Facebook says it is testing its Messenger app for macOS, which was first announced last April, in several non-US markets, including France, Mexico, and Poland — At Facebook's 2019 F8 developer conference, the company announced plans to introduce desktop apps for its popular communications app Messenger.
Former Uber self-driving unit head Anthony Levandowski, a key figure in the Uber-Waymo trade secrets trial, ordered to pay $179M to Google over contract breach — SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The former head of Uber Technologies Inc's self-driving technology unit must pay $179 million to Google …
Anthony Levandowski, the engineer and autonomous vehicle startup founder who was at the center of a trade secrets lawsuit between Uber and Waymo, has been ordered to pay $179 million to end a contract dispute over his departure from Google.
Reuters was the first to report the court order.
An arbitration panel ruled in December that Levandowski and Lior Ron had engaged in unfair competition and breached their contract with Google when they left the company to start a rival autonomous vehicle company focused on trucking, called Otto. Uber acquired Otto in 2017. A San Francisco County court confirmed Wednesday the panel’s decision.
Ron settled last month with Google for $9.7 million. However, Levandowski, had disputed the ruling. The San Francisco County Superior Court denied his petition today, granting Google’s petition to hold Levandowski to the arbitration agreement under which he was liable.
Levandowski himself may not have to pay the money personally; Uber, like other large companies, indemnifies its employees against certain types of fines and damages. But this may also be disputed. For now, however, it does seem as though the $179 million will eventually find its way out of somebody’s pockets into Google’s.
This story is developing pending comment from Levandowski and Google, and the release of further documentation from the court.
Devin Coldewey contributed to this story.
Last July, Hawaii representative and longshot Democratic presidential hopeful Tulsi Gabbard filed a lawsuit against Google, accusing the company of violating her First Amendment rights to free speech when it briefly suspended her campaign’s ad account. On Wednesday, California’s Central District Court rejected the suit outright.
Gabbard’s campaign, Tulsi Now, Inc., asked for $50 million in damages from Google for “serious and continuing violations of Tulsi’s right to free speech.” In the suit, her campaign claimed that Google “helps to run elections” through political advertising and search results — an argument District Judge Stephen Wilson firmly rejected.
In dismissing the case, Wilson writes that what Gabbard “fails to establish is how Google’s regulation of its own platform is in any way equivalent to a governmental regulation of an election.” When it comes to Google, “an undisputedly private company,” the First Amendment’s free speech protections do not apply. A week ago, another California court reached the same conclusion in a case that right-wing group PragerU brought against YouTube.
In a case of poor timing, Gabbard’s account was suspended for an interval of time following the first presidential debate as viewers sought information about the unfamiliar candidate. In the lawsuit, Gabbard noted that Google took her advertising account offline “in the thick of the critical post-debate period.”
TULSI2020: In the hours following the 1st debate, while millions of Americans searched for info about Tulsi, Google suspended her search ad account w/o explanation. It is vital to our democracy that big tech companies can’t affect the outcome of elections https://t.co/n7Y7y2dQZ9
— Tulsi Gabbard
(@TulsiGabbard) July 25, 2019
“Since at least June 2019, Google has used its control over online political speech to silence Tulsi Gabbard, a candidate millions of Americans want to hear from,” the suit stated.
Echoing unfounded conservative complaints of tech censorship, Gabbard characterized paid political advertising as free speech, language that Facebook itself would later adopt in defending its lax position on policing political ads.
“This is a threat to free speech, fair elections, and to our democracy, and I intend to fight back on behalf of all Americans,” Gabbard said in a statement at the time.
Gabbard also decried Google’s dominance of the search business, echoing the anti-monopolist tech sentiments expressed by other Democratic candidates. Political figures in both parties have seized on anti-tech sentiment in recent years, and the Hawaii representative’s lawsuit is just one example of politically expedient posturing against major tech platforms.
After the incident, a Google representative explained that the platform automatically flagged Gabbard’s account for unusual activity, a mistake it corrected a short time later.
Federal judge rejects Rep. Tulsi Gabbard's suit against Google that claimed the brief suspension of her Ads account last summer violated her free speech rights — A federal judge has rejected a lawsuit in which Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard accused Google of temporarily suspending …
Corellium, which was sued by Apple over its iOS virtualization software, demos Project Sandcastle, which uses checkra1n jailbreak to install Android on iPhone 7 — Ten years ago, David Wang pulled off a remarkable trick, installing Android on the first-generation iPhone.
Mark Zuckerberg has outlined some of the steps that Facebook and his family’s non-profit, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, are taking to respond to the spread of both the novel coronavirus known as COVID-19 and viral misinformation about the illness, in a statement posted earlier this evening.
Facebook’s response focuses on three areas: providing accurate information; stopping misinformation; and providing data for research (which is not creepy at all coming from Facebook).
To provide accurate information, Facebook is directing users who search for information on the coronavirus on its platform to the World Health Organization or local health authority through an automatic pop-up. That notification on information is also automatically populated into the news feed for everyone who is in a country where the World Health Organization has reported a case of person-to-person transmission.
“Given the developing situation, we’re working with national ministries of health and organizations like the WHO, CDC and UNICEF to help them get out timely, accurate information on the coronavirus,” Zuckerberg wrote. “We’re giving the WHO as many free ads as they need for their coronavirus response along with other in-kind support. We’ll also give support and millions more in ad credits to other organizations too and we’ll be working closely with global health experts to provide additional help if needed.”
To stop the spread of misinformation on the platform, Zuckerberg wrote that Facebook was removing false claims and conspiracy theories flagged by global health organizations and the company is blocking people from running ads that try to exploit the fears of the public by pitching snake oil cures.
Finally, and perhaps most problematically, Facebook is “looking at how people can use our services to help contribute to broader efforts to contain the outbreak,” Zuckerberg wrote. “Researchers are already using aggregated and anonymized Facebook data — including mobility data and population density maps — to better understand how the virus is spreading.”
There are open questions around what controls Facebook has put in place to restrict who has access to the anonymized data and what users might be able to do with that data — or how long they can maintain access once the threat from the virus abates. Facebook had not responded to a request for comment by the time of publication.
Technology from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative is also helping with the medical efforts to halt the spread of the disease. Working with the Gates Foundation, researchers financed by the two organizations were able to fully sequence the genome of the virus that causes COVID-19 in a matter of days, making it easier for people infected with the virus to be identified.
That same team created a public version of the IDSeq tool so scientists could study the full genome in the context of other pathogens, Zuckerberg wrote.
Chan-Zuckerberg’s Biohub has also been working to develop a cell atlas, which maps different cell types in the body. Some researchers are using that atlas to try and assess how the coronavirus damages the lungs and identify potential treatments that could limit lung damage caused by the virus.
“There’s more we can do to help people feel less isolated and help one another and we’re working on some ideas we’ll share in the next few weeks, but for now the focus is on slowing the spread of the outbreak itself,” Zuckerberg wrote. “This is a difficult time for a lot of people and I’m thinking of everyone affected by this — the people who are sick or quarantined, their friends and family and of course the healthcare workers who are always on the frontlines of any outbreak. We’ll share more updates soon.”
iQOO launched its first smartphone in the Indian market a week ago. Now, the iQOO 3 is all set to be sold in India. The handset is going on sale through Flipkart and iQOO.com. It will be made available to purchase at 12 noon. The phone also packs up to 12GB of LPDDR5 RAM and up to 256GB of storage.
iQOO 3 specificationsiQOO 3 features a 6.44-inch Super AMOLED display with 2400 x 1080 pixels resolution. It supports HDR 10+ and has a 409 PPI. It is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 chipset, paired with Adreno 650. The smartphone packs a 4440mAh battery that supports 55W fast charging tech, which is being called “Super FlashCharge.” It comes equipped with an in-display fingerprint sensor.
On the optics front, the iQOO 3 sports a quad rear camera setup: 48MP (f/1.79) + 13MP (f/2.46) +13MP (f/2.2)+ 2MP (f/2.4). It comes with features like Super night mode, Super Anti Shake, Portrait Bokeh, Portrait light effects, AR stickers, AI Makeup, Super wide-angle (Photo+Video), Super macro, and more. On the front lies a 16MP selfie shooter with f/2.45 aperture. The handset supports up to 4K 1080P and 720P video recording resolution and 4K at 60FPS.
iQOO 3 price in IndiaThe smartphone comes in Volcano Orange, Quantum Silver and Tornado Black colour options. The base variant with 8GB RAM + 128GB storage is priced at Rs 36,990. The 256GB 4G model costs Rs 39,990. Further, the 5G model has been priced at Rs 44,990. It will be sold via Flipkart, along with special discounts for ICICI bank account holders, who will enjoy up to Rs. 3,000 off on credit card purchases and EMI transactions. Moreover, Flipkart is offering an additional up to Rs. 3,000 off on exchange of old phones.
https://ift.tt/2TtPi6w
Uber sold Uber Eats in India to Zomato for $206M, instead of $350M as previously reported, in return for a 9.99% stake, lowering Zomato's ~$3B valuation — Ride-hailing major Uber Inc sold its India food delivery business to larger rival Zomato for $206 million in return for a 9.99% stake, regulatory filings by the US-based firm show.
Robinhood says recent outages were caused by an “unprecedented load” on its system, will waive Gold customers' fee for 3 months, ~$15, as initial compensation — It wasn't the leap year, a coding blip, or a hack that caused Robinhood's massive outages yesterday and today that left customers unable to trade stocks.
In an email to staff, Amazon says an employee at its Seattle headquarters has tested positive for COVID-19 and that the affected employee remains in quarantine — An Amazon employee at the company's Seattle headquarters has tested positive for the novel coronavirus spreading across the country …
OpenAI : OpenAI says its board of directors is evaluating its corporate structure, including a plan to turn its for-profit arm into a Del...
