Techmeme: AI has played a useful but fragmented role in the global fight against COVID-19, from predicting outbreaks to aiding diagnosis and drug discovery efforts (Kai-Fu Lee/Wired)

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May 23, 2020, 12:40 PM

Top News

Wall Street Journal:

Sources: Trump is considering the establishment of a commission that would examine allegations of anticonservative bias and censorship on social media — Move is likely to draw pushback from tech companies; ACLU raises free-speech concerns — WASHINGTON—President Trump is considering establishing …

More: The Verge, The Hill, and Seeking Alpha

Tweets: @brianstelter, @jeffjarvis, @melissaryan, @brettredacted, @juddlegum, @brianmfloyd, and @jason_kint

Seth Colaner / VentureBeat:

An overview of how governments around the world are using smartphone data, apps, drones, facial recognition, and AI to track COVID-19 and surveil citizens — Now that the world is in the thick of the coronavirus pandemic, governments are quickly deploying their own cocktails of tracking methods.

More: OneZero , VentureBeat, and Lifehacker

Tweets: @obrien, @mrodofficial, and @brendakleong

Camilla Tominey / Telegraph:

Boris Johnson instructed officials to draw up plans to reduce Huawei's involvement in UK's 5G networks to zero by 2023, a reversal of a softer policy approach — The Prime Minister has instructed officials to draw up plans that would see China's involvement in the UK's 5G network reduced to zero

More: The Guardian, Financial Times, The Verge, Seeking Alpha, Politico, and CNET

Tweets: @alibunkallsky, @brexitalex, @tedcruz, @damiangreen, @nilegardiner, @tomtugendhat, @owenpaterson, @thorstenbenner, @rlheinrichs, @tom_fowdy, and @andrewbgreene

Alfred Ng / CNET:

Mozilla, Twitter, and a coalition that includes Facebook, Apple, and Google, call on Congress to protect search and browser data from warrantless access — A recent amendment to require the FBI to get a warrant to view browsing data failed by one vote. — A group of technology companies …

More: Gizmodo, NBC News, The Mozilla Blog, Neowin, Mozilla, Gizmodo, and AppleInsider

Tweets: @schestowitz, @david_ingram, @evan_greer, @abdavidson, @mordecaidesign, @plucille54, @david_ingram, @plucille54, @techdaddy, @dellcam, @notaaroncraig, @mozilla, @abdavidson, @cnet, and @stshank

Kai-Fu Lee / Wired:

AI has played a useful but fragmented role in the global fight against COVID-19, from predicting outbreaks to aiding diagnosis and drug discovery efforts — Disease diagnosis, drug discovery, robot delivery—artificial intelligence is already powering change in the pandemic's wake.

More: Engadget. Tweets: @kaifulee, @nxthompson, and @wired

Arjun Kharpal / CNBC:

Report: Amazon, Microsoft, and Google are among American tech companies providing web services to blacklisted Chinese surveillance firms like Dahua, Hikvision — - Amazon, Microsoft and Google are among a number of American firms that are providing various web services to blacklisted Chinese surveillance firms, a new report claims.

Lily Hay Newman / Wired:

Researchers discuss ShinyHunters, a hacking group that is hawking what it claims is ~200M stolen records on the dark web since May 1 from at least 13 companies — In the first two weeks of May, they've hit the dark web, hawking 200 million stolen records from over a dozen companies.

More: Threatpost. Tweets: @lilyhnewman and @teachemtechy

Jael Goldfine / PAPER:

Facebook has had a recent influx of millennial and Gen Z users, some of whom say certain Facebook groups offer unemployment support, job search help, and more — Facebook is for old people. Everybody knows that! Usage plummeted in 2019, most sharply among Gen-Z and millennials.

Tweets: @kantrowitz and @jaelgoldfine

Steven Levy / Wired:

Interview with Sundar Pichai on working from home, antitrust, collaborating with Apple and others, how Alphabet's holding company model held up, and more — In an interview, the Google and Alphabet CEO discusses working from home, weathering antitrust probes, and how the company needs to do a better job on diversity.

More: 9to5Mac, Ubergizmo, AppleInsider, 9to5Google, CNET, and Android Central

Tweets: @ethan_kraft, @rdrv3, @sundarpichai, @aprilaser, @wired, @dtunkelang, @thekenyeung, @oliviasolon, @sorayadarabi, @thekenyeung, @thekenyeung, @thekenyeung, @louisgray, and @thekenyeung. Thanks:@thekenyeung

George Avalos / Mercury News:

Facebook revises proposal for Willow Village, its 50+ acre development project in Menlo Park, to reduce square footage by 29%, from 1.75M to 1.25M square feet — Willow Village near Facebook's Menlo Park HQ undergoes sweeping changes for office space — MENLO PARK — Facebook …

More: TheStreet, Palo Alto Daily Post, almanacnews.com, OneZero , OneZero , and Silicon Valley Business …

Tweets: @rolandlisf, @uiri00, @sarahnemerson, @chrismessina, @b_fung, @coryweinberg, @caseynewton, @sarahnemerson, @jenn_elias, @svbizjournal, and @sarahnemerson

Julia Alexander / The Verge:

Moves by Joe Rogan and others don't mean YouTube will get cut out of the podcast game, because creator success still relies upon discoverability on the platform — What does podcasting on YouTube look like without Rogan? — Joe Rogan is largely moving on from YouTube …

More: Techdirt and The Verge

Tweets: @ashleyrcarman, @ogrover, @loudmouthjulia, @benyt, @vicious696, @brianroemmele, @mattstasoff, @willrinehart, @dp16, @donthatebehated, and @lthomasnews

Tony Wan / EdSurge:

PresenceLearning, which helps school districts provide speech and mental health therapy to students online, raises $27M Series D, bringing total raised to $70M+ — Speech and other special-education professionals were already in short supply even when classes were in session.

More: PresenceLearning. Tweets: @edsurge and @edsurge

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From Mediagazer

Sara Fischer / Axios:

60 Minutes' CECOT segment, pulled by Bari Weiss, was mistakenly aired in Canada via an app owned by Global Television, which airs 60 Minutes in the country

Ali Watkins / New York Times:

Channel 4 says Jimmy Kimmel will share a message on Christmas Day as part of its Alternative Christmas Message show, emphasizing the importance of free speech

Reuters:

Israel's cabinet votes to shut down popular national radio station Army Radio, saying it has become a platform for views that “attack” its armed forces

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More News

Annie Musgrove / Tech.eu:

London-based Blink, an app that helps companies and orgs connect with their frontline workers, raises £8.2M Series A led by Partech as it launches publicly

More: Smart Cities World, Partech, Business Matters, Med-Tech Innovation, Bdaily Business News, Mirror.co.uk, and EU-Startups. Tweets: @joinblink

Shira Ovide / New York Times:

Upgrades of 911 emergency response systems enable paramedics to do video call assessments to prioritize resources and pinpoint callers' locations more precisely

More: Digiday. Tweets: @shiraovide

Mark Sullivan / Fast Company:

Telehealth will be more proactive, hyper-personalized, and data-driven thanks to connected devices, remote healthcare kits, mobile apps, and AI-based monitoring

Tweets: @svb_financial

Charlie Osborne / ZDNet:

Report: 60% of insider cybersecurity threats involve employees leaving their jobs, with 44% forwarding content to personal emails, 16% misusing cloud privileges

Reuters:

US Commerce Dept. adds 7 Chinese tech companies to economic blacklist for complicity in human rights violations, including Softbank-backed CloudMinds

More: Gizmodo. Tweets: @hkanji

Tom McKay / Gizmodo:

A US Copyright Office report states that the DMCA's safe harbor provision is “askew” and recommends making it easier for rightsholders to issue takedown notices

More: Techdirt, Bloomberg Law, Axios, Motion Picture Association, and Music Ally

Earlier Picks

Reuters:

Hewlett Packard Enterprise unveils plans targeting gross savings of at least $1B by 2022, including layoffs and temporary pay cuts of 25% for top executives

More: Fortune, Bloomberg, and Silicon Valley Business …

Emily Birnbaum / Protocol:

The presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden does not have a top adviser for tech policy and lacks the tech policy infrastructure of his Democratic predecessors

Tweets: @tonyajoriley, @birnbaum_e, and @rdrv3

Mary Ann Azevedo / Crunchbase News:

States Title, a house title insurance and closing startup that claims to use AI to reduce the time of a closing from around 40 days to 20, raises $123M Series C

More: PR Newswire, Inman, Insurance Insider, GlobeSt, The Title Report, HousingWire, PitchBook, The Real Deal New York, and AiThority. Tweets: @bayareawriter

Olivia Carville / Bloomberg:

IBM announces job cuts, will offer subsidized medical coverage to all affected US employees through June 2021; sources say layoffs will be in the thousands

Steven Melendez / Fast Company:

Report: the official COVID-19 contact tracing app for North Dakota is sharing location data with Foursquare and an advertising ID with Google

More: Washington Post, iMore, Input, Lifehacker, infosecurity-magazine.com, The Daily Dot, MacDailyNews, AppleInsider, Bugfender, Observer, Ubergizmo, Jumbo Blog, The Mac Observer, Digital Trends, and al.com

Tweets: @profwoodward, @geoffreyfowler, @iwillleavenow, @allanfriedman, @foxcahn, @jason_kint, @saysdana, @geoffreyfowler, @jenvalentino, @thekenyeung, @granick, @moonalice, @rcalo, @rmack, @cwarzel, and @harrymccracken. Thanks:@technologizer