Faced with an array of opponents for its sensor-laden city of tomorrow in Toronto, a Google sibling has drastically dialed back plans. The critics now want the tech giant to quit altogether. From a report: The announcement was big enough for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to fly down to Toronto and deliver. A corporate sibling of Google had been selected to transform a largely abandoned port area in Toronto into an innovative, sensor-laden, tech-centric city of tomorrow. But almost from the time of its unveiling, the project -- which combined environmentally advanced construction with a plan for sensors to track residents' movements and actions -- was hit by formidable opposition. Critics cast it as a recipe for a surveillance-driven, corporate-controlled urban dystopia and objected to turning over public spaces to one of the world's wealthiest companies.

Now, nearly two and a half years later, the opponents have shown that even if you can't fight city hall, you can take on Google and succeed. After admitting that it had underestimated privacy worries with its original plan, the Google sibling, Sidewalk Labs, has retreated. A couple of weeks ago, it unveiled details of a much watered-down plan along with new privacy protections. But some critics remain unconvinced. Waterfront Toronto, a government agency, will announce in May if the project will proceed.

"This thing has blown up on them," said one of the plan's leading critics, Jim Balsillie, who as a co-chief executive of Research in Motion helped make the BlackBerry the world's first successful smartphone and himself into one of Canada's biggest names in tech. "I smoked them out. They were playing us like a bunch of colonial supplicants and suckers." The story of how Toronto walked back the Google plan is in part a tale of locals taking on a big company. But it also reflects a growing pushback around the world against big tech that has accelerated since Sidewalk Labs unveiled its proposal.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Banjo, an artificial intelligence firm that works with police used a shadow company to create an array of Android and iOS apps that looked innocuous but were specifically designed to secretly scrape social media, Motherboard has learned. The news signifies an abuse of data by a government contractor, with Banjo going far beyond what companies which scrape social networks usually do. Banjo created a secret company named Pink Unicorn Labs, according to three former Banjo employees, with two of them adding that the company developed the apps. This was done to avoid detection by social networks, two of the former employees said.

Three of the apps created by Pink Unicorn Labs were called "One Direction Fan App," "EDM Fan App," and "Formula Racing App." Motherboard found these three apps on archive sites and downloaded and analyzed them, as did an independent expert. The apps -- which appear to have been originally compiled in 2015 and were on the Play Store until 2016 according to Google -- outwardly had no connection to Banjo, but an analysis of its code indicates connections to the company. This aspect of Banjo's operation has some similarities with the Cambridge Analytica scandal, with multiple sources comparing the two incidents. [...] The company has not publicly explained how it specifically scrapes social media apps. Motherboard found the apps developed by Pink Unicorn Labs included code mentioning signing into Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Russian social media app VK, FourSquare, Google Plus, and Chinese social network Sina Weibo. The apps could have scraped social media "by sending the saved login token to a server for Banjo to use later, or by using the app itself to scrape information," reports Motherboard, noting that it's not entirely clear which method Banjo used. "Motherboard found that the apps when opened made web requests to the domain 'pulapi.com,' likely referring to Pink Unicorn Labs, but the site that would provide a response to the app is currently down."

Last weekend, Motherboard reported that Banjo signed a $20.7 million contract with Utah in 2019 that granted the company access to the state's traffic, CCTV, and public safety cameras. "Banjo promises to combine that input with a range of other data such as satellites and social media posts to create a system that it claims alerts law enforcement of crimes or events in real-time."

Apple Watch will add the ability to detect blood oxygen levels for the first time, 9to5Mac has learned based on an exclusive look at iOS 14 code snippets. From the report: Blood oxygen levels between 95 and 100% are considered healthy; blood oxygen levels below 80% may lead to compromised heart and brain functionality. Risk of respiratory or cardiac arrest is common after continued low blood oxygen saturation. To that end, Apple is developing a new health notification based on the vital measurement. When Apple Watch detects low blood oxygen saturation below a certain threshold, a notification will trigger alerting the user similar to current heart rate notifications.

It's unclear at this point what hardware and software will be required for blood oxygen detection and notifications. It's possible future Apple Watch Series 6 hardware will be required for the new health feature. It could also come to all or newer Apple Watch models with watchOS 7 in the fall. The original Apple Watch hardware is believed to be capable of measuring blood oxygen levels through the built-in heart rate monitor. Apple upgraded the heart rate monitor with Apple Watch Series 4, adding electrocardiogram features, but Apple Watch hasn't offered blood oxygen measurement features yet. Other hardware and software features have also been leaked, such as details about an upcoming iPad Pro with three cameras and Apple's Tile-like item trackers, called AirTags.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Twitter today updated its Developer Policy to clarify rules around data usage, including in academic research, as well as its position on bots, among other things. The policy has also been entirely rewritten in an effort to simplify the language used and make it more conversational, Twitter says. The new policy has been shortened from eight sections to four, and the accompanying Twitter Developer Agreement has been updated to align with the Policy changes, as well. One of the more notable updates to the new policy is a change to the rules to better support non-commercial research.

Twitter data is used to study topics like spam, abuse, and other areas related to conversation health, the company noted, and it wants these efforts to continue. The revised policy now allows the use of the Twitter API for academic research purposes. In addition, Twitter is simplifying its rules around the redistribution of Twitter data to aid researchers. Now, researchers will be able to share an unlimited number of Tweet IDs and/or User IDs, if they're doing so on behalf of an academic institution and for the sole purpose of non-commercial research, such as peer review, says Twitter. The company is also revising rules to clarify how developers are to proceed when the use cases for Twitter data change. In the new policy, developers are informed that they must notify the company of any "substantive" modification to their use case and receive approval before using Twitter content for that purpose. Not doing so will result in suspension and termination of their API and data access, Twitter warns.

The policy additionally outlines when and where "off-Twitter matching" is permitted, meaning when a Twitter account is being associated with a profile built using other data. Either the developer will need to obtain opt-in consent from the user in question, or they can only proceed if the information was provided by the person or is based on publicly available data. [...] Finally, the revamped policy clarifies that not all bots are bad. Some even enhance the Twitter experience, the company says, or provide useful information. Going forward, developers must specify if they're operating a bot account, what the account is, and who is behind it. This way, explains Twitter, "it's easier for everyone on Twitter to know what's a bot – and what's not."

According to a report from The Information, Huawei expects to see a 20% drop in sales of its Android smartphones during 2020, thanks largely to U.S. government restrictions on Huawei's access to American technology, including Google software. 9to5Google reports: "Huawei's overseas smartphone sales didn't collapse last year in part because the company could keep selling some of its old models that the Google ban didn't affect," reports The Information. "But this year, Huawei expects its shipments to fall to around 190 million to 200 million smartphones, according to these people." The 240 million figure in 2019 was thanks largely in part to the timing of the U.S. ban. Huawei's extremely popular P30 and P30 Pro smartphones still shipped with Google apps in most regions and, because they were launched before the ban took place, Huawei was able to continue updating the devices, even launching a slightly revamped variant to boost sales. This year will certainly be bleaker as Huawei won't be able to support Google apps on its P40 series, set to launch later this month. Other factors such as the coronavirus outbreak could only further have an impact on Huawei's sales this year.

In a conference yesterday, Elon Musk said SpaceX's Starlink satellite broadband will have latency below 20 milliseconds -- low enough to support competitive online gaming. "Despite that, the SpaceX CEO argued that Starlink won't be a major threat to telcos because the satellite service won't be good enough for high-population areas and will mostly be used by rural customers without access to fast broadband," reports Ars Technica. From the report: Latency of less than 20ms would make Starlink comparable to wired broadband service. When SpaceX first began talking about its satellite plans in late 2016, it said latency would be 25ms to 35ms. But Musk has been predicting sub-20ms latency since at least May 2019, with the potential for sub-10ms latency sometime in the future. The amount of bandwidth available will be enough to support typical Internet usage, at least in rural areas, Musk said. "The bandwidth is a very complex question. But let's just say somebody will be able to watch high-def movies, play video games, and do all the things they want to do without noticing speed," he said.

So will Starlink be a good option for anyone in the United States? Not necessarily. Musk said there will be plenty of bandwidth in areas with low population densities and that there will be some customers in big cities. But he cautioned against expecting that everyone in a big city would be able to use Starlink. "The challenge for anything that is space-based is that the size of the cell is gigantic... it's not good for high-density situations," Musk said. "We'll have some small number of customers in LA. But we can't do a lot of customers in LA because the bandwidth per cell is simply not high enough." [...] On the ground, Starlink's future customers will rely on user terminals that "look like a UFO on a stick," Musk said. The devices will have actuators that let them point themselves in the right direction as long as they're pointed at the sky. "It's very important that you don't need a specialist to install it," Musk said. "The goal is that... there's just two instructions and they can be done in either order: point at sky, plug in." As for the cost, the company previously pointed out that many U.S. residents pay $80 per month for "crappy service," perhaps indicating that Starlink will cost less than that.

Musk also addressed concerns from astronomers who say Starlink's satellites will interfere with astronomical observations. "I am confident that we will not cause any impact whatsoever in astronomical discoveries. Zero. That's my prediction. We'll take corrective action if it's above zero," Musk said, adding that SpaceX has worked with astronomers "to minimize the potential for reflection of the satellites."

Elon Musk announced on Twitter that Tesla has produced one million electric cars. The Verge reports: Musk made the announcement by sharing a picture of the car, a red Model Y, and congratulated the Tesla team on hitting the milestone. It's a significant moment for an automaker that was only founded in 2003. Tesla released its first consumer car, the Roadster, back in 2008, meaning it's taken a little over twelve years to hit this million-car milestone. However, it could end up hitting the two million mark a lot sooner based on current targets.

In its January earnings report, the company said it hopes to ship over 500,000 cars worldwide in 2020. Established automakers like Toyota or the Volkswagen Group each produce over ten million vehicles a year. Nevertheless, Tesla's milestone is a tremendous accomplishment for an automotive startup that only produces electric vehicles.

Alphabet's Google told its staff in North America to not go into their offices unless they have to, becoming one of the latest companies seeking to protect workers from the spreading coronavirus. From a report: The Mountain View, California-based tech giant is "recommending" workers stay home until at least April 10, according to an internal memo seen by Bloomberg. The company had already sent home its Seattle-area workers, where the virus has had the highest number of cases in the U.S.

The note also told contract workers, which make up as much as half of the company's overall workforce, to work from home if they were able. Google also said last week it would keep paying the thousands of hourly workers who do jobs such as serving food, cleaning offices and providing security, through the crisis. Amazon, Twitter, Microsoft, and a slew of other major tech companies are also encouraging employees to work from home to prevent the spread of the virus.

Mozilla today launched Firefox 74 for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Firefox 74 includes stricter rules for add-ons, TLS 1.0 and TLS 1.1 disabled by default, and a handful of developer features.

Just over a month after Uber received a California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) license to test driverless cars on public roads, the company has resumed autonomous testing in San Francisco. From a report: Uber says it will limit its time on the road to a "few weeks" while it completes a codebase and infrastructure update and that two of its Volvo XC90 prototypes will be deployed initially, each with a pair of safety drivers in the front seats. Previously, Uber was manually testing up to eight cars in San Francisco with safety drivers and copilots. The testing will no doubt be closely watched by industry observers, as it marks Uber's return to autonomous driving in California years after the company postponed further tests following a fatal accident. In March 2018, one of Uber's cars struck and killed a pedestrian while driving in autonomous mode, prompting a firestorm of criticism from legislators, regulators, and the public.

To combat resistant bacteria and refill the trickling antibiotic pipeline, scientists are getting help from deep learning networks. From a report: Once-powerful antibiotics are losing their efficacy at a disconcerting pace as bacteria evolve immunity to our drugs. At least 700,000 people around the world now die each year from infections that could formerly be treated with antibiotics. A report last year from the United Nations Interagency Coordination Group on Antimicrobial Resistance warned that if no new major advances are made by 2050, mortality could leap to 10 million deaths a year. What makes this prognosis all the more dire is that the antibiotic pipeline has slowed to a trickle. In the past two decades, only a few new antibiotics have been found that kill bacteria in novel ways, and rising resistance is a problem for all of them. Meanwhile, traditional methods of identifying antibiotics by screening natural compounds continue to come up short. Because of this, some researchers are now turning from the wet lab to silicon power in hopes of finding an answer.

In the February 20 issue of Cell, one team of scientists announced that they -- and a powerful deep learning algorithm -- had found a totally new antibiotic, one with an unconventional mechanism of action that allows it to fight infections that are resistant to multiple drugs. The compound was hiding in plain sight (as a possible diabetes treatment) because humans didn't know what to look for. But the computer did. Using computers and machine learning to make sense of mountains of biomedical data is nothing new. But the team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, led by James Collins, who studies applications of systems biology to antibiotic resistance, and Regina Barzilay, an artificial intelligence researcher, achieved success by developing a neural network that avoids scientists' potentially limiting preconceptions about what to look for. Instead, the computer develops its own expertise.

A federal judge said in court documents that Amazon's protest lawsuit over rival Microsoft being awarded a highly lucrative defense project was "likely to succeed on the merits" of one of its main arguments. From a report: In October, Microsoft was awarded the Pentagon's Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) cloud computing contract after the Trump administration and other lawmakers intervened on the tech giant's behalf. The document provides some insight into how U.S. Court of Federal Claims Judge Patricia Campbell-Smith might rule on the case. To the chagrin of Microsoft and the Department of Defense, Campbell-Smith last month halted production on the JEDI cloud system, saying in her decision that the Pentagon erred in how it evaluated prices for competing proposals from the two tech companies.

Since Covid-19 began to spread, Google has aggressively intervened in some of its most popular online services to limit the spread of misinformation. This is a departure for a company that has relied heavily on software and automation to index and rank information throughout its 22-year existence. From a report: Google searches related to the virus now trigger an "SOS Alert," with news from mainstream publications including National Public Radio, followed by information from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization displayed prominently. In contrast, a recent search for "flu season" showed the website verywellhealth.com at the top, while another search for "flu" produced tweets, including one from U.S. President Donald Trump comparing coronavirus to the common flu. The coronavirus has killed more than 3,900 people out of 113,000 confirmed cases.

Online platforms have been inundated with rumors and misinformed concerns about the pathogen as it spread west from Asia, particularly in floods of messages on Twitter, according to Carl Bergstrom, a professor at the University of Washington. Google is swept up in this because it has a deal with Twitter to show tweets in search results, especially for queries about live and recent events. "It's really just a churning mess right now," Bergstrom said. On YouTube, Google's video service, the company is trying to quickly remove videos claiming to prevent the virus in place of seeking medical treatment. And some apps related to the virus have been banned from the Google Play app store, prompting complaints from developers who say they just want to help. The company is also giving up revenue.

Hailing it as its most significant update to its vSphere virtualization manager in a decade, VMware today is overhauling its portfolio of products to include native support of the Kubernetes orchestration manager for software containers along with a host of new tools for shifting and managing applications across multiple on-premises and cloud infrastructure stacks. From a report: The announcement continues VMware's multiyear odyssey from a supplier of virtualization software for on-premises data centers to an enabler of cloud migration and multicloud management. It also showcases the rapid integration of several acquisitions the company made last year. VMware was once seen as a prime potential victim of containers, which are portable and self-contained software environments bundled with applications, but it has responded by embracing the technology and is now building the red-hot Kubernetes manager into its flagship platform. "In the early days of virtualization VMware was a layer that lived across multiple environments; they're looking now to do the same in the cloud," Stu Miniman, senior analyst at Wikibon, a sister research firm to SiliconANGLE, said.

As COVID-19 spreads rapidly around the world, people are eager to keep up with developments at its epicentre in Wuhan, China. But government censorship, partisan media and misinformation have led many to feel the public isn't seeing a full picture of life in a city on lockdown. So some have developed a creative solution to bypass the gatekeepers and go straight to the source: Tinder. From a report: Most Tinder users use the app to match with people nearby, for obvious reasons. But the world's most used dating app has a premium feature, Passport, that allows a user with Tinder Plus or Tinder Gold memberships to choose to swipe in any location -- like, say, Wuhan -- no matter where they are. And despite Tinder being banned in China, users say they're having luck setting their location to Wuhan, allowing them to match with and chat to residents to hear their perspective on the global story. US-based Twitter user @drethelin tweeted "Setting my tinder to Wuhan so I can get the real scoop on what's going on" on Jan. 28 -- just before the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 was a public health emergency.

A growing proportion of women in M.B.A. programs has yielded greater gender parity in classes -- and more business-school weddings. From a report: Liza Merolla and her husband, Justin Merolla, are among a growing number of couples who met through one of the world's most expensive dating sites. They were students at the business school of Columbia University in New York City, where two years of tuition and fees total more than $200,000. It paid off. The Merollas, ages 34 and 36, graduated in 2015 and are living happily ever after in Brooklyn. On Monday, they had their first child, Avery Merolla. Roughly half of Americans ages 18 to 28 say they use online dating sites, according to Pew Research. Others are finding romance at business schools.

Glenn Hubbard, former dean of Columbia Business School, said he has lost count of the number of business-school weddings he has attended. Statistics seem to support his observations. Women made up less than 30% of students enrolled in M.B.A. programs during 2005, the year the nonprofit Forte Foundation started to tally gender. Today, about 40% of the students at the top 50 programs are women. The shift makes for a more gender parity during classes, study groups, recruiting events and boozy nighttime gatherings. No surprise that's a recipe for romance, Mr. Hubbard said: "Business-school students are pretty social." Sarina Richard, who got her M.B.A. at Harvard in 2016, said the rigorous admissions process increases the chance of meeting an interesting, eligible companion. "You've already been vetted through the admissions process, so you know this person is legitimate," she said. "You have this immediate connection around intellectual rigor."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from BuzzFeed News: Sensor Tower, a popular analytics platform for tech developers and investors, has been secretly collecting data from millions of people who have installed popular VPN and ad-blocking apps for Android and iOS, a BuzzFeed News investigation has found. These apps, which don't disclose their connection to the company or reveal that they feed user data to Sensor Tower's products, have more than 35 million downloads. Since 2015, Sensor Tower has owned at least 20 Android and iOS apps. Four of these -- Free and Unlimited VPN, Luna VPN, Mobile Data, and Adblock Focus -- were recently available in the Google Play store. Adblock Focus and Luna VPN were in Apple's App Store. Apple removed Adblock Focus and Google removed Mobile Data after being contacted by BuzzFeed News. The companies said they continue to investigate.

Once installed, Sensor Tower's apps prompt users to install a root certificate, a small file that lets its issuer access all traffic and data passing through a phone. The company told BuzzFeed News it only collects anonymized usage and analytics data, which is integrated into its products. Sensor Tower's app intelligence platform is used by developers, venture capitalists, publishers, and others to track the popularity, usage trends, and revenue of apps. Randy Nelson, Sensor Tower's head of mobile insights, said the company's apps do not collect sensitive data or personally identifiable information and that "the vast majority of these apps listed are now defunct (inactive) and a few are in the process of sunsetting." But, as BuzzFeed points out, most of the apps are no longer available "because they were removed due to policy violations."

Amazon is now offering its "Just Walk Out" technology to other retailers. "The technology uses a combination of cameras, sensors, computer vision techniques and deep learning to allow customers to shop, then leave the store without waiting in line to pay," reports TechCrunch. It's the same tech that Amazon uses in its "Go" cashierless convenience stores and Amazon's newly launched Amazon Go Grocery store in Seattle. From the report: Reuters first reported the news just ahead of Amazon's official announcement, adding also that Amazon says it has signed "several" deals with initial customers interested in using Just Walk Out in their own stores. Amazon did not say who those customers are, however. Amazon has also now launched a website detailing how Just Walk Out works, and answering several questions about this new business line.

The website says that other retailers have expressed interest in the tech for years, which is why it decided to start offering Just Walk Out for sale. The system Amazon is offering includes "all the necessary technology to enable checkout-free shopping," the site notes. That would mean Amazon is providing the camera hardware and sensor technology, in addition to the software systems. The site doesn't mention pricing, but says the system also comes with 24/7 support via phone and email. The setup and installation of the system can take as little as a few weeks once Amazon has access to the retailer's store, Amazon says. For new builds, Amazon can work with the retailer to integrate Just Walk Out during the construction phase or it can do the same as a store undergoes remodels. It also can try to install the technology to an existing store with minimal disruption to customers.

According to a new study published in Physical Review Letters, researchers have achieved a new record quantum key distribution (QKD) transmission distance of over 509 kilometers. Phys.Org reports: "Using the sending-or-not-sending twin-field (SNS-TF) protocol, we realized secure quantum key distribution (QKD) over 509 km, which is a new record secure distance in QKD over fiber," Qiang Zhang, one of the researchers who carried out the study, told Phys.org. "One of the important objectives of our study was to successfully break the absolute key-rate limit of repeater-less QKD, with any measurement device." The SNS-TF protocol was developed and introduced in a previous research effort by some of the researchers who wrote the recent paper. In previous studies, the protocol proved to be highly advantageous for QKD applications, particularly for achieving long distance transmission.

In their recent work, Zhang and his colleagues implemented the SNS-TF QKD protocol by eliciting a single-photon level, first-order interference between two independent lasers. These two independent lasers were combined with a remote frequency locking technique, ultimately enabling QKD transmission over unparalleled distances. In their experiments, the researchers also used superconducting single-photon detectors with high count rate and detection efficiencies. Using their SNS-TF approach, the researchers achieved a secure key rate at 509 km, over seven times higher than the relative repeaterless bound QKD, and with the same detection loss. Remarkably, the key rate they achieved is also higher than that achieved by more traditional QKD protocols running on a perfect repeaterless QKD device.

bigwophh writes: As the number of publishers pulling out of Nvidia's GeForce Now cloud game streaming service continues to grow, the company has found an ally in Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic Games, who vowed on Twitter to "wholeheartedly" support the company's efforts. He also took potshots at Apple and Google over the royalty rate each one charges on their respective app stores and expects them to go to battle as game streaming gains momentum. "Just waiting till later this year when Google is lobbying against Apple for blocking Stadia from iOS, while Google blocks GeForce Now, xCloud, and Fortnite from Google Play, and this whole rotten structure begins collapsing in on itself," Sweeney added. It remains to be seen how things will pan out with GeForce Now. Nvidia maintains that "game removals will be few and far between" and that it has 1,500 additional games queued up. However, Nvidia only has so much control over the developers willing to continue supporting the platform. "Epic is wholeheartedly supporting Nvidia's GeForce Now service with Fortnite and with Epic Games Store titles that choose to participate (including exclusives), and we'll be improving the integration over time," Sweeney wrote. He also called GeForce Now "the most developer-friendly and publisher-friendly of the major streaming services," which is based on Nvidia not charging any "tax" on game revenues.

"Game companies who want to move the game industry towards a healthier state for everyone should be supporting this kind of service!" Sweeney wrote.