Tuesday, August 11, 2020
TikTok parent ByteDance halts hiring in India; tries to retain employees
Simpplr, which develops AI-powered intranet software for employee directories, raised $10M Series B led by Norwest Venture Partners (Kyle Wiggers/VentureBeat)
Simpplr, which develops AI-powered intranet software for employee directories, raised $10M Series B led by Norwest Venture Partners — Simpplr today raised $10 million for its AI-powered intranet platform that is designed to streamline communications. CEO Dhiraj Sharma says the funds …
HMD Global lands $230 million investment from Google, Qualcomm & others
Nokia phone maker HMD to use a large part of $230 million funding on Indian operations
U.S. ban on TikTok could cut it off from app stores, advertisers: Report
Big Saving Days nets Flipkart Rs 2,600-2,700 crore in GMV
Influencer marketing industry grapples with fake followers and more
Realme C11 to Go on Sale in India Today via Flipkart, Realme.com
Rivian fires back at Tesla in lawsuit, accuses automaker of attempting to ‘malign its reputation’
Rivian has asked a judge to dismiss a lawsuit filed by Tesla, arguing that two of the three claims in the case fails to state sufficient allegations of trade secret theft and poaching talent and instead was an attempt to malign its reputation and hurt its own recruiting efforts.
One remaining claim of breach of contract against four former Tesla employees was not included in this filing asking for “demurrer” or a dismissal because they do not related directly to Rivian. It’s still possible that lawyers representing those former employees will make a similar argument.
Tesla did not respond to a request for comment. TechCrunch will update the article if the company responds.
In July, Tesla filed a lawsuit against Rivian and four former employers, on claims of poaching talent and stealing trade secrets. Specifically, Tesla claimed that Rivian instructed a recently departing Tesla employee about the types of confidential information it needed.
Rivian said in its August 10 filing with the California Superior Court in Santa Clara, that it has “rigorous policies and procedures to make sure it does not obtain confidential information from other companies when on-boarding employees.” Rivian said none of the alleged trade secrets in Tesla’s complaint have been located at Rivian or on any of its systems.
Rivian’s main argument is that Tesla failed to state facts sufficient to constitute cause of action. That legalese essentially means that the claims Tesla made aren’t sufficient to justify a right to sue. Rivian argues that Tesla is using speculation, not facts for the basis of its lawsuit.
“In particular, the Court should not credit as true speculation of the kind scattered throughout Tesla’s complaint,” Rivian said in the filing.
Rivian didn’t just dispute Tesla’s complaint, it pushed back harder with its own claims of impropriety.
Lawyers representing Rivian argued that Tesla didn’t file the case to defend or protect legitimate intellectual property rights, but instead used in “improper and malicious attempt to slow” the company’s momentum and attempt to damage its brand. The filing also claimed that Tesla used the lawsuit to scare its own employees from leaving the company.
Unfortunately, maligning Rivian was not Tesla’s only ulterior motive. Rather, it crafted
its complaint to achieve second improper purpose — namely to send threatening message to its own employees: don’t dare leave Tesla. Understanding that the strong public policy favoring
employee mobility in California restricts the use of non-compete contracts, Tesla’s complaint
seeks to punish four of its former employees for leaving Tesla and joining the Rivian team.
The response also questioned the timing of the lawsuit, which was filed soon after Rivian announced it had raised $2.5 billion in a round led by funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates Inc.
While US adoption of the Google-Apple Exposure Notification API has been slow, 16 nations have used it in apps; Ireland's has 1.4M downloads since early July (Sara Harrison/The Markup)
While US adoption of the Google-Apple Exposure Notification API has been slow, 16 nations have used it in apps; Ireland's has 1.4M downloads since early July — Contact tracing—monitoring who's getting COVID-19 and tracking down anyone who might have been in contact with that person so they can quarantine …
Kamala Harris brings a view from tech’s epicenter to the presidential race
Joe Biden’s decision to name California Senator Kamala Harris as his running mate in the quest to unseat President Trump means that the next White House could be occupied not only by a Black woman — a historic milestone by any account — but also by someone who built a career in the tech industry’s front yard.
Born in Oakland, Harris served as San Francisco district attorney and later as the attorney general for California before being elected to the state’s Senate in 2016. And while the newly named vice presidential nominee is likely to bring a deeper understanding of the tech industry to the race, her positions on how a Democratic administration should approach tech’s most powerful companies during an unprecedented moment of scrutiny aren’t exactly crystal clear.
Harris attracted considerable support from Silicon Valley executives in her bid for the Democratic nomination, outpacing other candidates in donations from employees from large tech companies early on. While that support shifted around throughout the race and many donors in tech supported multiple candidates, the industry is likely to be happy with Biden’s selection.
Notably, Harris was elected as California attorney general in 2010 and served two terms, overseeing the tech industry through a large portion of its most explosive growth — a measure that likely proves more meaningful in assessing her stance toward regulating the tech industry than the things she said along the campaign trail.
Still, those were arguably simpler times for Silicon Valley, and ones that predated current hot-button conversations around issues like election interference, misinformation wars and antitrust enforcement.
Playing it safe
As the primary developed and then-rival Elizabeth Warren carved out a posture critical of big tech, Harris seldom waded into thorny issues around regulating the tech industry. During an October debate, Harris avoided a question asking about concerns over second order effects if big tech companies were broken up, instead redirecting to the safer political territory of Trump’s Twitter account. Dodging meatier points about tech accountability, Harris called on Twitter to suspend the president’s account for violating its rules, calling the issue “a matter of safety and corporate accountability.”
Earlier this year, in response to a straightforward question asking if companies like Facebook, Google and Amazon should be broken up, Harris again dodged, though signaled that she is concerned in how those companies handle user data.
“I believe that tech companies have got to be regulated in a way that we can ensure the American consumer can be certain that their privacy is not being compromised,” Harris said. Harris also expressed her concerns about user privacy in a 2018 Twitter thread.
“Millions of Americans have no idea how much data Facebook is collecting, from tracking their location and IP address, to following their activities on other websites,” she wrote.
“In the real world, this would be like someone watching what you do, where you go, for how long, and with whom you’re with every day. For most, it would feel like an invasion of privacy.”
A focus on Facebook
In other critiques of tech, Harris has mostly concentrated on Facebook, denouncing its role in spreading Russian disinformation during the 2016 presidential race and expressing worries over how the company handles the data it collects.
When given the chance to press Mark Zuckerberg in person, Harris zeroed in on the company’s handling of the Cambridge Analytica data misuse to its users. More recently, Harris co-authored a letter to Facebook along with Colorado Senator Michael Bennett after the audit’s largely unflattering results were published, pressing the company on election concerns.
“Although the company has shown a recent willingness to rein in disinformation with respect to COVID-19, it has not shown equal resolve to confront voter suppression and learn the lessons of the 2016 election,” the senators wrote. “We share the auditors’ concern that Facebook has failed to use the tools and resources at its disposal to more vigorously combat voter suppression and protect civil rights.”
In another letter to the company, Harris criticized Facebook’s fact-checking policies for climate-related misinformation in light of a New York Times report.
In spite of the harsh talk, Harris seems to be on fairly friendly terms with Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, who congratulated her on the nomination Tuesday. Back in 2013, Harris apparently contributed to the marketing effort around Sandberg’s now-ubiquitous book Lean In, sharing her own story. Harris also spoke at a cyberbullying event hosted at Facebook’s Menlo Park headquarters in 2015 and the two were photographed onstage together.
Antitrust on the back burner?
While we have a handful of public statements from Harris about her views on tech, there’s plenty more that we don’t know. The way she positioned herself in relation to other candidates during the primary might not wholly reflect the kind of priorities she would bring to the vice presidency, and we’ll likely be learning more about those in the coming days.
Right now there are many, many crises on the table for the next administration. If regulating big tech looked like a huge campaign issue back in the pre-pandemic political landscape of 2020, conversations around police brutality and the devastating American failure to contain the coronavirus are now at the fore. Whether issues around antitrust regulation and reining in tech’s power will make it off the back burner remains to be seen, and there are plenty of national five-alarm fires to be put out in the meantime.
While her potential position as the nation’s next vice president doesn’t mean that Harris would be tasked with shaping tech policy or spearheading antitrust efforts, her deep connections to tech’s geographic hub could prove consequential in a Biden presidency and its priorities.
In spite of some question marks around her policy approaches, Harris is a known quantity for the tech industry — one who understands Silicon Valley and who, per her track record, doesn’t look keen to take on the industry’s biggest companies in spite of some recent tough talk. Whatever tech policies emerge out of a Biden/Harris campaign, the fresh vice presidential nominee is connected to tech in a more meaningful way than any other contender for the spot. That alone is something to watch.
SSB Recruitment 2020 – Apply Online for 1522 Constable Posts
UPSC Answer Key 2020 – Civil Services (Prelims) Answer Key Released
Monday, August 10, 2020
Google rolls out virtual business card in India to take on LinkedIn
Google has rolled out a new Search feature in India that enables influencers, entrepreneurs, freelancers, or anyone else who wants to be easily discovered online create a virtual visiting card in what appears to be the company’s latest attempt to bring more of LinkedIn functionalities into its search engine.
The company said it has rolled out the feature, called people cards, first in India because of the special affinity people in the world’s second largest internet market have shown toward looking up their own names on the search engine. People cards currently only supports English.
Users can create people cards about themselves by signing into their Google account and then looking up their name on Google search. This will prompt a new option called “add me to Search” or “get started”; tapping which will open a form that asks users to provide a bio (description) of themselves, their picture (by default, Google fetches the image associated with a user’s Google account), links to their website and social media profiles, and optionally, their phone number, address, work and education details, and email address.
Google said the more information a user provides, the easier it would be for others to find them on Google Search. The company said that it has put in place several measures to curb potential misuse of the new feature. One of which is limiting the number of people cards a Google account can create — it is set to one.
“We have a number of mechanisms to protect against abusive or spammy content, and if you come across low quality information or a card that you believe was created by an impersonator, you can tap the feedback link to let us know. If you no longer want your people card to appear in Search, you can delete it at any time,” wrote Lauren Clark, Product Manager for Search at Google, in a blog post.
People card appears to be Google’s latest step to bring more functionalities into Search and thereby reduce a user’s reliance on many other services. In this case, the feature is likely aimed at LinkedIn. Two years ago, the company added jobs listing discovery feature to Search in India after unveiling it in the U.S. in 2017.
“For the millions of influencers, entrepreneurs, prospective employees, self-employed individuals, freelancers, or anyone else out there who wants to be discovered, we hope this new Search feature will help the world find them. For people in India searching on mobile phones, people cards are rolling out in English starting today,” wrote Clark.
Uber Calls for a New Deal for Gig Workers
MediaTek says it has started to use Intel Foundry's advanced chip packaging in addition to TSMC's, as the mobile chip designer bets on AI demand for growth (Cheng Ting-Fang/Nikkei Asia)
Cheng Ting-Fang / Nikkei Asia : MediaTek says it has started to use Intel Foundry's advanced chip packaging in addition to TSMC's...
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Sohee Kim / Bloomberg : South Korean authorities are investigating a data leak at e-commerce giant Coupang that exposed ~33.7M accounts; ...
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The first project we remember working on together was drawing scenes from the picture books that our mom brought with her when she immigrate...
