Smaller data formats lose precision, but they can be processed more efficiently. So Apple’s 5 TOPS claim is almost certainly based on this, which is an important distinction because not all workloads can be run at a lower precision. So the real-world performance difference may not be as great as it looks on paper."

Apple Announces the 2018 iPhones: iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, & iPhone XR -- AnandTech

Rosetta: Understanding text in images and videos with machine learning -- Facebook Code

Check the full post for details

"A significant number of the photos shared on Facebook and Instagram contain text in various forms. It might be overlaid on an image in a meme, or inlaid in a photo of a storefront, street sign, or restaurant menu. Taking into account the sheer volume of photos shared each day on Facebook and Instagram, the number of languages supported on our global platform, and the variations of the text, the problem of understanding text in images is quite different from those solved by traditional optical character recognition (OCR) systems, which recognize the characters but don’t understand the context of the associated image.

To address our specific needs, we built and deployed a large-scale machine learning system named Rosetta. It extracts text from more than a billion public Facebook and Instagram images and video frames (in a wide variety of languages), daily and in real time, and inputs it into a text recognition model that has been trained on classifiers to understand the context of the text and the image together."

Rosetta: Understanding text in images and videos with machine learning -- Facebook Code

Crypto’s 80% Plunge Is Now Worse Than the Dot-Com Crash -- Bloomberg

Bitcoin: the last *coin still standing (for now)?...

"As virtual currencies plumbed new depths on Wednesday, the MVIS CryptoCompare Digital Assets 10 Index extended its collapse from a January high to 80 percent. The tumble has now surpassed the Nasdaq Composite Index’s 78 percent peak-to-trough decline after the dot-com bubble burst in 2000.

Like their predecessors during the internet stock boom almost two decades ago, cryptocurrency investors who bet big on a seemingly revolutionary technology are suffering a painful reality check."

Crypto’s 80% Plunge Is Now Worse Than the Dot-Com Crash -- Bloomberg

Get ready for Big Bitcoin: Cryptocurrency industry opens a D.C. lobbying arm -- The Washington Post

Earlier in the article: "[...] the first fully fledged lobbying group in Washington representing entrepreneurs and investors who are building off the technology behind bitcoin"

"This isn't the only time blockchain advocates have sought to play the Washington influence game. Half a decade ago, organizations such as the Bitcoin Foundation played a similar role. But it was a catchall organization — representing industry as well as individual consumers; acting as a think tank, lobbying group and standard-setting body, all in one.

Now, the cryptocurrency field is far more developed, with distinct sectors and interest groups, said Jerry Brito, executive director of the Coin Center, a Washington-based cryptocurrency think tank. To see the rise of a purpose-specific trade group is a sign of the industry's growing maturity, he added."

Get ready for Big Bitcoin: Cryptocurrency industry opens a D.C. lobbying arm -- The Washington Post

Google’s ‘no-show’ in Congress adds to its political headache -- The Washington Post

Next in the scrutiny spotlight...

"“Google is sadly mistaken if they think they’re off the hook after being a no-show,” Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the top Democrat on the committee, said in a statement Friday.

The shifting of Google’s political fortunes ends a period of relative calm for the company in Washington. Lawmakers until recently had focused much of their attention on tech giants such as Facebook, probing its recent privacy mishaps and efforts to combat Russian agents that spread propaganda online.

For Google, its new political headache could result in tougher scrutiny of its business practices, from its efforts to police sites such as YouTube for abuse to its ambitions to launch a special search engine in China. Warner, for example, said he had questions for Google about China as well as its revelations of Russian accounts it found on YouTube and disabled earlier this year."

Google’s ‘no-show’ in Congress adds to its political headache -- The Washington Post

News Use Across Social Media Platforms 2018 -- Pew Research

All the news that's fit to mistrust...

"About two-thirds of American adults (68%) say they at least occasionally get news on social media, about the same share as at this time in 2017, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. Many of these consumers, however, are skeptical of the information they see there: A majority (57%) say they expect the news they see on social media to be largely inaccurate. Still, most social media news consumers say getting news this way has made little difference in their understanding of current events, and more say it has helped than confused them (36% compared with 15%).

Republicans are more negative about the news they see on social media than Democrats. Among Republican social media news consumers, 72% say they expect the news they see there to be inaccurate, compared with 46% of Democrats and 52% of independents. And while 42% of those Democrats who get news on social media say it has helped their understanding of current events, fewer Republicans (24%) say the same. Even among those Americans who say they prefer to get news on social media over other platforms (such as print, TV or radio), a substantial portion (42%) express this skepticism."

News Use Across Social Media Platforms 2018 -- Pew Research

Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads -- Recode

Featuring search result sections with Amazon brands (e.g., Whole Foods 365 Everyday Value)

"Amazon makes money every time consumers click on an ad — and it still gets to sell whatever people end up buying.

Amazon’s advertising approach is increasingly important for brands, with about half of all product searches beginning there rather than with typical search engines like Google.

It’s also increasingly important to Amazon, which generates most of its revenue from its e-commerce business. Advertising is its smallest segment, measured by revenue, but its fastest-growing. (Its “other” segment — which primarily consists of money it generates from selling ad space on its websites — generated $2.2 billion in sales last quarter, up about 130 percent from the same period a year ago.) Amazon is now a big-enough advertising player that it’s expected to eat into Facebook and Google’s dominant market share."

Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads -- Recode

Crypto Wipeout Deepens to $640 Billion as Ether Leads Declines -- Bloomberg

A timely *coin reality check

"The cryptocurrency bear market plumbed a fresh 10-month low on Monday as Bitcoin’s biggest rival tumbled and U.S. regulators suspended trading in two securities linked to digital assets.

Ether, the second-largest virtual currency, slumped 11 percent from its level at 5 p.m. New York time on Friday, according to Bloomberg composite pricing. Bitcoin declined 2.4 percent, while the market capitalization of digital assets tracked by CoinMarketCap.com shrank to about $197 billion -- down almost $640 billion from its January peak.

Cryptocurrencies have declined for five of the past six weeks amid concern that a broader adoption of digital assets will take longer than some had anticipated. That worry was underscored over the weekend after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission temporarily suspended trading in two exchange-traded notes linked to cryptocurrencies and Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin told Bloomberg that the days of explosive growth in the blockchain industry have likely come and gone."

Crypto Wipeout Deepens to $640 Billion as Ether Leads Declines -- Bloomberg

As Alex Jones rails against ‘Big Tech,’ his Infowars stores still thrive online -- The Washington Post

In case you're still looking for Alex Jones t-shirts or "dozens of other Infowars-branded products, such as Super Male Vitality and Survival Shield supplements"... Also see Alex Jones’s Infowars Is Removed From Apple’s App Store (NYT), which notes "Late Friday, Apple removed his Infowars app from its App Store, eliminating one of the final avenues for Mr. Jones to reach a mainstream audience."

"His sprawling network, which recently included more than 90 digital accounts that bear his name or Infowars’, exploits the inconsistencies in how technology companies police users of their platforms — potentially exposing the companies to further criticism from congressional Republicans that they unfairly silence conservative voices such as Jones.

“Bans of Alex Jones and his affiliated network of Infowars accounts have yet to affect the brand's main revenue generator — the storefront and e-commerce operations,” said Jonathan Albright, research director of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University, who has studied traffic to Infowars Store online accounts. “When Jones makes the headlines, there is a distinct pattern of traffic surges to Infowars properties, including the store website.”"

As Alex Jones rails against ‘Big Tech,’ his Infowars stores still thrive online  -- The Washington Post

Apple faces Trump’s ire after company says its products would be hurt by tariffs -- The Washington Post

Also see The global smartphone supply chain needs an upgrade (The Economist), which notes: "Choking the smartphone complex would be madness: consumers would be upset, millions of jobs would be at risk in Asia, and stockmarkets in America and East Asia would suffer."

"The tariffs are top of mind for Apple chief executive Tim Cook, who has personally lobbied Trump for months on issues of taxes and trade, even dining with the president and first lady Melania Trump at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J., last month. Cook's personal diplomacy stands in stark contrast to some of his peers in the tech industry, who haven't engaged Trump directly — and often are on the receiving end of far more aggressive tweets attacking their business practices.

Apple, like other tech giants, has benefited from the last year's overhaul to the U.S. tax code, and the company has committed to returning much of the $252 billion in cash it held abroad. In January, the company also announced its “direct contribution” to the U.S. economy through investments and other spending would exceed $350 billion over the next five years, while it would establish a new Apple campus to house technical support for customers. Some components for Apple products, including glass from manufacturers like Corning, are made in the United States, the company has said."

Apple faces Trump’s ire after company says its products would be hurt by tariffs -- The Washington Post

Chinese billionaire Jack Ma steps down at Alibaba, announces successor -- The Washington Post

Also see Jack Ma will celebrate his 55th birthday by retiring as chairman of Alibaba (Quartz)

"Ma, a former English teacher who launched Alibaba out of his apartment with 17 of his students and friends and roughly $60,000, said he wants to shift his focus to philanthropy in education.

He described the decision as a return to his passion after running a company that has transformed the way Chinese people shop and helped usher in an almost total reliance on mobile phone payments in cities.

But Ma’s surprise departure fueled speculation that his popularity had irked a government that doesn’t like to share the spotlight."

Chinese billionaire Jack Ma steps down at Alibaba, announces successor -- The Washington Post

Can Mark Zuckerberg Fix Facebook Before It Breaks Democracy? -- The New Yorker

Final paragraphs from a ~14,500-word profile

"At a certain point, the habits of mind that served Zuckerberg well on his ascent will start to work against him. To avoid further crises, he will have to embrace the fact that he’s now a protector of the peace, not a disrupter of it. Facebook’s colossal power of persuasion has delivered fortune but also peril. Like it or not, Zuckerberg is a gatekeeper. The era when Facebook could learn by doing, and fix the mistakes later, is over. The costs are too high, and idealism is not a defense against negligence.

In some sense, the “Mark Zuckerberg production”—as he called Facebook in its early years—has only just begun. Zuckerberg is not yet thirty-five, and the ambition with which he built his empire could well be directed toward shoring up his company, his country, and his name. The question is not whether Zuckerberg has the power to fix Facebook but whether he has the will; whether he will kick people out of his office—with the gusto that he once mustered for the pivot to mobile—if they don’t bring him ideas for preventing violence in Myanmar, or protecting privacy, or mitigating the toxicity of social media. He succeeded, long ago, in making Facebook great. The challenge before him now is to make it good."

Can Mark Zuckerberg Fix Facebook Before It Breaks Democracy? -- The New Yorker

Brett Kavanaugh’s Internet -- Lawfare

Final paragraphs:

"Again, Kavanaugh was not content with just invoking precedent about what rules the FCC had power to create, which would have simply punted the issue back to Congress.  Instead, he argued that the issue should not be decided by Congress at all, writing that net neutrality violated the constitutional rights of telecommunications and cable companies.  Kavanaugh took the position that the decisions of these companies to throttle the speech of those services they disfavored were comparable to a newspaper editor’s decision about what articles to publish—a choice protected by the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech and the press.

In fact, Kavanaugh had it exactly backwards.  If publishers and ordinary people don’t have fair access to the internet, the public square will be subject to censorship by large, often monopolistic companies like Cox, Comcast and Verizon.   Instead of protecting the rights of ordinary people—or even the companies that produce internet content—Kavanaugh used the First Amendment to invent a new corporate “right” to censor speech.

While the digital age is well underway, the justices have only begun to grapple with its implications—for privacy, freedom of speech, and new forms of digital control.  Kavanaugh’s vote will be for an internet based not on openness and freedom, but on surveillance and control."

Brett Kavanaugh’s Internet -- Lawfare

Elon Musk teases electric plane design and smokes weed on Joe Rogan podcast -- The Verge

Also see Weed, whiskey, Tesla and a flamethrower: Elon Musk meets Joe Rogan (CNN)

"“I have a design for a plane,” said Elon Musk in a wide-ranging interview for the Joe Rogan Experience podcast broadcast live Thursday night on YouTube. The interview included the two men drinking whiskey and smoking weed.

Musk thinks his electric airplane would be better than current planes, capable of vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) and supersonic flight at high altitudes. The Tesla and Space X CEO admitted, however, that it’s not a priority for him. “Electric cars are important, solar energy is important, stationary storage of energy is important,” said Musk. “These things are much more important than creating electric supersonic VTOL.” Musk then became visibly emotional in describing our addiction to fossil fuels, calling it the “the dumbest experiment in human history.”"

Elon Musk teases electric plane design and smokes weed on Joe Rogan podcast -- The Verge

While talking nukes, Kim may have shifted to cyber -- Axios

Also see U.S. Accuses North Korea of Plot to Hurt Economy as Spy Is Charged in Sony Hack (NYT)

"As North Korea haggles over when it will eliminate its nuclear weapons assets, it may be playing for what it can get in exchange while already pivoting to a very different, equally dangerous weapons regime — cyber arms.

What's going on: David Maxwell, a retired Army officer and an expert on North Korea, tells Axios that any key American adversary — China, Iran, Russia or North Korea — is likelier to use cyber than nuclear arms in any war with the U.S."

While talking nukes, Kim may have shifted to cyber -- Axios

Amazon's treasure trove of data -- Axios

Research different

"When Amazon invited cities to compete for its second global headquarters a year ago today, it got reams of data from the 238 entrants — enough to learn details of the cities' future plans that a lot of their residents don't even know about.

Why it matters: The information effectively provided Amazon with a database chock full of granular details about the economic development prospects of every major metropolitan area in the United States (and some in Canada). For a rapidly-expanding tech behemoth like Amazon, that database could help it make expansion decisions that go way beyond the new headquarters."

Amazon's treasure trove of data -- Axios