Saturday, August 7, 2021

New laptops from Redmi, LG; Realme brings magnetic charging to Android; Amazon’s win in Reliance-Future deal and other top tech news of the week

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Scientists Give 'Brains' to Drone System to Detect Abnormal Behaviour

A group of Czech scientists decided to give these machines the ability to figure out suspicious behaviour. They claim to have developed a surveillance system that analyses drone footage in a way... https://ift.tt/3fH5u0l

Siemens says that it has agreed to buy Netherlands-based Sqills, a cloud-based software suite for rail transport operators worldwide, for ~$650M (Sean O'Neill/Skift)

Sean O'Neill / Skift:
Siemens says that it has agreed to buy Netherlands-based Sqills, a cloud-based software suite for rail transport operators worldwide, for ~$650M  —  Sqills has won more contracts from railway operators to upgrade their inventory, booking, and ticketing software than any other tech vendor in recent years.



China sues Tencent, claiming WeChat's "youth mode" does not comply with the country's laws protecting minors (Reuters)

Reuters:
China sues Tencent, claiming WeChat's “youth mode” does not comply with the country's laws protecting minors  —  Beijing prosecutors initiated a civil public-interest lawsuit against a Tencent (0700.HK) subsidiary on Friday, saying the “youth mode” on the company's popular social …



[Thread] Apple's child safety protections announcement hurt the effort to find a policy balance on safety and privacy aspects of e2e encrypted comms products (Alex Stamos/@alexstamos)

Alex Stamos / @alexstamos:
[Thread] Apple's child safety protections announcement hurt the effort to find a policy balance on safety and privacy aspects of e2e encrypted comms products  —  The chatter around Apple's recent announcement of new child safety protections is rather frustrating, as the amplification/knowledge ratio seems rather high on this one. Apple's docs: https://www.apple.com/... A discussion with friends: https://twitter.com/...



Experts say the $65B broadband bill Congress is finalizing has many good aspects, but won't fix the high prices that result from broadband monopolization (Karl Bode/VICE)

Karl Bode / VICE:
Experts say the $65B broadband bill Congress is finalizing has many good aspects, but won't fix the high prices that result from broadband monopolization  —  Experts say there's some very good things in the broadband infrastructure proposal, but it won't truly fix what ails the broken sector.



Amazon Great Freedom Festival sale: Intel Core i5 powered laptops available under Rs 70,000 after flat discount of up to Rs 44,000

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Amazon Great Freedom Festival sale: 10 ‘smart toys’ for kids to help them learn

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Australia's privacy watchdog investigating Optus over 2019 breach

Optus in 2019 informed nearly 50,000 customers that it had mistakenly published their details including names, addresses and phone numbers in the White Pages directory, owned by Sensis, against their wishes, according to local media reports. https://ift.tt/3yrYGuO

More than 4,000 organizations and individuals sign an open letter asking Apple to halt the implementation of its proposed content monitoring technology (Apple Privacy Letter)

Apple Privacy Letter:
More than 4,000 organizations and individuals sign an open letter asking Apple to halt the implementation of its proposed content monitoring technology  —  Security & Privacy Experts, Cryptographers, Researchers, Professors, Legal Experts and Apple Consumers Decry Apple's Planned Move …



Profile of ACLU veteran Laura Murphy, who ran Facebook's civil rights audit before working on content moderation issues, as more companies face calls for audits (Naomi Nix/Bloomberg)

Naomi Nix / Bloomberg:
Profile of ACLU veteran Laura Murphy, who ran Facebook's civil rights audit before working on content moderation issues, as more companies face calls for audits  —  Laura Murphy, an ACLU veteran, is wielding a new tool for reform.  Are companies ready to listen?



Redmonk study of programming languages, combining GitHub and Stack Overflow data, shows Java in second place alongside Python, while JavaScript remains top (Stephen O'Grady/Redmonk)

Stephen O'Grady / Redmonk:
Redmonk study of programming languages, combining GitHub and Stack Overflow data, shows Java in second place alongside Python, while JavaScript remains top  —  While we generally try to have our rankings in July immediately after they are run, we generally operate these on a better late than never basis.



US lawmakers want former Huawei unit added to economic blacklist

A group of 14 Republican lawmakers in the US House of Representatives on Friday asked the US Commerce Department to add former Huawei unit Honor Device Co to the government's economic blacklist. https://ift.tt/3iueKqn

Companies to spend $342 billion on AI solutions in 2021: IDC

In AI Server market, there were a total of six companies that generated over $500 million each in 2020 - Dell, HPE, Huawei, IBM, Inspur, and Lenovo. Together, they held 62% of overall market share. https://ift.tt/3CkBktz

How Apple managed to overturn $308.5 million patent infringement fine

Apple Inc persuaded a federal judge to throw out a $308.5 million jury verdict it lost to a privately-held licensing firm for infringing a patent associated with digital rights management. In a Thursday night decision, US District Judge Rodney Gilstrap said Personalized Media Communications LLC (PMC) intentionally delayed filing its application with the US Patent and Trademark Office, hoping to obtain a larger payout. https://ift.tt/3CtuDVV

A look at LexisNexis Risk Solutions, RELX's largest division, which accounts for ~35% of RELX's revenue and holds 9B device records and 3B digital identities (John Gapper/Financial Times)

John Gapper / Financial Times : A look at LexisNexis Risk Solutions, RELX's largest division, which accounts for ~35% of RELX's r...