Tech Nuggets with the Technology

Wednesday, November 6, 2019

Former Twitter Employees Charged With Spying for Saudi Arabia

Two former Twitter employees and a third man were charged in San Francisco Federal Court Wednesday with spying on Twitter users critical of the Saudi royal family, the US Justice Department announced. https://ift.tt/33rLkiS

Google adds developer guides for Google Assistant to support smart bathtubs and faucets, such as those by Kohler and Delta (Kyle Bradshaw/9to5Google)

Kyle Bradshaw / 9to5Google:
Google adds developer guides for Google Assistant to support smart bathtubs and faucets, such as those by Kohler and Delta — Piece by piece, the Google Assistant has been working its way into new parts of our homes. The latest additions to the Google Assistant's lineup are the bathtub and faucet.

WhatsApp users can now decide who can add them to groups

To enable the new update, WhatsApp users have to go to settings in their app, then tap account, followed by privacy and groups and then select one of three options: ‘everyone’, ‘my contacts’ or ‘my contacts except’. https://ift.tt/33pJ2ka https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Apple iPhone 11 Pro Max vs Samsung Galaxy Note 10 Plus: How the cameras compare

https://ift.tt/2qpvq9X

Google says it is open sourcing the phone-based VR software of Cardboard, less than a month after the company discontinued its Daydream View VR headset (Jay Peters/The Verge)

Jay Peters / The Verge:
Google says it is open sourcing the phone-based VR software of Cardboard, less than a month after the company discontinued its Daydream View VR headset — Maybe the last nail in the coffin for phone-based VR — In October, Google officially discontinued its Daydream View VR headset …

ETtech top 5: SoftBank changes strategy amid losses, Uber's plunging shares & more

A closer look at today's biggest tech and startup news and why they matter. https://ift.tt/2JWrggM https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Airbnb to verify all 7 million properties to improve trust

It's one of several moves Airbnb is making to improve user trust and make it easier for guests, hosts and others to report problems and obtain refunds when things go awry. https://ift.tt/2qzxpIH https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Oppo, Vivo sales jump 67% in FY19

Both the brands contribute revenue of Rs 38,726 cr to parent BBK Electronics; losses mount too https://ift.tt/2WQcbT2 https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Govt app will track water tanker movements

Technology to monitor contractors assigned to supply drinking water to drought-hit areas, ensure timely payments https://ift.tt/2qqBXBo https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Chronosphere, founded by two ex-Uber engineers, raises $11M Series A for a scalable, cloud-native production monitoring tool able to handle Uber-level scale (Ron Miller/TechCrunch)

Ron Miller / TechCrunch:
Chronosphere, founded by two ex-Uber engineers, raises $11M Series A for a scalable, cloud-native production monitoring tool able to handle Uber-level scale — Chronoshere, a startup from two ex-Uber engineers, who helped create the open source M3 monitoring project to handle Uber-level scale …

Alphabet’s board is investigating how execs have handled claims of sexual harassment and other misconduct

Alphabet’s board of directors has opened an investigation into how executives at the company have handled misconduct claims, CNBC reported earlier today after viewing materials that it says show an independent subcommittee has been formed — and a law firm hired — to look into the issues.

One of the subjects of those claims is the company’s chief legal officer, David Drummond, whose long-ago extramarital affair with an employee was first surfaced in a story by The Information in 2017, one day after the outlet reported that another former executive, Android creator Andy Rubin, had earlier left the company after an internal investigation determined that he had carried on an inappropriate relationship with a subordinate.

Rubin, who has since cofounded the consumer electronic products startup Essential, has consistently denied any wrongdoing. Still, it infuriated Google employees who learned nearly a year later in a New York Times investigation that he’d negotiated a $90 million severance pay package on his way out the door.

He wasn’t the only executive who was paid by Google after being accused of sexual harassment. Former senior search vice president Amit Singhal was also accused of sexual harassment, deciding to leave the company as it was reportedly looking into the incident. Singhal, who spent 15 years with Google and also denied any wrongdoing, was given a payout that ultimately amounted to $15 million.

Both payouts were approved by Google’s Leadership Development and Compensation Committee. Today, that committee is helmed by investors John Doerr and Ram Shriram, along with GIlead Sciences CFO Robin Washington, though Washington was only brought onto Alphabet’s board in April.

Other employees have also accused the company of not doing enough to stop sexual harassment in previous years, including a former Google engineer who announced on Twitter in 2015 that she was long sexually harassed by management at Google and that the company, despite her complaints, did nothing about it and even supported her harassers.

Why the company has waited until now to take action isn’t clear but it seems likely that fresh accusations against Drummond are at least part of the driver.

It was in August that his former colleague, Jennifer Blakely — who was in a published a post on Medium in which she described him as a serial philanderer who left his wife for Blakely, then left Blakely and the son that he fathered with her for another now-former Google employee.

She also claimed Drummond had had “an affair with his ‘personal assistant’ who he moved into one of his new homes.”

One day later, Drummond issued a statement of his own, saying: It’s not a secret that Jennifer and I had a difficult break-up 10 years ago. I am far from perfect and I regret my part in that. Her account raises many claims about us and other people, including our son and my former wife. As you would expect, there are two sides to all of the conversations and details Jennifer recounts, and I take a very different view about what happened. I have discussed these claims directly with Jennifer, and I addressed the details of our relationship with our employer at the time.”

Drummond’s statement continued to on to say: “But I do want to address one claim that touches on professional matters. Other than Jennifer, I never started a relationship with anyone else who was working at Google or Alphabet. Any suggestion otherwise is simply untrue.”

Days later, Drummond married a Google employee who he’d been dating.

Drummond, who has continued on in his top role at Alphabet and was paid $47 million last year, this week sold $27 million worth of shares, according to SEC filings. He may need some of it for legal fees.

Qualcomm reports fiscal Q4 revenue of $4.8B, profits of ~$500M, beating estimates on strong income from licensing division which generated ~$1.16B in revenue (Kif Leswing/CNBC)

Kif Leswing / CNBC:
Qualcomm reports fiscal Q4 revenue of $4.8B, profits of ~$500M, beating estimates on strong income from licensing division which generated ~$1.16B in revenue — - Qualcomm stock shot up 6% in extended trading after the company beat revenue and earnings estimates.