Tech Nuggets with the Technology

Thursday, March 19, 2020

Amazon halts grocery orders in US to restock amid surging demand

Amazon Pantry, which sells non-perishable groceries from cereals to soaps, has seen huge demand despite consumers thronging supermarkets https://ift.tt/2U5vUP5 https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Remote work during coronavirus outbreak puts millions more on Microsoft Teams, Slack

Microsoft's Teams chat and conferencing app gained more than 12 million daily users in one week https://ift.tt/3a7rX1B https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Fashion brands see a dip in online sales

Fashion and lifestyle goods are taking a beating as fashion brands from jeans to shoes are reporting a 10-20% drop in online sales in the last two weeks. https://ift.tt/2UpT0yL https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

TikTok donates $3 million to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s charity feeding kids affected by school closures

The social media giant TikTok said that it would donate $3 million to After–School All-Stars, a charity founded by actor and former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, to feed families whose food security was affected by the close of public schools in response to the COVID-19 outbreak.

TikTok said in a statement Thursday that families in 60 cities with After-School All-Stars chapters would receive food vouchers and gift cards that can be spent on food and other essentials through local grocery stores.

“We are all operating in uncertain times, and it’s more important now than ever before for both our local and global communities to come together to help those in need,” said Vanessa Pappas, General Manager of TikTok U.S., in a statement. “This pledge to ASAS will help more students get access to meals, safely provided to them, during this crisis. While this alone won’t mitigate the impact of the current situation, we hope it can relieve one worry for parents who are balancing social distancing mandates, work and caring for children who can no longer go to school each day.”

Chapters in cities that have been hardest hit by the epidemic will receive the aid, including Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Newark, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington. Corporate partners in the initiative include Food Land, Giant, Kroger, Publix, Ralphs, Safeway, Target and Walmart.

TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese media company Bytedance, also said it would match up to $1 million in employee donations to the ASAS to boost the organization’s ability to provide food.

“During a crisis, improvisation is critical and everyone has to look at new ways to help the most vulnerable,” said Arnold Schwarzenegger, former California Governor and Founder of After-School All-Stars, in a statement. “The After-School All-Stars programs are paused with schools closed, but we remain committed to supporting the 100,000 families we work with year-round. When I founded After-School All-Stars in 1992, the goal was always to support the families who need it the most. I’m grateful to TikTok for their donation which allows us to shift our priorities so our team can safely deliver groceries and gift cards for groceries to the families we help.”

Imtiaz Ali's Netflix Series 'She' Needs More of Vijay Varma

Our review of She, the Netflix series from Imtiaz Ali about a constable's (Aaditi Pohankar) discovery of her dormant sexuality after meeting a drug dealer (Vijay Varma). She released March 20 on... https://ift.tt/3ba269n

Kinsa Health's smart thermometers, which have been successful in predicting the spread of flu in previous years, could be used to track the spread of COVID-19 (Donald G. McNeil Jr/New York Times)

Donald G. McNeil Jr / New York Times:
Kinsa Health's smart thermometers, which have been successful in predicting the spread of flu in previous years, could be used to track the spread of COVID-19 — A company that makes internet-connected thermometers has followed the flu more closely than the C.D.C. can.

Tesla says it will shut down its Fremont factory—next Monday

Since Monday, Tesla has been under pressure from officials in Alameda County to shut down operations of its car factory in Fremont, California, to fight the spread of the coronavirus. On Thursday, Tesla finally announced it would halt vehicle manufacturing in Fremont.

"We have decided to temporarily suspend production at our factory in Fremont, from end of day March 23, which will allow an orderly shutdown," Tesla said in a post on its website.

March 23 is next Monday—a full week after officials in seven Bay Area counties ordered non-essential businesses to close down. To make sure there was no confusion about Tesla's status, Alameda County tweeted on Tuesday that Tesla was not an essential business.

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https://arstechnica.com

Anthony Levandowski pleads guilty to one count of trade secrets theft under plea deal

Anthony Levandowski, the former Google engineer and serial entrepreneur who was at the center of a lawsuit between Uber and Waymo, has pleaded guilty to one count of stealing trade secrets while working at Google under a plea agreement reached with the U.S. District Attorney.

While Levandowski still faces a possible prison sentence of between 24 to 30 months, the outcome is much rosier than it could have been. In August, federal grand jury indicted Levandowski on 33 counts of theft and attempted theft. He was looking at a protracted legal fight and a trial that wasn’t expected to begin until 2021.

“Mr. Levandowski accepts responsibility and is looking forward to resolving this matter. Mr. Levandowski is a young man with enormous talents and much to contribute to the fast-moving world of AI and AV and we hope that this plea will allow him to move on with his life and focus his energies where they matter most,” his attorney, Miles Ehrlich said in an emailed statement.

Under the plea agreement, Levandowski admits to downloading thousands of files related to Project Chauffeur, the Google self-driving project that later spun out to become Waymo. Levandowski was an engineer and one of the founding members of Project Chauffeur, which launched in 2009. Scroll down to read the plea agreement.

He said that in 2015, prior to leaving to start his own self-driving trucking company, he downloaded 14,000 documents from an internal Google server and transferred it to his laptop. Levandowski specifically pleaded guilty to count 33 of the indictment, which is related to taking what was known as the Chauffeur Weekly Update, a spreadsheet that contained a variety of details including quarterly goals and weekly metrics, the team’s objectives and key results as well as summaries of 15 technical challenges faced by the program and notes related to previous challenges that had been overcome, according to the filing.

Levandowski said in the plea agreement that he downloaded the Chauffeur Weekly Update to his personal laptop on or about January 17, 2016, and accessed the document after his resignation from Google, which occurred about 10 days later.

“Mr. Levandowski’s guilty plea in a criminal hearing today brings to an end a seminal case for our company and the self-driving industry and underscores the value of Waymo’s intellectual property,” a Waymo spokesperson said in an emailed statement. “Through today’s development and related cases, we are successfully protecting our intellectual property as we build the world’s most experienced driver.”

Levandowski left Google and started Otto, a self-driving trucking company that was then bought by Uber. Waymo later sued Uber for trade secret theft. Waymo alleged in the suit, which went to trial and ended in a settlement, that Levandowski stole trade secrets, which were then used by Uber. Under the settlement, Uber agreed to not incorporate Waymo’s confidential information into their hardware and software. Uber also agreed to pay a financial settlement that included 0.34% of Uber equity, per its Series G-1 round $72 billion valuation. That calculated at the time to about $244.8 million in Uber equity.

The plea deal puts an end to any criminal charges. However, Levandowski still faces a civil matter. 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. Earlier this month, San Francisco County court confirmed the panel’s decision and order Levandowski to pay $179 million.

Ron settled in February 2019 with Google for $9.7 million. Levandowski had disputed the ruling. The San Francisco County Superior Court denied his petition, 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, as this sort of liability may fall to his employer depending on his contract or other legal quirks. However, Levandowski personally filed March 4 for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, stating that the presumptive $179 million debt quite exceeds his assets, which he estimates at somewhere between $50 million and $100 million.

Anthony Levandowski plea agreement by TechCrunch on Scribd

Instagram says it is internally testing a Snapchat-like ephemeral feature that clears chat messages after all members have viewed the thread and closed it (Josh Constine/TechCrunch)

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Instagram says it is internally testing a Snapchat-like ephemeral feature that clears chat messages after all members have viewed the thread and closed it — Instagram is finally preparing to copy Snapchat's most popular feature, and one of the few it hasn't already cloned.

Sources: Apple's supply chain still disrupted by COVID-19-related shutdowns in countries like Malaysia; 5G iPhones still expected to launch by fall (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple's supply chain still disrupted by COVID-19-related shutdowns in countries like Malaysia; 5G iPhones still expected to launch by fall — - Virus responses in Malaysia, U.S., Europe disrupt suppliers — 5G iPhone currently still on schedule, but timeline could slip

Twitter broadens its definition of harm to address content with deceptive language around COVID-19, including "denial of established scientific facts" (Alex Hern/The Guardian)

Alex Hern / The Guardian:
Twitter broadens its definition of harm to address content with deceptive language around COVID-19, including “denial of established scientific facts” — Site changes rules to ban content aimed at making people act against official advice — Twitter will remove tweets that run …

Court filing: Anthony Levandowski, ex-Uber self-driving head, pleads guilty to trade secrets theft from Google in exchange for 32 other charges being dropped (Reed Albergotti/Washington Post)

Reed Albergotti / Washington Post:
Court filing: Anthony Levandowski, ex-Uber self-driving head, pleads guilty to trade secrets theft from Google in exchange for 32 other charges being dropped — The guilty plea, which could lead to a prison sentence, is the latest twist in a years-long saga of conflict and courtroom drama.