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Submission + - Uber drivers to launch legal bid to uncover app's algorithm (theguardian.com)

Submitted by AmiMoJo
AmiMoJo writes: Minicab drivers will launch a legal bid to uncover secret computer algorithms used by Uber to manage their work in a test case that could increase transparency for millions of gig economy workers across Europe. Two UK drivers are demanding to see the huge amounts of data the ride-sharing company collects on them and how this is used to exert management control, including through automated decision-making that invisibly shapes their jobs.

The case is being brought on Monday by the UK-based App Drivers and Couriers Union in the district court in Amsterdam, where the international headquarters of the $56bn (£44.5bn) ride-hailing firm is located. The union said transparency was essential in checking if Uber was exercising discrimination or unequal treatment between drivers. It will also allow drivers to organise and build collective bargaining power over terms of work and pay in a way that is currently impossible.

Submission + - Trump Considers Forming Panel To Review Complaints Of Conservative Bias Online (wsj.com)

Submitted by phalse phace
phalse phace writes: The WSJ is reporting that President Trump is considering establishing a panel to review complaints of anticonservative bias on social media, according to people familiar with the matter.

The plans are still under discussion but could include the establishment of a White House-created commission that would examine allegations of online bias and censorship, these people said. The administration could also encourage similar reviews by federal regulatory agencies, such as the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Election Commission, they said.

“The Radical Left is in total command & control of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Google,” Mr. Trump tweeted May 16, adding that his administration is “working to remedy this illegal situation.”

The administration also is considering new recommendations for revamping federal protections adopted by Congress in Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, which gives online companies broad immunity from liability for their users’ actions, as well as wide latitude to police content.

alternative non-paywalled source

Comment Re: how are there no double blind studies? (Score 2) 470

CDC uses something called "Excess Mortality", basically comparing how many people died in a given time period to how many have historically died in that time period.

Unless you think that there's been a rash of people falling down stairs and cracking their skulls in the past few months, it's reasonable to assign the likely cause of these "excess deaths" to the thing that's killing people all over the world right now.

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6919e5.htm

Submission + - After Retesting Samples, French Hospital Discovers COVID-19 Case from December (reuters.com) 4

Submitted by hackingbear
hackingbear writes: A French hospital which has retested (repeatedly) old samples from pneumonia patients discovered that it treated a man who had COVID-19 as early as Dec. 27, 2019, nearly a month before the French government confirmed its first cases. “Of the 24, we had one who was positive for COVID-19 on Dec. 27,” Yves Cohen, head of resuscitation at the Avicenne and Jean Verdier hospitals in the northern suburbs of Paris, told the news channel on Sunday. The samples had all initially been collected to detect flu using PCR tests. Cohen said it was too early to know if the patient whose Dec. 27 test was COVID-19 positive is France’s “patient zero”. Knowing who was the first is critical to understanding how the virus spread. December 27 was around the same time that Chinese doctors noticed the then unknown pneumonia cases. China is widely criticized by western politicians and public for their purported "cover-up" or downplaying of the outbreak in early January, though China has rejected such accusations. The discovery of COVID-19 patients outside of China in December would certainly add controversies to the theory of origins of the virus.

Submission + - While governments dithered, Tesco's supermarkets prepared for Coronavirus (theguardian.com)

Submitted by AleRunner
AleRunner writes: "As the UK government dithered on implementing a national lockdown, Tesco’s chief executive signed off the retailer’s plan to help feed the nation in mid-February." writes the Guardian. The UK government was one of the slowest, only starting lockdown much later on 23 March. The Guardian puts Tesco's prescience down to "a 'doomsday' management exercise in which UK’s biggest supermarket chain imagined its head office in Welwyn Garden City would have to shut down completely. — 'At the time people said it was a bit ridiculous and extreme'". "Thanks to a plan informed by that doomsday exercise, Tesco already had the kit in place for remote working. Some teams have been using Zoom calls to gather hundreds of staff together for about two years." When the lockdown did come "The retailer took on 47,000 additional staff within days to help cope with demand". Although much of the flexibility was technological the article also states that the fact that "90% of Tesco’s home deliveries are picked by hand in stores" gave it flexibility to expand faster than Tesco's robot based competitors.

Comment Re:Wouldn't be the first (Score 1) 247

by Swave An deBwoner (#59960682) Attached to: New York Orders Residents To Wear Masks In Public
I think that the insistence on everybody wearing masks has at least two components: (1) they will block droplet spray from sneezing and coughing, though they won't block aerosoles and (2) seeing everyone wearing a mask reinforces the need for social distancing.

I don't think that the masks will safeguard the wearer; in fact there are studies that concluded that wearing a cloth mask may actually increase the likelihood of infection (due to contamination, becoming moist/damp fertile breeding ground for bacteria and viruses, and the increased amount of self-contamination from touching a contaminated mask's exterior and then touching one's face).

Submission + - CDC reviewing 'stunning' universal testing results from Boston homeless shelter (boston25news.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Of the 397 people tested, 146 people tested positive. Not a single one had any symptoms.

“It was like a double knockout punch. The number of positives was shocking, but the fact that 100 percent of the positives had no symptoms was equally shocking,” said Dr. Jim O’Connell, president of Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program, which provides medical care at the city’s shelters.

Submission + - Rich Americans Are Getting $1.7 Million Stimulus 'Checks' (forbes.com)

Submitted by Pikoro
Pikoro writes: While wealthy Americans are not eligible for the comparatively measly $1,200 stimulus checks that are now being disbursed to many Americans, they are on pace to do even better. 43,000 taxpayers, who earn more than $1 million annually, are each set to receive a $1.7 million windfall, on average, thanks to a provision buried in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act.

“For those earning $1 million annually, a tax break buried in the recent coronavirus relief legislation is so generous that its total cost is more than total new funding for all hospitals in America and more than the total provided to all state and local governments."

Submission + - SPAM: China clamping down on coronavirus research, deleted pages suggest

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Move is likely to be part of attempt to control the narrative surrounding the pandemic

China is cracking down on publication of academic research about the origins of the novel coronavirus, in what is likely to be part of a wider attempt to control the narrative surrounding the pandemic, documents published online by Chinese universities appear to show.

Two websites for leading Chinese universities appear to have recently published and then removed pages that reference a new policy requiring academic papers dealing with Covid-19 to undergo extra vetting before they are submitted for publication.

Research on the origins of the virus is particularly sensitive and subject to checks by government officials, the notices posted on the websites of Fudan University and the China University of Geosciences (Wuhan) said. Both the deleted pages were accessed from online caches.

Prof Steve Tsang, director of the SOAS China Institute in London, said the Chinese government had had a heavy focus on how the evolution and management of the virus is perceived since the early days of the outbreak.

“In terms of priority, controlling the narrative is more important than the public health or the economic fallout,” he said. “It doesn’t mean the economy and public health aren’t important. But the narrative is paramount.”
Link to Original Source

Submission + - Geek Squad's In-Home Agents Fear Spreading Coronavirus To the Elderly (vice.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Employees for Best Buy-owned Geek Squad who visit people's homes to install electronics are fearful that they may get sick or help spread the coronavirus as they are told to keep working during the pandemic. Many Geek Squad employees told Motherboard that their customers are most at risk of having a severe case of Covid-19, because many of them are elderly or have underlying health conditions. The news comes after Motherboard reported how Best Buy was running at "full capacity," allowing hundreds of customers in stores at once and leading multiple employees to believe Best Buy saw a business opportunity in staying open during a time of crisis. After publication, Best Buy announced it would shorten opening hours and limit the number of customers allowed inside stores.

In-house agents are tasked with setting up and repairing Best Buy customers' electronics in their homes. That might include installing a doorbell, television set, kitchen appliance, or setting up their computer or home router, for example. "They're expected to be in people's homes where there are no personal boundaries, no social distancing, touching of product, etc," one current Geek Squad employee told Motherboard. "They have compared their employees to 'essential workers' [...] such as gas stations, hospitals, grocery stores." An internal Best Buy email sent to agents and obtained by Motherboard reflected this, saying "The work we do is considered essential to our client's and customer's [sic] needs and we are being asked to continue to serve our clients in their homes." Elderly people who cannot install technology themselves may wish to have such a service during the looming quarantine period in the U.S. But multiple Geek Squad employees Motherboard spoke to highlighted how they may be putting clients at risk because in-house agents cater heavily to retirement communities and senior citizens in general.

Submission + - SPAM: Coronavirus Origins: Covid-19 Wasn't Produced In A Lab, Scientists Conclude

Submitted by pgmrdlm
pgmrdlm writes: JUPITER, Fla. — Over the course of this Covid-19 ordeal, a number of outlandish conspiracy theories have emerged that the virus was produced in a Chinese, Canadian, or American lab. Conspiracy theories have become an increasingly common part of everyday life in recent years, but a new study on Covid-19’s origins is disproving this theory. A team of international researchers have concluded that the novel coronavirus has entirely natural origins through evolution.

Public genome sequence data on Covid-19, as well as similar viruses, was extensively analyzed for this study. The results show absolutely no indication that the virus was produced artificially or in a lab setting.

“By comparing the available genome sequence data for known coronavirus strains, we can firmly determine that SARS-CoV-2 originated through natural processes,” comments co-author Kristian Andersen, PhD, an associate professor of immunology and microbiology at Scripps Research, in a release.

Researchers from Columbia University, the University of Edinburgh, and the University of Sydney also worked on this project.

Chinese scientists were the first to sequence the new virus’ genome, and immediately made their findings available to scientists all over the world. Incredibly, this data indeed indicates that Covid-19 has spread to hundreds of thousands after initially being “introduced” to just one person.

It was this genetic template that allowed the study’s authors to investigate the virus’ origins. They discovered that Covid-19’s receptor-binding domain (RBD), a kind of “grappling hook” that attaches itself to host cells, had evolved to target a specific molecular feature of human cells. That feature is called ACE2, and it is a receptor involved in maintaining regular blood pressure. The research team believe this development was the work of natural selection, not some type of genetic engineering.
Link to Original Source

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