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IBM will no longer offer, develop, or research facial recognition technology - 9 juin 2020
IBM will no longer offer general purpose facial recognition or analysis software, IBM CEO Arvind Krishna said in a letter to Congress today. The company will also no longer develop or research the technology, IBM tells The Verge. Krishna addressed the letter to Sens. Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Kamala Harris (D-CA) and (...)
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Seventh Amazon worker dies of COVID-19 as the company refuses to say how many are sick - 15 mai 2020
Workers say they aren’t being told of virus deaths at their facilities
An Amazon warehouse worker in Indianapolis, Indiana, has died of COVID-19, the company confirmed.
The death brings the known total of COVID-19 deaths at Amazon warehouses to seven, but Amazon’s process for notifying workers makes the true (...)
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Facebook will pay $52 million in settlement with moderators who developed PTSD on the job - The Verge - 13 mai 2020
Current and former moderators will all be paid a minimum of $1,000
In a landmark acknowledgment of the toll that content moderation takes on its workforce, Facebook has agreed to pay $52 million to current and former moderators to compensate them for mental health issues developed on the job. In a preliminary (...)
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Nuro gets the green light to test driverless delivery robots in California - The Verge - 28 avril 2020
The company is only the second to receive permission from the safety-conscious state
Nuro, the self-driving startup founded by two ex-Google engineers, was approved to test its driverless delivery robots on public roads in California. The company is the second to receive a driverless permit in the state.
Nuro, (...)
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Messenger Rooms are Facebook’s answer to Zoom and Houseparty for the pandemic - The Verge - 26 avril 2020
Facebook is greatly expanding its video chat offerings to keep up with rising demand
Facebook is rolling out a suite of new products to expand its capabilities in video chat. The company today announced Messenger Rooms, a tool for starting virtual hangouts with up to 50 people and allowing friends to drop in on (...)
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Peter Thiel’s controversial Palantir is helping build a coronavirus tracking tool for the Trump admin - The Verge - 22 avril 2020
The tool is called HHS Protect Now
Palantir, an analytics company co-founded by Trump ally Peter Thiel, is supporting the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in building a tool to track the spread of the coronavirus, according to a new report from The Daily Beast.
The tool, which is reportedly (...)
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Google and Apple launching coronavirus contact-tracing system for iOS and Android - The Verge - 11 avril 2020
Potentially a huge step forward in the fight against COVID-19
Apple and Google announced a system for tracking the spread of the new coronavirus, allowing users to share data through Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) transmissions and approved apps from health organizations.
The new system, which is laid out in a (...)
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Microsoft to end investments in facial recognition firms after AnyVision controversy - 27 mars 2020
AnyVision was accused of helping the Israeli government surveil the West Bank
Microsoft says it will no longer invest in third-party facial recognition companies following a controversy around its funding of Israeli startup AnyVision, which critics and human rights activists say powered a surveillance program in (...)
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Facebook’s Preventive Health tool asks people to advocate for their health - The Verge - 9 mars 2020
Now you can check Facebook before your next checkup
Starting today, Facebook will let users choose to get personalized reminders about health care tests and vaccines. The company’s new Preventive Health tool focuses on getting people information about cancer screenings, heart checkups, and flu vaccines — all (...)
information
Google location data turned a random biker into a burglary suspect - The Verge - 8 mars 2020
The police used a geofence warrant to collect info from a fitness app
A Florida man who used a fitness app to track his bike rides found himself a suspect in a burglary when police used a geofence warrant to collect data from nearby devices, an NBC News investigation finds. Zachary McCoy had never been in the home (...)
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Robots aren’t taking our jobs — they’re becoming our bosse - 4 mars 2020
In warehouses, call centers, and other sectors, intelligent machines are managing humans, and they’re making work more stressful, grueling, and dangerous
On conference stages and at campaign rallies, tech executives and politicians warn of a looming automation crisis — one where workers are gradually, then all at (...)
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Twitter suspends 70 pro-Michael Bloomberg accounts for ‘platform manipulation’ - The Verge - 25 février 2020
Bloomberg’s campaign is focusing heavily on social media
Twitter announced Friday that it would suspend 70 accounts that posted content in support of Michael Bloomberg’s presidential campaign, first reported by the Los Angeles Times.
“We have taken enforcement action on a group of accounts for violating our rules (...)
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Amazon warehouse workers skip bathroom breaks to keep their jobs, says report - The Verge - 16 février 2020
In the UK, an undercover reporter and a labor survey exposed harrowing work conditions
Amazon warehouse workers are forced to pee in bottles or forego their bathroom breaks entirely because fulfillment demands are too high, according to journalist James Bloodworth, who went undercover as an Amazon worker for his (...)
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YouTube demands Clearview AI stop scraping its videos for facial recognition database - The Verge - 9 février 2020
YouTube has sent a cease and desist letter to Clearview AI demanding that the controversial facial recognition startup stop scraping YouTube videos to gather faces for its database and delete any images it’s already collected. The demand, first reported by CBS News, says that YouTube forbids anyone from collecting (...)
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Grubhub is faking which restaurants it actually partners with - The Verge - 4 février 2020
The latest in its string of shady practices
Grubhub has a new “growth hacking” strategy that includes creating a restaurant listing on its platform for places it doesn’t even partner with. According to a new report by the San Francisco Chronicle and tweets by restaurant owner Pim Techamuanvivit, Grubhub has been (...)
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US colleges are trying to install location tracking apps on students’ phones - The Verge - 4 février 2020
Supposedly an easier way to track attendance
Barely over a year ago, we pointed out how dystopian it seemed when Chinese schools added “smart uniforms” to track their students’ attendance. But US colleges are already testing out a similar tactic with a location tracking app, which students are now apparently (...)
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Grubhub is using fake websites to drive up commission fees from real businesses - The Verge - 3 février 2020
They also list phone numbers that don’t belong to the actual business
Grubhub has been buying tens of thousands of domain names that resemble those of businesses they either work with or are pitching to get on the platform, reports New Food Economy. Those domains, of which Grubhub owns as many as 23,000, are used (...)
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Moscow rolls out live facial recognition system with an app to alert police - The Verge - 3 février 2020
The new system is the ‘largest in the world,’ says vendor
Moscow is the latest major city to introduce live facial recognition cameras to its streets, with Mayor Sergei Sobyanin announcing that the technology is operating “on a mass scale” earlier this month, according to a report from Russian business paper (...)
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YouTube moderators are being forced to sign a statement acknowledging the job can give them PTSD - The Verge - 25 janvier 2020
Content moderators for YouTube are being ordered to sign a document acknowledging that performing the job can cause post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), according to interviews with employees and documents obtained by The Verge. Accenture, which operates a moderation site for YouTube in Austin, Texas, (...)
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Automated background checks are deciding who’s fit for a home - 25 décembre 2019
But advocates say algorithms can’t capture the complexity of criminal records
MikhailMikhail Arroyo had made it out of the coma, but he was still frail when his mother, Carmen, tried to move him in with her. The months had been taxing : Mikhail was severely injured in a devastating fall in 2015. He had spent time (...)
