Monday, March 30, 2020

Tokyo-based Kyash, which provides digital banking services to individual consumers as well as businesses, raises $45M Series C, bringing total raised to $73M (Pavel Alpeyev/Bloomberg)

Pavel Alpeyev / Bloomberg:
Tokyo-based Kyash, which provides digital banking services to individual consumers as well as businesses, raises $45M Series C, bringing total raised to $73M  —  - Online services aim to take on far larger traditional lenders  —  Kyash Inc., a Tokyo-based digital banking startup …



Deferring credit card, personal loan payments may cost more

Moratorium only covers deferment of principal amounts, not interest: experts https://ift.tt/2wHjC6C https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Instacart says worker strike had "no impact" on its operations and that its workforce has seen 40% earnings rise in the past month compared to the month prior (Shirin Ghaffary/Vox)

Shirin Ghaffary / Vox:
Instacart says worker strike had “no impact” on its operations and that its workforce has seen 40% earnings rise in the past month compared to the month prior  —  Why workers at Instacart, Whole Foods, and Amazon are walking off the job in protest.



Amazon confirms that it fired a worker, who led the Staten Island warehouse strike, for violating its quarantine measures; worker says firing was in retaliation (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg:
Amazon confirms that it fired a worker, who led the Staten Island warehouse strike, for violating its quarantine measures; worker says firing was in retaliation  —  - Worker Chris Smalls says labor activism led to his dismissal  — Amazon says Smalls violated safety conditions, quarantine



Los Angeles-based challenger bank HMBradley officially opens its virtual doors

The Los Angeles-based digital challenger bank, HMBradley, opened its virtual doors to the public today, allowing the thousands of waitlisted would-be users to set up direct deposits and collect their sign-up bonuses.

The company is offering banking customers an up to 3% return on their savings based on the percentage they save of their quarterly deposits.

HMBradley also set up a new feature which allows users to save towards specific goals.

Backed by PayPal founder Max Levchin’s HVF Labs, along with Walkabout Ventures, Mucker Capital, Index Ventures, and Accomplice, to the tune of $3.5 million, HMBradley was designed to benefit savers, the company said.

Account holders with balances up to $100,000 can receive up to 3% annual percentage yields on their accounts. These account holders qualify by receiving one direct deposit and saving at least 5% of the total amount deposited in an account monthly.

HMBradley accounts are held through Hatch Bank, which is FDIC insured.

To qualify for the 3 percent rate, customers need to save over 20 percent of their income, account holders who save between 15 percent and 20 percent receive 2 percent of their cash per year, and those saving less than 15 percent but more than ten percent receive a 1 percent APY.

“We want to empower and protect every consumer financially to show them that a bank can be on their side, regardless of how much money they make,” said Zach Bruhnke, co-founder and CEO of HMBradley, in a statement.

Account holders have access to 55,000 fee-free ATMs around the country, mobile check deposit and around-the-clock support, the company said.

The company’s MasterCard comes with all of the standard features including zero liability protection and an ability to set up travel, fraud alerts, and cancel cards all through an online portal, the company said.

New York's AG sent a letter to Zoom expressing concern over security vulnerabilities and privacy practices as more users conduct sensitive tasks on the service (New York Times)

New York Times:
New York's AG sent a letter to Zoom expressing concern over security vulnerabilities and privacy practices as more users conduct sensitive tasks on the service  —  As the videoconferencing platform's popularity has surged, Zoom has scrambled to address a series of data privacy and security problems.



Facebook deletes Brazil President’s coronavirus misinfo post

Facebook has diverted from its policy of not fact-checking politicians in order to prevent the spread of potentially harmful coronavirus misinformation from Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. Facebook made the decisive choice to remove a video shared by Bolsonaro on Sunday where he claimed that “hydroxychloroquine is working in all places.” That’s despite the drug still undergoing testing to determine its effectiveness for treating COVID-19, which researchers and health authorities have not confirmed.

“We remove content on Facebook and Instagram that violates our Community Standards, which do not allow misinformation that could lead to physical harm” a Facebook spokesperson told TechCrunch. Facebook specifically prohibits false claims regarding cure, treatments, the availability of essential services, and the location or intensity of contagion outbreaks.

BBC News Brazil first reported the takedown today in Portuguese. In the removed video, Bolsonaro had been speaking to a street vendor, and the President claimed “They want to work”, in contrast to the World Health Organization’s recommendation that people practice social distancing. He followed up that “That medicine there, hydroxychloroquine, is working in all places.”

If people wrongly believe there’s an widely-effective treatment for COVID-19, they may be more reckless about going out in public, attending work, or refusing to stay in isolation. That could cause the virus to spread more quickly, defeat efforts to flatten the curve, and overrun health care systems.

This why Twitter removed two of Bolsonaro’s tweets on Sunday, as well as one from Rudy Giuliani, in order to stop the distribution of misinformation. But to date, Facebook has generally avoided acting as an arbiter of truth regarding the veracity of claims by politicians. It notoriously refuses to send blatant misinformation in political ads, including those from Donald Trump, to fact-checkers.

Last week, though, Facebook laid out that COVID-19 misinformation “that could contribute to imminent physical harm” would be directly and immediately removed as it’s done about other outbreaks since 2018, while less urgent conspiracy theories that don’t lead straight to physical harm are sent to fact-checkers that can then have the Facebook reach of those posts demoted.

Now the question is whether Facebook would be willing to apply this enforcement to Trump, who’s been criticized for spreading misinformation about the severity of the outbreak, potential treatments, and the risk of sending people back to work. Facebook is known to fear backlash from conservative politicians and citizens who’ve developed a false narrative that it discriminates against or censors their posts.

Johnson & Johnson partners with BARDA to fund $1 billion in COVID-19 vaccine research

Pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson is partnering with the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to fund over $1 billion in COVID-19 vaccine and antiviral treatment research and development, the company said on Monday.

The partnership is an expansion of an existing agreement between BARDA and J&J’s Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies division.

With the agreement, the company is setting a goal of providing a global supply of more than one billion doses of the vaccine, which J&J expects to have in clinical trials by September 2020 at the latest. The first batches of the vaccine may be available for emergency use by early 2021, the company said.

BARDA’s partnership with J&J encompasses research and development of potential antiviral treatments in addition to the work that’s being done to develop a vaccine for the disease. Those efforts include development work J&J and BARDA are conducting with the Rega Institute for Medical Research in Belgium.

J&J said it had also committed to expanding its global manufacturing capacity, both in the U.S. and overseas. That additional production ability will help the company bring an affordable vaccine to the public on a not-for-profit basis for emergency pandemic use, the company said.

Working with teams at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, a part of the Harvard Medical School, Janssen Pharmaceuticals began its research into potential vaccine candidates back in January. Those candidates were tested at several academic institutions, the company said, which led to the identification of a lead COVID-19 vaccine candidate — and two potential back-ups.

Last week, Moderna Health, another pharmaceutical company working on a vaccine, said that it could have an experimental treatment available to healthcare workers as soon as the fall.

The Moderna vaccine uses messenger RNA, rather than doses of the COVID-19 virus itself, to inoculate against the disease. The use of mRNA means that the inoculation doesn’t expose recipients to the disease itself, so they’re not at risk of contracting the disease.

Last Monday, Moderna made the vaccine available to volunteer participants as part of the company’s Phase 1 clinical trials conducted in Washington state.

Around 100 Amazon workers staged a walkout at a Staten Island, NY fulfillment center to protest the impact of Amazon's COVID-19 response on warehouse workers (Josh Dzieza/The Verge)

Josh Dzieza / The Verge:
Around 100 Amazon workers staged a walkout at a Staten Island, NY fulfillment center to protest the impact of Amazon's COVID-19 response on warehouse workers  —  As Amazon workers across the country test positive for the virus, employees believe collective action is the only way to get the company to meaningfully clean its facilities



TRAI grants six weeks additional time to telcos to file monthly, quarterly reports due in April

Telecom regulator TRAI has given six weeks additional time to telecom companies to file monthly and quarterly reports that are otherwise due in April, a senior official said. https://ift.tt/2QTehQi

Sunday, March 29, 2020

OnePlus 8 Pro, OnePlus 8 Specifications, Colour Variants, and More Leaked

OnePlus 8 and OnePlus 8 Pro specifications have leaked suggesting 30x digital zoom for the OnePlus 8 Pro and a triple camera setup for the OnePlus 8. https://ift.tt/39s0nv3

Xiaomi Mi TV 4S 65-inch 4K HDR10+ TV launched, running on Android TV 9

Xiaomi has announced the Mi TV 4S. It is a 55-inch 4K HDR TV priced at EUR 549 which translates to roughly Rs 45,800 directly converted. Speaking of the specifications of the TV, it has a 65-inch 4K panel with support for HDR 10+ but no support for Dolby Vision. It also boasts of MEMC (Motion Estimation, Motion Compensation) technology for motion smoothing. The TV is powered by the MediaTek 6886 quad-core processor and also has the Mali 470 MP3 GPU.  The TV also boasts of 2GB RAM along with 16GB of built-in storage. The TV runs on Android TV 9 out of the box along with support for popular streaming services. Since the TV runs on Android TV, it also comes with it Chromecast built-in. 

For connectivity, the 65-inch Mi TV 4S has 3 HDMI ports, 3 USB ports and supports both 2.4GHz and 5GHz broadband connectivity. It also comes with a voice-enabled remote control to give you easy access to the Google Assistant. For audio, the TV has two 10W speakers. Under the 4S umbrella, Xiaomi already has TV available in 43, 55, and 75-inch screen sizes. 

In India, the Xiaomi Mi TV 4X is available in 65-inch screen size in addition to 40-inch, 43-inch, and 50-inches. The TV has 4K and HDR support. You can read more about the Mi TV 4X here. 

We have seen the launch of a number of budget 4K HDR TVs in India. We recently saw Kodak launch a range of TVs that run on Android TV and come with support for Dolby Vision. You can read more about it here. Nokia has also confirmed that a 43-inch version of its 55-inch TV is available in India. You can read more about the 43-inch Nokia TV here. 

https://ift.tt/2UuuNIN

OnePlus 8 leaked in three colour variants, reveals a unique Interstellar Glow option

OnePlus is expected to launch the OnePlus 8 and OnePlus 8 Pro in India next month. A number of leaks have appeared online ahead of the launch. While there are still probably weeks to go before the launch event takes place, we already know almost everything regarding the phones. The latest one reveals OnePlus 8’s three colour variants. 

The latest development comes from website WinFuture that posted renders of the upcoming OnePlus 8. Further, tipster Ishan Agarwal tweeted the names of the colour options. The three colour variants are - Glacial Green, Onyx Black and Interstellar Glow gradient colour option. The Green variant leaked recently in the form of OnePlus 8 Pro, whereas we have seen the Onyx colour on the OnePlus X. The “Interstellar Glow” will be the newest edition of colour options in the OnePlus family.

OnePlus 8 is said to feature a 6.55-inch Super AMOLED display. Interestingly, it is tipped to support a 90Hz refresh rate, instead of 120Hz on the OnePlus 8 Pro. Further, the phone will be powered by the Snapdragon 865 chipset. It may come with 8GB/12GB of LPDDR4X RAM and 128GB/256GB of UFS 3.0 internal storage. 

As for the optics, it is said to sport a triple rear camera setup of 48MP + 16MP + 2MP with a 16MP selfie shooter. It is likely to pack a 4300mAh battery with support for 30W fast charging. Further, according to previous leaks, there’s no IP rating or wireless charging here. It will be made available in “glow”, black and green colour options.

On the other hand, OnePlus 8 Pro may feature a 6.78-inch Super AMOLED display with support for a 120Hz refresh rate. It will be powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 SoC. Further, the smartphone is likely to come with 8GB/12GB of LPDDR5 RAM and 128GB/256GB of UFS 3.0 internal storage. 

https://ift.tt/2wD1jzt

Watch a Rick and Morty Anime Short as You Wait for Rest of Season 4

While the second half of Rick and Morty season 4 still doesn't have a release date, Adult Swim gave us a surprise short film over the weekend called "Samurai & Shogun", which as you can expect,... https://ift.tt/2WP0XAp

SoftBank-Backed OneWeb Files for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Plan, Cuts Jobs

OneWeb, the satellite operator backed by Japan's SoftBank Group, said it has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy to pursue a sale of its business and and has cut its workforce amid the coronavirus... https://ift.tt/2xBMcpL

Russian cryptocurrency payment network A7 expands to Africa, as Moscow builds an alternative payments system amid western sanctions after its Ukraine invasion (Financial Times)

Financial Times : Russian cryptocurrency payment network A7 expands to Africa, as Moscow builds an alternative payments system amid weste...