A profile of Discord, which lies at the center of the gaming world with 100M+ MAUs, as it pushes to turn into a communication tool for everyone, not just gamers — Most longtime Discord users have a similar origin story. They liked playing video games, and liked playing with their friends …
Cloud video surveillance company Eagle Eye Networks raises $40M Series E from Accel to invest in new AI projects such as license plate recognition — Eagle Eye Networks, a cloud video surveillance company, raised $40 million in Series E funding from Accel to advance its platform.
StackHawk, whose tech helps developers find application security vulnerabilities before they get into production, raises $10M Series A led by Sapphire Ventures — With a successful beta at its back and paying customers onboard, Denver application security startup StackHawk announced Tuesday …
Wise, a fintech startup that partners with other companies so that they can offer business bank accounts to their own customers, raises $12M Series A — Fintech startup Wise has raised a $12 million Series A round. The company offers business bank accounts with an interesting go-to-market strategy.
Skan, which helps enterprises automate repetitive business processes by combining data engineering with computer vision, raises $14M Series A — Skan.ai, an AI-enabled process discovery and operational intelligence platform, today closed $14 million in funding.
DriveWealth raises $56.7M Series C for its digital brokerage services that help broker-dealers and its global online partners access the US securities market — DriveWealth, LLC, a Chatam, N.J.-based global digital trading technology company, raised $56.7m in Series C funding.
The Internet Archive starts adding banners on some Wayback Machine pages with links that provide contextual information from fact-checking organizations — Fact checking organizations and origin websites sometimes have information about pages archived in the Wayback Machine.
Forty-six top US companies including Apple, Google, and Twitter have filed an amicus brief supporting a legal challenge to block Trump admin's H-1B visa changes — - The move comes in the wake of the US administration's proposal to scrap the computerized lottery system to grant H-1B work visas …
Odaseva, a France-based data protection services provider for large-scale Salesforce customers, raises $25M Series B led by Eight Roads Ventures — French SaaS company Odaseva has raised $25 million in Series B funding to continue growing its data governance platform for enterprise.
Profile of Shield AI, which raised money from a16z and others to develop autonomous military drones that scan buildings to help soldiers clear them — On the battlefield, any doorway can be a death trap. A special ops vet, and his businessman brother, have built an AI to solve that problem.
CISA, FBI say an Iran-linked APT targeted unsecured state election websites to harvest US voter info used to send threatening emails to some Democratic voters — DHS CISA and the FBI today shared more info on how an Iranian state-sponsored hacking group was able to harvest voter registration info …
Activision has confirmed that Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War will require up to 250GB of storage space at launch on PC. This is for the gamers who will be running the game in 4K with ray-tracing enabled. For the standard non ray-tracing, the game will require 175GB for the offline story mode and 50GB only for the multiplayer mode.
Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War will feature 4K visuals, uncapped frame rates, Ray Tracing Shadows, NVIDIA DLSS, and Reflex Technology.
It is possible that Black Ops Cold War could be a lot closer to its PC size on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, as the consoles will be able to harness the power of new ray-tracing enabled GPUs with resolution up to 4k.
Sony has said PlayStation 5 will offer players more flexibility on how they manage their storage on the console, enabling users able to configure installations and choose to install just a game’s multiplayer or delete the single-player campaign once completed.
Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War will be released on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S on November 13, 2020.
OS: Windows 7 64-Bit (SP1) or Windows 10 64-Bit (v.1803 or higher) CPU: Intel Core i3-4340 or AMD FX-6300 RAM: 8GB RAM HDD (at launch): 50GB (MP only), 175GB (all game modes) GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 / GeForce GTX 1650 or Radeon HD 7950
Recommended Specs:OS: Windows 10 64 Bit (latest update) CPU: Intel Core i5-2500K or AMD Ryzen R5 1600X processor RAM: 12GB RAM HDD (at launch): 175GB HD space GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 / GTX 1660 Super or Radeon R9 390 / AMD RX 580
Recommended Specs for Ray-Tracing:OS: Windows 10 64 Bit (latest update) CPU: Intel i7-8700K or AMD Ryzen 1800X RAM: 16GB RAM HDD (at launch): 175GB HD space GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070
Recommended Specs for Competitive mode (to run at high fps with high refresh rate monitor):OS: Windows 10 64 Bit (latest update) CPU: Intel i7-8700K or AMD Ryzen 1800X RAM: 16GB RAM HDD (at launch): 175GB HD space GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 / RTX 3070 or Radeon RX Vega64 Graphics
Ultra Specifications:OS: Windows 10 64 Bit (latest Update) CPU: Intel i9-9900K or AMD Ryzen 3700X RAM: 16GB RAM HDD (at launch): 250GB HD space GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080
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If you are a OnePlus 7T or 7T Pro user and like testing out new features on your smartphone, then there is good news for you. The Oxygen OS Open Beta 9 is now live for OnePlus 7T and OnePlus 7T Pro users. So, what’s new in this Beta? It brings with it improved system stability and fixed general issues, updated Android Security Patch to 2020.10. The update also fixes the flashback issue when switched to the front camera in particular cases.
On its official blog, OnePlus says, “Please keep in mind that this is beta software. These builds are sometimes not as stable as our official OTAs generally are. By installing this update, you accept the potential risks. For those who were on previous versions for OnePlus 7T and OnePlus 7T Pro, we appreciate your active feedback and for reaching out to us. With your help, we have been able to better optimize and improve several key areas. Thank you for your patience and as always, we look forward to getting your continued feedback via the Community app”.
As far as the official OTA updates are concerned, the OnePlus 7, 7 Pro and 7T received an OTA update in October 2020. The latest update doesn’t have new features as such, but updates the software to version 10.3.6 for users in India, fixing some bugs and retaining the previous September security patch. You can learn more about it here.
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The iPhones are quite expensive in India and if something goes wrong with the device outside of the warranty, one usually resorted to getting their devices fixed by third-party repair shops. It looks like this may be difficult for iPhone 12 users. iFixit has discovered that replacing the camera module of the iPhone 12 causes some issues. It's not just a simple error screen that one gets. However, it looks like the same problem does not affect the iPhone 12 Pro.
As reported by GSMarena, “iFixit explains that Apple has changed its training manuals. Starting with the iPhone 12 series, changing the display and camera requires the use of the System Configuration tool, which will connect to Apple’s servers before reprogramming the new component to work properly.”
During the era of the iPhone 5s, one could only fix the fingerprint sensor on the iPhone via an authorised Apple repair. This made sense as the fingerprint sensor is vital for security. You can check out the iPhone 12 camera swap test video below.
Speaking of the new iPhones, the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro are on sale in India, with the iPhone 12 Mini and iPhone 12 Pro Max going on sale later in November. The smartphones announced earlier in October can be purchased from the online Apple Store, and from authorised retailers across the country. Interestingly, the new iPhones are yet to be made available on both Flipkart and Amazon. You can learn more about the iPhone 12 devices here.
If you are an iPhone user, then know that the Apple One subscription is now available in India. You can learn all the details here.
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Hands-on with the Dash Cart at an Amazon Fresh store: cart sensors worked fine, but a two-bag limit, bag fill limit, and real-world hassles hinder experience — There were no lines outside Irvine, California's new Amazon Fresh grocery store on its opening day last week …
Apple rejects an app designed to verify a person's ballot status in PA, says the app violates its guideline which forbids compiling user data without consent — Apple on Friday rejected an app designed to ensure ballots are being correctly counted in Pennsylvania, saying the software violates App Store privacy guidelines.
TikTok has won another battle in its fight against the Trump administration’s ban of its video-sharing app in the U.S. — or, more accurately in this case, the TikTok community won a battle. On Friday, a federal judge in Pennsylvania issued an injunction that blocked the restrictions that would have otherwise blocked TikTok from operating in the U.S. on November 12.
This particular lawsuit was not led by TikTok itself, but rather a group of TikTok creators who use the app to engage with their million-plus followers.
According to the court documents, plaintiff Douglas Marland has 2.7 million followers on the app; Alec Chambers has 1.8 million followers; and Cosette Rinab has 2.3 million followers. The creators argued — successfully as it turns out — that they would lose access to their followers in the event of a ban, as well as the “professional opportunities afforded by TikTok.” In other words, they’d lose their brand sponsorships — meaning, their income.
This is not the first time that the U.S. courts have sided with TikTok to block the Trump administration’s proposed ban over the Chinese-owned video sharing app. Last month, a D.C. judge blocked the ban that would have removed the app from being listed in U.S. app stores run by Apple and Google.
That ruling had not, however, stopped the November 12 ban that would have blocked companies from providing internet hosting services that would have allowed TikTok to continue to operate in the U.S.
The Trump administration had moved to block the TikTok app from operating in the U.S. due to its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, claiming it was a national security threat. The core argument from the judge in this ruling was the “Government’s own descriptions of the national security threat posed by the TikTok app are phrased in the hypothetical.”
That hypothetical risk was unable to be stated by the government, the judge argued, to be such a risk that it outweighed the public interest. The interest, in this case, was the more than 100 million users of TikTok and the creators like Marland, Chambers and Rinab that utilized it to spread “informational materials,” which allowed the judge to rule that the ban would shut down a platform for expressive activity.
“We are deeply moved by the outpouring of support from our creators, who have worked to protect their rights to expression, their careers, and to help small businesses, particularly during the pandemic,” said Vanessa Pappas, Interim Global Head of TikTok, in a statement. “We stand behind our community as they share their voices, and we are committed to continuing to provide a home for them to do so,” she added.
The TikTok community coming to the rescue on this one aspect of the overall TikTok picture just elevates this whole story. Though the company has been relatively quiet through this whole process, Pappas has thanked the community several times for its outpouring of support. Though there were some initial waves of “grief” on the app with creators frantically recommending people follow them on other platforms, that has morphed over time into more of a “let’s band together” vibe. This activity coalesced around a big swell in voting advocacy on the platform, where many creators are too young to actually participate but view voting messaging as their way to participate.
TikTok has remained active in the product department through the whole mess, shipping elections guides and trying to ban QAnon conspiracy spread, even as Pakistan banned and then un-banned the app.
Asymptomatic spread of COVID-19 is a huge contributor to the pandemic, but of course if there are no symptoms, how can anyone tell they should isolate or get a test? MIT research has found that hidden in the sound of coughs is a pattern that subtly, but reliably, marks a person as likely to be in the early stages of infection. It could make for a much-needed early warning system for the virus.
The sound of one’s cough can be very revealing, as doctors have known for many years. AI models have been built to detect conditions like pneumonia, asthma and even neuromuscular diseases, all of which alter how a person coughs in different ways.
Before the pandemic, researcher Brian Subirana had shown that coughs may even help predict Alzheimer’s — mirroring results from IBM research published just a week ago. More recently, Subirana thought if the AI was capable of telling so much from so little, perhaps COVID-19 might be something it could suss out as well. In fact, he isn’t the first to think so.
He and his team set up a site where people could contribute coughs, and ended up assembling “the largest research cough dataset that we know of.” Thousands of samples were used to train up the AI model, which they document in an open access IEEE journal.
The model seems to have detected subtle patterns in vocal strength, sentiment, lung and respiratory performance, and muscular degradation, to the point where it was able to identify 100% of coughs by asymptomatic COVID-19 carriers and 98.5% of symptomatic ones, with a specificity of 83% and 94% respectively, meaning it doesn’t have large numbers of false positives or negatives.
“We think this shows that the way you produce sound, changes when you have COVID, even if you’re asymptomatic,” said Subirana of the surprising finding. However, he cautioned that although the system was good at detecting non-healthy coughs, it should not be used as a diagnosis tool for people with symptoms but unsure of the underlying cause.
I asked Subirana for a bit more clarity on this point.
“The tool is detecting features that allow it to discriminate the subjects that have COVID from the ones that don’t,” he wrote in an email. “Previous research has shown you can pick up other conditions too. One could design a system that would discriminate between many conditions but our focus was on picking out COVID from the rest.”
For the statistics-minded out there, the incredibly high success rate may raise some red flags. Machine learning models are great at a lot of things, but 100% isn’t a number you see a lot, and when you do you start thinking of other ways it might have been produced by accident. No doubt the findings will need to be proven on other data sets and verified by other researchers, but it’s also possible that there’s simply a reliable tell in COVID-induced coughs that a computer listening system can hear quite easily.
The team is collaborating with several hospitals to build a more diverse data set, but is also working with a private company to put together an app to distribute the tool for wider use, if it can get FDA approval.
Sources: Italy's biggest payments company Nexi is leading negotiations to buy its Nordic rival Nets in an all-stock deal worth around $10B — LONDON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Italian payments technology firm Nexi NEXII.MI is leading negotiations to buy Nordic rival Nets in an all-stock deal worth …
Texas jury rules that Apple must pay VirnetX $502.8M for patent infringement, the lastest verdict in a 10-year ongoing legal battle; Apple says it will appeal — - Verdict is part of 10-year fight over secure communications — Jury asked to determine damages on patent infringement
Waymo releases public road testing data on its self-driving operations in Arizona between Jan. 2019 and Sept. 2020, says its cars drove 6.1M+ miles in 2019 — In its first report on its autonomous vehicle operations in Phoenix, Arizona, Waymo said that it was involved in 18 crashes …
Emma Roth / The Verge : Twitch plans to roll out its TikTok-style discovery feed later in April, letting users scroll clips and livestrea...
