New 4.7 Inch iPhone SE; Washington Sate Sues Facebook Over Political Ads; Google-Emergency Fund for Local Journalism; Zoox Settles Lawsuit With Tesla

Apple has unveiled the expected smaller, cheaper iPhone. Macrumors.com reports the new iPhone SE has a 4.7 inch display, A13 Chip, and Touch ID. Best of all, it starts at $399 with 64 gigs of memory. The color selection is limited…black white, and (Product) RED. You can order your new SE starting this Friday, and it will be available at Apple Authorized retailers beginning April 24th. It does just have a single camera, but the Apple cam software should give you very good pictures considering that…it will support Portrait mode and Smart HDR.

The state of Washington has sued Facebook for violating its state political ad law. According to geekwire.com, this is the second lawsuit by the Washington Attorney General against Facebook for violating a law that requires any entity selling political ads to maintain a publicly available database of those ads and details on who purchased them. The first one, in 2018, was settled when the social network paid a $238,000 fine. The state also settled a similar suit against Google at that time. The new lawsuit, filed in King County Superior Court, claims Facebook sold ads to at least 171 political committees in Washington state, generating at least $525,000 in revenue. Those findings come from investigations by the Washington State Public Disclosure Commission and attorney general’s office. The ad disclosure law has been on the books in Washington state since the 1970’s.

Google is creating a Journalism Emergency Relief Fund to help support local newsrooms around the world. News departments had already been scuffling along when the coronavirus hit, causing ad revenue to evaporate. Venturebeat.com says Google is pointing to the fact that local news has become even more vital amid the widespread lockdowns aimed at limiting the spread of COVID-19. Even though revenue has dropped, readership, listenership, and viewership is up notably as people seek out the latest virus info in their own area. Google hasn’t said what kind of cash they are pouring into the fund, but a similar one has been started by Facebook, which pledged $100 million. Local news organizations have until April 29th to apply for relief to the Google fund.

Self-driving car startup Zoox has settled a lawsuit with Tesla. According to reuters.com, the startup admitted some new hires poached from Tesla brought along certain Tesla documents. Tesla had alleged that the employees stole proprietary information and trade secrets for developing warehousing, logistics and inventory control operations. Zoox is required to pay an undisclosed amount in the settlement agreement, and also get an audit to ensure no employees have retained or are using confidential Tesla information.

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!

Apple- iPad Style Chassis for iPhone 12; Tesla Still Plans Robotaxis This Year; Amazon to Hire 75,000 More; Big Tech Hiring Aggressively

Apple is still planning a Fall hardware release. As has been reported earlier, the 4 iPhone 12 models will have flattened stainless steel edges, as opposed to the present rounded ones. The top models will have LiDAR scanners like the top iPad. Appleinsider.com also reports that there will be a new HomePod, weighing in at about half the size of the present one…at a welcomed lower price point! The oft-rumored Air Tags? A new tip says they will be sold with a keychain and a leather sleeve. While the iPhones and the rest may be delayed past September due to the coronavirus, they are all still expected this Fall.

Paging Korben Dallas! Over the weekend, Elon Musk reasserted that Tesla still plans to have a million robotaxis on the pavement by the end of the year…pending regulatory approval. Electrek.co says once final approval is given, Tesla will push out an over-the-air software update that will activate ‘Full Self-driving Capability.’ If this seems improbable considering the disruption from the coronavirus pandemic, keep in mind that it wouldn’t be the first time Musk was overly optimistic about a timeline for Tesla feature releases! Don’t be surprised if it is mid or late 2021 before the robo fleet is actually on the road.

Amazon has tacked on 75,000 of the 100,000 employees they had expected to add in the last 4 weeks…due to increased demand from the coronavirus pandemic. According to techcrunch.com, the company now expects to add another 75,000 full and part time positions to the 100,000 previously announced. They have also bumped up the amount being poured into pay increases to over $500 million. Amazon says they are positioning some of the openings as an option for anyone seeking work “until things return to normal and their past employer is able to bring them back.” They are putting more into safety, after much outcry— rolling out temperature checks across fulfillment centers and Whole Foods stores, as well as distributing masks to employees and conducing daily audits of these practices. There have still been calls for brief, complete closures of distribution centers for deep cleaning after virus infected staffers have had to leave sick. No word that they intend to go that far, however.

Besides Amazon, other big tech firms are stating up, as they did during the last financial crisis. Businessinsider.com reports that Google, Apple, and Facebook are all looking to increase staff. All are looking for engineers, data scientists, cyber security experts, and designers. Facebook has said they will hire at least 10,000 new employees by the end of the year. All seem wide open to poaching employees from smaller startups or tech companies that aren’t as well heeled or are in shutdown mode.

Microsoft-Coronavirus Changes to Work Permanent; Teen iPhone Ownership All Time High; Facial Recognition Gaining on Masked Faces; Disney + Passes New Milestone

It’s not only Zoom (with related security issues) that has seen an enormous leap in usage….so has Microsoft Teams with its built in video for meetings. Theverge.com reports that Microsoft has seen a 200% bump in use since mid March. They are up from 900 million minutes a day to 2.7 billion meeting minutes! In fact, they saw an increase from 32 million daily active users to 44 million in just a week last month. Microsoft has scaled up server space for Stream, and has opened up the limit from 10,000 participants to 100,000! Microsoft believes this will become the new normal. They are predicting that companies will have to change it up, and have some people come in to the office on X days and others on Y days, with many working from home the majority of the time. They point to China, where the coronavirus restrictions have been lifted, but they are still seeing double the active daily Teams users. We’ve covered Zoom, but besides it and Microsoft, Google and Slack have also seen huge bumps in usage.

The iPhone continues to dominate the teen category, with some 85% of teens surveyed by Piper Sandler owning iPhones (or more accurately their parents owning them!), and 88% expecting an iPhone to be their next phone. According to macrumors.com, the figure is up 2% from last year. 8% said they planned to get an Android, down from 10% a year ago. The new version of the cheaper iPhone SE could push Apple’s penetration into the teen market past 90%. This survey of teens has been done annually since 2001.

There has been a lot of scary stuff going on in facial recognition…as we noted in a story yesterday about a company that has scraped billions of pics from the net to go into a database they sell to law enforcement. A new wrinkle is all the mask wearing due to the coronavirus. Venturebeat.com says Google’s facial recognition system to unlock thePixel 4 is designed to recognize an owner and open even if they have on sunglasses, or have shaved or grown a beard, but it is totally worthless when someone is wearing a mask due to the coronavirus. Apple’s Face ID is similarly confounded. With Apple, you can make an additional account and train the iPhone to recognize you with the mask on, as it can do so with just the top half of your face. Photos in the police database of companies like Clearview AI can’t fare any better than the phones, with people all walking around in masks. Now, they are scrambling to build work arounds which they hope will get them to the claimed 95% accuracy (which is pretty dubious….most experts say none of the large database systems are into the 90% accuracy range yet…most are in the mid to upper 80s. If you are rocking a Pixel or you have an iPhone and don’t want to teach it to recognize you with the mask, just go back to using the password unlock for now. This is one situation where fingerprint ID systems on phones may surge in popularity!

Only active since last fall, Disney Plus has now passed 50 million subscribers. That number has also increased dramatically from just two months ago when the House of Mouse reported 22 million subscribers. According to theverge.com, this comes on the heels of adding service in the UK, India, Germany, Italy, Spain, Austria, and Switzerland. This is massive growth, and a big user base, but it is still dwarfed by Netflix, with their 167 million subscribers. Disney owned Hulu has 30 million users, but that is US only for now. The streaming service couldn’t be more timely, with theatrical releases on hold and the parks closed, Disney has been able to release Frozen 2 and Onward to streaming to help push subscribership.

Twitter CEO Donates Big to COVID-19 Research; Also Twitter- We’re Sharing More of Your Data; Amazon Getting Large ‘Virus Bump’ in Orders; Facial Recognition Co Tied to White Nationalism; US Users Don’t Understand 5G

Some billionaires have really stepped up, donating millions to coronavirus relief or research. Now, Jack Dorsey of Twitter (and Square) ups the ante, but pledging a billion dollars. Cnet.com notes that the amount is over a quarter of his net worth. Can you imagine if most other billionaires followed suit? Of course, Bill and Melinda Gates have given away billions, and Gates is personally paying for testing 7 different potential vaccines at once…which is insanely expensive…but come on, billionaires…this virus doesn’t discriminate…it could get you, too!

In not so cool Twitter news, the platform has taken away a privacy feature that let users stop sharing some private info with advertisers. It had prevented Twitter from sharing info like the has you saw or interacted with and the tracking ID for your phone! Now, that info is shared by default, and CAN’T be turned off! There is an exception by law for the EU and the UK, so if you are there, you are in luck on this.

As most people realize, online grocery buying has increased in a big way since the sheltering in place has been going on. According to geekwire.com, RBC Capital Markets has run some numbers, and believes more people will be buying this way in the future. To the surprise of no one, Amazon is getting a windfall. RBC calculates that Amazon’s online grocery arm could move $70 million in gross merchandise by 2023…that’s triple 2019’s number and would make grocery items a material part of Amazon’s total revenue. In a 1,500-person survey, run over the past two weeks, 42% of respondents buy groceries online at least once a week, up from 22% in 2018. Amazon is the most frequent destination for shoppers, with 60% using the tech giant to buy groceries online, compared to 47% for Walmart.

We have reported previously on a startup that scraped billions of images from platforms like Facebook, Google, and YouTube, then has been selling software that matches unknown faces in photos or video with those in the massive database they have amassed to law enforcement. Now, businessinsider.com says that…in addition to basically stealing all these images of you and others, Clearview AI turns out to have a have a CEO named Hoan Ton-That, an Australian, who has been connected with far-right provacateur Chuck Johnson, Pizzagate conspiracy peddler Mike Cernovich, and Pax Dickinson, who has been known to express sexist, misogynistic, homophobic, and classist views on Twitter. One of the company’s employees, a Marko Jukic, has quite a history of ethno-nationalist rhetoric that has been published online under another name. After an inquiry by businessinsider.com, he was canned by the company. Meanwhile, Ton-That has released a statement distancing himself, saying “I am not a white supremacist or an anti-semite, nor am I sympathetic to any of those views. They are abhorrent and I reject them wholly and without reservation.”

As the newly-merged T-Mobile/Sprint (which has kept the T-Mobile name) rolls out 5G, a report from Waveform indicates that most customers really don’t understand it, and that it’s unlikely to pry huge numbers of them away from their present carriers like AT&T and Verizon. According to zdnet.com, of those two, the study found that AT&T would get hit worse than Verizon…with around 28% of customers expressing interest in switching. Over at Verizon, 45.3% said they weren’t interested in moving to the new T-Mobile at all. Only 32.8% of all those surveyed said they ‘very clearly’ or ‘extremely clearly’ understand the benefits of 5G, in spite of big marketing campaigns pushing the new generation of wireless. In a word or two, when it is finally implemented most everywhere, you will be able to get faster speeds over your cell connection than most of you have been getting on your home WiFi!

iPhone 12-Smaller Notch & 3D Cam Rumor; WhatsApp Limits Forwarding Viral Videos; Facebook Launches ‘Tuned’ App; Nasa- ‘Exponential’ Jump in Malware Attacks with Working at Home

A couple of leaked images showed up on social media today indicating a couple of hardware changes for iPhone 12. Macrumors.com reports a Twitter user called Fudge posted drawings of the front and back of the handset. The front shows a notably smaller notch, which is in keeping with the prediction of analyst Ming-Chi Kuo that the iPhone 12 will have a smaller front camera lens and smaller notch. The front screen drawing also shows different sized boxes, which may mean that widgets are finally coming to the iPhone’s home screen. The back drawing shows 4 similar sized circles and a smaller one in the center of the camera bump. This may point to a new 3D camera that has been rumored.

Beginning today, WhatsApp is putting limits on forwarding messages. The software looks for ‘highly forwarded’ messages….those sent through a chain of 5 or more people…and limits them to being forwardable to a single person beyond that. According to theverge.com, they think this may put truth and fiction on a bit more even footing, by slowing down the rate at which some items travel through the app. Previous efforts had already slowed down WhatsApp messages about 25% as they traveled around the world. The company is particularly concerned with so-called ‘cures’ for COVID-19, and hopes the new action will cut those down.

Facebook’s dating feature hasn’t exactly exploded, but that isn’t keeping the social media giant from rolling out new products. The New Product Experimentation team has launched an app called Tuned, which is designed to be a ‘private space’ for couples to connect. It is iOS only right now, and The Information says it can be used to share mood, exchange music, and even create a digital scrapbook. It connects with Spotify to facilitate music sharing. While the app doesn’t require a Facebook account, it utilizes their data rules…that means it will get the same ad targeting as Facebook has.

It shouldn’t be much of a shock with so many people working from home, but NASA says there is an ‘exponential’ increase in malware attacks since the onset of sheltering in place and working from home. According to arstechnica.com, they have noted a doubling of email fishing attempts and double the amount of their systems’ mitigation attempts to block malicious sites. Putting it simply, NASA says this all indicates that employees and contractors are clicking on malicious links sent in email and text messages at twice the rate as normally occurred in the office. Many have suggested VPN use to cut down on malicious attacks, but NASA workers practically all use VPN due to the nature of their work. The space agency notes that using a VPN to get to your work desktop does not add any additional protection from phishing scams or malware attacks. Just do yourself a favor and avoid clicking on links in email. If you copy and paste the link into your browser, and have good security software, it may alert you to the fact that it’s a bogus link.

Apple-Face Shields; Apple Reportedly Buying NextVR; Samsung Donates Phones to Coronavirus Quaranitined; Zoom Banned by NYC Schools- Zoom Now Enables Waiting Rooms by Default; Amazon Still Ships Pretty Much Everything-Even Sex Toys!

It has already been noted that Apple has donated some 20 million masks it came up with through its supply chain. Now, theverge.com reports that Apple has also already designed face shields, and has shipped a supply to Kaiser hospitals near their Silicon Valley headquarters. Apple has designed them to pack flat, 100 per box, and claims that each can be assembled in under 2 minutes, and is fully adjustable. The company says they are sourcing materials and manufacturing in both the US and China. Apple says they will have shipped out over a million shields by the end of the week, and plans to ship a million a week thereafter, while also scaling up to increase production.

Samsung has begun donating some smartphones to people who are quarantined to help with staying in touch with families and friends. According to cnet.com, the company has donated $29 million so far in funding and goods to help ease the difficulties with coronavirus. Samsung has had to temporarily close a plant and has also temporarily closed its retail stores. As with a number of tech companies, they have also started making masks.

Like a number of major businesses, New York City has banned Zoom due to privacy and security issues. As is the case with a number of businesses, fastcompany.com says the school system is directing schools to use Microsoft Teams, which is FERPA compliant. (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.) The NYC Department of Education has already started training teachers and staff on how to use the Microsoft product.

In other Zoom news, Zoom is making some drastic changes to try to stem an exodus from its product. As of yesterday, it will require passwords to enter calls via Meeting ID. Zoom has also set virtual waiting rooms to ON by default so that hosts will have to manually admit attendees. They hope this will prevent so-called ‘Zoombombing,’ where malicious actors entering Zoom calls and disrupting them by screensharing offensive imagery. Zoombombers have moved on to spamming chat threads with terrible GIFs and to using virtual backgrounds to spread hate messages. As we have noted here, and in Zoom’s defense, they are having a rough time scaling up from 10 million to over 200 million users per month due to the coronavirus.

Last month, on St. Patrick’s Day, Amazon said it would only accept orders for high demand items related to the coronavirus…like medical and sanitation supplies and other essentials. Businessinsider.com reports that workers inside the online giant’s facilities say otherwise. They are sending out Nintendo Switches, glittery girl dolls, home hand spas, and even sex toys. One worker even said a customer recently ordered 392 different kinds of nipple clamps! Meanwhile, despite several cases of COVID-19, Amazon has refused to close down the facilities where the infected staff worked to do a deep cleaning of them. This post brought to you by the letters W, T, and F!

Amazon Instituting Temp Checks-Warehouse Workers; Facebook Messenger Launches Mac & Windows Desktop Apps; Zoom Freezes Features to Try To Fix Privacy Mess; Apple Introducing 1-Password Type Feature To Keychain

Amazon has unveiled a number of new measures to protect its employees (and users) during the coronavirus epidemic. Cnet.com reports that..effective next week…temperature checks will be required across the entire Amazon US and European operations network…including warehouses and delivery centers, as well as Whole Foods stores. Amazon had already been doing daily temperature checks on 100,000 employees. Anyone who shows up with over 100.4 degrees F of fever is sent home. Amazon had just shy of 800,000 employees worldwide at the end of last year, and has already put on an additional 80,000 new hires. They expect to drop well above the original $350 million in additional pay to workers as demand has jumped, and protests and strikes have broken out.

Nearly 9 years after it was rolled out, Facebook Messenger is finally getting its own, freestanding desktop app for Mac and Windows. According to techcrunch.com, there has been a more than 100% bump in desktop browser audio and video calling, which prompted Facebook to release the apps. They contain the same features as the browser version, but make it easier to keep your chat threads handy as compared to having Messenger buried in one of many tabs. Facebook had announced the apps at F8 a year ago, and had planned a press event rollout, but with the coronavirus situation, just went ahead and launched them without the fanfare.

Zoom has been catching hell over the NON end-to-end security in the app and the facts that they have sent data to Facebook without disclosing it…in addition to hackers crashing meetings. Now, theverge.com says Zoom will institute a 90 day feature freeze to focus on fixing privacy and security problems. It may be a bit late for some…a number of major companies have already blocked Zoom, and migrated to the likes of Microsoft Teams, which has built in secure video conferencing. Many companies were already using other Microsoft features, like their IM one for employees. Zoom CEO Eric Yuan pleads that the enormous increase in usage has strained the company…in March, they had more than 200 million daily meeting participants, both free and paid. He says supporting this number compared to the 10 million pre-shelter-in-place has been a huge drain on company resources. All true, but the privacy holes should have been plugged long ago. Time will tell if the 90 day hold on features will get things sufficiently secure to satisfy corporate users.

From some who have seen an early build of Apple’s iOS 14, they may be getting set to beef up their password management and make it more like Last Pass or 1 Password. According to gizmodo.com, Apple is testing improved security features for iCloud Keychain. These include warnings about repeated passwords or weak ones, or recommending setting up two-factor authentication. None of this is as effective as what the commercial password managers do, though. That may change with iOS 14, as Apple may go to their own version of 1 Password. Similar features already exist in Mac OS, but having it work across all Apple devices would be quite handy and much more secure. (Although Face ID has proved to be quite a step up in security on iOS gadgets…no word on how this might affect the use of it.)

Uber Eats Ups Grocery Delivery; About Zoom’s ‘End to End Encryption;’ Lucid Motors Delays Production; Brooks Brothers to Mass Produce Masks

Uber Eats has stepped up grocery delivery options in three markets hard hit by the coronavirus. According to techcrunch.com, Uber’s food delivery division said today it’s inked a partnership with supermarket giant Carrefour in France to provide Parisians with 30 minute home delivery on a range of grocery products, including everyday foods, toiletries and cleaning products. In Spain, it’s partnered with the Galp service station brand to offer a grocery delivery service that consists of basic foods, over the counter medicines, beverages and cleaning products in 15 cities. In Brazil Uber said it’s partnering with a range of pharmacies, convenience stores and pet shops in Sao Paulo to offer home delivery on basic supplies. Due to the
pandemic, the company has switched all deliveries to contactless by default — with orders left at the door or as instructed by a user.

When a company is vaulted into the limelight, it isn’t uncommon to see a number of problems exposed to the greater audience. That’s been the case as Zoom has seen a huge increase in use while people work from home. Theverge.com reports that even though the company states on its website and in a white paper that it supports end to end encryption for meetings…that’s not really true. In fact, a spokesperson said that “Currently, it is not possible to enable E2E encryption for Zoom video meetings.” Zoom does use TLS encryption, though…the same standard that web browsers use to secure HTTPS websites. In practice, that means that data is encrypted between you and Zoom’s servers, similar to Gmail or Facebook content. There are reports of hackers crashing meetings, and it was also revealed that the company had been sharing data with Facebook…something that wasn’t disclosed until discovered. Zoom still says it doesn’t sell user data of any kind. As with most things internet…consider most of what you do online to be public…and keep in mind that if you are dealing with something sensitive, Zoom may be compelled to hand over meeting recordings for legal proceedings.

Lucid Motors, the EV company started by former Tesla Chief Engineer Peter Rawlinson, won’t be starting production as planned. due to the coronavirus, thenextweb.com says production will be on hold until later this year. Lucid had planned a big rollout of the vehicle at the now cancelled Detroit Auto Show. The Lucid Air is roughly the same size and class as the Tesla Model 3, but is alleged to have about twice the power of the Tesla. The company says its supply chain is ready and Lucid will go into production as soon as the virus situation cools down.

Fancy yourself in a grey flannel mask? How about a pin striped one? Jokes aside, legendary clothing company Brooks Brothers has shut down, and will begin production of medical grade masks and gowns. GQ.com reports that the company is converting its facilities in New York, North Carolina, and Massachusetts to production of the badly needed medical supplies. Brooks Brothers says they will be able to crank out 150,000 medical grade masks a day. The 200 year old company has remained one of the few American brands that has kept clothing production in the US. Brooks has been making 70% of their suits in Massachusetts, all of their ties in New York, and about 10% of their shirts in North Carolina.