Tech Nuggets with the Technology

Wednesday, November 20, 2019

Apple, Intel file antitrust case against SoftBank-owned firm over patent practices

The suit follows an earlier case that Intel filed against Fortress in October. Intel withdrew that suit and on Wednesday filed a new version in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California with Apple joining as a plaintiff. https://ift.tt/34j6gZu

Some Huawei suppliers get US approval to restart sales to blacklisted firm

The Trump administration gave Huawei its second reprieve this week, allowing some suppliers to restart sales to the Chinese telecoms giant after it was placed on a trade black list over national security concerns six months ago. https://ift.tt/2KI2IbD

Alibaba to pay banks up to $32.3 million in fees for Hong Kong listing

The e-commerce giant employed two co-sponsors, China International Capital Corp (CICC) and Credit Suisse , to head the deal which has been carried out over the past week. https://ift.tt/2OsJNTg

Google Bars Elections Ads From Using Political Leanings, Voter Data

Google said it would limit audience targeting for election ads to age, gender and general location at a postal code level. https://ift.tt/2D4RR7j

President Donald Trump hosted an undisclosed dinner with Mark Zuckerberg and Peter Thiel at the White House in October, Facebook confirmed on Wednesday (NBC News)

NBC News:
President Donald Trump hosted an undisclosed dinner with Mark Zuckerberg and Peter Thiel at the White House in October, Facebook confirmed on Wednesday — The meeting took place during Zuckerberg's most recent visit to Washington, where he testified before Congress about Facebook's new cryptocurrency Libra.

Google, Facebook Are Human Rights Abusers, Says Amnesty International

Amnesty International said Google and Facebook should be forced to abandon what it calls their surveillance-based business model because it is "predicated on human rights abuse." https://ift.tt/347ILCS

Redmi Note 5 Gets MIUI 11 Update in India With October Security Patch

Xiaomi has begun rolling out the MIUI v11.0.2.0 stable update for the Redmi Note 5 in India that also brings the October security patch https://ift.tt/35l8Dv1

Government Grants Telcos Relief by Deferring Spectrum Payments

India on Wednesday allowed telecom operators to defer payments due for airwaves bought via auction until the end of March 2022, giving some respite to firms after a court ruled they must pay overdue... https://ift.tt/2s47Lga

Google's limits on microtargeting of political ads for state and federal candidates shakes up ad plans and frustrates both Democrats and Republicans (New York Times)

New York Times:
Google's limits on microtargeting of political ads for state and federal candidates shakes up ad plans and frustrates both Democrats and Republicans — The company said the ads would not be directed specifically to audiences based on their public voter records or political affiliations.

Report: Sacklers using fake doctors, false marketing to sell OxyContin in China

Consumer-sized bottles of prescription drugs sit on a shelf.

The mega-rich family behind the OxyContin-maker Purdue Pharma is back to selling its highly addictive pain killer with underhanded tactics and deceptive advertising—this time in China, via its international company, Mundipharma. That’s all according to a searing new investigation by the Associated Press.

The Sackler family, which owns both Purdue and Mundipharma, is embroiled in litigation in the United States over its alleged role in sparking the country’s epidemic of opioid abuse and overdoses. Thousands of plaintiffs—many state and local governments—claim that Purdue and the Sacklers misled patients, doctors, and regulators on the addictiveness of their drugs, aggressively marketed them, and wooed doctors into over-prescribing them.

While Purdue has since declared bankruptcy and stopped promoting OxyContin in the US, the Sacklers seem to be employing the same detestable practices in China.

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https://arstechnica.com

Antarctic tests will prepare this rover for a possible trip to an icy ocean moon

Exploring a distant moon usually means trundling around its uniquely inhospitable surface, but on icy ocean moons like Saturn’s Enceladus, it might be better to come at things from the bottom up. This rover soon to be tested in Antarctica could one day roll along the underside of a miles-thick ice crust in the ocean of a strange world.

It is thought that these oceanic moons may be the most likely on which to find signs of life past or present. But exploring them is no easy task.

Little is known about these moons, and the missions we have planned are very much for surveying the surface, not penetrating their deepest secrets. But if we’re ever to know what’s going on under the miles of ice (water or other) we’ll need something that can survive and move around down there.

The Buoyant Rover for Under-Ice Exploration, or BRUIE, is a robotic exploration platform under development at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. It looks a bit like an industrial-strength hoverboard (remember those?), and as you might guess from its name, it cruises around the ice upside-down by making itself sufficiently buoyant to give its wheels traction.

“We’ve found that life often lives at interfaces, both the sea bottom and the ice-water interface at the top. Most submersibles have a challenging time investigating this area, as ocean currents might cause them to crash, or they would waste too much power maintaining position,” explained BRUIE’s lead engineer, Andy Klesh, in a JPL blog post.

Unlike ordinary submersibles, though, this one would be able to stay in one place and even temporarily shut down while maintaining its position, waking only to take measurements. That could immensely extend its operational duration.

NASA confirms mission to Jupiter’s moon Europa to explore its icy oceans

While the San Fernando Valley is a great analog for many dusty, sun-scorched extraterrestrial environments, it doesn’t really have anything like an ice-encrusted ocean to test in. So the team went to Antarctica.

The project has been in development since 2012, and has been tested in Alaska (pictured up top) and the Arctic. But the Antarctic is the ideal place to test extended deployment — ultimately for up to months at a time. Try that where the sea ice retreats to within a few miles of the pole.

Testing of the rover’s potential scientific instruments is also in order, since in a situation where we’re looking for signs of life, accuracy and precision are paramount.

JPL’s techs will be supported by the Australian Antarctic Program, which maintains Casey station, from which the mission will be based.

Vouch Insurance, which offers startups insurance policies that start at $200/year, expands to CA, announces $45M Series B, after raising $24M Series A in Sept (Ingrid Lunden/TechCrunch)

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Vouch Insurance, which offers startups insurance policies that start at $200/year, expands to CA, announces $45M Series B, after raising $24M Series A in Sept — “Move fast and break things” is a term we usually associate with Facebook (at least, until 2014) and the general startup ethos of being disruptive.