Facebook Blocked Nutty 5G Conspiracy Groups; Amazon Stock Hits All-Time High; Google Designed Chips Coming to Pixels; Ford Patent App To Sniff Out Stinky Rideshares; Half Million Zoom Accounts Sold on Dark Web

Facebook gets rapped frequently…and often appropriately…for not policing their platform to clean up lies, fake reports, and conspiracies, but here’s a case where they jumped right in and blocked a couple of nutzo conspiracy groups. Businessinsider.com reports that the two anti-5G groups had users that were using conspiracy theories that 5G cellular radio waves caused the coronavirus. The groups were “Stop 5G UK” and “Destroy 5G Save Our Children,” were open for anyone to join and had thousands of members. The ‘Stop 5G UK’ group was also pushing the drug hydroxychloroquine as a cure for coronavirus. The drug is not proven as an effective treatment. This group had already gotten up to 60,000 members, while the other one had 2500 when shut down. Two 5G cell phone towers in Britain had been set on fire by anti-5G groups in the past week, and members of one of the groups were openly discussing more plans to attack 5G towers. Anti-5G activists believe that 5G radio waves harm humans. But radio waves are low energy compared to other types of radiation, and Cancer Research has concluded that neither 4G or 5G cause cancer. A note about radio waves…viruses don’t travel on radio waves, nor do radio waves weaken your immune system so the coronavirus can sicken or kill you.

While the coronavirus has wreaked havoc on the markets and business, one particular business has done quite well…Amazon. As we reported yesterday, they are looking for another 75,000 employees to add to the 100,000 they tacked on last month. Geekwire.com says that this morning, Amazon stock was up over 4%, and hit a record price of $2262 per share. The online giant is now valued at $1.1 trillion! According to a survey by analysts at Jefferies, Amazon was the only online retailer that saw consumers increasing their spending since the pandemic hit. Amazon will be reporting 1st quarter earnings later this month, and there could be a major ‘virus bump’ in the figure!

Google has apparently been working with Samsung on its own silicon. According to 9to5google.com, axios got some details on the project, that appear to make it more than a rumor. One is the code name….’whitechapel.’ The chips could appear in Google’s flagship smartphones by next year, and after that find their way into Chromebooks. The Google designed chip would have an 8 core ARM processor, as well as hardware “optimized for Google’s machine-learning technology” in part “dedicated to improving the performance and “always-on” capabilities of Google Assistant.”

Not all patent applications ever see the light of day, and here’s an unusual one from Ford. Cnet.com says earlier this month, Ford filed one that would let you see…in addition to the usual info about ride sharing vehicles, if there are any smells that might irritate or offend you. An example they gave was that…say you are allergic to pachouli, and the driver is an old head who wears that scent. You would want to avoid that car. Ford apparently would use an environmental sensor to pick up and determine the nature of the smell in the car, then compare the odors and their concentrations to a list of thresholds set by the ride-hailing customers. Whether it’s pungent cologne or food smells, that might bug you or set off an allergy, an interesting idea.

Zoom just can’t buy a break. Getting too big too fast with all the working at home, more bad stuff keeps creeping out. Now, according to bleeping computer, over 500,000 Zoom accounts are being sold on the dark web and hacker forums for less than a penny each…some are being given away for free! The credentials are scooped up via credential stuffing attacks where threat actors attempt to log into Zoom using accounts leaked in older breaches. Successful logins are compiled into lists and sold to other hackers. The net is, change your password and use a unique one if you are going to continue to use Zoom!