Amazon Adding 3500 Tech & Corporate Jobs; Panasonic- Home Cube; Secret Service Buys Location Data; Oracle Now in Hunt for TikTok

Amazon has been making bags of money since the start of the pandemic, as Jeff Bezos’ huge jump in worth has shown. Techcrunch.com reports that Amazon is going to be hiring about 3500 jobs to 6 US cities. Most of the gigs will be ‘corporate and tech’, according to the company’s descriptions. They span AWS, Alexa, Amazon Advertising, Amazon Fashion, OpsTech, and Amazon Fresh. They will be located in Dallas, Denver, Detroit, NYC, Phoenix, and San Diego.

You know that working from home, so many people badly miss their beloved cube at the office (dripping sarcasm.) Now, according to business insider.com, Panasonic has the answer…you can buy your very own tiny cube for $835 that can be customized and fit in a living room or spare bedroom. The walls are pegboard, so you can hang all sorts of personal crap the office might not let you..or just some decorative things to brighten the workspace up. The desk, called Komoru, will be out in September, starting in Japan.

In yet another creepy ‘you have no privacy’ story, the Secret Service has been buying location data on the open market that would otherwise need a warrant. Arstechnica.com says The Secret Service back i 2017-18 paid $2 million to a business called Babel Street to use its service Locate X. Locate X provide location data harvested and collated from a large variety of other apps. ICE and Customs and Border Protection have also bought access to cellphone location activity for investigations. Needless to say, this is distressing. Senator Ron Wyden has said he is drafting legislation to close this loophole around peoples’ Fourth Amendment rights. Hopefully, in the next year he will get it introduced and passed.

Microsoft has been talking to them, Twitter has been rumored to have looked at it, and now Oracle is in the hunt for the US assets of TikTok. Engadget picked up a report from Financial Times saying that Oracle is working with investors that already have a stake in TikTok owner ByteDance. FT says that Twitter may not have the financial wherewithal to do the deal, and Microsoft wants to buy in countries besides the US that ByteDance doesn’t want to sell, so Oracle may be a player. The question I asked immediately was how the heck does a video app used by teens fit into Oracle’s business to business portfolio of services..and apparently, that has crossed the minds of a number of others. If Larry Ellison wants to buy it, though, he can. Oracle is worth about $166 billion, with $43 billion in cash or equivalents.

Facebook Merging Instagram & Messenger Chats; ICE Deals With Clearview AI; ZTE Teases Notchless Phone; Musk- 2 Factor ID Coming to Tesla App

As part of a previously-announced plan, Facebook has started merging Instagram chats with Facebook Messenger chats. 9to5mac.com reports that eventually, WhatsApp messaging will also be rolled into the expanded Messenger. Instagram users are now being notified to join their accounts with Messenger. The colorful chats, reactions with any emoji, and swiping to reply to individual messages will become available to Messenger users. For now, the merge is optional, but expect that option to be taken away before too long. WhatsApp staffers have warned about the integration for a while now, noting that WhatsApp’s strong encryption may be lost in the merge with Messenger and Instagram.

Controversial facial recognition firm Clearview AI has signed a deal with ICE. According to businessinsider.com, the company that is notorious for scraping photos from social media to be used by their software in identifying photos uploaded to their system for comparison and identification. The deal is worth $224,000. ICE had already been using facial recognition to carry out raids of undocumented immigrants. They had already accessed state drivers’ license database to add to their facial recognition capabilities. A bill currently in Congress, introduced by Democrats in June, would ban law enforcement agencies like ICE from using facial recognition. Fifteen lawmakers have signaled support for the bill so far.

While some users don’t seem super bothered with the dreaded ‘camera notch’ or ‘hole punch’ for cameras on their smartphone screens, the tech press has been obsessed with them for several years. A holy grail of sorts has been an under display front cam that doesn’t mar the use of your precious screen space. Cnet.com says that ZTE has teased the release of their new Axon 20 5G smartphone in China on September 1st. It will be the first phone mass-produced with an under-display front cam. Several other makers have been working on this tech, including Chinese competitor Xiaomi. Otherwise, the handset will have a 6.92 inch OLED screen, and 4120 mAh battery. The under-screen front cam is 32 megapixels, and there are 4 rear cameras…64, 8, and a pair of 2 megapixel lenses. No word yet on pricing. We may not see the phone in the states, as the Trump administration has deemed ZTE a security threat like they have with Huawei.

In a Tweet, Elon Musk said two factor authentication is coming to the Tesla app, saying “Sorry, this is embarrassingly late.” According to techcrunch.com, Musk first promised the beefed up security in May of 2019, then again in April this year. Musk says two factor is going through final validation right now, and will work through sms message or an authenticator app. As both methods wee mentioned, it isn’t known yet if Tesla will use the sms type…which CAN be intercepted, or the more robust authenticator app system.

Fortnite’s Apple Suit; Laptop Sales Up; Dropbox’s New Features; Amazon Liability Ruling

Game developer and publisher Epic Games has filed a lawsuit against Apple following the removal of the iOS version of its battle royale game Fortnite from the App Store yesterday. Theverge.com reports that besides the lawsuit, they also released a video mocking Apple’s legendary 1984 ad. The suit, argues Apple’s App Store as a monopoly,. Epic effectively provoked Apple’s removal of Fortnite when it implemented its own payment processing system into the iOS version of the battle royale hit, an apparent violation of Apple’s App Store guidelines.

Notebook sales soared in the 2nd quarter, with Lenovo and HP claiming half the market. According to ZDNet.com, consumers, commercial clients and schools — all looking for tech to stay productive and entertained through the COVID-19 pandemic — pushed global notebook sales up by 27 percent in Q2 compared to the year prior, as reported by Strategy Analytics. Lenovo and HP were the top vendors in the quarter. Dell was the third-most popular laptop, followed by Apple then Acer.

Dropbox has officially launched new consumer features out of beta.
Venturebeat says the cloud storage giant first introduced its password manager back in June. It’s similar to other password management apps on the market. Dropbox also launched its backup feature today. It automatically creates a cloud-based backup of any folder stored on a PC or Mac and is continuously synced. In addition, ‘Box launched its new Vault feature-to help users share access to specific files while keeping those documents secure behind a PIN code.

An appeals court in California has ruled that Amazon is legally liable for defective products sold on its site by third parties. The court said Amazon “was pivotal in bringing the product,” a defective replacement laptop battery, to a customer, who alleged she was burned when it exploded. Businessinsider.com notes that the ruling reverses an earlier court’s decision in favor of Amazon, and could open up Amazon to huge legal costs or force it to police sellers on its site more strictly. Amazon is expected to appeal.

Amazon Drops Non-Disparagement Clause; Microsoft Surface Duo; Facebook & COVID-19; Foxconn Increases Non-China Production

Amazon has removed a clause prohibiting disparaging comments about the company from its podcast content license agreement on Amazon Music and Amazon’s Audible subsidiary. According to geek wire.com, there was an immediate, big backlash when word of the non-disparagement clause got out earlier this week. Amazon and Audible have yet to comment publicly on their plans to offer podcasts from third-party content providers directly on their platforms, which will be competing with Apple, Google, Spotify and others major podcast distribution platforms.

Microsoft is launching its Surface Duo dual-screen Android phone on September 10th, priced from $1,399. The verge.com says the company is now allowing anyone to preorder the Surface Duo today in the US. at AT&T, Microsoft’s online store, and Best Buy. The device includes two separate 5.6-inch OLED displays that connect together to form a 8.1-inch overall workspace. Unlike foldables like Samsung’s Galaxy Fold, the Surface Duo is using real Gorilla Glass, and the displays are designed to work in a similar way to multiple monitors on a Windows PC.

Facebook will begin using a new pop-up that appears any time a user shares a link to content about COVID-19. Engadget.com reports that the notification will include a link to the company’s coronavirus information center, and include details about how old the article is and when it was first shared. They will be similar to warnings from Facebook when users share old news articles, in June. By adding an extra layer of context, Facebook is hoping to slow the spread of outdated or less credible information (official health organizations like the WHO are exempt.)

China will no longer be the world’s manufacturing epicenter going forward, according to Apple’s largest supply chain partner Foxconn, which has been gradually expanding its operations in other countries amid the U.S.-China trade war. According to macrumors.com, while China will continue to be a key location for Foxconn’s factories, the country’s “days as the world’s factory are done.” Foxconn’s manufacturing capacity outside China is now 30 percent of its total, up from 25 percent last June.

Lucid EV’s Great Range; Microsoft’s Cash Cloud; AMEX Eyes Kabbage; Google Eases Virtual Education

In a shot over the bow of Tesla and every other electric vehicle maker, Lucid Motors said Tuesday that its upcoming all-electric luxury sedan can travel 517 miles on a single charge — a range that, if validated by the U.S. EPA, blows past every other EV on the road today including Tesla. Techcrunch.com reports that the estimated EPA range was released ahead of the September 9 reveal of the Lucid Air. The estimated EPA range was verified by independent firm FEV North America.

Windows OS is no longer Microsoft’s biggest cash cow. In a government filing noted by geekwire.com, Microsoft’s back-end server products and cloud services are booming. Revenue grew by nearly 27% to $41.4 billion in the product category of Server and Cloud Services in the fiscal year ended June 30. Office and Cloud Services revenue was the second-fastest growing category, at 11%, reaching $35.3 billion in revenue for the year. Windows grew by 9% to $22.3 billion.

American Express is in advanced talks to buy the online small-business lender Kabbage, which is backed by investors including Japan’s SoftBank Group and Reverence Capital Partners, according Bloomberg. The all-cash deal could value the closely held lender at as much as $850 million. An agreement could be announced as soon as this month, though talks could still fall apart. AmEx is already the largest provider of small-business credit cards in the country. With Kabbage, it could be a bigger provider of loans to mom-and-pop shops as well.

Google has announced a number of new features to help make virtual education easier. Theverge.com says for Meet, a larger tiled view that can show up to 49 participants will now arrive in September. Google will integrate its digital whiteboard product, Jamboard, into Meet too. In October, teachers will be able to track attendance in Meet meetings. Also, Google will let students get help with a homework problem just by taking a photo of it using Google Lens.

iPhones & WeChat; Facebook Financial; More 5G Spectrum; Video Game Spending Up

The US executive order banning WeChat could have a big impact on Apple. Noted analyst Ming-Chi Kuo is quoted in Macrumors as saying if Apple has to drop the app from iPhones, it could cost them 25-30% of their sales in China. Apparently, Mobile users there use the app for messaging, payment, e-commerce, social networking, news reading, and productivity…kind of a one-stop app. If WeChat only has to come out of the US App store, Apple would only take a 3% hit. Last quarter, China accounted for 15% of Apple revenue.

Facebook has decided to wade further into commerce with the creation of a new group focused on payments. According to Bloomberg, it’s called F2 internally (short for Facebook Financial), and is intended to take care of all payments-related projects including Facebook Pay, the company’s own e-commerce system. The plan is to unify payments on the company’s various platforms such as Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp under one roof. Facebook believes that enabling such purchases will make advertising more valuable.

The US Department of Defense (DoD) has agreed to give up 100MHz of 3.5GHz spectrum for commercial use, a process that will augment U.S. 5G networks over the next two years. That band is considered a good compromise between older low band cell range and the new 5G bands. The band will support towers and devices operating at “full commercial power levels” from coast to coast. Spectrum will be auctioned in 2021, and it should be available for consumers by 2022.

If it wasn’t already obvious that the coronavirus has been a boon for the video game market, industry analysts at the NPD Group have more evidence. Engadget.com reports that people spent more on video games in the US in the second quarter than ever before. Total spending of $11.6 billion marked a 30 percent year-over-year increase and a seven percent bump over the prior quarter, when spending hit a then-record of $10.9 billion. Hardware sales were “only” $848 million, but that mark represented a massive 57 percent bump from Q2 2019.

Twitter Eyes TikTok; Simon Malls Look to Amazon;, Hyundai Will Add EV’s to Lineup; Surface Duo to AT&T

Add Twitter to TikTok’s list of potential dance partners. The Wall Street Journal reports that the social network has had preliminary talks with TikTok about buying the US operations of the hugely popular, Chinese-owned video app. On Thursday, President Trump issued an executive order that would effectively ban TikTok in the US. mid-September, so there’s the prospect of a sale to a US company. Meanwhile, TikTok could file a federal lawsuit challenging the order as soon as tomorrow.

Simon Property Group, the biggest mall owner in the U.S., has been in talks with Amazon.com to turn some of its Sears and JC Penny anchor department-store spaces into Amazon fulfillment centers. For Amazon, more fulfillment centers near residential areas would speed up the crucial last mile of delivery. For Simon, turning over what was once prime mall space to fulfillment centers shows it would be willing to relinquish an essential way to bring in more mall traffic to secure a steady tenant.

Hyundai is going to market a range of new battery-electric cars under Ioniq branding. Arstechnica.com says the present subcompact that comes in hybrid, plug-in hybrid, and EV flavors, but early in 2021 those cars will be joined by the Ioniq 5, a midsize EV crossover based on a 2019 concept called 45. In 2022, Ioniq will launch the Ioniq 6. Hyundai is aiming to sell 1 million EVs a year by 2025. By that same year it also plans to sell more than half a million hydrogen fuel cell EVs.

Microsoft’s Android Foldable is rumored to go on sale and start shipping as soon as this month. Official-looking renders have leaked that show the final hardware design of the Surface Duo. 9to5google.com notes the big difference from earlier leaks is the inclusion of a flash in the top-right corner. This is a leak of “Microsoft Surface Duo for AT&T.” That could be the carrier Microsoft is offering the Surface Duo on, and the origin.

Google May Announce Folding Pixel Next Year; Twitter Users Can Now Limit Replies; US Wants to Purge ‘Untrusted’ Chinese Apps; Ceiling Fans With UV Light to Kill Viruses

Just after previewing their own new flagship Pixel phones, and on the heels of the new Galaxy Z Fold 2 introduction at Samsung’s Unpacked yesterday, an internal document has been uncovered that indicates Google may be hard at work on a folding phone of its own, slated for a 2021 rollout. According to Digital Trends, the document notes that they are trialing Android on 4 new handsets, including one code-named Passport,’ which is labeled in the document as ‘foldable.’ Google added support for ‘foldable’ last year in Android for developers to start optimizing apps for multi-display phones.

As promised a few months ago, Twitter is now allowing some users to limit who can reply to their Tweets. Engadget.com reports that the Twitter iOS app has been updated with options to restrict replies to tweets to people you follow or just those you mention. As yet, the platform hasn’t announced when the feature will be available on Android. As with anything like this, it’s a two-edged sword…it will further reduce harassment and prevent uninvited clutter into your Twitter convos, but it will also reinforce filter bubbles where users don’t go outside their own perspective and therefore have no idea about what folks with other points of view might be thinking.

The Trump government continues to go after China…now, they want to purge App Stores of ‘untrusted’ Chinese apps. Macrumors.com says Secretary of State Mike Pompeo claims the U.S. “Clean Network” program would focus on five areas and include steps to prevent various Chinese apps and telecoms companies from accessing the sensitive information of American citizens and businesses. One U.S. official said it was a push back against a “massive campaign to steal and weaponize our data against us.” As with everything on the web, the devil will be in the attempt to enforce this ban. It’s mind-numbingly easy to build an app say in China, then get it to other alleged developers or a shell company located elsewhere…and they would still be able to scoop up data on US users. One day, hopefully soon, we will have leaders who either understand this concept, or are smart enough to hire people that do and listen to them.

This sounds like a news of the weird item, but here’s at least an innovative idea for fighting COVID-19 and other viruses and bacteria. Big Ass Fans out of Lexington Kentucky is touting a ceiling fan with built in UV light to help rid your home of viruses. According to cnet.com, their higher end Haiku ceiling fan can be equipped with the UV lights. It does boost the price by $500…making the already pricey fans at $1250 even more so…$1750…whew? Big Ass fans first worked with UV in 2011 when they teamed with an architecture firm to equip a hospital in Rwanda to help kill TB. You are probably thinking that it might be unsafe to be bathed in UV light. These fans point the UV light upward, and the company says they kill ‘up to 99.9% of viruses, bacteria, mold and other harmful airborne agents that pass through the disinfection zone.’ While they can’t say it kills COVID-19 with certainty, the UV does kill SARS and MERS, two other coronaviruses. The fans’ lamps put out UV in the same range as medical grade ones. After a bit more testing, Big Ass hopes to have the fans out soon.

Samsung Unpacked-Note 20 Series, Galaxy Fold 2; Instagram Launches Reels; Musk- Smaller Cybertruck ‘Likely’; Zynga Posts Record Revenue, Still Has Net Loss

As anticipated, Samsung rolled out new Galaxy Note 20 phones today, as well as a freshened Galaxy Fold Z at their Unpacked event. Theverge.com reports that The Note 20 Ultra is pretty similar to the Galaxy S20 Ultra. The cam is unchanged with the 108MP sensor, and it retains the 6.9 inch screen. The Note 20 has a 6.7 inch screen, and a 12MP primary camera. the Note 20 starts at $999, and the Ultra at $1299. Both are available from Samsung.com and retailers. Both have Mystic Bronze, but the Ultra also comes in Black or White. the Note 20 offers Gray and Green.

The Galaxy Z Fold 2 now has a full-size 6.2 inch outside screen that covers the entire front of the phone…a vast improvement over the last model’s small outside screen. the Main display inside has grown to 7.6 inches. There is no longer the odd, notched corner…just a hole punch cam in the screen. The biggest question is durability…will the new model hold up better long the actual fold. The original was delayed months after review units sent to media members failed almost immediately. Not cool on a phone that runs $1980. The Z Fold 2 will be out in Mystic Black and Mystic Bronze, but Samsung didn’t give us a release date or a price as yet. They are promising both in September.

In a direct shot at trying to steal users from the insanely popular TikTok, Facebook’s Instagram has launched Reels. According to engadget.com, the launch is going live now in 50 countries, including the US, UK, France, Australia, and Japan. Facebook has been down this path before, but it may be with Reels, they will have a real shot. Instagram already skews younger for Facebook, and that’s the users that TikTok has and Facebook wants. The app feature lets you record a series of clips from Instagram’s in-app camera, including music and AR effects. Facebook claims much more sophisticated editing tools than it has in Stories on the main app. Once you upload, the Reels pile is automatically shared to the new Reels section of Explore. They hope this will ape TikTok’s ForYou page, and get viral use going.

If you are one who likes the unusual…to say the least…Tesla Cybertruck, but it’s just too big for your use, you’re in luck. Elon Musk has said (in Tweets) that a smaller version is ‘Highly likely down the road.’ Mashable.com notes that, when asked about one with less width…which would be better suited to cities and European roads, Musk replied it was true that a narrow track would be better for those uses, intimating that a smaller truck would also be less wide. The full-sized Cybertruck is supposed to go on sale in 2021. As for ‘down the road’ for a smaller one, that could be several years away.

Zynga has posted the highest revenue figure ever…$452 million, a 47% increase over last year. According to The Hollywood Reporter, this came largely due to better results for the match-3 puzzle and RPG crossover game Empires & Puzzles. Even with the revenue boost, Zynga had a net income loss of $150 million…partly offset by an increase in contingent consideration expenses on the heels of acquiring Small Giant Games and Small Gram Games.

Apple Updates iMacs; T-Mobile 5G Net-Better Indoor & Rural Coverage; Google Brings Nearby Share to Android; Microsoft-Much Bigger Bug Bounties

Apple freshened its iMacs today. Theverge.com reports that both the 21.5 inch and 27 inch models get Intel’s 10th ten Comet Lake processors, and the webcams will also be 1080p HD instead of the low-res 720p ones found on other Macs. SSDs are now standard across the line. There are a raft of configurations, but the base 27 inch iMac starts at $1799, and the entry level 21.5 inch iMac is priced at $1099. They ship next week. Note that the powerhouse iMac Pro is not getting updated at this time.

An Apple feature I use daily is AirDrop..which lets me send a file from my phone to my laptop, or vice versa. Now, Google is bringing this handy feature (albeit with a different name) to Android devices. According to businessinsider.com, Google calls it ‘Nearby Share.’ It will allow sharing between Android devices, and also will be coming to Chromebook in the next few months. It will work on Android 6.0 and higher. Google Pixels and some Samsung phones will be first to get the update with the new feature.

By now, most everyone has heard about the blindingly faster speed coming with 5G networks and phones. Cnet.com says that’s not all. T-Mobile’s 5G network upgrade is also bringing better indoor and rural coverage. T-Mobile claims its Standalone 5G doesn’t have to be anchored to any existing 4G LTE service, which allows them to offer better coverage and performance. For one thing, you won’t get the latency that happens on nets that are tied to older LTE services. This will make the net seem much faster. T-Mobile claims latency improvements of up to 40%. You should have pretty glitch free streaming over this new network, even if indoors or out further into the countryside.

Microsoft has stepped up its bounty game for bug finds, paying out $13.7 million to security researchers since last July. Zdnet.com reports that now Microsoft’s bounties have far exceeded Google’s, which were about $6.5 million in 2019. So far this year, 11 zero-day vulnerabilities have been squashed, and Microsoft patched a grand total of 115 vulnerabilities in just March alone.