Facebook Targeting Discrimination

Facebook’s multicultural challenges continue.

USA Today is reporting that Facebook is responding to criticism from black lawmakers in the U.S., and has indicated it will temporarily block advertisers from excluding racial and ethnic groups when placing ads on the social network:

The move is the most serious response yet to concerns Facebook’s “multicultural affinity marketing” feature can be used to discriminate against minorities, particularly in sensitive areas where historically they have faced discrimination such as housing, credit and employment.
– via USA TODAY

Facebook says it’s suspending the targeting capability while conducting an audit of how advertisers exclude groups. The audit will include groups beyond multicultural affinity such as the LGBT community and religious groups, the company said.
– via USA TODAY

USA Today goes on to report that the results will be shared with the groups focused on discrimination in ads, and will work with those groups to make improvements and also publish the measures it’s taking.

In an unrelated report from Facebook, TechCrunch is reporting that Facebook unveiled a “slew” of philanthropy-minded features at the second Facebook Social Good Forum yesterday in NYC.

Facebook is eliminating its 5% fee on donations so 100% of money sent through its Donate buttons go to the desired non-profit. Previously it took 5% to pay for credit card processing and verifying the 750,000 charities on its platform, but will now nobly eat that cost. However, personal fundraisers can still incur fees from 6.9% to 8.8%. It’s setting up a $50 million per year Facebook Donations Fund to match giving on its app to causes like natural disaster relief. Facebook is expanding charitable giving tools to 13 countries in Europe plus Canada, New Zealand, and Australia. It’s launching a Fundraiser API to sync Facebook fundraisers to offsite campaigns, starting with Susan G. Komen, JDRF, National Multiple Sclerosis Society and Movember, with plans to connect to 500 non-profits by end of Spring 2018. Its new Community Help API delivers data from Facebook’s crisis volunteering feature to disaster response organizations to assist them with routing resources. After signing up 4 million blood donors in India, Facebook will expand the program to Bangladesh in 2018.
– via TechCrunch

Also…

Finally, it’s launching a new Mentorship feature through partnered non-profits starting with iMentor for education and The International Rescue Committee for crisis recovery. People over 18 in need of addiction recovery, career advancement or other personal help will be matched with vetted mentors who will guide them through an on-Facebook curriculum of education materials.
– via TechCrunch

WeWork to Acquire Meetup

Crunchbase is reporting that WeWork continues with its acquisition spree in a planned acquisition of community meeting platform, Meetup.

Meetup declined to comment. WeWork declined to comment. Meetup hasn’t taken part in a funding event since 2014, and it has, over the years, only taken about $19 million in investments according to Crunchbase. Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ) led two of its rounds, participating in the rest, also according to Crunchbase. CEO Heiferman also said the acquisition would allow the firm to double in size. In the same meeting, he mentioned a $30 million figure. It was not clear if that was an acquisition price, or a reference to expected investment into his company from the acquiring entity. The startup, which has 35 million Meetup members and over 300,000 “IRL” community meetups to date, is still hiring for several jobs, according to its website. However, the acquisition also comes on the heels of several Meetup employees being asked to voluntarily resign, which was confirmed to Crunchbase News by an internal source on condition of anonymity.
– via Crunchbase News

And this from The Wall Street Journal:

With the deal, WeWork hopes to increase its usage rate during non-working hours. Most traditional clients use spaces on weekdays while Meetup-organized events mostly happen on nights and weekends. Meetup helps organizations and clubs host events and grow membership. More than 100,000 people have attended meetups at WeWork locations so far this year, the companies said Tuesday.
– via WSJ

The Journal article goes on to point out that Meetup has indicated more than 15,000 events are held each day thorugh its platform.

Cyber Monday Record Breaker

TechCrunch is reporting that Cyber Monday was the largest-ever single day of online sales in the U.S., coming in at $6.59 billion purchased online.

Purchases made by smartphone also broke a new record, coming in at $1.59 billion in sales.

The figures come from Adobe, which has been tracking shopping online in the last few days as retailers officially kick-off of holiday shopping season, the most important time of the year for their businesses. These early days are seen by many as a bellwether for how the next six weeks will play out.
– via TechCrunch

Overall, Adobe said traffic was up 11.9 percent for the day (season average: 5.7 percent). As with other days in the long weekend, mobile has been very much a part of the story: 47.4 percent of visits (39.9 percent smartphones, the rest tablets), and 33.1 percent of revenues. Notable in the mobile story is that of smartphone-based browsing and purchases. The record-high of $1.59 billion in sales made via smartphones was a whopping 39.2 percent year-on-year increase: an outsized number compared to the rest of the increases across the board that ran between 10 and 20 percent.
– via TechCrunch

And Amazon accounted for the most sales of any single platform:

According to Hitwise, the e-commerce giant accounted for 45.1 percent and 54.9 percent of all transactions respectively on Thanksgiving and Black Friday. Hitwise puts the actual numbers at 5.6 million and 7.1 million transactions.
– via TechCrunch

Facebook AI to Detect Suicidal Posts

TechCrunch is reporting on Facebook’s new “proactive detection” artificial intelligence technology which will scan all posts for patterns of suicidal thoughts, and when necessary send mental health resources to the user at risk or their friends, or even contact local first-responders.

Facebook also will use AI to prioritize particularly risky or urgent user reports so they’re more quickly addressed by moderators, and tools to instantly surface local language resources and first-responder contact info. It’s also dedicating more moderators to suicide prevention, training them to deal with the cases 24/7, and now has 80 local partners like Save.org, National Suicide Prevention Lifeline and Forefront from which to provide resources to at-risk users and their networks.
– via TechCrunch

TechCrunch’s Josh Constine goes on to observe that this evolution could trigger “some dystopian fears about how else the technology could be applied” (scanning for political dissent or petty crimes, for example), but that Facebook had no comment on the possibility of such scans.

So how did they get to this point?

Facebook trained the AI by finding patterns in the words and imagery used in posts that have been manually reported for suicide risk in the past. It also looks for comments like “are you OK?” and “Do you need help?” “We’ve talked to mental health experts, and one of the best ways to help prevent suicide is for people in need to hear from friends or family that care about them,” Rosen says. “This puts Facebook in a really unique position. We can help connect people who are in distress connect to friends and to organizations that can help them.”
– via TechCrunch

Hacking Black Friday

Uber’s back in the sheit again. Happy Thanksgiving!

Bloomberg reports that hackers stole the personal data of 57 million customers and drivers from Uber, a breach that the company concealed for more than a year.

As a results, Uber fired its chief security officer and one of his deputies for hiding the breach, including a $100,000 ransom payment. Uber has hired cybersecurity firm Mandiant to investigate the hack.

Back at Hewlett Packard Enterprise, CEO Meg Whitman has announced she’ll step down as CEO early next year, and President Antonio Neri will take her place.

“Today, Hewlett Packard moves forward as four industry-leading companies that are each well positioned to win in their respective markets,” Whitman said in a statement. “Now is the right time for Antonio and a new generation of leaders to take the reins of HPE. I have tremendous confidence that they will continue to build a great company that will thrive well into the future.”
– via CNBC

Okay, so there’s the relevant tech news for the day…let’s now get down to the important matters at hand, hacking Black Friday.

If you’re getting ready to mix it up either online or at the brick ’n’ mortars looking for the best deals, I’ve been in search of some tips ’n’ tricks to hopefully help you make your travails just a little more painless.

Katie Jackson from Today had some choice bits:

1) Review Amazon price histories on camelcamelcamel.com to get a sense of recent pricing.

2) Always use a new pricing (remembering dynamic pricing can be impacted by browsing patterns based on existing cookies). In fact, Jackson suggests going into “incognito” mode for your holiday shopping.

3) Use today to start scouting stores. That way you know where the stuff you’re looking for is located as you trample your fellow humans bright and early Friday morning so you can be FIRST to get that gold-plated Tickle Me Elmo (KIDDING! Be KIND to your fellow shoppers!)

C:NET suggests starting early (Amazon’s already started discounting items like the Kindle Fire 7 Kids Edition and the Kindle Paperwhite)

And yes, visit TheBlackFriday.com to see scans of the Black Friday ads that will help you scout the best deals.

Good luck, and for those of you in the U.S., have a very Happy Thanksgiving and a most fruitful Black Friday!

Hacking Black Friday

Uber’s back in the sheit again. Happy Thanksgiving!

Bloomberg reports that hackers stole the personal data of 57 million customers and drivers from Uber, a breach that the company concealed for more than a year.

As a results, Uber fired its chief security officer and one of his deputies for hiding the breach, including a $100,000 ransom payment. Uber has hired cybersecurity firm Mandiant to investigate the hack.

Back at Hewlett Packard Enterprise, CEO Meg Whitman has announced she’ll step down as CEO early next year, and President Antonio Neri will take her place.

“Today, Hewlett Packard moves forward as four industry-leading companies that are each well positioned to win in their respective markets,” Whitman said in a statement. “Now is the right time for Antonio and a new generation of leaders to take the reins of HPE. I have tremendous confidence that they will continue to build a great company that will thrive well into the future.”
– via CNBC

Okay, so there’s the relevant tech news for the day…let’s now get down to the important matters at hand, hacking Black Friday.

If you’re getting ready to mix it up either online or at the brick ’n’ mortars looking for the best deals, I’ve been in search of some tips ’n’ tricks to hopefully help you make your travails just a little more painless.

Katie Jackson from Today had some choice bits:

1) Review Amazon price histories on camelcamelcamel.com to get a sense of recent pricing.

2) Always use a new pricing (remembering dynamic pricing can be impacted by browsing patterns based on existing cookies). In fact, Jackson suggests going into “incognito” mode for your holiday shopping.

3) Use today to start scouting stores. That way you know where the stuff you’re looking for is located as you trample your fellow humans bright and early Friday morning so you can be FIRST to get that gold-plated Tickle Me Elmo (KIDDING! Be KIND to your fellow shoppers!)

C:NET suggests starting early (Amazon’s already started discounting items like the Kindle Fire 7 Kids Edition and the Kindle Paperwhite)

And yes, visit TheBlackFriday.com to see scans of the Black Friday ads that will help you scout the best deals.

Good luck, and for those of you in the U.S., have a very Happy Thanksgiving and a most fruitful Black Friday!

Reach Out and Touch Someone

The U.S. Department of Justice is suing to block AT&T’s $85 billion deal to buy Time Warner, reports CNBC.

And here’s how a press release from the Department of Justice explained its action:

The United States Department of Justice today filed a civil antitrust lawsuit to block AT&T/DirecTV’s proposed acquisition of Time Warner Inc. The $108 billion acquisition would substantially lessen competition, resulting in higher prices and less innovation for millions of Americans. The combination of AT&T/DirecTV’s vast video distribution infrastructure and Time Warner’s popular television programming would be one of the largest mergers in American history.  Time Warner’s network offerings include TBS, TNT, CNN, Cartoon Network, HBO and Cinemax, and its programming includes Game of Thrones, NCAA’s March Madness, and substantial numbers of MLB and NBA regular season and playoff games.   According to the complaint, which was filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, the combined company would use its control over Time Warner’s valuable and highly popular networks to hinder its rivals by forcing them to pay hundreds of millions of dollars more per year for the right to distribute those networks.  The combined company would also use its increased power to slow the industry’s transition to new and exciting video distribution models that provide greater choice for consumers, resulting in fewer innovative offerings and higher bills for American families.
– via www.justice.gov

Bloomberg reports that “a defiant Randall Stephenson told antitrust enforcers that AT&T would see them in court…”

The CEO [Stephenson] briefly addressed what he called “the elephant in the room” — whether the lawsuit had anything to do with Trump’s very public and intense dislike of CNN. “Frankly, I don’t know,” he said. “But nobody should be surprised that the question keeps coming up, because we’ve witnessed such an abrupt change in the application of antitrust law here.”
– via Bloomberg.com

Recode’s lead explained the rationale behind DOJ’s trying to stop the deal this way: “The Comcast-NBCUniversal deal was bad. So the AT&T-Time Warner deal is worse — because it’s even bigger.”

The argument goes that “if it’s worrisome for a regional distributor to buy a big content company, it’s an even worse one for a distributor with a national footprint.”

Looks like this one’s headed to the courthouse.

Let the Chips Fall…

Some big deals brewing early on a Monday morning.

Reuters reported that chipmaker Marvell Technology Group Ltd. would buy smaller rival Cavium Inc. in a $6 billion deal “as it seeks to expand its wireless connectivity business in a fast consolidating semiconductor industry.”

Hamilton, Bermuda-based Marvell makes chips for storage devices while San Jose, California-based Cavium builds network equipment.
– via U.S.

 

China’s e-commerce giant, Alibaba, will buy a big stake in China Wal-Mart rival, Sun Art Retail Group Ltd, for $2.88 billion, which would give it a 36 percent stake in the company.

Alibaba, which runs the world’s largest online shopping operation, sees traditional retail venues as a way to expand its reach into fresh foods while also creating new demand for its Alipay mobile-payment business and its logistics services. “Physical stores serve an indispensable role during the consumer journey, and should be enhanced through data-driven technology and personalized services in the digital economy,” Alibaba chief executive officer Daniel Zhang said in a statement.
– via WSJ

This follows on the heels of Amazon’s $13.7 billion purchase of U.S. grocer Whole Foods.

But China’s not done. One of its leading phone and appliances makers, Xiaomi Corp., has also indicated it would invest as much as $1 billion in 100 startups in India over the next five years. The move is apparently an effort to build an ecosystem of apps around its smartphone brand.

And if you’re still waiting for your Uber, you may not have to wait much longer. Just don’t look for the driver.

Reuters is reporting that Uber plans to buy up to 24,000 self-driving cars from Volvo, building on a three-year relationship between the two companies.

Geely-owned Volvo said in a statement on Monday it would provide Uber with its flagship XC90 SUVs equipped with autonomous technology as part of a non-exclusive deal from 2019 to 2021. A Volvo spokesman said it covered up to 24,000 cars. The self-driving system that would be used in the Volvo cars — which have yet to be built — is under development by Uber’s Advanced Technologies Group.
– via U.S.

That would be the single largest purchase for Volvo, and the broader autonomous vehicle industry, and would give Uber its first commercial fleet of cars.

No financial details were disclosed for the purchase, which would be a massive new investment for Uber and mark a change from Uber’s long-standing business model where contractor drivers buy or lease and maintain their own cars.
– via U.S.

Fusion Genomics Using IBM Cloud To Support Advances Against Global Pandemics

IBM today announced that Vancouver-based company Fusion Genomics selected IBM’s cloud capabilities to help advance Fusion’s ability to detect pandemics before they happen.

Fusion Genomics has developed disruptive DNA and RNA technology that it believes can positively identify infectious diseases and enhance the surveillance of emerging pathogens like MERS, SARS, avian flu, and swine flu.

Vancouver-based company Fusion Genomics selected IBM’s cloud capabilities to help advance Fusion’s ability to detect pandemics before they happen. Fusion Genomics has developed disruptive DNA and RNA technology that it believes can positively identify infectious diseases and enhance the surveillance of emerging pathogens like MERS, SARS, avian flu, and swine flu. (Credit: IBM)

According to Fusion, Fusion Genomics’ technology when employed for pre-emergence surveillance can help proactively identify threats, like swine flu, by taking aerosol samples in high risk areas, then analyze the sample to determine if there is potential to affect humans.

If there is a risk, Fusion Genomics can help groups like governments and hospitals make rapid and informed decisions for the health and safety of those that rely on them before an outbreak occurs.

Requiring a cloud platform tuned for machine learning workloads, which also provides secure infrastructure capable of hosting sensitive genomic data, Fusion Genomics determined that the IBM Cloud was the ideal solution.

The global infrastructure footprint of the IBM Cloud helps Fusion Genomics create a more coordinated and efficient delivery system that can scale up or down as needed. In addition, IBM Cloud positioned the company to analyze genomic data in minutes.

The IBM Cloud enables Fusion Genomics’ system to gather and process four core elements in unison:

• Beginning with testing, the sample genome is captured and DNA sequenced.
• Fusion Genomics’ machine learning algorithms then analyze the genomic data to identify the presence of a pathogen, including any forms that could cause public harm.  
• Once identified, physicians using Fusion Genomics’ technology can provide appropriate therapeutics; thus, treatment can be determined while tracking the transmission dynamics of the pathogen.
• Since the system is delivered via the IBM Cloud, Fusion Genomics can easily run analytics and share information across boundaries.

“With a quickly growing global population, potential outbreaks of infectious diseases pose an increasingly pressing threat to our public health”, said Mohammad Qadir, CEO of Fusion Genomics.  “We chose IBM over other cloud providers because of its ability to quickly scale up or down while ensuring that sensitive data is protected with one of the most secure clouds available. This accelerates our capacity to react to infectious diseases that can pose dangerous threats to both the economy and human life.”

Organizations around the world are working with Fusion Genomics to access their DNA and RNA technology system built on IBM Cloud, including government agencies in both Canada and the European Union. 

For more information about IBM Cloud, please visit https://www.ibm.com/cloud-computing/.

China Tops Top500 Supercomputing List

For the first time ever, China has the most systems on the Top500 supercomputers list with 202, up from 159 six months ago.

By comparison, the U.S. dropped from 169 to 144, according to a report from CNET.

China also sits atop the Top500 list, with its Sunway TaihuLight supercomputer at China’s National Supercomputing Center in Wuxi reaching 93.01 petflops, or 93 quadrillion calculations per second.

But don’t rule out the U.S….

The United States might reclaim the top spot on the Top500 list, though. An IBM-built machine called Summit at Oak Ridge National Laboratory is designed to reach about 200 petaflops, double the performance of Sunway TaihuLight. It’s in a 10,000-square-foot facility that’s got a 20-megawatt power system for running the machine and keeping it cool. That’s enough electricity to power about 16,300 houses.
– via CNET