Wyze’s new motion and contact sensor kit secures your home for just $20 | TNW

Wyze expands its security capabilities

"We came away impressed when we reviewed Wyze’s Cam Pan security camera last year. At just $30 a camera, it was almost disconcertingly cheap (and Wyze sells a $20 model too). But my colleague Tristan Greene concluded that “despite a few shortcomings, [it] does everything I want it to do and more.”

Today the company announced a new set of products to help secure your home: the Wyze Sense kit. For $20, you get a motion sensor – for, you know, detecting movement – and two contact sensors that allow you to secure doors, windows, or your cookie jar."

Wyze’s new motion and contact sensor kit secures your home for just $20 | TNW

How Facebook Grew Too Big to Handle | FT (via Medium)

Final paragraphs from an extensive Facebook reality check:

"Facebook’s problems are deeply embedded in the platform and culture that was created by Zuckerberg and his colleagues in the first few years. Some critics such as early Facebook investor Roger McNamee and Tim Wu, a professor at Columbia law school, have argued that the only thing to do is to break the company up.
Siva Vaidhyanathan, author of Anti-Social Media, is one such critic. But he believes even a break-up would not solve all the problems that the platform amplifies. “Thinking about the problem of Facebook is much like thinking about the problem of climate change. In many ways, it is too big to wrap our minds around,” he says.
Facebook and governments are responding to the social network’s problems one by one, rather than addressing underlying causes. Tristan Harris believes the company has created a “digital Frankenstein”. “By definition, they cannot control it,” he says. “I think they don’t want to admit that.”"

How Facebook Grew Too Big to Handle | FT (via Medium)

The Regulation of Social Media Debate | Tech.pinions

I agree it's time to revisit Section 230, but perhaps the Tech.pinions author hasn't visited the WSJ op-ed page lately; no shortage of blatantly derogatory content therein...

"I have been making this argument for over five years. Not holding Facebook, Twitter and YouTube and others accountable has become a great threat to democracy and has split countries apart. Traditional media has to come under regulated guidelines in order to stay in business. The kind of derogatory material you see posted on Facebook, Twitter, etc. could never be published in the New York Times, WSJ, and traditional media sites.

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act has outlived its usefulness. You can argue that we are in this place today because of this Act. It came about at a time when the Internet was young, and in that sense, it has helped it grow exponentially.

But it has been a two-edged sword in that it allowed social media sites to flourish without any controls and liability. As Adam suggests, it is time to repeal this act and make these sites admit what they are-Media sites.

Of course, the lobbyists from Facebook, YouTube, and other social media companies will fight this tooth and nail as they have in the past. But I sense this time is different. They have targets on their back and governments around the world are looking at ways to reign in things like fake news, hate speech, etc. And the way to do it makes the sites that distribute this material liable for what is written and spread on their websites, just like traditional media."

The Regulation of Social Media Debate | Tech.pinions

Protecting Elections in the EU | Facebook Newsroom

More complications ahead for Robert Mercer, Brad Parscale, and associates; also see Facebook launches searchable transparency library of all active ads | TechCrunch

"In the run up to the European Parliamentary Elections in May, we are making big changes to the way ads with political content work on Facebook.

We are introducing some new tools to help us deliver on two key goals that experts have told us are important for protecting the integrity of elections — preventing online advertising from being used for foreign interference, and increasing transparency around all forms of political and issue advertising."

Protecting Elections in the EU | Facebook Newsroom

Lyft Prices I.P.O. at $72 a Share | NYT

Driving change

"In its offering prospectus, Lyft revealed that it lost close to $1 billion in 2018. Lyft and Uber regularly lose money in their competition to win new markets, where they spend amply on subsidies for riders and drivers. The companies also burn cash on other transportation initiatives, like bikes, scooters and autonomous vehicles. Last year, Lyft bought the largest bike-sharing company in the United States for around $250 million.

“With Lyft, obviously, the market is saying, ‘We’re willing to give you the benefit of the doubt on a lot of things,’ given that there are huge uncertainties about its future,” Mr. Ritter said.

At its I.P.O. price, Lyft’s market value puts it within range of old-line auto companies like Ford Motor. It is a significant increase from the $15.1 billion that Lyft earned in its last private fund-raising round last year."

Lyft Prices I.P.O. at $72 a Share | NYT

Facebook has been charged with housing discrimination by the US government | The Verge

Ben Carson attacks Facebook for allegedly challenging his housing discrimination monopoly...

"The Department of Housing and Urban Development has filed charges against Facebook for violations of the Fair Housing Act, allegedly made in connection with Facebook’s ad targeting system. The charges build on a complaint filed in August, finding that there is reasonable cause to believe the complaint is valid and discrimination has occurred.

“Facebook is discriminating against people based upon who they are and where they live,” HUD Secretary Ben Carson said in a statement. “Using a computer to limit a person’s housing choices can be just as discriminatory as slamming a door in someone’s face.”"

Facebook has been charged with housing discrimination by the US government | The Verge

Apple, Amazon, and the Great Media Wars to Come | Out of Ink (Medium collection)

From a timely media + technology reality check

"In the 2010s, publishers found themselves as commodities in a grand battle between Facebook and Google to sell ads. In the 2020s, publishers will find themselves as a commodity in a grand battle between Apple and Amazon to sell superbundles.
Of course, this isn’t necessarily a bad deal for publishers, but more than anything else, this will once again intertwine media’s fate with the ethos of big tech leadership. For Facebook and, to a lesser extent, Google, the plight of journalism was acceptable collateral damage for the growth of their ad businesses. We must hope Apple and Amazon view publishers differently.
The best argument for Apple as media’s tech guardian is the fact that the company has consistently placed a premium on using highly qualified editors over algorithms to curate news. Of course, this looks radical only in the context of the dystopian approach of its peers."

Apple, Amazon, and the Great Media Wars to Come | Out of Ink (Medium collection)

Why Losing Our Newspapers Is Breaking Our Politics | Scientific American

Bad news

"Last month, staffers at The Daily Camera in Boulder, Colorado, experienced the latest low point in the American newspaper business: days after mourning the loss of their editor, Kevin Kaufman, their owner (the hedge-fund-owned Digital First Media) announced another round of painful layoffs. The past few decades have been similarly tragic for American local media: longstanding newspapers, big and small, have closed in unprecedented numbers; Americans are turning away from local news sources and towards online and nationally televised programs to learn about politics; and even local television news is focusing on national partisanship and politics, as Sinclair Broadcasting acquires more affiliates.
At the same time, American voters and political elites are more polarized than ever. Republicans and Democrats occupy not only their own ideological camps, but also their own sets of basic facts, regardless of whether those facts rooted in reality. American politics is trapped in a feedback loop that reinforces polarization in the mass public: media coverage of polarization increases citizens’ dislike of the opposite party, and new research shows that people go beyond relying on party cues as a cognitive shortcut: They consider partisanship a central part of their identity and put effort into expressing it. For example, evangelical Christians tend to identify as conservative Republicans, but recent work shows that partisans actually sort themselves into the religious affiliation that matches their politics."

Why Losing Our Newspapers Is Breaking Our Politics | Scientific American

Exclusive: Fearful of fake news blitz, U.S. Census enlists help of tech giants | Reuters

Evidently Ron Jarmin hasn't met voter-suppression campaign expert Brad Parscale...

"The push, the details of which have not been previously reported, follows warnings from data and cybersecurity experts dating back to 2016 that right-wing groups and foreign actors may borrow the “fake news” playbook from the last presidential election to dissuade immigrants from participating in the decennial count, the officials and sources told Reuters.

The sources, who asked not to be named, said evidence included increasing chatter on platforms like “4chan” by domestic and foreign networks keen to undermine the survey. The census, they said, is a powerful target because it shapes U.S. election districts and the allocation of more than $800 billion a year in federal spending.

Ron Jarmin, the Deputy Director of the Census Bureau, confirmed the bureau was anticipating disinformation campaigns, and was enlisting the help of big tech companies to fend off the threat."

Exclusive: Fearful of fake news blitz, U.S. Census enlists help of tech giants | Reuters

Sundar Pichai met with President Trump about Google’s ‘commitment to working with the US government’ | The Verge

Tbd if Trump had any Russia-related requests for Google...

"On Wednesday, Google CEO Sundar Pichai met with President Trump to discuss contracts and other ongoing partnerships with the US government.

“I just met with Sundar Pichai, President of Google, who is obviously doing quite well,” President Trump tweeted after the meeting. “He stated strongly that he is totally committed to the U.S. Military, not the Chinese Military. [We] also discussed political fairness and various things that Google can do for our Country. Meeting ended very well!”

Sundar Pichai is CEO of Google, which uses “president” as a lower rank in its corporate structure. The company has four regional presidents, all of whom report to Pichai. Additionally, Sergey Brin serves as president of Alphabet, Google’s parent company."

Sundar Pichai met with President Trump about Google’s ‘commitment to working with the US government’ | The Verge

Facebook Announces New Policy to Ban White Nationalist Content | NYT

Looks like Brad Parscale will have to update several of his 2020 campaign Facebook initiatives...

"As part of its policy change, Facebook said it would divert users who searched for white supremacist content to Life After Hate, a nonprofit that helps people leave hate groups, and would improve its ability to use artificial intelligence and machine learning to combat white nationalism.

“It’s clear that these concepts are deeply linked to organized hate groups and have no place on our services,” Facebook said in a statement posted online on Wednesday. It later added, “Going forward, while people will still be able to demonstrate pride in their ethnic heritage, we will not tolerate praise or support for white nationalism and separatism.”"

Facebook Announces New Policy to Ban White Nationalist Content | NYT

Twitter still won’t remove Trump’s tweets that violate its rules. But it will label them. | Washington Post

Where "... a particular purpose" probably means driving traffic regardless of the consequences; perhaps the label should be "An example of how utterly meaningless our 'rules' are"...

"Twitter is exploring how it can annotate offensive tweets that break its rules but remain in the public interest, said Vijaya Gadde, the company’s head of legal, policy, and trust and safety. It’s an effort to stem offensive content and hate speech and follows comments last year by chief executive Jack Dorsey, who said he is rethinking core parts of the platform to stem harassment and other abuses.

“One of the things we’re working really closely on with our product and engineering folks is, ‘How can we label that?’ ” Gadde said in a response to questions from the Post’s Silicon Valley correspondent, Elizabeth Dwoskin. “How can we put some context around it so people are aware that that content is actually a violation of our rules and it is serving a particular purpose in remaining on the platform.”"

Twitter still won’t remove Trump’s tweets that violate its rules. But it will label them. | Washington Post

Forget Photoshop. Adobe Is a Marketing Company Now | Bloomberg

Unclear how long the premium-priced Adobe creative designer tools business can subsidize the company's acquisition-heavy digital marketing "pivot"; on a related note, see Adobe, Microsoft to take on Salesforce's marketing software, with LinkedIn as a weapon | Reuters

"Factor it all in, and Chief Executive Officer Shantanu Narayen has upended Adobe’s business model and quietly transformed it into that of a marketing company. Adobe has been working full crank to track every interaction a consumer has with a brand: tallying her visits to a brick-and-mortar store and what she buys; using cookies to monitor her web activity and figure out how many devices she has; analyzing her interest in emails about sales or promotions; and incorporating social media monitoring to see what she says about a brand. Adobe can combine all of this with other companies’ data about a person’s income and demographics to try to predict the triggers that would make her buy a new phone or pair of shoes. In essence, Adobe is trying to know a consumer’s decision-making process better than she may know it herself.

This can’t help but sound tone-deaf at a time when the technology industry generates privacy scandals on a near-daily basis. Adobe says it’s helping create better customer experiences, so customers see ads and receive offers that are more interesting to them. It also says customers have ways to opt out of its targeting programs. But that’s making quite a leap, says Jen King, the director of consumer privacy at Stanford’s Center for Internet and Society. “I would be shocked if the general public knew about this in any meaningful way,” King says. “This is the Oz behind the curtain.”"

Forget Photoshop. Adobe Is a Marketing Company Now | Bloomberg

Three Pioneers in Artificial Intelligence Win Turing Award | NYT

See Fathers of the Deep Learning Revolution Receive ACM A.M. Turing Award | ACM for more details

"On Wednesday, the Association for Computing Machinery, the world’s largest society of computing professionals, announced that Drs. Hinton, LeCun and Bengio had won this year’s Turing Award for their work on neural networks. The Turing Award, which was introduced in 1966, is often called the Nobel Prize of computing, and it includes a $1 million prize, which the three scientists will share.
Over the past decade, the big idea nurtured by these researchers has reinvented the way technology is built, accelerating the development of face-recognition services, talking digital assistants, warehouse robots and self-driving cars. Dr. Hinton is now at Google, and Dr. LeCun works for Facebook. Dr. Bengio has inked deals with IBM and Microsoft."

Three Pioneers in Artificial Intelligence Win Turing Award | NYT

Europe’s controversial overhaul of online copyright receives final approval | The Verge

Tbd if this directive, like GDPR, will somehow inadvertently provide new strategic advantages to the biggest players...

"Despite setbacks, the most controversial clauses in the Copyright Directive — Article 11 or the ‘link tax’ and Article 13 or the ‘upload filter’ — have remained largely intact.

Article 11 lets publishers charge platforms like Google News when they display snippets of news stories, while Article 13 (renamed Article 17 in the most recent draft of the legislation) gives sites like YouTube new duties to stop users from uploading copyrighted content.

In both cases, critics say these well-intentioned laws will create trouble. Article 13, for example, could lead to the introduction of “upload filters” that will scan all user content before it’s uploaded to sites to remove copyrighted material. The law does not explicitly call for such filters, but critics say it will be an inevitability as sites seek to avoid penalties."

Europe’s controversial overhaul of online copyright receives final approval | The Verge

The danger of 'I already pay for Apple News+ | TechCrunch

Check the full post for a list of potential publisher problems; tbd if publishers will be able to get creative and entice Apple News+ subscribers to also pay for individual magazine subscriptions

"“Why subscribe to that publisher? I already pay for Apple News+” should be the question haunting journalists’ nightmares. For readers, $10 per month all-you-can-eat from 300-plus publishers sounds like a great deal today. But it could accelerate the demise of some of those outlets, leaving society with fewer watchdogs and storytellers. If publishers agree to the shake hands with the devil, the dark lord will just garner more followers, making its ruinous offer more tempting.

There are so many horrifying aspects of Apple News+ for publishers, it’s best just to list each and break them down."

The danger of 'I already pay for Apple News+ | TechCrunch

Take action and stay up-to-date with dynamic email in Gmail | Google Keyword blog

So Gmail selectively catches the Wave?... Also see Google makes emails more dynamic with AMP for Email | TechCrunch

"Over the past decade, our web experiences have changed enormously—evolving from static flat content to interactive apps. Yet email has largely stayed the same with static messages that eventually go out of date, or are merely a springboard to accomplish a more complex task. If you want to take action, you usually have to click on a link, open a new tab and visit another website.
Starting today, we’re making emails more useful and interactive in Gmail. Your emails can stay up to date so you’re always seeing the freshest information, like the latest comment threads and recommended jobs. With dynamic email, you can easily take action directly from within the message itself, like RSVP to an event, fill out a questionnaire, browse a catalog or respond to a comment.
Take commenting in Google Docs, for example. Instead of receiving individual email notifications when someone mentions you in a comment, now, you’ll see an up-to-date thread in Gmail where you can easily reply or resolve the comment, right from within the message."

Take action and stay up-to-date with dynamic email in Gmail | Google Keyword blog

How Apple’s numberless credit card will make it harder to break free of its ‘ecosystem’ | Washington Post

I expect Apple Card will eventually be seen as the Apple Music of the payment services business -- accelerating inevitable market dynamics; also see Apple Card Highlights Disruption Potential for Tech Industry | Tech.pinions

"What’s clear, though, is that the card is meant for loyal customers who wouldn’t flinch over one more Apple service in their lives.

“It ties people further into the Apple ecosystem,” said Ivan Feinseth of Tigress Financial Partners. “It creates a moat against customer churn, or changing to another phone platform.”

A high-tech credit card fits with Apple’s techy customer base, Feinseth said. The card can be used anywhere where Mastercard is accepted — and it plays to Mastercard’s branding of itself as a technology company, rather than a financial one."

How Apple’s numberless credit card will make it harder to break free of its ‘ecosystem’ | Washington Post

Apple’s new credit card means the tech giant is now battling the same banks that built Apple Pay | Recode

I suspect this is at least as much about anticipating the need to compete with Facebook's payment services as it is about traditional bank co-opetition

"“They’re not just competing in Apple Pay, but they are [also] opening up features only for the Apple Card that other banks can’t leverage,” McKee said.

Still, it’s tough to want to shed tears for America’s big banks. They have a history of making big money by selling your data so marketers have a new contact to hawk their services or wares. They’ve also collectively made fortunes by charging sometimes-usurious penalty interest rates and other late fees. It seems, at least initially, as though Apple is taking a shot directly at the industry by prioritizing privacy with no data sharing or selling, as well as biometric authentication. The card also carries no fees and no penalty interest rates.

For years, Apple downplayed the idea that it would ever compete with the banks. After all, Apple need those credit cards so consumers could utilize Apple Pay. Now, Apple is establishing itself as a competitor in financial services. And it feels like just the beginning."

Apple’s new credit card means the tech giant is now battling the same banks that built Apple Pay | Recode

Apple now wants to be your cable provider, newsstand, credit card and arcade. But will it save you money? | Washington Post

From an overview of what Apple did and didn't announce yesterday

"You know Apple as the company that makes your iPhone. On Monday, it said it also wants to be your cable guy, newsstand, credit card and video arcade.

Add up all those new services, and Apple is becoming a kind of online club. The question is: Why should we join?

The Apple club promises to make life a bit simpler, includes some celebrities — exclusive access to Oprah! — and cares a lot about your privacy. But it would be an easier sell if Apple also demonstrated that Apple TV+, News+, Card and Arcade could save you money. Instead, after a two-hour commercial at its headquarters in Silicon Valley on Monday, Apple didn’t even tell us how much some of these services would cost."

Apple now wants to be your cable provider, newsstand, credit card and arcade. But will it save you money? | Washington Post

What Apple News+ means for Wall Street Journal | Cult of Mac

Starting to dig into the Apple News+ fine print...

"The inclusion of the WSJ gives readers the ability to access all categories of news. The app will actively surface stories on national news, politics, sport, and more. However, the “entire slate of business and financial news” is also available, although this is less likely to be highlighted. There is a compromise, though.

The compromise is that Apple users get access to only three days of the Wall Street Journal‘s archive. That is different to the experience of regular subscribers, who can source articles dating back years. For most readers that’s unlikely to be a big deal. However, if you’re a news junkie or researcher, subscribing to Apple News+ may not give you everything you want."

What Apple News+ means for Wall Street Journal | Cult of Mac

Microsoft ships antivirus for macOS as Windows Defender becomes Microsoft Defender | Ars Technica

For more details, see Announcing Microsoft Defender ATP for Mac and new Threat and Vulnerability Management capabilities | Microsoft Security Blog

"Microsoft is bringing its Windows Defender anti-malware application to macOS—and more platforms in the future—as it expands the reach of its Defender Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) platform. To reflect the new cross-platform nature, the suite is also being renamed to Microsoft Defender ATP, with the individual clients being labelled "for Mac" or "for Windows."

macOS malware is still something of a rarity, but it's not completely unheard of. Ransomware for the platform was found in 2016, and in-the-wild outbreaks of other malicious software continue to be found. Apple has integrated some malware protection into macOS, but we've heard from developers on the platform that Mac users aren't always very good at keeping their systems on the latest point release. This situation is particularly acute in corporate environments; while Windows has a range of tools to ensure that systems are kept up-to-date and alert administrators if they fall behind, a similar ecosystem hasn't been developed for macOS."

Microsoft ships antivirus for macOS as Windows Defender becomes Microsoft Defender | Ars Technica

After Devin Nunes Sues a Parody Cow, It Surpasses Him on Twitter | NYT

Also see Goats, cows and Devin Nunes' mom: how a Republican's Twitter lawsuit backfired | The Guardian

"The parody account @DevinCow had only 1,200 followers on Monday, but it ended Wednesday afternoon with 467,000, surpassing Mr. Nunes’s account with its 395,000 followers. And the count was still growing.

But there’s more. A website now sells Devin Cow T-shirts. Twitter users have been celebrating with cow-themed items and jokes. Even Mr. Nunes’s fellow legislators showed their support for the errant beast. Ted Lieu, a Democratic congressman from Southern California, told Mr. Nunes on Twitter to “lighten up, dude.”"

After Devin Nunes Sues a Parody Cow, It Surpasses Him on Twitter | NYT

The U.S. May Soon Have a De Facto National DNA Database | Slate

Don't bother looking for the opt-out setting...

"Imagine the federal government enacted a law requiring all U.S. residents to provide law enforcement with their DNA profile so police could solve more crimes. Would you be OK with such a system?

Imagine instead that the federal government established a database for which people could volunteer genetic profiles—but that the decision about whether to volunteer your DNA belonged not to you, but to your third cousin. Would you be OK with that?

Whether you like it or not, the United States has effectively already adopted this second system. Since April 2018, law enforcement investigations stemming from DNA searches in consumer genetics databases have led to nearly three dozen arrests. In every case, those ultimately arrested did not actually upload their own genetic profiles to any database. Rather, they were identified through partial matches between crime scene DNA samples and the genetic profiles of often-distant relatives shared on consumer platforms like GEDmatch or FamilyTreeDNA. By one estimate, more than 60 percent of Americans of European descent are already identifiable through the DNA of a third cousin or closer on one of these platforms, and nearly all such Americans may be findable soon. Meanwhile, Parabon Nanolabs, the leading private company selling genetic genealogy services to law enforcement, claims that it can identify criminal suspects out to ninth-degree relatives (e.g., fourth cousins)—widening the genetic web of indirect database inclusion still further."

The U.S. May Soon Have a De Facto National DNA Database | Slate

New Paid Apple News Service Said to Feature Wall Street Journal | NYT

In the meantime, see Apple’s big week of tiny product upgrades: Here’s what’s worth your money — and not | Washington Post; I'm guessing there may be additional "tiny product upgrades" today

"Other major publishers, including The New York Times and The Washington Post, have opted out of joining the subscription service, said the people, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the plans.

Apple and The Wall Street Journal plan to announce the deal Monday at a media event at Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, Calif. The event is intended to draw attention to the company’s bet on news and entertainment, including a streaming service that will put Apple in direct competition with Netflix, Amazon and HBO.

The service, described by some as a “Netflix for news,” will offer access to a new paid tier of the Apple News app. Through that tier, readers will be able to consume articles from hundreds of participating magazines and news outlets. The app’s free tier will still let people read a smattering of select articles from a wide variety of publishers."

New Paid Apple News Service Said to Feature Wall Street Journal | NYT

New Zealand cops cuff alleged jackasses who shared mosque murder video, messages online | The Register

Later in the article: "Australian and New Zealand ISPs and telcos have temporarily blocked their subscribers from accessing dozens of websites, including 4chan and 8chan, for hosting the Christchurch terror video, though not Facebook or Twitter. The blockade is set to be lifted once it's clear the footage has stopped being shared."

""I don’t think New Zealanders innocently caught up in the social media storm following these horrific events need to be concerned," New Zealand's chief censor David Shanks said. "The enforcement focus will likely be on those actively and maliciously involved in spreading this material, and taking actions such as deliberately distorting it to avoid blocks and detection software."

He added: "Every New Zealander should now be clear that this clip is an illegal, harmful and reprehensible record created to promote a terrorist cause. If you have a record of it, you must delete it. If you see it, you should report it. Possessing or distributing it is illegal, and only supports a criminal agenda." Anyone sharing or storing the video faces a $10,000 fine and up to 14 years in the cooler."

New Zealand cops cuff alleged jackasses who shared mosque murder video, messages online | The Register

Apple teams with media literacy programs in the US and Europe | Apple Newsroom

Also see Apple backs news literacy programs in US and Italy | Engadget

"Apple today announced a new initiative in support of leading nonprofit organizations in the US and Europe that offer nonpartisan, independent media literacy programs. The News Literacy Project (NLP) and Common Sense in the US and Osservatorio Permanente Giovani-Editori in Italy will each receive support from Apple to advance their efforts in empowering young people with the critical thinking skills necessary in today’s digital age.
“News literacy is vital to sustaining a free press and thriving democracy, and we are proud to be collaborating with organizations on the front lines of this effort,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “We’ve been impressed by the important work being done by the News Literacy Project, Common Sense and Osservatorio, empowering young people to be active and engaged citizens.”"

Apple teams with media literacy programs in the US and Europe | Apple Newsroom

Stadia: a new way to play | Google Keyword blog

Also see Google unveils Stadia cloud gaming service, launches in 2019 | The Verge, which notes "Google is partnering with AMD to build a custom GPU for its datacenters. It’s a chip that Google claims will deliver 10.7 teraflops of power, which is more than the 4.2 teraflops of the PS4 Pro and the 6 teraflops of power on the Xbox One X. Each Stadia instance will also be powered by a custom 2.7GHz x86 processor with 16GB of RAM."

"For 20 years, Google has worked to put the world’s information at your fingertips. Instant delivery of that information is made possible through our data center and network capabilities, and now we're using that technology to change how you access and enjoy video games.
Stadia is a new video game platform, delivering instant access to your favorite games on any type of screen—whether it’s  a TV, laptop, desktop, tablet or mobile phone. Our goal is to make those games available in resolutions up to 4K and 60 frames per second with HDR and surround sound. We’ll be launching later this year in select countries including the U.S., Canada, U.K. and much of Europe.
To build Stadia, we’ve thought deeply about what it means to be a gamer and worked to converge two distinct worlds: people who play video games and people who love watching them. Stadia will lift restrictions on the games we create and play—and the communities who enjoy them."

Stadia: a new way to play | Google Keyword blog

Instagram Wants to Be Your Mall | NYT

I imagine Instagram shopping could be further streamlined with a platform-integrated payments service...

"Unlike with its outside shopping links, Instagram will be collecting a fee from transactions completed via its platform, which makes the checkout tool potentially an extremely lucrative undertaking for Instagram. Mr. Shah declined to share the fee rate.

“Our primary business remains advertising, and we believe this will be an important driver of that business,” he said. “But you can think of this as a potential new business for us.”

Given what is understood to be a growing interest in commerce and shopping at Facebook, Instagram’s parent company, some have wondered whether the introduction of this functionality presages further extension to come."

Instagram Wants to Be Your Mall | NYT

Trump again accuses social media companies of censoring conservatives | Washington Post

Final paragraph: "“I get to see it firsthand what’s going on, and it’s not good,” he continued. “We use the word ‘collusion’ very loosely all the time. And I would tell you there is collusion with respect to that, because something has to be going on.”"

"President Trump on Tuesday sharply criticized Facebook, Google and Twitter for allegedly censoring conservatives, accusing the companies of “collusion” and a “hatred they have for a certain group of people that happen to be in power, that happen to have won the election.”

In doing so, Trump also pledged repeatedly at a news conference to take a closer look at the three tech giants, their business practices and the ways they police their platforms, hours after he used his own Twitter account to accuse those companies of bias.

"Something is happening with those groups of folks that are running Facebook and Google and Twitter, and I do think we have to get to the bottom of it," Trump said. "It's collusive, and it's very, very fair to say we have to do something about it.""

Trump again accuses social media companies of censoring conservatives | Washington Post

Facebook agrees to overhaul targeted advertising system for job, housing and loan ads after discrimination complaints | Washington Post

Brad Parscale is probably wondering when the same rules will apply to voter suppression campaigns...

"Facebook on Tuesday agreed to overhaul its lucrative targeted advertising system to settle accusations that landlords, lenders and employers use the platform to discriminate, a significant shift for a company that built a business empire on selling personal data.

The settlement compels Facebook to withhold a wide array of detailed demographic information — including gender, age and Zip codes, which are often used as indicators of race — from advertisers when they market housing, credit and job opportunities.
[...]
The news is likely to reverberate through the tech industry. Google, Twitter and Amazon all offer similar demographic targeting tools, and companies such as LinkedIn have brisk businesses in employment recruiting."

Facebook agrees to overhaul targeted advertising system for job, housing and loan ads after discrimination complaints | Washington Post

With Putin’s signature, ‘fake news’ bill becomes law | Washington Post

Tbd if Trump has tweeted his admiration for this policy yet...

"The legislation seeks to punish the distribution of information that “exhibits blatant disrespect for the society, government, official government symbols, constitution or governmental bodies of Russia.”
[...]
This, experts say, is new. “The Prosecutor’s office may now block such fake news sources prior to the judicial decision. It gives the Prosecutor’s office an extremely high authority and almost completely eliminates the Russian (albeit completely non-free) courts from the game,” Maria Snegovaya, an adjunct fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis, wrote in an email.

“In other words, it significantly expands the repressive power of Russia’s repressive apparatus. This may be compared to the Stalin’s Troika, a commission of three for express judgment in the Soviet Union during the time of Joseph Stalin who issued sentences to people after simplified, speedy investigations and without a public and fair trial,” she added."

With Putin’s signature, ‘fake news’ bill becomes law | Washington Post

Why the FCC May be Calling on Facebook and Other Live Streaming Services Soon | Tech.pinions

Final paragraphs:

"Facebook and other live streaming sites could still be allowed to deliver live streaming to smaller groups of people, which is part of Facebook’s VR strategy. But if a live stream goes to a mass audience, it would come under some type of FCC ruling that goes through perhaps an hour delay so that it can be filtered to make sure things like this New Zealand massacre never see’s the light of day. Other regions of the world would also need to have similar laws and rules for this to work. On a worldwide basis this type of live streaming could not be stamped out completely, but it would reduce how much something like this could be shown live.

Of course, any concept of regulating the Internet will be highly controversial. But this New Zealand shooting being shown to a worldwide audience is dangerous on so many levels. One is that once you view it, you can’t unsee it. It also can serve as a means to bolster other radicals to consider doing copy cat versions of this against anything they are against. We could come up with dozens of other reasons why live streaming of massacres, executions and many other deeply offensive content should never be allowed to be shown.

The FCC’s oversight of live TV and Radio has not been considered censorship. Their role is to protect the airwaves and what goes over it and are rules based. The FCC could work with the social media sites to come up with the kinds of rules that keep this type of content away from people as part of this oversight. Facebook, Twitter and others who provide live streaming services should do this type of policing on their own and self regulate this type of content. But if they won’t, they can expect that the FCC and other communications regulatory bodies around the world will come knocking very soon."

Why the FCC May be Calling on Facebook and Other Live Streaming Services Soon | Tech.pinions

How social media’s business model helped the New Zealand massacre go viral | Washington Post

Also see Inside YouTube’s struggles to shut down video of the New Zealand shooting — and the humans who outsmarted its systems | Washington Post

"This failure has highlighted Silicon Valley’s struggles to police platforms that are massively lucrative yet also persistently vulnerable to outside manipulation despite years of promises to do better.

Friday’s uncontrolled spread of horrific videos — a propaganda coup for those espousing hateful ideologies — also raised questions about whether social media can be made safer without undermining business models that rely on the speed and volume of content uploaded by users worldwide. In Washington and Silicon Valley, the incident crystallized growing concerns about the extent to which government and market forces have failed to check the power of social media.

“It’s an uncontrollable digital Frankenstein,” said Tristan Harris, a former Google design ethicist and co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology."

How social media’s business model helped the New Zealand massacre go viral | Washington Post

Myspace, which still exists, accidentally deleted 12 years’ worth of music | Vox

Tbd how long the "which still exists" part will apply...

"The wonky, pre-Facebook, customizable web page-based social network Myspace has lost all the music uploaded to the platform between 2003 and 2015, totaling more than 50 million songs from 14 million artists, which the company confirmed only after some participants in a technology-focused subreddit pointed it out.

“As a result of a server migration project, any photos, videos, and audio files you uploaded more than three years ago may no longer be available on or from Myspace,” the company said in a statement. “We apologize for the inconvenience.”"

Myspace, which still exists, accidentally deleted 12 years’ worth of music | Vox

Elon Musk’s defense of his Tesla tweets ‘borders on the ridiculous,’ SEC says | Washington Post

An update on Jack Dorsey's favorite Twitter user

"Musk has for years been known for his rebellious combativeness, but his tussling with the country’s top financial cops has started to unnerve even some of Tesla’s biggest investors and most die-hard fans. Corporate-governance experts said the SEC could push for starker penalties for Musk, Tesla or its directors — including an outright ban blocking him from running a public company — if they determine he is not fulfilling his end of the deal.

Wall Street analysts have begun counseling clients to reconsider investing in the company amid Musk’s ongoing legal brawls. “Another slap on the wrist (i.e. a larger fine) appears unlikely” because of Musk’s “ongoing public belligerence” toward the SEC, JPMorgan Chase analysts wrote in a note to clients early Monday. “The once impenetrable Tesla narrative appears to be eroding. ... Tesla remains a story of vision, steered, for better or for worse, by Elon Musk.”"

Elon Musk’s defense of his Tesla tweets ‘borders on the ridiculous,’ SEC says | Washington Post

‘This was an orchestrated effort’: Devin Nunes sues Twitter, ‘Devin Nunes’ cow’ for defamation | Washington Post

About which Steven Sinofsky tweets: "if this works I am totally going to sue USENET—what's the statute of limitations on mean stuff about me and my opinions on warp speed on rec.arts.startrek?"

"The complaint alleges that Twitter “intended to generate and proliferate false and defamatory statements” about Nunes to influence the midterm elections; tried to “intimidate” the congressman, who is currently a ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee; and sought to “interfere with his important investigation of corruption by the Clinton campaign and alleged Russian involvement in the 2016 Presidential Election,” according to a copy of the suit obtained by Fox News. Nunes is seeking $250 million in compensatory damages and $350,000 in punitive damages.

“This was an orchestrated effort,” Nunes said during an interview with Fox’s Sean Hannity on Monday. “People were targeting me.”"

‘This was an orchestrated effort’: Devin Nunes sues Twitter, ‘Devin Nunes’ cow’ for defamation | Washington Post

Stanford helped pioneer artificial intelligence. Now the university wants to put humans at its center. | Washington Post

For more details, see Opening the Gate | HAI

"On Monday, the university will launch the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI), a sprawling think tank that aims to become an interdisciplinary hub for policymakers, researchers and the students who will go on to build the technologies of the future. They hope they can inculcate in that next generation a more worldly and humane set of values than those that have characterized it so far -- and guide politicians to make more sophisticated decisions about the challenging social questions wrought by technology.

“I could not have envisioned that the discipline I was so interested in would, a decade and a half later, become one of the driving forces of the changes that humanity will undergo,” said Fei-Fei Li, an AI pioneer and former Google vice president who is one of two directors of the new Stanford institute. “That realization became a tremendous sense of responsibility.”

The institute -- backed by the field’s biggest leaders and industry players -- is not the first such academic effort of its kind, but it is by far the most ambitious: It aims to raise more than $1 billion. And its advisory council is a who’s who of Silicon Valley titans, including former Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt, LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, former Yahoo chief executive Marissa Mayer and co-founder Jerry Yang, and the prominent investor Jim Breyer. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates will keynote its inaugural symposium on Monday."

Stanford helped pioneer artificial intelligence. Now the university wants to put humans at its center. | Washington Post

How Hate Groups’ Secret Sound System Works | The Atlantic

Also see The internet is radicalizing white men. Big tech could be doing more | CNN

"The sophistication of these manipulators presents a challenge for the media. In describing these dynamics, I’m not mentioning the New Zealand killer’s name. Other than PewDiePie, I’m not citing any of the personalities and tropes he tried to publicize. Withholding details runs counter to the usual rules of storytelling—show, don’t tell—but it also helps slow down the spread of white-supremacist keywords. Journalists and regular internet users need to be cognizant of their role in spreading these ideas, especially because the platform companies haven’t recognized theirs.

Just as journalists of the past learned to cover white supremacists differently from other groups, platform companies must address the role their technology plays as the megaphone for white supremacists. In designing, deploying, and scaling up their broadcast technologies, internet companies need to understand that white supremacists and other extremists will find and exploit the weak points. While Facebook, Google, Twitter, and others have resisted calls for accountability, there is no longer any doubt about how these platforms—and the media environment now growing up around them—are used to amplify hate."

How Hate Groups’ Secret Sound System Works | The Atlantic

Academic Behind Cambridge Analytica Data Mining Sues Facebook for Defamation | NYT

I'm guessing Robert Mercer and Steve Bannon are not thrilled about this

"The academic who helped Cambridge Analytica vacuum up private information from tens of millions of Facebook profiles sued the social media giant on Friday, arguing that the company defamed him when it claimed he had lied about how the data was going to be used.

Since the full scope of Cambridge Analytica’s data mining was revealed last year, Facebook has repeatedly tried to shift blame for the privacy breach onto the academic, Aleksandr Kogan. Facebook executives — including the chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg — have said Mr. Kogan told Facebook that the data was for academic purposes when it was being collected for use in political campaigns."

Academic Behind Cambridge Analytica Data Mining Sues Facebook for Defamation | NYT

FIS’s $34 Billion Bid for Worldpay Drives Payments Deal Spree | Bloomberg

$43B including payment of Worldpay's debt

"Payments companies earn fees from charging to service the billions of dollars of purchases made by consumers and businesses, and many have been turning to deals to grab market share. The rise of contactless payments, and the need to update back-end infrastructure, also have spurred mergers. Both FIS and Worldpay provide the technological infrastructure that lets consumers tap their cards to buy a cup of coffee or securely pay an overseas vendor on an e-commerce site.

The largest payments firms, such as Worldpay, Chase Paymentech and First Data, each handle about $1 trillion annually. Fast-growing Dutch rival Adyen NV is growing by offering to handle transfers in more currencies and payment types than its competitors.

Today’s deal, when completed, will make it the biggest in the processing and payments industry, according to data compiled by Bloomberg News. In January, Fiserv Inc. agreed to pay $22 billion to buy First Data Corp. to form the world’s largest payments processor."

FIS’s $34 Billion Bid for Worldpay Drives Payments Deal Spree | Bloomberg

Musk: Osborning His Model 3 | Monday Note

From a timely Tesla reality check; also see Tesla’s Model Y is a car Elon Musk hopes will distract from everything else | Washington Post

"The parallel with Tesla’s Model Y announcement needs little elaboration. Musk finally announces Tesla’s CUV, a model many will would prefer to the Model 3 sedan. No trouble if both are available simultaneously or in close succession. But the Model Y is promised for the “last quarter” of 2020, and the base model for “early 2021” — past Tesla performance easily explains the skeptical quote marks. First deliveries are 18 months away and manufacturing plans are glowingly vague.
This could be Tesla’s riskiest transition ever. Model 3 production hell came with strong demand from an enthusiastic following. Now, with output and demand about to reach equilibrium, one wonders what possesses Musk to put a close-to-normal situation at risk. One possible explanation floats around: Tesla has begun to experience a demand air pocket, a softening in what used to be unquenchable thirst for its product. Hence these past weeks’ sales strategy zigzags — and taking the risk of Osborning the Model 3."

Musk: Osborning His Model 3 | Monday Note

Amazon gets an edge with its secret squad of PhD economists | CNN

Later in the article: "Other tech companies that also make effective use of economists — like Uber, which has a 30-person team — speak with frank admiration of the apparatus Amazon has built."

"Amazon is now a large draw from the relatively small talent pool of PhD economists, which in the United States grows by about only 1,000 new graduates every year. Although the definition of "economist" is fuzzy, the discipline is generally understood as the study of how people use resources and respond to incentives.
In the past few years, Amazon has hired more than 150 PhD economists, making it probably the largest employer in the field behind institutions like the Federal Reserve, which has hundreds of economists on staff. It was the only company with a recruiting booth at the American Economics Association's annual conference in January, handing out free pens and logoed stress balls.
Unlike economists in academia or government, the work of Amazon's economists is almost entirely secret, and staff are required to sign non-disclosure agreements to keep it that way. But according to background interviews and Amazon itself, integrating economists has been critical to the company's phenomenal growth in e-commerce."

Amazon gets an edge with its secret squad of PhD economists | CNN

A Better Way to Break Up Big Tech | NYT

Step 1: elect a government capable of surgical precision...

"The problem with applying a one-size-fits-four model to tech, as the industry analyst Ben Thompson has written, is that the large tech companies have different business models that pose different anti-competitive risks. The stranglehold that Google and Facebook have on the digital advertising market is different from the way Amazon muscles out e-commerce brands, which is different from the way Apple uses its App Store to force burdensome terms on developers.

The possibility of unintended consequences means that tailoring regulations to address each of these problems is important. A law that banned Amazon from competing with third-party sellers on its platform could also cripple Chromebook laptops, or prevent iPhone users from getting access to their iTunes libraries.

Rather than one giant package that crams everything together, a set of effective tech regulations would treat each problem discretely, and address each with surgical precision."

A Better Way to Break Up Big Tech | NYT

FCC to auction off wireless spectrum that could interfere with vital weather data, rejecting requests from U.S. House and science agencies | Washington Post

If this sort of scenario seems unlikely to you, also see Michael Lewis: The Big Short author on how Trump is gambling with nuclear disaster | The Guardian

"The Appropriations Committee letter had stressed that a delay “is necessary to allow for further review of potential interference to adjacent band uses that are critical for national security as well as the protection of American lives and property.”

It explained that the NOAA “uses the 23.6-24 GHz spectrum band for microwave sensor-based remote sensing of atmospheric levels of water vapor, which is the single most impactful data stream for accurately forecasting weather. This data is used by NOAA’s National Weather Service, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and the Department of Defense (DOD), in addition to the broader international weather community.”

Without this data, the letter said, forecasting accuracy “would be reduced to the accuracy of forecasts produced in the 1970s.”"

FCC to auction off wireless spectrum that could interfere with vital weather data, rejecting requests from U.S. House and science agencies | Washington Post

A California company says it’s building a flying motorcycle powered by jet engines | Washington Post

Priced at a level comparable to an Ivy League admission for an unqualified student, but they might want to refine their marketing scenarios a bit (caption for the image below: "JetPack Aviation says its aircraft could be used by emergency responders to quickly reach and transport injured people to hospitals, especially in difficult-to-reach areas. (JetPack Aviation)")...

"They have been a staple of science-fiction films for decades, from the iconic speeder bikes in “Return of the Jedi” to the jet bike from “Looper.”

Now a California company says it’s taking orders for a real-life flying motorcycle powered by five modified jet engines on the base of the aircraft.

The $380,000 vertical-takeoff-and-landing aircraft, called the “Speeder,” will be able to reach at least 150 mph, have a 45-mile range and fly as high as 15,000 feet when it debuts next year, according to David Mayman, chief executive of JetPack Aviation, a company that creates and sells personal jet packs."

A California company says it’s building a flying motorcycle powered by jet engines | Washington Post

One of Silicon Valley’s most prominent voices for ethical investing is implicated in a college admissions bribery scandal | Recode

Also see From ‘master coach’ to a bribery probe: A college consultant who went off the rails | Washington Post

"Prosecutors charged Bill McGlashan, a founder and managing partner at TPG Growth — which has made landmark investments in companies like Uber and Airbnb — on fraud allegations for trying to engineer the admission of his son to the University of Southern California.

What is particularly damaging for TPG is that McGlashan has positioned himself as a leading voice in Silicon Valley for social responsibility. In addition to overseeing TPG’s late-stage growth investing arm, McGlashan has partnered with other conscious leaders like Bono and Laurene Powell Jobs at The Rise Fund, a TPG investing arm that tries to make the world a better place through investments in things like dairy farms in India.

TPG said Tuesday that it had placed McGlashan on “indefinite administrative leave effective immediately” and that his roles at TPG Growth and The Rise Fund would be filled for now by Jim Coulter, TPG’s co-CEO. That’s a major shake-up at one of the most influential investing firms in Silicon Valley."

One of Silicon Valley’s most prominent voices for ethical investing is implicated in a college admissions bribery scandal | Recode

Tune: Control the comments you see | Jigsaw

Also see Alphabet's AI-powered Chrome extension hides toxic comments | Engadget

"To test the idea of viewership control, today we are releasing an experimental Chrome extension called Tune that lets users customize how much toxicity they want to see in comments across the internet. Tune builds on the same machine learning models that power Perspective to let people set the “volume” of conversations on a number of popular platforms, including YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and Disqus. We hope Tune inspires developers to find new ways to put more control into the hands of readers to adjust the level of toxicity they see across the internet.
Tune lets you turn the volume of toxic comments down for “zen mode” to skip comments completely, or turn it up to see everything — even the mean stuff. Or you can set the volume somewhere in between to customize the level of toxicity (e.g. attacks, insults, profanity, etc) you’re willing to see in comments."

Tune: Control the comments you see | Jigsaw

Google reportedly scaling down future laptop, tablet projects amid ‘roadmap cutbacks’ | 9to5Google

Adding to the long list of Google hardware collector's items...

"In 2017, Made by Google released its first laptop with the Pixelbook, while last year saw the launch of the Pixel Slate. While the former is widely praised, the latter is not. A new report this evening claims that Google has reassigned employees working on laptops and tablets, and canceled future projects.

According to Business Insider today, the “Create” team within the broader hardware division has been scaled back as Google “re-assesses product plans.” This includes “dozens” of hardware engineers, technical program managers, and other support staff. These Googlers are not being fired, and in the past two weeks have been told to find other projects within the company or Alphabet."

Google reportedly scaling down future laptop, tablet projects amid ‘roadmap cutbacks’ | 9to5Google

Twitter’s new beta app offers threaded replies, and it’s fine | The Verge

Also see A first look at Twitter’s new prototype app, twttr | TechCrunch

"The basic idea from October is still the same. In the flagship Twitter app, replies appear in a chaotic jumble. On twttr, replies are threaded in a way that might be familiar to users of Reddit. As more users interact with a tweet, additional replies are indented, giving the conversation a better visual hierarchy. Replies from the original tweeter are shadowed in black, rather than the blue of other responses, giving them added weight.

Another notable change in this design is the decision to remove engagement counts from the design. You won’t know how many likes or retweets a response got unless you tap it, a step most users will never take. The idea is to avoid rewarding people for attacking one another with zingers in the way that more visible engagement counts do.

Finally, the new design hides some replies under a “show more” button. That includes replies that “could be abusive or spammy,” a Twitter spokeswoman said in an email."

Twitter’s new beta app offers threaded replies, and it’s fine | The Verge

Volkswagen Moves to Rapidly Increase Production of Electric Cars | NYT

Tbd if they'll send a thank-you note to Elon Musk for showing the way...

"Until recently, most traditional carmakers were ambivalent about electric cars. But demand for Tesla models, despite the company’s financial problems, signaled a broader, if more affluent, market for battery-powered vehicles. Carmakers also face increasing government pressure to make electric vehicles.

Within months, Volkswagen plans to start selling its first electric cars designed from the beginning to run on batteries rather than being converted from existing vehicles. Its Audi division will begin selling an electric sport utility vehicle shortly, and the company’s Porsche unit will begin selling an electric sports sedan, the Taycan, before the end of the year. Volvo’s Polestar electric car brand unveiled a luxury electric sedan this month.
[...]
Electric cars with the Volkswagen brand will not begin appearing until 2020, and the company has promised that the battery-powered models will be close in price to a Golf, or under $30,000. That kind of pricing would be in keeping with the company’s heritage as the producer of the Beetle, which made car ownership affordable for millions of people in the decades after World War II."

Volkswagen Moves to Rapidly Increase Production of Electric Cars | NYT

30 years on, what’s next #ForTheWeb? | Web Foundation

Sir Tim Berners-Lee on the World Wide Web's 30th anniversary

"To tackle any problem, we must clearly outline and understand it. I broadly see three sources of dysfunction affecting today’s web:

1. Deliberate, malicious intent, such as state-sponsored hacking and attacks, criminal behaviour, and online harassment.
2. System design that creates perverse incentives where user value is sacrificed, such as ad-based revenue models that commercially reward clickbait and the viral spread of misinformation.
3. Unintended negative consequences of benevolent design, such as the outraged and polarised tone and quality of online discourse."

30 years on, what’s next #ForTheWeb? | Web Foundation

Social media polarises and radicalises – and MPs aren’t immune to its effects | The Guardian

Tangentially, see The Dalai Lama and Arthur Brooks: All of us can break the cycle of hatred | Washington Post

"What if using the WhatsApp messaging service means the European Research Group is in effect radicalising its Brexiter Tory members, so they egg each other on to take more and more extreme positions in pushing for no deal? What if groups on Facebook are giving people the chance to say things they wouldn’t consider saying aloud in public – so that members of the Tory party make overtly Islamophobic comments, leading to suspension? Or encouraging even the leader of the Labour party to post in support of retaining an antisemitic mural (he subsequently said: “I sincerely regret that I did not look more closely at the image”). What if being on Twitter leads to MPs who make provably incorrect statements to stick to them, because to admit error is to lose face publicly and – more importantly – with your peers? Or leads to others pushing Islamophobic content on Facebook?

The dynamics of closed groups have been understood for years. The clearest finding is that they tend towards the most extreme position of their participants, something known as “the law of group polarisation”, described in a seminal paper in 1999 by Cass Sunstein, then at the University of Chicago. As Sunstein observed, it “helps to explain extremism, ‘radicalisation’, cultural shifts, and the behaviour of political parties and religious organisations”. And, he added, “it is closely connected to current concerns about the consequences of the internet”– which was not then nearly as pervasive as it is now."

Social media polarises and radicalises – and MPs aren’t immune to its effects | The Guardian

Need a ‘safe’ place to wear your MAGA hat? A new app will help conservatives find one. | Washington Post

A different kind of filter bubble

""I thought, ‘Maybe this isn’t the right thing to do,’ " Wallace told The Washington Post in a phone interview Monday, referring to openly displaying his support for Trump. “That was very uncomfortable for me. I don’t want to be a nation where putting Che Guevara on a T-shirt … or wearing a MAGA hat … makes you a target.”

So he and two associates set out to develop something like a Yelp app, one that would evaluate establishments based on four questions:

- Does this business serve persons of every political belief?

- Will this business protect its customers if they are attacked for political reasons?

- Does this business allow legal concealed carry under this state’s laws?

- Does this business avoid politics in its ads and social media postings?"

Need a ‘safe’ place to wear your MAGA hat? A new app will help conservatives find one. | Washington Post

Tesla Raising Prices on Most Cars but Scales Back Store Closings | NYT

The simulation continues...

"Just days after announcing that it would close most of its stores, Tesla said late Sunday that it had decided to keep “significantly more stores open” than previously announced. The electric-car maker also said it would raise most of its vehicle prices about 3 percent worldwide.

The flip-flop on the fate of the sleek stores is the latest move by the upstart company that for a time was the most highly valued American car company, but which is now facing financial pressures."

Tesla Raising Prices on Most Cars but Scales Back Store Closings | NYT

Trump tells RNC donors: "The Democrats hate Jewish people" | Axios

But were they customized "MAGA" Faraday cages?...

"To prevent leaks from Trump's Friday night Mar-a-Lago speech to RNC donors, security guards made attendees put their cellphones in magnetized pouches that they carried around like purses until they left the club.

So leakers had to rely on their memories. Trump entered to Lee Greenwood’s "Proud to Be an American," then launched into one of his trademark stream-of-consciousness speeches, according to three people who were there. They said the crowd roared with laughter throughout."

Trump tells RNC donors: "The Democrats hate Jewish people" | Axios

How TikTok Is Rewriting the World | NYT

Also be sure to read the fine print about data privacy...

"In What Laboratory Was This Monster Made?

TikTok is far from an evolutionary fluke. Its parent company, ByteDance, recently valued at more than $75 billion dollars, bills itself first as an artificial intelligence company, not a creator of mission-driven social platforms. TikTok was merged with Musical.ly, a social network initially built around lip-syncing and dancing and adopted by very young people. It still carries a lot of Musical.ly’s DNA, and its app store reviews contain more than a little yearning for Musical.ly’s return. It was the defunct Musical.ly against which the Federal Trade Commission recently levied its largest-ever penalty for mishandling the private data of young users.

“ByteDance’s content platforms enable people to enjoy content powered by AI technology,” its website says. Its vision is “to build global creation and interaction platforms.” ByteDance’s wildly popular news and entertainment portal, Jinri Toutiao (translated as “Today’s Headlines,”) relies heavily on AI — not human editors, or a self-selected feed of accounts — to curate and create customized streams of largely user-and-partner-generated content tailored to each of its readers."

How TikTok Is Rewriting the World | NYT

Why a Plagiarism-Detection Company Is Now a Billion-Dollar Business | The Chronicle of Higher Education

A business model others are likely to copy -- check the full post for analysis

"Stamping out student plagiarism is big business. How big? $1.735 billion, to be exact. That’s the price that Advance, a privately held media, communications, and technology company, will pay to purchase Turnitin, the 800-pound gorilla of plagiarism-detection services. Although not the largest ed-tech deal ever made, it is, in the words of one analyst, “massive.”
So what does the deal, announced on Wednesday, mean for higher education and for education technology? We talked with a few ed-tech observers, as well as senior officers at Turnitin and Advance, to sort it all out."

Why a Plagiarism-Detection Company Is Now a Billion-Dollar Business | The Chronicle of Higher Education

Mark Zuckerberg Wants Facebook to Emulate China’s WeChat. Can It? | NYT

Later in the article: "WeChat, of course, has its own flaws. The messaging app is heavily censored because of requirements by the Chinese government."

"Developed by the Chinese internet giant Tencent in 2011, WeChat lets people message each other via one-on-one texts, audio or video calls. Users can also form groups of as many as 500 people on WeChat to discuss and debate the issues of the day.

While Facebook users constantly see ads in their News Feeds, WeChat users only see one or two ads a day in their Moment feeds. That’s because WeChat isn’t dependent on advertising for making money. It has a mobile payments system that has been widely adopted in China, which allows people to shop, play games, pay utility bills and order meal deliveries all from within the app. WeChat gets a commission from many of these services.

“WeChat has shown definitively that private messaging, especially the small groups, is the future,” said Jeffrey Towson, a professor of investment at Peking University. “It is the uber utility of business and life. It has shown the path.”"

Mark Zuckerberg Wants Facebook to Emulate China’s WeChat. Can It? | NYT

Facebook’s Privacy Cake | Stratechery

From a timely Stratechery Facebook reality check:

"Ultimately there are three broad takeaways from Zuckerberg’s article:
    • Stop expecting companies to act against their interests. Facebook isn’t killing their core business anymore than Apple, to take a pertinent example, is willing to go to the mat to protect user data in China.
    • Facebook is not an inherently bad actor. It is perfectly reasonable that the company can be instituting genuinely user-friendly changes like end-to-end encryption even as it furthers its own self-interests.
    • Relatedly, and most importantly, there needs to be much more appreciation for the anti-competitive trade-offs inherent in an absolutist approach to privacy. Facebook is doing what its fiercest critics supposedly want, and enhancing its competitive position as a result."

Facebook’s Privacy Cake | Stratechery

Tesla Swerves on Strategy, Trailed by Growing Doubts | NYT

Another test of the "It's 2019—people want to buy stuff online" theory...

"“Similar to our approach to selling vehicles, we are also shifting sales of our energy and solar products worldwide to online only,” Tesla said in a statement. It said the model would allow customers to save thousands of dollars.

But Allison Mond, a senior analyst at Wood Mackenzie, which tracks and supplies solar data for the Solar Energy Industries Association, said the move was likely to be counterproductive. “Online historically is not a very popular way to sell solar,” she said. “It really has not been proven.”

SolarCity, the predecessor to Tesla’s solar business, once controlled two-thirds of the residential market. By the end of last year under Tesla’s control, that share was under 10 percent. The latest move, Ms. Mond said, “just adds to the story that, I think, Tesla does not care about their residential solar business.”"

Tesla Swerves on Strategy, Trailed by Growing Doubts | NYT

Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg says he’ll reorient the company toward encryption and privacy | Washington Post

Mark Zuckerberg's "A Privacy-Focused Vision for Social Networking" post is a great case study in framing, combining a lot of widely known facts -- e.g., Facebook is a fan of end-to-end encryption, despite some difficult trade-offs; Messenger and WhatsApp are primary communication apps for a lot of people; public conversations can easily get out of control (e.g., see the inevitable mostly counterproductive comments on his post...); there are lots of communication contexts in which storing posts permanently by default is not ideal; it's better to not store user data in places where it can be abused by governments "with weak records on human rights like privacy and freedom of expression" -- with a narrative that appears to be optimized for future conversations with regulators.

"The moves — outlined in broad strokes rather than as a set of specific product changes — would shift the company’s focus from a social network in which people broadcast information to large groups of people to one in which people communicate with smaller groups and their content disappears after a short period of time, Zuckerberg said. Facebook’s core social network is structured around public conversation, but it also owns private messaging services WhatsApp and Messenger, which are closed networks

The announcement, in the midst of a crisis that Facebook is facing over the loss of public trust, comes with major risks and is also likely to be treated skeptically. Zuckerberg has promised to protect privacy before, but the company has landed itself in controversy after controversy. Many governments also oppose encryption, and Facebook may end up getting blocked in some foreign countries as a result of the move, a risk Zuckerberg acknowledged in his post."

Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg says he’ll reorient the company toward encryption and privacy | Washington Post

The difference between blockchain and a database explained | Computerworld

From a timely blockchain reality (or perhaps rationalization) check

"Because of those similarities, there are cynics (some may even call them pragmatists) who believe once you strip away the hype associated with blockchain and its cryptocurrency origins, what you have left is nothing more than a fancy, but slow and expensive, database.

The argument goes that many of the purported attributes of blockchain can be accomplished with conventional, tried-and-true technology. For instance, there are already hashing algorithms, digital signatures and public key infrastructure (PKI) available for use. If you need a traceable, verified audit trail, you can save your transactions to a database and then digitally sign the data, hash it and store that hash.

The difference: blockchain has all of those features in one place and it plays well with others."

The difference between blockchain and a database explained | Computerworld

How Amazon's Algorithms Curated a Dystopian Bookstore | Wired

Tangentially, see Amazon's online data use has been 'less dangerous' than Facebook's, says tech investor Roger McNamee | CNBC

"No major platform is immune to problems with gameable algorithms. But Amazon in particular—with its massive audience and extraordinary revenue—is remarkable for how little it has changed despite numerous investigations of quackery and review manipulation over the years. It simply ignores the problem and waits for the next press cycle.

Amazon has recently taken incremental steps toward curbing health misinformation, but primarily only when under significant pressure. The company responded to a letter from US Representative Adam Schiff (D–California) by pulling a few anti-vaccine documentaries from Prime Streaming. That’s a good start, but it’s not enough. The real-world impact of health misinformation makes the stakes too high and too important to ignore. Amazon needs to recognize that its ranking and recommendation engines have far-reaching influence—and that a misinformation pandemic can induce a different kind of virality."

How Amazon's Algorithms Curated a Dystopian Bookstore | Wired

Tim Berners-Lee still believes the web can be fixed, even today | CNET

For a related video, see Sir Tim Berners-Lee on how he came up with the World Wide Web and why your kids should code | Washington Post

"But he said he never anticipated how nation-states would use the web to influence elections and public discourse. After the 2016 US presidential election, he realized this was "not just about ... junk out there that you should ignore, but things that people believe" that have been "manipulated by some very clever and malicious people," he told the audience at the Post event.

He said it was at that point that he and the World Wide Web Foundation, which he'd created in 2009 to promote Internet accessibility and equality, had to take "a big step back" to "reconsider the web."

Now Berners-Lee says he wants to fix the problems ailing the internet, and he launched two major efforts in November to turn the web around. The first is the Contract for the Web, which he says will make the web more trustworthy and less susceptible to some of today's problems. The other is a new platform called Solid, which gives users control over their data."

Tim Berners-Lee still believes the web can be fixed, even today | CNET

Putin Wants His Own Internet | Bloomberg

Later in the article: "“Russia is moving in a similar direction as China,” Han said. “You don’t necessarily need to shut down the entire internet to quash political dissent. It’s smarter just to filter online content."" Also see A world and web divided | Axios

"Putin is touting the initiative as a defensive response to the Trump Administration’s new cyber strategy, which permits offensive measures against Russia and other designated adversaries. But industry insiders, security experts and even senior officials say political upheaval is the bigger concern.

“This law isn’t about foreign threats, or banning Facebook and Google, which Russia can already do legally,” said Andrei Soldatov, author of “The Red Web: The Kremlin’s Wars on the Internet” and co-founder of Agentura.ru, a site that tracks the security services. “It’s about being able to cut off certain types of traffic in certain areas during times of civil unrest.”"

Putin Wants His Own Internet | Bloomberg

Massive Database Leak Gives Us a Window into China’s Digital Surveillance State | EFF

Later in the article: "China, like many other state actors, may simply be willing to tolerate sloppy engineering if its private contractors can reasonably claim to be delivering the goods."

"Although relatively little news gets out of Xinjiang to the rest of the world, we’ve known for over a year that China has been testing facial-recognition tracking and alert systems across Xinjiang and mandating the collection of biometric data—including DNA samples, voice samples, fingerprints, and iris scans—from all residents between the ages of 12 and 65. Reports from the province in 2016 indicated that Xinjiang residents can be questioned over the use of mobile and Internet tools; just having WhatsApp or Skype installed on your phone is classified as “subversive behavior.” Since 2017, the authorities have instructed all Xinjiang mobile phone users to install a spyware app in order to “prevent [them] from accessing terrorist information.”

The prevailing evidence of mass detention centers and newly-erected surveillance systems shows that China has been pouring billions of dollars into physical and digital means of pervasive surveillance in Xinjiang and other regions. But it’s often unclear to what extent these projects operate as real, functional high-tech surveillance, and how much they are primarily intended as a sort of “security theater”: a public display of oppression and control to intimidate and silence dissent.

Now, this security leak shows just how extensively China is tracking its Xinjiang residents: how parts of that system work, and what parts don’t. It demonstrates that the surveillance is real, even as it raises questions about the competence of its operators."

Massive Database Leak Gives Us a Window into China’s Digital Surveillance State | EFF

Here are the data brokers quietly buying and selling your personal information | Fast Company

Check the full article for a data broker company index

"Thanks to a new Vermont law requiring companies that buy and sell third-party personal data to register with the Secretary of State, we’ve been able to assemble a list of 121 data brokers operating in the U.S. It’s a rare, rough glimpse into a bustling economy that operates largely in the shadows, and often with few rules.

Even Vermont’s first-of-its-kind law, which went into effect last month, doesn’t require data brokers to disclose who’s in their databases, what data they collect, or who buys it. Nor does it require brokers to give consumers access to their own data or opt out of data collection. Brokers are, however required to provide some information about their opt-out systems under the law–assuming they provide one."

 Here are the data brokers quietly buying and selling your personal information | Fast Company

Touching holograms with HoloLens 2 is amazing, but phone AR is way more fun | PCWorld

From a timely HoloLens reality check

"Microsoft clearly has designs to bring the HoloLens concept to the masses. Not only did Technical Fellow Alex Kipman decide to unveil it at the largest mobile electronics show of the year, he also invited Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney to the stage to announce that support for the Unreal Engine 4 that powers Fortnite is coming to the HoloLens platform.

So there’s a dream that HoloLens 3 or 4 may be a device affordable and accessible enough to sell to consumers. But at as it stands, the HoloLens platform has some work to do if it ever wants to be an Xbox companion. Even the simplest phone-based VR and AR applications offer immersive, 360-degree environments that transport you to new worlds and entice you to stay. The HoloLens 2's more limited scope takes a lot of the fun out of it."

Touching holograms with HoloLens 2 is amazing, but phone AR is way more fun | PCWorld

Tesla announces $35,000 Model 3, is closing its stores to pay for it | Ars Technica

"This car gets black paint and the as-yet unseen standard interior, which means manual (not power assisted) seat and steering adjustment, cloth trim, and a stripped-down audio system." Other colors available at an additional price; also $3K to turn on Autopilot ($4K if you opt to do so after delivery)

"However, these new, cheaper Teslas come at a cost. Tesla also announced that it is now moving to an entirely online sales model and will be shuttering most of its retail locations in the US. "Going to online only is incredibly helpful to us; in many parts of the US, we're unable to sell cars because of franchise laws. This substantially opens up our ability to buy cars. It's 2019—people want to buy stuff online," Musk said.

That means job losses. "There's no other way for us to achieve the savings required to produce this car and still remain profitable. There's no way around it," Musk said. However, when asked about the number or timing of job losses, Musk would not be drawn into details and dismissed the question as "not today's topic.""

Tesla announces $35,000 Model 3, is closing its stores to pay for it | Ars Technica

Facebook and Telegram Are Hoping to Succeed Where Bitcoin Failed | NYT

Later in the article: "Like Bitcoin, the new cryptocurrencies would make it easier to move money between countries, particularly in the developing world where it is hard for ordinary people to open bank accounts and buy things online. The current designs being discussed generally do away with the energy-guzzling mining process that Bitcoin relies on."

"The internet outfits, including Facebook, Telegram and Signal, are planning to roll out new cryptocurrencies over the next year that are meant to allow users to send money to contacts on their messaging systems, like a Venmo or PayPal that can move across international borders.

The most anticipated but secretive project is underway at Facebook. The company is working on a coin that users of WhatsApp, which Facebook owns, could send to friends and family instantly, said five people briefed on the effort who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of confidentiality agreements.

The Facebook project is far enough along that the social networking giant has held conversations with cryptocurrency exchanges about selling the Facebook coin to consumers, said four people briefed on the negotiations."

Facebook and Telegram Are Hoping to Succeed Where Bitcoin Failed | NYT

From 0 to 2m paid users in less than two years | Workplace News

From a Workplace by Facebook momentum update

"Workplace connects everyone in an organization – from the CEO to the newest recruit, from two people to 200,000+ – using familiar Facebook features like chat, video calling, posts, and groups, providing a simple and secure way for people to share knowledge, work together and build connected, meaningful communities.

In the past 12 months alone, Nestlé, Vodafone, GSK, Telefonica, AstraZeneca, Delta Air Lines, Kering, National Australia Bank and many others have connected their people on Workplace.

In fact, there are now more than 150 companies who have more than 10,000 users on Workplace. And in total, we're proud to serve over 2m paid users every month - with millions more connecting through our free product and via our Workplace for Good program for nonprofits."

From 0 to 2m paid users in less than two years | Workplace News