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### Content: When a Tesla factory worker is injured, medical staff are forbidden from calling 911 without permission. Instead, Tesla's contract doctors often insist that workers be sent in a Lyft, including one worker who partially severed his finger. Stephen Nelson was working on a Model X when the trunk door slammed down on his back. He says "I couldn't walk, I couldn't sit down. I couldn't even stand up straight," but Tesla doctors refused to call him an ambulance, telling him to take a Lyft instead. 911 calls are public records and first responders are required to report severe injuries but Lyft drivers are not. Anna Watson, a former Tesla physician's assistant, says that no matter what injuries a worker came into the clinic with, the staff was instructed to send them back to work full duty. She even had to send one worker back with a broken ankle. Watson herself sent Nelson back to work 4 days after his injury. 8 days after his injury, an outside clinic diagnosed him with "crushing injury of back," contusions and "intractable" pain. Workers injuries are often dismissed as being non-work related even if they are, and at one point, there was a blanket policy to turn away temps from receiving any medical treatment at all. Tracy Lee, a temp who developed a repetitive stress injury from lifting car parts by hand after a machine broke and was turned away by Tesla's clinic, says "I really think that's messed up. Don't discriminate just because we're temps. We're working for you." Watson, who was fired after raising concerns about worker treatment, says "You go to Tesla and you think it's going to be this innovative, great, wonderful place to be, like this kind of futuristic company. And I guess it's just kind of disappointing that that's our future, basically, where the worker still doesn't matter." ### Headline:
Inside Tesla's factory, a medical clinic designed to ignore injured workers (15 minute read)
### Content: TLDR Facebook knew more about Russian election interference than they let on, they're incredibly politically connected, and basically everything they've done in the past 2 years just leaked. Ok, so this was a huge New York Times investigation. While Facebook publically scoffed at Russian interference claims after the November 2016 election, Facebook's security team knew in Spring 2016 that Russian hackers were trying to get into Facebook accounts affiliated with both presidential campaigns, and later found more Russian Facebook accounts messaging journalists to share information about Hillary Clinton's stolen emails during the campaign. They hired a right-wing PR firm who helped them depict George Soros as being behind a broad anti-Facebook movement, and pushed out dozens of stories praising Facebook and criticizing Google and Apple on conservative news sites. After Tim Cook said that his company didn't traffic in personal data, Zuckerberg ordered his management team to stop using iPhones. Democrat Chuck Schumer of New York, whose daughter works at Facebook, has been a huge supporter. When Senators Mark Warner and Amy Klobuchar (both Democrats) introduced legislation to force Facebook and other tech giants to disclose who bought political ads on their sites, Schumer confronted Warner saying he shouldn't lose sight of the need for Faacebook to tackle problems with right-wing disinformation. Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg called Klobuchar, who is featured on the site for her women's empowerment initiative Lean In. Klobuchar's chief of staff had previously worked at Sandberg's charity. Facebook hired Warner's former chief of staff to lobby him. ### Headline:
Delay, Deny and Deflect: How Facebook's Leaders Fought Through Crisis (25 minute read)
### Content: So this is a Q&A with the guy who created Gmail. He left Intel because one day he thought "Man I am so tired. I need to go home and take a nap," but then he got home and realized "I'm not tired anymore". Working Intel was draining. He joined Google early. Larry Page got tired of different groups setting their own priorities, so he organized engineers onto specific projects. Paul was told "we want you to build an email something." So he built Gmail. He hates the big company vibe. An engineer at his Microsoft internship told him "Make sure they don't stick you off in a corner working on something unimportant." This is great advice. He ended up leaving Google because he went on paternity leave, he came back to realize he was getting the same draining Intel feeling, but this time at Google. He believes that the key to being a good engineer is "Doing it. Showing up seems to be the secret to getting good at most things." He doesn't recommend that all good engineers quit working at big tech companies to work at startups. "If getting paid less and working more is unappealing to you, then I would recommend staying where you are!" When interviewing at a company, make sure to choose one where interviewers ask smart questions. If they ask dumb trivia like "name the seven layers of the OSI stack", run the other way. People aren't happy because we've created a world where it's hard for people to be happy, and it's easy to sell people solutions for unhappiness. ### Headline:
Gmail Creator and YC Partner Paul Buchheit on Joining Google, How to Become a Great Engineer and Happiness
### Content: Anthony Levandowski, once a top exec in Google's self driving car program left to start his own autonomous truck company called Ottomotto in January 2016. A month later, the company was acquired by Uber for $600 million. Google needed a way to stop the deal, so they fished around Levandowski's old workplace activities. He had downloaded fourteen thousand files, including hardware schematics, transferred them to an external drive. Waymo (Google's new self-driving division) sued Uber in February of 2018 for stealing trade secrets. However, Levandowski's 14000 files weren't as damning as they seemed, the files were so unimportant Google had considered storing them outside of the company's own servers. Levandowski had been unpopular at Google, and was unpopular at Uber as well, he was fired soon after the case started, and Uber stated to the Jury "Uber regrets ever bringing Anthony Levandowski on board. All Uber has to show for Anthony Levandowski is this lawsuit." Even worse for Google, if they lost the case, the court might unseal the records and cause all the trade secrets to fall into the public domain. They had to settle for about $250 million in stock. What Google did get is now a fear that any employees that leave Waymo might find themselves the target of a lawsuit. Uber is still working on autonomous cars. Levandowski is considering starting another self-driving truck company. ### Headline:
Did Uber Steal Google's Intellectual Property? (20 minute read)
### Content: Since the Gates Foundation started in 2000, over a billion people have escaped the "extreme poverty" income bracket to live on more than $1.90 a day. However, the foundation is now warning that the progress of the past few decades could crash to a halt if more isn't done to help people stay in school and get enough to eat. While poverty in China and India is plummeting, poverty in sub-Saharan African countries is still creeping upward, and could skyrocket if current trends continue. The key to preventing this is helping women in those countries, who on average have 0.7 more children than they would like. Sue Desmond-Hellmann, CEO of the Gates Foundation, says "The worry, the peril is that more babies are being born in the places where it's hardest to live a healthy, productive life. By 2050, 86% of the world's extreme poor would be in sub-Saharan Africa." There are three keys to helping women in these countries: education (waiting to finish school before having a baby can have positive effects on the entire family that last decades), better farming economics (instead of subsistence farming where a family relies on their own farm for food, they should begin to specialize in a single crop, sell it at market prices, and use trade to acquire food for their families), and contraception. ### Headline:
The CEO of The Gates Foundation says we're approaching a dangerous tipping point in global poverty. We still have time to reverse it.
### Content: Kim Kataguiri is a Brazilian 22 year old who has just been elected to Brazilian Congress, he's part of a movement called Movimento Brasil Livre (MBL) that's sort of like the Brazilian Breitbart/Tea Party (right wing news/political party). MBL's Youtube channel has grown from 0 to 1 million subscribers this year, 40% of their revenue comes from Youtube ads, and they plan to have all of the group's members have their own Youtube channels. The group's other growth strategy is through WhatsApp memes (nearly all Brazilian internet users use WhatsApp). They study the ways Breitbart and the Tea Party have gained popularity in the United States and try to apply those lessons to Brazil. One MBL candidate who was just elected as a state representative rose to fame after he released a video of himself getting beaten up so badly by left wing protesters that he passed out on Youtube. He ended up getting 500,000 votes, in a state election where candidates usually get around 20,000. Right now MBL's main audience is between the ages of 13-24, and many of them still cannot vote. Until that voting bloc comes of age, MBL's plan is to be part of the Democrats, Brazil's right-wing party dedicated to economic liberalism and Christian democracy. ### Headline:
YouTubers Will Enter Politics, And The Ones Who Do Are Probably Going To Win (10 minute read)
### Content: Okay this story is crazy. In 2015, when Amazon was considering acquiring a company called Elemental which (among other things) sold these servers that were optimized for video compression. While doing their due diligence, they were inspecting a few sample servers when they discovered a tiny microchip the size of a grain of rice that wasn't supposed to be there. Amazon reports the discovery to US authorities, who launched a secret investigation. Turns out there is this company called Supermicro, a huge motherboard manufacturer, who is part of the supply chain for tons of companies including Amazon and Apple. Nearly all Supermicro motherboards are assembled by contractors in China, some of whom were bribed and/or coerced by Chinese spies (specifically a hardware hacker division of the People's Liberation Army) to plant tiny microchips inside the motherboards (some chips were smaller than a penciltip, they fit between layers of fiberglass). Overall it is believed that 30 US companies were compromised. Bloomberg reports in this article that Amazon (AWS) and Apple were both compromised, but both companies have denied the report very vehemently. The bigger takeaway here is that the US supply chain is hopelessly tied to China, and any step of this supply chain could be potentially compromised by foreign intelligence. ### Headline:
The Big Hack: How China Used a Tiny Chip to Infiltrate U.S. Companies (15 minute read)
### Content: This article is about sexual harassment by high level Google executives including Android creator Andy Rubin. Andy Rubin was having an extramarital affair with a woman, who claims that he "coerced" her into oral sex. Google investigated, and felt the claim was credible enough that Larry Page asked Rubin to resign, and gave him a $90 million severance package (Google had approved a $150 million stock grant for him just weeks earlier so this was a bit of a downgrade). Rubin denies that the sex was non-consensual. Rubin had previously had his pay docked for having porn on his work computer. In his 2015 divorce proceedings, his ex-wife provided evidence that he had multiple "ownership relationships" with other women, one of whom he emailed saying "You will be happy being taken care of. Being owned is kinda like you are my property, and I can loan you to other people." Richard Devaul, a director at Google X, told a female interviewee that he and his wife are "polyamorous", and invited her to Burning Man where he asked her for a back rub. She refused, so he settled for an awkward neck rub. She did not get the job. Amit Singhal a senior vice president in charge of search, groped an employee at an off-site event. He resigned and was given an exit package worth millions. ### Headline:
How Google Protected Andy Rubin, the 'Father of Android'
### Content: While on a trip to Chicago, Allie Conti had an experience that led to her discovering a nationwide Airbnb scam. 10 minutes before the allotted check-in time, the host called Conti and told her that the property she had booked was currently having issues with plumbing, and asked whether it was possible for Conti to move to a different property temporarily while the issue was fixed. The backup property was significantly different from the pictures the host had provided and was run down and dirty. After only staying one night, the host said that Conti had to change properties again as the next tenants who had booked the room was set to move in - the plumbing issue was still ongoing. Conti booked a hotel room and was only able to receive $399 out of the $1,221.20 she paid for the Airbnb room as a refund. The host requested a five-star review for the experience. Upon investigation of the host's profile, Conti found that they had fake profile images, fake reviews, and that other suspicious hosts had used the same photos for their listings. Conti discovered at least 94 properties in eight different cities that were linked to this network of fake accounts. Despite the potential for scamming, Conti concludes that Airbnb's easily exploitable system may still be cheaper than renting a hotel in the long run. ### Headline:
I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam on Airbnb (25 minute read)
### Content: Under pressure from Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg to monetize WhatsApp, WhatsApp cofounder Brian Acton pushed back against inserting targeted advertising and surveillance into WhatsApp. Eventually Brian felt the only choice was to leave the company, walking away from $850 million in unvested stock options. "It was like, okay, well, you want to do these things I don't want to do," Acton says. "It's better if I get out of your way. And I did...At the end of the day, I sold my company. I sold my users' privacy to a larger benefit. I made a choice and a compromise. And I live with that every day." Now Brian donated $50 million to and is actively working on Signal, a free messaging service with end-to-end encryption and no ad platform: basically a new, idealized version of WhatsApp. He's also put $1 billion into supporting healthcare in impoverished areas of the U.S. as well as early childhood development. This March, while the Cambridge Analytica scandal was breaking, he tweeted "It is time. #deletefacebook." He hasn't tweeted since. Great article, definitely worth reading if you have time. ### Headline:
WhatsApp Cofounder Brian Acton Gives The Inside Story On #DeleteFacebook And Why He Left $850 Million Behind (10 minute read)
### Content: Warner Music has purchased 600 short tracks on 20 albums that were created by an algorithm in a deal that has people debating about the future of music. Endel is an app that creates soundscapes based on personalized data, such as a user’s location, time, and the weather. All 600 tracks were created ‘with a click of a button’ using Endel’s algorithm, and the company even hired a third party to name the tracks. Warner Music is known for investing in AI music products. As the market for ambient music increases, it makes sense for music labels to try to dominate these genres, especially if they can do it cheaply and easily. ### Headline:
Warner Music Signed an Algorithm to a Record Deal — What Happens Next?Warner Music has purchased 600 short tracks on 20 albums that were created by an algorithm in a deal that has people debating about the future of music. Endel is an app that creates soundscapes based on personalized data, such as a user’s location, time, and the weather. All 600 tracks were created ‘with a click of a button’ using Endel’s algorithm, and the company even hired a third party to name the tracks. Warner Music is known for investing in AI music products. As the market for ambient music increases, it makes sense for music labels to try to dominate these genres, especially if they can do it cheaply and easily. )
### Content: America's freewheeling intellectual environment makes it particularly good at visionary research and moonshot projects. However, AI is now more about implementation than research, and here China's abundant data, hypercompetitive business landscape, and strong central government with great AI ambitions will give it a big advantage over the US. The US misunderstands each of these three dimensions. China's advantage in data comes not only from its larger population, but also from the amount of access companies and the government have to user data. For example, on WeChat, users can buy groceries, book doctor's appointments, manage their electricity and water utilities, and take out microloans. There are no US companies with that level of integration into users' lives. In Silicon Valley there is a sort of stigma about copying, but in China, they are much more pragmatic, with hundreds of copycats emerging the second a startup begins to find traction. Finally the Chinese government understands that AI's influence will be felt not only in the digital world but also the physical one. It is ready to embed sensors in roads, remove red tape in medical research, etc. to get ahead in the AI race. These are things that are harder to do in a two party state like the US, where any misstep can be ammo for the opposition party. ### Headline:
What China Can Teach the U.S. About Artificial Intelligence
### Content: Johns Hopkins neuroscientist Gül Dölen studies how the cells and chemicals in animal brains influence animals' social lives. Octopus brains have completely different architectures, "more similar to a snail" than ours says Dölen. They created an experiment to test the effect of MDMA (ecstasy) on octopuses. They had a tank with three chambers, put a toy in the far left chamber, put an octopus in the far right chamber, and put the test subject octopus in the middle chamber. They were testing how much time the subject spent with its fellow octopus as opposed to the toy. All five octopuses doused with MDMA spent much more time with their fellow octopus than they did when not on ecstasy. Dölen says they also behaved abnormally, "When they had MDMA, they had this very relaxed posture. They floated around, they wrapped their arms around the chamber, and they interacted with the other octopus in a much more fluid and generous way. They even exposed their [underside], where their mouth is, which is not something octopuses usually do." We last shared a common ancestor with them around 800 million years ago, and their brains have evolved independently from ours since then, but evidently we still share a few extreme similarities! ### Headline:
What Ecstasy Does to Octopuses
### Content: Earlier this year, one of Uber's self-driving Volvo SUVs struck and killed Elaine Herzberg in Tempe, Arizona. Now internal documents show that Uber's self-driving car team had disabled the car's emergency brakes and reduced the car's ability to swerve, because it wanted to show their new CEO progress in the form of a smoother rider experience. At the time of the accident, engineers knew the software was immature, and it was having trouble recognizing and predicting paths of pedestrians and wasn't always detecting objects within a couple of meters of it. One engineer says "This could have killed a toddler in a parking lot." Engineers describe a "toxic" culture, where the bonus structure incentivizes quickly hitting milestones with or without careful testing. A former engineer says "At ATG, the attitude is I will do whatever it takes and I will get this huge bonus. I swear that everything that drives bad behaviors was the bonus structure." Uber stopped testing their self-driving cars on public roads after the incident, but plans on starting up again in 2019. ### Headline:
Inside Uber before its self-driving car killed a pedestrian: sources describe infighting, "perverse" incentives, and questionable decisions (15 minute read)
### Content: Three new rovers are scheduled to launch to Mars in the summer of 2020, including NASA's Mars 2020 rover, Europe and Russia's Rosalind Franklin, and China's Huoxing-1. They are scheduled to land on Mars in 2021. NASA's Mars 2020 rover will be officially named next year, and it will carry components such as the Mars Helicopter Scout, the first human aircraft to fly on another planet. It will land in the Jezero Crater and build on Curiosity's findings. Europe and Russia's Rosalind Franklin rover is about a third of the size of Curiosity, and it will also focus on looking for signs of past life on Mars. Its target is likely a crater in a region called Oxia Planum. China's Huoxing-1 rover will be the nation's first mission outside the Earth-Moon system. The rover will probably be renamed before launch. It is the smallest of the three new-generation rovers, but its purpose is similar. Huoxing-1 will also be looking for biosignatures and signs of life on the Martian surface. China has not yet announced a final site for the rover. ### Headline:
Humanity Is Sending 3 New Rovers to Mars in 2020 to Look for Signs of Life
### Content: Thanks to TV shows, movies, hyper-partisan politics, and the news, a doomsday industry is booming, with people spending millions of dollars on survival readiness in preparation for the end of the world as we know it. People are building bomb shelters, making survival kits, and creating plans to survive scenarios like a zombie apocalypse, terrorist attacks, or other extreme events. Rich people are getting into doomsday preparation. People can rent speedboats in New York for a $6,000 a month retainer so that they can escape the city should anything happen. In South Dakota, there is a ranch that builds luxury bunkers. In Nebraska, a company teaches the rich self-defense skills. Rich people are more likely to be the targets of certain types of crime. Some wealthy individuals are spending their money on spreading awareness of climate change as their way of preparing for a brighter future. A missile launch center in Kansas was converted into a series of luxury condos that can withstand the shockwave from a nuclear explosion. While these purchases may never be used, they give their owners peace of mind in case anything ever happens. ### Headline:
The Rich Are Preparing For The Apocalypse Better Than You | VICE on HBO (14 minute video)
### Content: In 2016, Tesla bought SolarCity for almost $5 billion as a high-stakes move to dominate America's growing market for solar energy. Tesla planned to build 10,000 solar panels per day and install them in homes, creating 5,000 jobs along the way. While Tesla received a large subsidy from New York State, its solar panel business has yet to fulfill these promises. Walmart has recently sued Tesla for breach of contract due to gross negligence which resulted in fires at seven of its stores. SolarCity's business model involved fronting up costs of installation, which meant that it was constantly in need of cash and that profits would not be realized for years. Its acquisition by Tesla included nearly $3 billion of debt. Tesla wasn't able to fulfill its promises even after quietly renegotiating its factory lease terms with New York state officials. Payments on SolarCity debts are due soon, and Tesla will pay an annual fine of $41.2 million if it fails to employ enough people at its factory by April. ### Headline:
"He's full of shit": How Elon Musk fooled investors, bilked taxpayers, and gambled Tesla to save Solarcity (18 minute read)
### Content: This article contains predictions on what will happen in the next decade. The climate crisis will likely be to this century what the two world wars were to the previous one. It will require a re-allocation of capital that will result in cleaner energy and efforts to protect the environment. Automation will continue to lower the cost of production and services, and this will change how we work and distribute wealth. China will become the world's dominant superpower while the US becomes more internally focused and isolated. Cryptocurrencies will become the norm, and this will be led by China as the US and Europe will struggle with slow regulatory changes. A decentralized internet will emerge. Much of the world's food production will move to laboratories, with plant-based food diets becoming dominant by the end of the decade. Mass surveillance by governments and corporations will become normal, and new products will emerge for people to protect their privacy. A new generation will start dominating many institutions, meaning age and experience will be less valued by shareholders, voters, and other stakeholders. Progress in genetics will mean we start winning the fight against cancer and other terminal illnesses. Fertility and reproduction will also significantly change. There will be an era of genetic inequality and moral confusion. ### Headline:
What Will Happen In The 2020s
### Content: This progammer decided to take a month off from using all computing devices. He literally went out and bought a watch, a camera, a map, a compass, and a notepad. He was initially scared of being bored, but he found it was actually pretty easy to be entertained taking pictures, reading books, and travelling a bit. He came to the conclusion that digital technologies haven't changed the world, they've created a parallel world. He believes that the reason we are nervous and never have enough time is because we are now living two lives in these two separate worlds. He noticed that he felt his "personality dissolving" a bit, because in the analog world, he only had access to things that were popular (popular music, popular books, etc.) There is a long tail of hobbies and interests that the internet helps facilitate. He also lost a bit of motivation because seeing other people achieve great things always motivated him. He also gained an appreciation for social networks, people dismiss Facebook and Twitter as not being "real communications" but it really does help keep in touch with people across long distances. He thinks that month long breaks are too much, but if you want to try this, you can get a lot out of taking 2 weeks away from computers! ### Headline:
How a Month without Computers Changed Me (10 minute read)
### Content: Stephen Hawking's posthumously published book "Brief Answers To The Big Questions", warns about the rise of AI. He writes, "Whereas the short-term impact of AI depends on who controls it, the long-term impact depends on whether it can be controlled at all." In the worst case, he imagines a scenario, "People asked a computer, 'Is there a God?' And the computer said, 'There is now,' and fused the plug." He also warned about other disasters, saying its "almost inevitable that either a nuclear confrontation or environmental catastrophe will cripple the Earth at some point in the next 1,000 years." He believes we need to expand to other planets, to not have all of our eggs in one basket. He also warns about gene editing, saying that the wealthy elite with access to gene editing technologies will become "superhumans" while normal people will probably "die out, or become unimportant." While he does have a lot of concerns, he believes that in the best case we can expand beyond Earth, and "elevate humanity, bring people and nations together, usher in new discoveries and new technologies." ### Headline:
Stephen Hawking's final warning for humanity: AI is coming for us
### Content: Payment.co is an app built on top of the Stripe payment gateway to allow people to easily collect payments in person without barriers or card readers. It started in 2015 and currently processes $70 million in volume annually, taking in a 1% service fee on every charge. Ryan Scherf, the founder of payment.co, originally went to school to become a developer but transitioned later into design. In 2013, Scherf was approached by someone who had an idea for an app that was built on top of Stripe, and they launched Paid in 2013. After some success, Payment was launched. Scherf and his partner spent little on marketing or launching their product. They have since grown the company by building features based on customer feedback. Payment.co has no support team - Scherf does all of the support. There is still only one true employee in the company, but Scherf hires several contractors. Scherf's advice for other entrepreneurs is that there is no perfect time to start a company and that entrepreneurs should learn how to build products themselves, rather than saving money to get someone else to build it. ### Headline:
How I Created A $60K/Month App That Collects In-Person Payments Through Stripe
### Content: Jeffrey Berns is a lawyer turned crypto-millionaire who made hundreds of millions from investing in Ethereum. Now he wants to use that money to create a city run by the blockchain in the middle of the Nevada desert, complete with a high tech park, college, and e-gaming arena. He spent $170 million buying a huge tract of land larger than Reno, and has spent over $300 million in total on the project for offices, planning, and a staff of 70. He's going to give away all of the decision making power to a blockchain run by residents, and 90% of any dividends will go to residents, employees, and future investors. Every resident and employee will have what amounts to an Ethereum address, which they will use to vote on local measures and store their personal data. Construction will begin in 2019. Berns believes that his city will "either be the biggest thing ever, or the most spectacular crash and burn in the history of mankind. I don't know which one. I believe it's the former, but either way it’s going to be one hell of a ride." ### Headline:
A Cryptocurrency Millionaire Wants to Build a Utopia in Nevada
### Content: A startup called New Age Meats allowed a group of journalists and potential investors to taste its farm-free pork sausage. The pictures in the article look delicious, the sausage is actually made from fat and muscle cells generated from a single sample of a live pig named Jessie. A few things are preventing lab grown meat from getting mainstream adoption. Cost is a big one, the first cow cell patty cost $330,000 to produce in 2013, this cost is coming down quickly but it will still be 5-10 years before it is economically viable. Another is that most of these startups (including New Age Meats) are using fetal bovine serum (FBS), a standard and relatively inexpensive lab medium made from the blood of pregnant slaughtered cows to feed their cells. Eventually, the industry wants to move away from using this serum for ethical reasons. Finally, texture can get very complex for things like steak and chicken, it is much easier to mimic the texture of ground meat and sausage, doing steak or chicken could require much more advanced techniques. ### Headline:
We tasted the first lab-grown sausage made without slaughtering any animals - here's what it was like
### Content: The impact of the coronavirus on China's energy demand and emissions is only beginning to be felt, with CO2 emissions dropping significantly during and after the Chinese New Year holiday. Coal use is reporting daily data at a four-year low, oil refinery operating rates in Shandong are at the lowest level since 2015, levels of NO2 air pollution over China are down 36% compared to the same period last year, and domestic flights are down 70% compared to last month. Overall, the virus has contributed to reductions of 15%-40% in output across key industrial sectors, wiping out a quarter or more of the country's CO2 emissions over the past two weeks. Shutdowns of a week or more are not uncommon in China, and the reduction would only really reduce annual figures by around one percent, as emissions catch up rapidly after a shutdown. The only way for the reduced levels could be maintained is if there is less demand from China after restrictions are lifted. Many people and businesses have been affected financially due to the shutdown, and demand may drop significantly as things start to return to the new normal. ### Headline:
Analysis: Coronavirus has temporarily reduced China’s CO2 emissions by a quarter
### Content: Up until now, there hasn't been a need for more than 5 categories on the hurricane scale. However, due to climate change there is anywhere from 5% to 8% more water vapor in the atmosphere than there was a generation ago, and scientists are beginning to think there is a need for a 6th category, for storms with winds that exceed 200 miles per hour on a sustained basis. Jeff Masters, one of the most respected meteorologists in America, says "A 'black swan' hurricane – a storm so extreme and wholly unprecedented that no one could have expected it – hit the Lesser Antilles Islands in October 1780. Deservedly called The Great Hurricane of 1780, no Atlantic hurricane in history has matched its death toll of 22,000." He believes that another "black swan" hurricane is not only possible, but almost certain to occur more than once. Researchers believe that the Persian Gulf region has a particularly high risk for such a superstorm, while Cairns, Australia, and Tampa, Florida are also likely landing spots. ### Headline:
This is how the world ends: will we soon see category 6 hurricanes?
### Content: Amazon announced 11 Echo branded products. There is a new Echo Dot speaker for $50 that is 70% louder than the previous Echo Dot. Echo Input is a Chromecast Audio competitor, it doesn't have a speaker itself, but it plugs into other speakers and gives them Alexa capabilities (it does come with built in microphones). Echo Sub is a $130 subwoofer. Echo Plus is a $150 all in one speaker hub with a built-in temperature sensor. Amazon Smart Plug is a $25 dongle that helps you set up other Echo devices. Echo Auto is a $25 dongle that can connect to your car's audio either via Bluetooth or an auxiliary jack. Fire TV Recast is a $230 DVR. AmazonBasics Microwave is a $60 microwave. Echo Wall Clock is a $30 wall clock that has Alexa integration for no apparent reason. A new Echo Show is available, it's basically an iPad attached to a speaker for $230. ### Headline:
Amazon announces 11 new and refreshed Echo-branded gadgets—like a wall clock
### Content: Picnic, a Seattle startup, has created a system that makes custom pizzas with little human intervention. The device looks simple, but it is able to assemble up to 300 12-inch pizzas per hour. While machines have been making frozen pizzas for years, Picnic's robot is different in that it is small enough to fit in most kitchens, the recipes are easily changed, and the ingredients it uses are fresh. It still requires humans to prepare the dough, make sauces, and to bake the finished pizza. Picnic uses a camera to make sure that the ingredients are distributed evenly across the pizza. Restaurant owners can rent the device. Technology changes quickly, so many people don't want to buy a whole device only for it to be obsolete within a few years. While the machine has the potential to take over fast-food workers' jobs, restaurants have been having trouble filling in these positions anyway. More than 80 percent of workers in fast-food positions change jobs each year, requiring employers to constantly train new recruits. ### Headline:
Secretive Seattle startup Picnic unveils pizza-making robot — here’s how it delivers 300 pies/hour
### Content: A Hong Kong-based player has been fined his prize money and given a year-long ban after he voiced support for Hong Kong's protestors during a postgame interview. Blizzard also announced that the two commentators who appeared on the stream will no longer work with the company. Blitzchung, whose real name is Chung Ng Wai, said it was his duty to speak out about the Hong Kong protests, even though it could affect his personal safety in real life. Blizzard is a US-based company, but it has a partnership with China-based company Tencent. Tencent is also a partner of the NBA, who has recently faced backlash in China when Houston Rockets' general manager, Daryl Morey, tweeted in support of Hong Kong protestors. Rockets games will no longer be broadcasted on China Central Television or Tencent's platforms. Blizzard stands behind their decision, saying that Chung violated rules of the competition by offending a portion or group of the public or damaged the company's image. The company has disabled comments on its blog post announcing the ban. ### Headline:
California-based game company Blizzard bans pro esports player and confiscates his prize money after he voices support for Hong Kong protesters
### Content: Apple has announced the new range of iPhones. All the new iPhones have 5G capability. The new iPhone 12 has a new case design and it features Apple's A14 chip, two camera lenses, and magnets on its back. The iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max feature a LiDAR sensor that will give the phone better AR capabilities and better quality low-light images. They will also feature an additional camera telephoto lens aimed at serious photographers. The iPhone 12 Pro will have a 6.1-inch screen and start at $999, and the iPhone 12 Pro Max will have a 6.7-inch display and will cost $1,099 for the basic model. An iPhone 12 Mini was announced. It will have a 5.4-inch screen and will be priced starting at $699. The new iPhones won't include a charger or headphones in the box. A new MagSafe charger was announced that can charge the iPhone and Apple Watch at the same time. More announcements are in the article. ### Headline:
Here’s everything Apple just announced at its iPhone 12 event (10 minute read)
### Content: Mark Zuckerberg has laid out Facebook's approach to moderation in terms of an ongoing commitment to free expression, drawing a sharp contrast with Chinese companies that might not share those values. In his speech, Zuckerberg emphasized that Facebook’s commitment to free expression was coming under threat from China. If China continues to set the rules, the US' discourse could be defined by a completely different set of values. Concerns over Chinese censorship have been a hot topic due to the ongoing pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. A number of US companies have deferred to Chinese authority. Chinese platforms now form six of the top 10 platforms of all major internet platforms. Rules on platforms such as Tik Tok ban criticism of the Chinese government and censor events such as the May 1998 riots of Indonesia, the Cambodian genocide, and the Tiananmen Square incidents. Tik Tok has stated that they do not remove videos based on the presence of Hong Kong protest content. Zuckerberg poses the question of whether we will continue fighting to give more people a voice to be heard, or whether we are going to pull back from free expression. ### Headline:
Mark Zuckerberg took on China in a speech defending free expression
### Content: A startup called Ambrosia Medical that charges $8,000 to fill your veins with the blood of young people plans to launch its first clinic in New York City at the end of this year. In 2017, Ambrosia enrolled people in the first US clinical trial designed to find out what happens when the veins of adults are filled with blood from the young. While the results of that study have not yet been made public, Ambrosia CEO Jesse Karmazin told Business Insider the results were "really positive." Because blood transfusions are already approved by the Food and Drug Administration, Ambrosia's approach has the green-light to continue as an off-label treatment. So far, the company has already infused close to 150 patients ranging in age from 35 to 92 with the blood of young donors, aged 16 to 25. People in the trial paid $8,000 to participate. Other researchers say that there's no clinical evidence that this actually works. Theranos 2.0 anyone? ### Headline:
A controversial startup that charges $8,000 to fill your veins with young blood is opening its first clinic
### Content: Using imaging from Maxar, Google, and NASA, this article shows us views from 300 miles above Earth to help us see how our technological advances could put us at risk in the decades to come. This article displays before and after photos of areas to show how things have changed in the last decade. Apple's campus is now the shape of the dial on the original iPods. Thirteen of the largest buildings in the world were completed in Dubai during the past decade. China's influence has grown in the world, especially in the South China Sea. The levels of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere have risen, and three of the five most expensive weather and climate disasters in US history occurred in 2017. California's most destructive fire was the Camp Fire in 2018, burning nearly 14,000 homes and killing 85 people. Our planet's glaciers continue to melt away, losing up to 390 billion tons of ice and snow each year. Fukushima's nuclear plant disaster in 2011 killed one worker and cost nearly $120 billion. ### Headline:
A decade of change from 300 miles above
### Content: A YouTuber was able to use a neural network to upscale a very old, low-resolution, black and white video from 1896. The result was a clear 4K video that played at 60 frames per second. AI has been a hot topic in recent years, with the technology being applied to create technology such as autonomous cars. Denis Shiryaev used a mix of neural networks from Gigapixel AI and a technique called depth-aware video frame interpolation to improve the quality of the old video. The Gigapixel AI was trained to 'fill in' information in an image to upscale it and improve its quality. It is possible that the AI could introduce erroneous details, and it is much slower than conventional techniques. The network can be trained to colorize images and add in various missing patterns in objects like floors, windows, and vegetation. Some data scientists are attempting to create neural networks that can draw and paint. AI is getting so big that large tech companies are all racing to buy or invest in every new and obscure startup in the field. ### Headline:
YouTuber uses neural networks to upscale 1896 short film to 4K 60 fps
### Content: NASA's rules for preventing the spread of earthly microbes, as well as the spread of alien life on Earth, require rethinking, according to an independent agency advisory panel. Current rules are costly and some procedures do not make sense, considering the scientific knowledge we have gained since the rules were created. The Moon is classified as potentially of interest for research on the origins of life, but few scientists now see it as an important site for studying these questions, except for at its poles. Reclassifying the Moon as nonessential for biological studies would simplify exploration for space agencies. Mars has been treated as if microbes could survive on the planet, but many scientists now think that it is unlikely. Earth has been bombarded by meteorites that originated from Mars with no known biological harm in the past, so its guidelines for returning samples should be reviewed. NASA is not a regulatory agency, and commercial actors, for example, Tesla, have launched objects into space with no planetary protection evaluation in the past. Humans will eventually contaminate Mars, so research into water-rich regions should be explored as soon as possible. ### Headline:
NASA must rework planetary protection plans, panel advises
### Content: The Pixel 4 and Pixel 4XL have been officially announced at an event in New York City. It is now available for preorder and will ship on October 24th. There will be three new colors: white, black, and a limited-edition orange option. The Pixel 4 will have a 5.7-inch display at 1080p and start at $799, and the Pixel 4 XL will have a 6.3-inch Quad HD display and start at $899. Both devices will have a 90Hz max refresh rate, Qualcomm's Snapdragon 855 processor, and will come in either 64GB or 128GB storage with 6GB RAM. Google has developed its own face unlock system and an interaction method called Motion Sense, which allows the Pixel 4 to be controlled with hand gestures. The camera now has a telephoto portrait lens beside the standard primary rear camera. New software has also been added to improve photography features, and there is a new Recorder app that can transcribe text that can be searched. ### Headline:
Google announces Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL
### Content: Ibrahim Diallo, a freelance web-designer who was used to hopping from project to project, talks about his experience where he was offered a fairly easy project at a large company. The project involved designing a static HTML page, a job which he estimated would take him only a few hours, but the company also wanted his exclusive attention to the project. After quoting the company 20 hours, he then spent most of his time waiting for the work to be sent to him. The project ended up taking seven weeks due to delays in receiving the required materials to complete it. After everything was done, Diallo calculated that if he went with his original quote, $1,500 for a 20 hour project, he would’ve ended up being paid a total of $5.35 an hour. In the end, he quoted the company for $18,000, the same rate he originally quoted, accounting for the extended time. A manager wrote back breaking down the actual time he worked and it resulted in a quote of $21,000, which he was asked to confirm. Diallo quickly confirmed the quote. ### Headline:
I charged $18,000 for a Static HTML Page
### Content: The Federal Trade Commission has filed a lawsuit against Match.com alleging that the company connected non-paying users to fake accounts in order to get them to subscribe to the service. Non-paying users can't view or respond to messages, but are notified if they received a message. Many users would pay Match.com to view a received message only to find that the account that had sent the message was banned, or was soon to be banned. When users complained and requested refunds, Match.com denied any wrongdoing. The FTC found 499,691 new subscriptions that were linked to fraudulent communications between June 2016 and May 2018. Paid customers would have their messages reviewed for fraud before being notified, but non-paying customers were notified of every message, regardless of authenticity. The lawsuit also alleges that Match.com did not fulfill its promises to customers for a free six-month subscription if they weren't successful in using its service, and that the company purposefully made canceling the service incredibly difficult. ### Headline:
Match.com connected daters to fake accounts to boost subscriptions, US regulators say
### Content: Anthony Levandowski, one of the pioneers in self-driving car technology, has been charged with 33 counts of theft and attempted theft of trade secrets from Google. He has posted a $2 million bail and is currently required to wear an ankle monitor as he is deemed a flight risk. Disputes between companies and former employees are common in Silicon Valley, but criminal charges against a senior executive for theft is unusual. It is alleged that Levandowski downloaded more than 14,000 files containing critical information about Google's autonomous vehicle research in 2016, including schematics for proprietary circuit boards and designs for Lidar. Levandowski is due in court on September 4, and if he is convicted, he faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for every count of theft, plus additional restitution. His lawyers maintain that he did not steal anything in over a decade of being an industry-leading innovator in the field of self-driving car and truck technology. ### Headline:
Former Star Google and Uber Engineer Charged With Theft of Trade Secrets
### Content: SpaceX is requesting permission from the International Telecommunication Union to launch 30,000 more low-Earth orbit satellites to add to its Starlink broadband network. It already has permission to launch 12,000 satellites. The ITU coordinates spectrums to prevent signal interference and spectrum hogging. Starlink will provide gigabit internet speeds with latencies as low as 25ms. As of January 2019, only 8,950 satellites have ever been placed into orbit, with around 5,000 still in space. Only about 1,950 satellites in orbit are still functioning. If SpaceX continues with its plans to launch an additional 30,000 satellites, it would need to provide plans to minimize debris and prevent collisions. SpaceX plans for its satellites to burn up completely during atmospheric re-entry. Starlink could potentially provide full coverage of the populated world by 2020. ### Headline:
SpaceX says 12,000 satellites isn’t enough, so it might launch another 30,000
### Content: Two years ago, Apple dropped plans to let iPhone users fully encrypt iCloud backups after the FBI complained the move would harm investigations. The company did not want to be attacked by public officials for protecting criminals, sued for moving data out of reach of government agencies, or used as an excuse for new legislation against encryption. Last week, US Attorney General William Barr called Apple to unlock two iPhones used by a Saudi Air Force officer who had shot and killed three Americans at a Florida naval base last month. President Donald Trump added pressure, accusing Apple of refusing to unlock phones used by killers, drug dealers, and other violent criminal elements. Apple had provided the shooter's iCloud backups to law enforcement and rejected accusations that it had not provided substantive assistance. In the first half of last year, Apple provided full device backups or other iCloud content to US authorities for over 6,000 accounts for 1,568 cases. If Apple had continued plans to encrypt iCloud backups, it would not have been able to provide any data. ### Headline:
Exclusive: Apple dropped plan for encrypting backups after FBI complained - sources
### Content: Tesla just had its first profitable quarter since 2016, earning $311 million in profit. This is due mostly to the popularity of the Model 3 and Tesla's ability to fix its old production issues. There are still 455,000 people on the Model 3 waitlist (Tesla shipped 56,065 Model 3s this quarter). Due to an SEC settlement regarding Elon Musk's tweets, the company is still looking for a replacement chairman of the board. Tesla is also planning on opening a Gigafactory to build Model 3s in Shanghai in 2019 to avoid the 40% tariff caused by the US-China trade war. Elon Musk also said that he has signed off on the final prototype of the Model Y, a crossover SUV that Tesla plans on building in 2020. Musk says he's personally most excited about the Tesla pickup, which he claims will feature "some next level stuff". ### Headline:
Tesla rides Model 3's popularity to its first profit in two years
### Content: Nanotech tattoos have been developed over the past few years. They can signal changes in a person's biochemistry, warn wearers of radiation exposure, or detect the presence of UV light. A tattoo that warns users to wear skin protection if there is too much UV light uses a UV-activated dye inside of a plastic nanocapsule. The nanocapsule is required to keep the body from cleaning out the ink. After they are applied, the tattoos are invisible until they are exposed to UV rays, at which point they turn blue. The scientists are also working on temperature-sensitive inks to use as thermometers. Wearable temporary electronic tattoos can be used for sensing electrophysiological signals as well as for controlling mobile devices. They are much less permanent than traditional tattoos, but they can use battery-powered electronics. Little is known about the safety of normal tattoo inks as the US FDA doesn't regulate them. More research is needed to understand the long-term effects of implants in the skin. ### Headline:
Dynamic tattoos promise to warn wearers of health threats
### Content: Brain scanning technologies, merged with advancements in artificial intelligence, are expected to make lie-detection systems that are much more accurate than conventional polygraphs. People are only able to separate facts from fiction around 54 percent of the time, which is not much better than flipping a coin. Advancements in recent years include the rise in affordable computing power, brain scanning techniques, and AI. Some startups, wishing to gain investments or operate at a commercial level, want us to believe that an almost infallible lie detector is on the brink of discovery. The main technological advantage when working with AI is the ability to utilize vast amounts of data to make inferences which humans would miss. In this era of mass surveillance, with people’s personal lives existing online, it is scary to consider that entities such as governments or corporations would want to peer into one's innermost thoughts. No matter how good the technologies get, the liar that believes his/her own lies will still be protected from the technology. ### Headline:
The race to create a perfect lie detector – and the dangers of succeeding (21 minute read)
### Content: DoorDash has experienced rapid growth, serving all 50 states with an estimated 35 percent market share. The company is reportedly preparing for an IPO and has been valued at $12.6 billion. DoorDash was criticized last year for its controversial pay model, which included tips into delivery drivers' minimum payouts. It changed the pay model in September, and now workers are paid a minimum of $2 per delivery job and tips are paid on top of the calculated pay. How DoorDash calculates how much it pays workers per order is still unknown. It still presents the value of each listed job as a combined amount, obfuscating the amount that customers are actually tipping. DoorDash claims that workers earn an average of $18.54 per active hour on their platform, but do not specify how much of this amount is through tips. An independent analysis found that DoorDash workers may be working for as low as $1.45 per hour, with some jobs actually costing workers money after accounting for basic expenses. ### Headline:
No Free Lunch, but almost: what DoorDash actually pays, after expense — #PayUp
### Content: Last year, nearly 400 million people experienced dengue, a painful viral disease. An outbreak throughout Southeast Asia is guaranteed every rainy season. Previous efforts to control outbreaks have involved trapping infected mosquitoes. The World Mosquito Program is cultivating and releasing mosquitoes that have been infected with a bacterium called Wolbachia. Wolbachia occurs naturally in many insects, but it is not common in the mosquitoes that carry dengue. The bacterium can be passed down to future generations. It stops the mosquitoes from transmitting arboviruses such as dengue, chikungunya, yellow fever, and Zika. A 75 percent reduction in dengue cases was seen in communities where the Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes were released. The WMP deployed the infected mosquitoes in Brazil and saw a 70-75 percent reduction in cases of chikungunya. It is theoretically possible to use Wolbachia to wipe out dengue entirely. ### Headline:
Infecting Mosquitoes With Bacteria Could Have A Big Payoff
### Content: Tesla's Cybertruck will be joining Dubai's police fleet in 2020. A photo of a modified Cybertruck with the official livery of the Dubai police force was posted on the organization's Twitter account. Dubai's police fleet includes models like the Bugatti Veyron, Aston Martin One-77, BMW i8, Ferrari LaFerrari, Lamborghini Aventador, Lykan HyperSport, and many others. The Cybertruck is a purpose-built pickup truck with off-road capability, a futuristic design, seating for 6, and an electric powertrain that offers a maximum range of over 800 km. Its cabin has a 17-inch touchscreen interface, and its cargo bay is 6.5 feet long with a storage space of about 100 cubic feet. The pickup has a maximum towing capacity of 6,350 kg and a 0-100 km per hour sprint time of about three seconds. ### Headline:
Tesla Cybertruck To Join Dubai Police Fleet In 2020
### Content: Apple has announced its new suite of subscription services, with a focus on an advertisement-free experience and user privacy. All data regarding a customer’s viewing history will remain on the user's device and not shared with Apple or advertisers. Apple News Plus will open up a range of magazines and news subscriptions for $9.99, including family sharing, and is available now. The Apple Arcade gaming subscription service will let subscribers play a range of games across all of Apple's devices and will be available later this year at a yet to be disclosed price. Apple TV users will be able to subscribe to their preferred channels directly through Apple TV Channels, and Apple plans to bring original content to their devices through Apple TV Plus, however, there are not many details about this service besides a list of celebrities having signed on to create content for the platform. Finally, Apple has released a credit card with cash back benefits that will be stored in Apple Wallet, with the option of users obtaining a physical card if required. A seven minute video is available with the main highlights of Apple's keynote. ### Headline:
The 5 biggest announcements from Apple’s March event
### Content: CLIs are powerful, and text input is predictable and constant. While CLIs are efficient, users must memorize commands to fully utilize them. GUIs address many of these issues by making things easier to access and do, but they can become complex and programs can easily become bloated as developers try to cram features wherever they fit into the program. Many programs have become so cluttered that it is easier to search for commands using a text search than through navigating the GUI. Some popular products such as Voice Assistants are a balance between CLI-inspired inputs and GUI-inspired outputs. In order to make CLIs more approachable for users, they should be able to be used with a mouse, commands should be discoverable, and output should support rich and interactive media. Repl.it's CLUI is an easily extensible interface that blends GUIs and CLIs, where you can type in a command, and get suggestions for commands. It operates like a decision tree, guiding users to commands. Adding features is as simple as adding commands on the backend. A link to some of the code and a demo application is available in the article. ### Headline:
CLUI: Building a Graphical Command Line
### Content: Epic has just released its first look at Unreal Engine 5. It is an attempt at achieving photorealism on par with movie CG and real life while still being accessible to development teams of all sizes. A 9-minute demo video is available. Two core new technologies, Nanite and Lumen, will debut in Unreal Engine 5. Nanite allows artists to create as much geometric detail as the eye can see. Lumens is a fully global illumination system that can render diffuse interreflection with infinite bounces and indirect specular reflections in environments at scales ranging from millimeters to kilometers. Artists will be able to move a light inside the Unreal Editor and have it look exactly the same as the game when it is run on console. Unreal Engine 5 will be available in preview in early 2021, with a full release late in 2021. Games developed using Unreal Engine will now have their royalties waived on the first $1 million in-game revenue. The new Unreal Engine license terms are retroactive to January 1, 2020. ### Headline:
A first look at Unreal Engine 5
### Content: Li Wenliang, the doctor who tried to issue the first warning about the coronavirus outbreak, has died after contracting the illness. So far, the coronavirus has killed 636 people and infected 31,161 people in mainland China. The virus causes severe respiratory infection, starting with a fever, followed by a dry cough. Most people are likely to fully recover from the illness. Dr. Li made a post on Weibo after noticing seven cases of a virus that was similar to SARS. He was investigated by local authorities for spreading rumors and was accused of making false statements that had 'severely disturbed the social order'. Chinese social media has responded to Li's death by flooding social media with calls for the government to apologize for its treatment of Li, as well as for the right to freedom of speech. These posts were quickly censored. Many posts still discuss the topic indirectly, indicating the growing amount of anger and distrust towards the Chinese government. China has imposed heavy restrictions on its population in an attempt to control the virus. ### Headline:
Coronavirus kills Chinese whistleblower doctor
### Content: The Iranian government blocked access to the Persian desktop version of Wikipedia for 24 hours after a top advisor to Iran's Supreme Leader died from the coronavirus. The mobile version remained available. Twitter, Facebook, and other social media sites remain restricted as the government seeks to control the spread of information. All Friday prayers in provincial capitals have been canceled in the country as it faces the deadliest outbreak of the disease outside of China. Iran now has 2,922 confirmed cases and 92 deaths. 23 of the country's lawmakers have been infected with the virus. There are rumors that Iran's official figures are false and that many more people have died. The Iranian police have arrested 24 people and warned a further 118 internet users for spreading rumors about the coronavirus online. Iran is deploying hundreds and thousands of health workers across the country to stop the outbreak. 54,000 prisoners have also been temporarily released from jail on bail in order to halt the spread of the virus. ### Headline:
Iran's Answer to the Coronavirus Outbreak: Cut the Internet
### Content: More than 1,100 Google employees joined together to publish an open letter to Googles chief financial officer, Ruth Porat, to demand that the company create a stronger plan to address climate change. The letter urges Google to put its users first, and that it should stop offering cloud computing services to oil-related companies. Google's services include using AI-powered algorithms to help these companies identify new oil extraction sites. The letter also demands that Google stop funding conservative trade groups, that it should aim to generate zero carbon emissions by 2030, and that it should stop any collaborations that involve the mistreatment of refugees. Google has declined to comment on the letter. It has previously made statements about its efforts to achieve environmental sustainability. Amazon employees have also recently called on Amazon to phase out fossil fuel use and cut out all cloud computing contracts with the oil and gas industry. The company has responded by purchasing more electric vehicles in order to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2040 but has declined to cut its cloud computing contracts. ### Headline:
Google Workers Demand Company Cut Contracts With Oil Industry
### Content: Bad sanitation kills 525,000 children per year and costs over $223 billion per year in lost wages and extra healthcare. Bill Gates has invested $200 million into developing a toilet that doesn't require a central sewage system to operate, and the first prototypes are here. One developed at Caltech extracts clean water from human waste and reuses it for future flushing. The University of South Florida's NEWgenerator uses feces-digesting anaerobic bacteria. Cranfield University's toilet burns waste in the toilet's combustor to create energy. None of the toilets are cheap enough for widespread use, but Bill Gates wants to spend another $200 million developing the second generation of toilets, and eventually hopes to get these toilets into 4.5 billion homes around the world. Gates said, "A decade ago, I didn't think I would be able to tell you so much about poop." ### Headline:
Bill Gates is obsessed with redesigning the world's toilets
### Content: Last Thursday morning, SEC officials were shocked when Tesla pulled out of a settlement deal for the fraud charges against Elon Musk from his "funding secured" tweet, in which he had falsely claimed that he had funding secured to take the company private. Elon had given the board little choice, he had threatened to resign on the spot if the board entered into the settlement. After the stock plunged 14% last Friday, Tesla came crawling back to the SEC, this time with Elon's approval. They came to a less favorable settlement, in which Elon would be forced to step down as Chairman of Tesla, and the company and Elon personally would both pay $20 million a piece. Elon has 45 days to step down, in the meantime Tesla is looking for a new chairman. They haven't made a decision yet, but there are rumors that they are looking at James Murdoch, CEO of 21st Century Fox. ### Headline:
Elon Musk's Ultimatum to Tesla: Fight the S.E.C., or I Quit
### Content: Samsung Electronics will be showcasing five innovative projects from its C-Lab Inside program and products from four start-ups participating in its C-Lab Outside program at CES2020. C-Lab Inside is an in-house incubation program that encourages Samsung employees to develop innovative ideas. The C-Lab Inside projects to be unveiled this year focus on creating a convenient and healthy lifestyle. They include a virtual keyboard solution, a smart highlighter pen, a home care solution for scalp treatment and hair loss prevention, a window-shaped artificial sunlight, and an ultraviolet monitoring sensor and service. C-Lab Outside is a startup acceleration program that provides startups with financial support, business collaboration, and opportunities to participate in global IT exhibitions. This year, C-Lab Outside will showcase a companion robot, a healthcare data-based ICT service, a gesture control technology, and a multi-party video call service. ### Headline:
Samsung Electronics to Showcase Successful ‘C-Lab Inside’ Projects and ‘C-Lab Outside’ Start-ups at CES 2020
### Content: Apple unveiled a new 13.3-inch retina Macbook Air at $1,199 for a 128GB model and $1,399 for a 256GB model. Both models will have USB-C ports and fingerprint Touch ID. There is a new 11-inch iPad Pro starting at $799 as well as an updated 12.9-inch iPad Pro starting at $999. Both new iPads will have USB-C ports, liquid retina displays, Face ID, and will let you charge your iPhone through your iPad. The most expensive model has 1TB storage, cellular connectivity, and costs an insane $1,899. Apple also updated the Apple Pencil stylus which lets you write on your iPad, it will cost $129 (the previous generation cost $99). There is also a new Mac Mini with 4 USB-C ports. The base model starts at $799, whereas the previous generation base model was only $499. ### Headline:
Everything Apple just announced at its Mac and iPad Pro event
### Content: Okay, I love this article. It's about a number of programmers, mostly posting anonymously or pseudonomously in various online forums or chatrooms about having completely automated their jobs. Some people think it is completely okay to not tell your boss, and keep collecting the same paycheck, after all you are doing the same work you were paid for before. Others feel like this is dishonest. Some programmers report having been fired when it was discovered that they had essentially automated themselves out of a job. One guy knew that management would monitor his screen, so he ran a loop of prerecorded video to hide the fact that he wasn't actually working. Lots of fun stories here. There is also the larger question of who should enjoy the fruits of automation. Despite more and more processes being automated by computers, Americans are working longer hours, wages are stagnant, and all of the gains in productivity are being taken by companies. It is only in these tiny unnoticed cases in which the workers are enjoying the fruits of automation. ### Headline:
The Coders Programming Themselves Out of a Job
### Content: China's new ZKZM-500 laser assault rifle is able to burn through human skin and ignite flammable targets from a kilometer away. The US military has recently developed large laser-firing cannons designed for ships or trucks, but laser rifles are still out of reach. China says that the Chinese police will use the weapon in its anti-terrorism operations. The weapon weighs about three kilograms and is powerful enough to burn through a gas tank and ignite the fuel inside. It is entirely silent and the beam is invisible. At around $20,452 per rifle, the weapon is relatively inexpensive, considering that it will not need additional ammunition as it runs on batteries. The United Nations' Protocol on Blinding Laser Weapons bans weapons specifically designed to cause permanent blindness, but there are no mechanisms for enforcement. A promotional document on a Chinese government website discusses the weapon's potential use against protestors. ### Headline:
China Claims To Have A Real-Deal Laser Gun That Inflicts 'Instant Carbonisation' Of Human Skin
### Content: The Mashambas Skyscraper in Africa is a new concept for a skyscraper designed to serve as a farm, an education center, and a community center all in one. 70 percent of the African population lives in rural areas, practicing subsistence farming and barely making $2 USD a day. The Mashambas Skyscraper aims to train subsistence farmers in modern farming techniques in order to improve harvests and help the farmers pull themselves out of poverty. The design won the eVolo skyscraper competition, beating out over 400 other designs. One of the most unique features of the design is that it is moveable. The skyscraper can exist in a location for a period of time and then be rebuilt in a new location, leaving the base layer to serve as a marketplace for villagers. By providing farmers with tools, resources, and education, the Mashambas Skyscraper has the potential to promote long-term sustainable farming and improve crop yields. ### Headline:
This Incredible Skyscraper Is Also a Farm That Can Feed a Village
### Content: Tim Cook won't let his nephew join social networks. Bill Gates banned cellphones for his kids until they were teenagers, and Melinda wished they had waited even longer. Steve Jobs wouldn't let his young children near iPads. Former editor of Wired, now CEO of a robotics company Chris Anderson says "On the scale between candy and crack cocaine, it’s closer to crack cocaine...This is going straight to the pleasure centers of the developing brain. This is beyond our capacity as regular parents to understand." The sentiment is pervasive enough that one Google engineer that lets his 3-year-old play with an iPad says that he feels there's a "stigma" against it. In one interesting case, an executive only lets his daughter watch Italian language videos in order to help her learn the language. In any case, it seems like there is a reckoning in Silicon Valley as executives and engineers caution their kids against using the addictive and manipulative products that they have created. ### Headline:
A Dark Consensus About Screens and Kids Begins to Emerge in Silicon Valley
### Content: Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, has launched a global action plan to save the web from political manipulation, fake news, privacy violations, and other forces that threaten to turn the world into a digital dystopia. The Contract for the Web outlines nine central principles to safeguard the web from abuse and ensure it benefits humanity. It has the backing of more than 150 organizations, including Microsoft, Twitter, Google, and Facebook. The contract requires governments to ensure that people have access to the internet and have their privacy respected, including having access to personal data and the right to object or withdraw from having that data processed. Companies are required to make internet access affordable, accessible, and to allow customers to control their privacy. They are also required to diversify workforces, consult broad communities regarding their products, and assess the risk of their technology's potential to hurt people or spread misinformation. Individuals are requested to create rich and relevant content, provide strong online communities, and to fight for the web. ### Headline:
Tim Berners-Lee unveils global plan to save the web
### Content: Apple's new 16-inch MacBook Pro has launched at a starting price of $2,399. It has new processors, better speakers, and a larger screen. Apple has gone back to scissor switches for its keyboards. The new MacBook Pro is excluded from Apple's extended keyboard repair program. Apple has redesigned the thermal system in the new laptops. Users can spec their machines up to 64GB of RAM and 8TB of SSD storage. The battery is supposed to be able to handle 11 hours of wireless web. A new 6-speaker sound system uses two force canceling woofers to allow for more bass with less distortion. It uses a three-microphone array that is supposed to have sound on par with USB-powered podcasting mics. Despite the larger screen, the laptop size is almost identical to the 2015 15-inch MacBook Pro. It has only four Thunderbolt 3 ports and a headphone jack. ### Headline:
Apple’s 16-inch MacBook Pro is here, and it has a good keyboard
### Content: Robinhood experienced a second day of outages, keeping clients from being able to trade on a historic market rally. The issue was reported as fixed by Tuesday afternoon. Tuesday's stock session was volatile after the Federal Reserve cut interest rates in an effort to stem slower economic growth due to the coronavirus outbreak. Robinhood was last valued at $7.6 billion and has around 10 million users. Some users have threatened Robinhood with a class-action suit, but the company stands behind its customer agreement which says that the platform isn't responsible for any temporary interruptions as the company doesn't warrant that servers will be available and error-free every minute of the day. Despite this, Robinhood expects there to be class-action lawyers launching nuisance lawsuits. As a broker-dealer, Robinhood is required by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority and the Securities Exchange Commission to have a backup plan in case something like this happens, so it might still face consequences from these organizations. ### Headline:
Trading app Robinhood experiences ‘major outage’ for a second day amid heavy volume market action
### Content: Two videos of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) President Manoj Tiwari criticizing the incumbent Delhi government went viral on WhatsApp on February 7, a day ahead of the Legislative Assembly elections in Delhi. One of the videos was a deepfake, a video created with tools that can fabricate visual and audio content to make it seem real. The Delhi BJP IT Cell partnered with a firm to create positive campaigns using deepfakes in order to reach different linguistic voter bases. Many experts believe that deepfakes will be used to take the ongoing war on disinformation and fake news to a whole new level. Many popular deepfake videos are complete face swaps, but a more subtle version exists which only alters lip movements to match target audio. As more deepfake material is created, more of it will bypass fact-checking and inevitably some will start spreading misinformation. This can be especially damaging in countries where technological literacy is low. ### Headline:
We've Just Seen the First Use of Deepfakes in an Indian Election Campaign
### Content: Many things have changed since the 1990s, especially in our quality of life. It is difficult to see how new things change our lives when they first come out, but one can see the impact of an invention by looking back at their downstream effects. Many small inventions have added up to create the lives that we live in today. The internet, human genetics, AI, and VR now exist, and many small changes have made everything faster, more easily usable, and more organized. People no longer need to carry around a lot of equipment to do basic tasks - in fact, almost all machines are now smaller and much more convenient, for example, hearing aids. We wear better clothes, with specially designed fabrics. Medical procedures that used to be out-of-reach for average citizens are now affordable, for example, LASIK surgery. Society is now a lot safer and interconnected. Food is widely available in many places, and food quality and cleanliness are high. Most public places now have smoking restrictions. ### Headline:
My Ordinary Life: Improvements Since the 1990s (10 minute read)
### Content: Apple has reported an all-time record quarter for revenues and earnings. It credited its services, wearables, and its newest iPhones for the performance. There are now over 1.6 billion Apple devices actively used around the world. Apple had warned investors that its first-quarter revenue for 2019 would be weaker than expected due to lower demand from China. Since then, Apple stock has more than doubled. Apple no longer publishes unit sales for its devices, but it is estimated that iPhone revenue was worth $55.96 billion and AirPods sales were worth about $6 billion. Services were worth around $12.7 billion to the tech giant. While Apple did not publish Apple TV Plus subscriber numbers, Tim Cook has noted that the service was off to a rousing start. Apple sold around $10 billion worth of wearables in the quarter. The recent coronavirus outbreak has caused Apple and other retailers to close their stores, affecting potential earnings for this quarter. ### Headline:
Apple's AirPods Pro, services deliver a record holiday for the iPhone maker
### Content: Viagogo has agreed to buy StubHub from eBay for $4.05 billion. The sale is pending regulators' approval and customary closing conditions. eBay originally purchased StubHub in 2007 for $310 million. Viagogo founder and CEO Eric Baker was a co-founder of StubHub. Baker claims that the deal is a win-win situation for both customers and vendors. eBay CEO Scott Schenkelsaid has stated that the company believes that the sale of StubHub was a great outcome and that the sale maximized long-term value for eBay shareholders. StubHub and Viagogo has been under regulatory scrutiny in recent years. Both StubHub and Viagogo offices were raided by the UK's competition watchdog officials in 2017 as part of an investigation into suspected breaches of consumer law. The Competition and Markets Authority has since suspended plans for legal action against Viagogo. ### Headline:
eBay is selling StubHub to Viagogo for $4.05 billion
### Content: The SEC is suing Elon Musk for fraud due to his "funding secured" tweet regarding taking Tesla private at a price of $420 per share in August. Among other remedies, the SEC is seeking to bar Musk from serving as an officer or director of a publicly traded company if found guilty. The SEC suit alleges, "According to Musk, he calculated the $420 price per share based on a 20% premium over that day's closing share price because he thought 20% was a 'standard premium' in going-private transaction. This calculation resulted in a price of $419, and Musk stated that he rounded the price up to $420 because he had recently learned about the number's significance in marijuana culture and thought his girlfriend 'would find it funny, which admittedly is not a great reason to pick a price.'" Tesla's board issued a statement Thursday evening saying they are standing behind Elon. ### Headline:
SEC charges Tesla CEO Elon Musk with fraud
### Content: The movement to 'no code' has gained momentum over the last couple of years. No code is an ideal where business logic, and even entire applications, can be written without having the training of a software developer. Software developers can be expensive, and the work that is outputted is usually slow, highly variable, and requires ongoing maintenance. The need for software is clear, but developing it is expensive and risky. While the idea of being able to create software using business logic in plain language form sounds great, there are some fundamental flaws with the concept. Programming languages have been attempting to simplify programming since early in the industry, but the reality is that abstract code is required for many applications. Simple syntax removes a lot of expression and flexibility. Many programs can change 'coding' into a series of configurations, but these programs have very specific applications and are not suitable for general use. They also take away a lot of flexibility with the logic. 'No code' will still have its uses, such as putting together proof-of-concepts for projects, but it is likely that software developers will still be needed for most software development scenarios. ### Headline:
Why “No Code”?
### Content: Recently, electric scooters, bikes, skateboards, and other one or two-wheeled self-balancing boards have emerged as alternative forms of transportation. Cars are often inefficient, getting stuck in traffic, not to mention the high costs of storage and upkeep for an often dormant, depreciating asset. Citroën has unveiled an 8-foot mini electric car with an 8-horsepower motor and a top speed of 27.9 miles per hour. It is technically classed as a quadricycle under French law, so anyone over 14 can drive one without a license. Its travel range is 43 miles, and it takes three hours to charge. The vehicle is only $6,700, or customers can choose to lease it for $5.67 a week after a $3,000 down payment. Ami will roll out in France in June, and it will be available later in Italy, Portugal, Belgium, and Germany. ### Headline:
This Electric Tiny Car Can Be Rented for the Price of an Electric Scooter
### Content: Expedia will fire about 12% of its workforce in an effort to streamline and focus its business. Executives sent a company-wide email saying that the company had been pursuing growth in an unhealthy and undisciplined way. Chairman Barry Diller said the company was aiming for $300 to $500 million in annual cost savings following the release of Expedia's fourth-quarter earnings report earlier this month. Expedia reported $12 billion in revenue in 2019. The company expects a $30 to $40 million in losses due to the coronavirus outbreak. Expedia has recently changed leadership after former CEO Mark Okerstrom and CFO Alan Pickerill abruptly resigned on December 4. Shortly after taking over as CEO, Diller said that Expedia was a 'bloated organization' and was too complex. He felt that employees lacked discipline and direction, and aims to bring focus back to the company. ### Headline:
Expedia cuts 3,000 jobs, including 500 at new Seattle HQ
### Content: A lot of cancer research is focused on causing the death of cancer cells while leaving the healthy cells intact. New nanoparticles have been developed that work like Trojan horses, sneaking ions into cancer cells and causing them to die. The nanoparticles also show potential as a vaccine to guard against recurrence. Cancer cells are vulnerable to sodium ions, but their cell membranes are able to ensure that excess sodium ions are kept outside of the cell. The nanoparticles are able to disguise sodium ions so that they can pass the cell membranes undetected. Once inside the cells, the sodium and chloride ions cause the cell membrane to rupture, inducing cell death and triggering an immune response in the body to fight off other pathogens. The nanoparticles turn into salt once they degrade. In a mice study, the nanoparticles were able to suppress tumor growth by 66 percent compared to a control group, without any side effects to major organs. ### Headline:
Salty nanoparticles slip into cancer cells to wreak destruction
### Content: In late 2018, the people of Sudan started protests which eventually resulted in the country's ruler blocking social media in the country. Eventually, the protests led to violence and a real internet shutdown. Citizens remained at home during the blackout as they had no way of knowing which locations were safe without internet access. One citizen took his cellular provider to court, saying that the lack of internet access was a breach of his service contract, and the court switched mobile internet back on, but only for him. Internet shutdowns are new and a rare occurrence and legal systems have not developed processes to handle these scenarios. Services are also run by people, and some of these people disagreed with the government and helped reconnect citizens as a form of protest. Five days after the blackout began, landline access was restored as the government realized the need for communications. Despite the internet block, the people of Sudan were able to organize the biggest demonstration in the history of Sudan. As a result, the government was removed and the internet was restored. ### Headline:
Anatomy of an internet shutdown (16 minute read)
### Content: Apple users who have updated to iOS 12.4 will now be able to sign up for the Apple Card. Users can apply for the card directly from their iPhones, and the card will be automatically added to their Apple Wallet. A physical titanium card is available upon request. Apple's Daily Cash cashback rewards will give users 3 percent cashback on Apple purchases, 2 percent cashback on any purchases made using Apple Pay, and 1 percent cashback on purchases made with the titanium card. The 3 percent cashback will be available for some popular merchants when users pay with Apple Pay, starting with Uber and Uber Eats. Apple will never see customers' transaction histories. However, Goldman Sachs, the issuing bank, will see transactions to manage fraud and other purposes. Goldman Sachs has promised it will not use the data for marketing and advertising, and the information will not be shared with third parties. ### Headline:
Apple Card now available to all iPhone users in the United States, 3% cashback for Uber and Uber Eats
### Content: Jammu and Kashmir, an area where 12.5 million people live, is being claimed by both India and Pakistan. The tensions have now brought everyday transactions, family communications, online entertainment, and the flow of money and information to a halt. Internet and phone services have been unavailable for over 11 days, causing activity in the region to stop. Pharmacies are unable to restock supplies, vital supplies are running low in shops, cash is becoming scarce, and doctors are unable to communicate with patients. While Prime Minister Narendra Modi has promoted the rapid adoption of the internet in the country, the country is also the world leader in shutting down the internet. Last year, India blocked the internet 134 times, compared with 12 shutdowns in Pakistan. Many businesses are suffering and people are unable to continue with their lives. It is unknown how long the shutdown will continue, and it is rumored that the continued tensions have escalated to violence in some areas. ### Headline:
India Shut Down Kashmir’s Internet Access. Now, ‘We Cannot Do Anything.’
### Content: Elon Musk fired "at least seven" senior managers at SpaceX because he was unhappy with the pace of development on Starlink, SpaceX's project to deliver internet via low orbit satellites. Elon Musk says "It would be like rebuilding the Internet in space. The goal would be to have a majority of long-distance Internet traffic go over this network." The program is struggling to hire and retain staff, and Musk is frustrated with the long development schedules. An anonymous source said "Rajeev wanted three more iterations of test satellites. Elon thinks we can do the job with cheaper and simpler satellites, sooner." The goal is to initially launch satellites in mid-2019 and have internet service available by 2020. The company is counting on revenue from this service to build rockets to go to Mars. One SpaceX employee says "There had to be a much bigger idea for generating cash to basically realize the Mars plans. What better idea than to put Comcast out of business?" ### Headline:
Musk shakes up SpaceX in race to make satellite launch window
### Content: A group has created a bunch of shell companies, bought up popular Android apps, then used their access to those apps to create bots that emulate real users in order to generate fake ad impressions. It's estimated that this scheme has defrauded advertisers of hundreds of millions of dollars. The scheme was uncovered when one of the apps, MegaCast, was found to be using a different app's ID to solicit advertisers (it was claiming to be a more popular app called EverythingMe, advertisers would bid to have their ad shown in EverythingMe, but instead their ad would be shown in Megacast). When journalists dug deeper into the issue, they discovered a network of over 60 apps. These apps were owned by different shell companies, but the companies were tied together because many of them listed the same addresses, phone numbers, support emails, and employees on LinkedIn. Google has pulled the apps from the Play Store. ### Headline:
Apps Installed On Millions Of Android Phones Tracked User Behavior To Execute A Multimillion-Dollar Ad Fraud Scheme (15 minute read)
### Content: In 2014, Ruth Johnson received around 20 threatening phone calls from John Edens, a debt collector who was posing as a US Marshal. Eden had obtained exact location data from T-Mobile, allowing him to stalk Johnson at her home and place of work. Johnson had owed payments on a car, and after being harassed, she returned the car to the dealership and moved neighborhoods, wanting to avoid any more trouble. Edens had obtained location data of 14 different T-Mobile numbers using a technique that other people had been successfully using with various providers. Until recently, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, and Verizon were selling their customers' location data to data brokers, who would then sell the data to bounty hunters. A spokesperson from T-Mobile said that the company has a specialized legal team that reviews each emergency request. Edens was sentenced to one year in prison for impersonating a US officer. ### Headline:
T-Mobile ‘Put My Life in Danger’ Says Woman Stalked With Black Market Location Data
### Content: Apple has launched the AirPods Pro, a premium version of its wireless earbuds featuring noise-canceling. The earbuds only come in white. Noise-canceling is adjusted up to 200 times per second using a system that is very similar to the noise cancellation system in the new Beats Solo Pro headphones. A transparency mode is available that will allow users to hear their surroundings. The AirPods Pro has a force sensor that is used to control music playback and toggle between noise-canceling and transparency mode. It comes with flexible ear tips. A software audio test is available that can tell the user if they have chosen the right-sized tips by measuring the sound level in the ear and comparing it to what is coming from the speaker driver. The AirPods Pro has around 4.5 hours of continuous listening battery life and is sweat and water-resistant. It is available for pre-order now and will be released on October 30th for $249. ### Headline:
Apple announces AirPods Pro with noise cancellation, coming October 30th
### Content: Hossein Rahnama has a company called Augmented Eternity that wants to use data you've created (chat logs, etc.) to create a digital representation of you so a version of you can live on forever. He's already busy creating a digital avatar for an unnamed financial CEO to live on after he's dead (cough Ray Dalio cough). The article jumps around a lot, but some interesting food for thought: having a digital version of you could actually be really useful even when you're alive (you could get a consultation from the world's best lawyer for pennies), there is the question of how data should be handled after someone dies (should it be governed by the same laws as the corpse of the deceased?), and how do we guard against the enormous power of the dead to influence the living (there is a Black Mirror episode in which a digital avatar created from her deceased husband's data keeps upselling a widow on more and more realistic versions of himself). ### Headline:
Digital immortality: How your life's data means a version of you could live forever
### Content: Sand is the world's second-most consumed natural resource. It is the primary raw material that modern cities are made from. Sand is used to make concrete, roads, glass, and electronics. The world is now starting to face a shortage of sand. Concrete is made from sand that has been eroded by water, so desert sand is largely unusable. Riverbeds, beaches, farmlands, and forests are being destroyed in order to extract sand. Criminal gangs have entered into the sand trade, resulting in several deaths. As cities grow, the demand for sand increases. Countries such as China have created new coastlines and islands using sand. Singapore created so much land over the past 40 years that neighboring countries have restricted exports of sand to the country. Scientists are working on ways to replace sand in concrete with other materials, such as fly ash, shredded plastic, crushed oil palm shells, and rice husks. Researchers are also trying to produce concrete that requires less sand and find more effective ways to grind down and recycle concrete. ### Headline:
Why the world is running out of sand
### Content: More independent repair shops will be able to buy genuine iPhone parts and tools under Apple's new repair rules. Repair technicians will be able to purchase parts after undergoing a free Apple training course. Only parts and tools for the most common out-of-warranty iPhone repairs will be available, so customers will still have to go to an authorized service provider for more complicated repairs. The costs of the parts have not yet been disclosed. However, leaked documents show a battery cost of $16-$33 and a screen that costs more than Apple's screen repair service. These parts come with a guarantee of quality but may result in higher repair costs as independent stores can set their own prices. More devices are now being locked down by manufacturers, with Apple being particularly aggressive by making their devices require specific tools or authorized parts. Apple has lobbied against right to repair bills in the past, and while it is starting to open up its repair system, it is still positioning itself to be the center of control and profit. ### Headline:
Apple will let more independent repair shops buy ‘genuine’ iPhone parts
### Content: In Kenya, academic writing can earn workers as much as $1,000 a month, as long as the work gets clients good grades. Contract cheating has become a lucrative business in Kenya in recent years. Kenya is where most academic writers are based, according to researchers. People in Kenya are incredibly qualified with very high levels of English and they are able to write high quality essays quickly. Students can bypass anti-plagiarism software by contracting off their assignment work. The global contract cheating industry is worth more than $1 billion, with writers in Kenya only seeing a small share of it as businesses take most of the money. Some countries, such as Australia, and many states in the US, have implemented legislation against contract cheating, and governments have urged PayPal and Google to lock payments and advertisements for contract cheating websites. This hasn't done much to slow down the industry. It will exist as long as writers need money and students need to pass assignments to earn degrees. ### Headline:
Doing Western students' homework is big business in Kenya
### Content: Tokyo's 2020 Olympic Games is set to be a showcase of both technology and human sporting achievement. The medals will be made using scrap metal recovered from electronic waste, and a full line-up of robots will be assisting the public and staff. Toyota will supply 20 special edition e-Palette people movers for the Games. The vehicles will transport athletes throughout the Olympic and Paralympic villages. The special edition e-Palettes will have sport benches and lift-up seating, and will be able to transport up to four wheelchair users and seven standing passengers at a time. They will feature large sliding doors, low floors, and electric ramps. The design includes contrasting colors to help those with color blindness. A safety operator will be on board, but the vehicles will be using an autonomous driving system that can travel up to 12 mph with Level 4 autonomy. They will have a range of just over 90 miles per charge. ### Headline:
Toyota's autonomous pod to transport athletes around Tokyo 2020 Olympics
### Content: By the end of this year, there will be 100 million smart speakers installed worldwide, with Amazon and Google pushing their speakers so hard that some analysts believe they might be losing money on each unit sold. Some people think that voice assistants are just a change in form factor, that we are just doing things that we would otherwise do with a screen, but the key difference is that we don't just communicate through them, we communicate with them. The author mentions telling her Google Assistant that she "was lonely", and the assistant responded "I wish I had arms so I could give you a hug. But for now, maybe a joke or some music might help." Voices are much more intimate than screens, and our evolution has not prepared us to fully grasp the idea that the thing that we are talking to is not really human. The advance of voice assistants should worry us a lot more than the advance of something like a smartphone, once they become emotionally savvy, they could wield an incredible amount of power over us. ### Headline:
Alexa, Should We Trust You? (10 minute read)
### Content: Amazon has started to sell tiny homes ranging from log cabins to loft-bedroom houses. There are more than two dozen options available with prices ranging from around $5,000 to $35,000. Some of the homes have been advertised as being able to be built in two days by two people. A $19,000 ‘getaway cabin’ is reviewed, with pictures showing the design and the interior of the home. The home has bare minimal materials and only a few features, with three rooms on the main floor and an attic-level bedroom above. Amenities are sparse, and it would require extra work to set up a kitchen. To make up for the lack of electricity, the home features a window in each room for natural lighting. The kit comes with all the materials you need to build the home. However, additional work to build the home’s foundation will be required. ### Headline:
Amazon sells a $19,000 do-it-yourself tiny-home kit that takes only 2 days to build — here's what it looks like inside
### Content: Engineers from the University at Buffalo, New York, have received funding from the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to train machines to think like humans when playing a strategy game. Participants in the study will be connected to an electroencephalogram so that their brain activity can be recorded and then processed using machine learning algorithms. The aim of the project is to create an AI that can improve coordination between large teams of autonomous air and ground robots. Swarm intelligence is a branch of computer science that deals with collective, decentralized, and self-organized systems, both virtual and robotic. Many applications can be completed with swarms of cheaper robots rather than using single expensive robots. By using a swarm of robots that are all trained to complete different tasks, the group can coordinate and complete many different tasks. It is difficult to train many different robots in a wide range of tasks. The scientists hope that they will be able to speed up the process by studying brain activity when making decisions. ### Headline:
Good at StarCraft? DARPA wants to train military robots with your brain waves
### Content: SARS-CoV-2 was unknown three months ago, and now it has spread to almost every country, infecting hundreds of thousands of people. It has disrupted modern society on a scale that most people have never witnessed. A pandemic of this scale has been predicted for years, and it has been known for a while that when it comes, it will be testing the resilience of even the most well-equipped health systems. The future of the next generation depends on the decisions made in the following weeks. Even after the pandemic is over, there will be many hurdles to overcome like getting people employed again, dealing with mental health issues from a lack of human contact, overcoming the racism triggered by the virus, and more. However, some changes may be for the better. For example, people may start making hand-washing a habit and going to work while sick may finally be discouraged. After 9/11, the world focused on counterterrorism, and after COVID-19, attention might shift to public health. ### Headline:
How the Pandemic Will End (25 minute read)
### Content: The axolotl was named after the Aztec god Xolotl, a hybrid deity who represented many things. Sometimes known as Mexican walking fish, axolotls are able to regenerate entire body parts if they go missing. Other salamanders are able to regenerate limbs, but the axolotl is also able to regenerate organs, including parts of the eyes, brain, and heart. The axolotl genome, which is about 10 times larger than the human genome, was sequenced in 2018. Last year, scientists identified and mapped structures within the genome, and in the process identified two genes that were involved in the axolotl's tissue regeneration. The research is still in its infancy and there may be more genes still involved in regeneration. Scientists hope to be able to find ways to one day enable humans to replicate the axolotl's regenerative abilities. ### Headline:
Scientists Pinpoint Axolotl Genes Involved in Their Unique Body Regeneration
### Content: Every country could have shrinking populations by the end of the century due to the decline in birth rates around the world. In 1950 women were having an average of 4.7 children and this has nearly halved to 2.4 in 2017. Experts expect the human population to peak around 9.7 billion around 2064, falling back down to 8.8 billion by the end of the century. The falling fertility rate is due to greater access to contraception and more women being in education and work. 23 countries, including Japan, Italy, Thailand, and Spain, are expecting to see their populations more than halve. A decline in population by the end of this century will bring about many social issues, especially when considering a large elderly population. Some countries have already started trying to combat this problem but it is complicated as other social issues are involved. The sub-Saharan African population is expected to triple in size to more than three billion by the end of the century. ### Headline:
Fertility rate: 'Jaw-dropping' global crash in children being born
### Content: Finding a good co-founder or partner when starting a new company can be like dating. A testing and evaluation period is required before you can decide that the person is the right partner to enter into a business with. Gloria Lin created a playbook for how to approach this different type of courting process, including a questionnaire designed to probe for compatibility. Finding the right business partner requires time. Hiring a business executive usually takes a few months, so it makes sense to take the same amount of care to find a co-founder. It's important to find someone who complements your strengths and weaknesses. Building a pipeline for finding and qualifying potential co-founders will streamline the process and make it easier to sort through potential candidates. Defining specific boundaries will help you quickly determine who is not suitable as a partner. Once you have found a good partner, it's important to continue building on the relationship, as a co-founding relationship can potentially last years. ### Headline:
The Founder Dating Playbook – Here’s the Process I Used to Find My Co-Founder (31 minute read)
### Content: The ESA and NASA are launching a spaceship towards the sun to study its poles in order to better predict how it behaves. Until now, all vehicles sent to the Sun have orbited around its equator. Solar Orbit will gather data on the Sun's strange 11-year cycle, where it alternates between times of intense activity and times of quiet. During the transition between cycles, the Sun's magnetic field completely switches direction and the poles flip and trade places. Solar maximum describes a period during which sunspots dominate the Sun's surface, and solar minimum is a period when the Sun's surface is relatively sunspot-free. The sunspot cycle coincides with the amount of energy the Sun emits. Solar Orbiter is protected by a heat shield that can withstand temperatures of more than 1,100 degrees Fahrenheit. It is set to launch late Sunday night from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. ### Headline:
A new spacecraft is journeying to the Sun to get a never-before-seen look at the star’s poles
### Content: Data from levels.fyi was analyzed to find out how long it takes on average to become a senior or principal engineer, how much money do tech workers make, whether women get paid less than men in tech, and whether the tech industry favors the young or not. The data for the analysis came from 18.8k tech workers. On average, it takes about 18 years to become a distinguished engineer, and about four years to become a senior software engineer. There are fewer women as the level of career progression increases. Many women leave tech before they are promoted, at more than double the rate of men. The median yearly compensation for tech workers is $195,000 while the mean is $225,000, with very little difference between men and women. Stock grants are a common way to increase total compensation. Tech companies tend to favor younger employees, with older engineers' salaries having no correlation with their years of experience. ### Headline:
Analysis of compensation, level, and experience details of 19k tech workers (10 minute read)
### Content: A new service from DoNotPay aims to help customers understand license agreements. DoNotPay is a robot lawyer service that helps people contest parking tickets and even sue people. Do Not Sign is included with DoNotPay's $3 monthly subscription fee. It uses machine learning to highlight important clauses in contracts. The service will identify and explain any issues or loopholes that it finds in license agreements that users upload or link. Do Not Sign was developed in order to help customers take advantage of any rights they might be owed by signing contracts. It can help users find and opt-out of certain terms, and it can also help send letters on customers' behalf. There are around 200 key terms that the service searches for in contracts. The system is not perfect, and may miss some terms. It may sometimes offer incorrect or incomplete advice, or advice that is difficult for the user to understand. Do Not Sign is now available in the US and DoNotPay hopes to launch the service in the UK by the end of December. ### Headline:
This ‘robot lawyer’ can take the mystery out of license agreements
### Content: Chris Long, who worked in IT at the Washoe County Sheriff's Department, was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia and myelodysplastic syndromes. Before going in for a bone marrow transplant that would save his life, a forensic scientist colleague at the department encouraged Long to make an archive of his DNA from different parts of his body in order to study the effects of the transplant. Within three months of the transplant, the DNA in Long's blood had changed. After four years, swabs of his lips and cheeks, as well as samples of his semen, contained the DNA of his donor. These findings could be significant for forensic scientists as DNA is often used to link perpetrators and crimes. There have been cases where DNA was incorrectly matched due to bone marrow transplants. It is unclear whether DNA from bone marrow transplants can be transferred to the next generation. ### Headline:
Man who had transplant finds out months later his DNA has changed to that of donor 5,000 miles away
### Content: Writers have long been imagining a world where machines replace humans, freeing humans up from having to work and the consequences of the switch to an automated world. Many of these imaginings end up in a dystopian world where the majority of humans are doomed to live empty lives of poverty and despair. Daniel Susskind is an economics scholar and a former government policy advisor. His book, 'A World Without Work', paints the picture of the future with predictions borne from reason. Automation has replaced human labor in routine tasks throughout the last couple of centuries without destroying entire occupations. It has even created new types of jobs. However, as technology improves, it seems inevitable that the number of jobs will start to decrease. Different ways of wealth distribution will need to be implemented, as well as ways to distribute the amount of work left. People will need to rethink what a 'meaningful life' actually means, as the importance of work will start to fade away. ### Headline:
A World Without Work by Daniel Susskind review – should we be delighted or terrified?
### Content: SpaceX's Starship 'hopper' is a sub-scale version of the Starship's propulsion system. It uses the Raptor engine, which burns cryogenic methane with liquid oxygen. The hopper completed a one-minute flight at a test facility in Texas, rising up to its FAA-approved 492-foot altitude before moving sideways and descending on a nearby landing pad. The new two-stage booster-Starship system will eventually replace the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets as well as the Cargo and Crew Dragon capsules. It consists of a Super Heavy Rocket and a winged Starship. Starship is designed to deliver satellites into space at a lower cost than the current Falcon vehicles. Elon Musk's goal is to launch a cargo mission to Mars in 2022 and a crewed flight as early as 2024. There is a video showing the hopper’s test launch. ### Headline:
SpaceX launches Starship “hopper” on dramatic test flight
### Content: Organisms have been discovered 7,900 feet below the surface inside Canada's Kidd Mine. The dark waters in the mine contain single-celled organisms that breathe sulfur and live off pyrite, also known as fool's gold. Other organisms have been discovered in deep areas, including boreholes, volcanic vents on the bottom of the ocean, and in sediments far beneath the seafloor. These areas have no light, air, or any connection to the surface, and may help us understand how life started on our planet, as well as on other planets. Some of these organisms are able to live in temperatures well above the boiling point of water, and others can withstand pressures 20,000 times higher than the air pressure at sea level. Due to these conditions, the organisms' cellular metabolism can be different from that of those on the surface, with some organisms surviving for thousands of years or more without dividing. ### Headline:
Strange life forms found deep in a mine point to vast 'underground Galapagos'
### Content: It is easy to waste time and energy when building your own bootstrap business. In order to avoid hassle, it is best to have customers pay upfront on a monthly subscription for some kind of software as a service. This way, you will have recurring revenue to continue development, locked-in customers, and no customers owing on payments. It's important to set realistic expectations, and use reliable technology. Automate as much as you can and follow the best practices of other businesses - choose a big bank, choose a simple corporate structure, and find a good accountant. When you first start your project, it is best to keep as much control over it as you can. If you take on investors or partners, there will be significantly more pressure to perform and it usually brings on more problems than it solves. Smart marketing is better than just spending on marketing. Don't respond to unsolicited requests until it is time that you need a particular product or service for your business. ### Headline:
23 rules to run a software startup with minimum hassle (13 minute read)
### Content: Europe has granted approval for the world's first Ebola vaccine. Ervebo was developed in 2014 and has been used during the ongoing outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo based on a compassionate use protocol. The current outbreak in the DRC is the second-largest recorded, with nearly 3,300 cases and 2,200 deaths. Preliminary vaccine data shows that Ervebo is 97.5 percent effective at preventing Ebola. It protects against one of the four species of Ebola known to infect humans. The vaccine is expected to be approved in the US in the first half of 2020. Ervebo has been prequalified by the World Health Organization, which means that it meets WHO standards for safety, quality, and effectiveness. Five years ago, there was no vaccine or therapeutics for Ebola. The disease is now preventable and treatable. ### Headline:
The world finally has an approved vaccine against Ebola
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