The state of Florida’s former Covid-19 data manager was apparently arrested today. After her firing in May of 2020, Rebekah Jones had become a critic of the state’s publicly-available information, even setting up her own online dashboard of Covid-19 case data. The state suspected her of being the person who’d illegally accessed the state’s emergency alert health system in December to…
Tag: cellphones
Florida Governor Defends Police Raid On COVID Data Whistleblower
Earlier this week, Florida state police raided the home of Rebekah Jones, the data scientist who ran the state’s coronavirus dashboard until she was fired in June. “Jones has alleged in a whistleblower lawsuit that her firing was in retaliation for her refusal to manipulate data to make the state’s COVID-19 outbreak last spring appear less severe,” reports Yahoo News. Florida…
Did COVID Data Whistleblower Hack Florida’s Emergency Alert System? Police Raid Home
FriendlySolipsist writes: Independent journalist Rebekah Jones, a scientist fired by the Florida state government because, she said, of her refusal to manipulate official COVID-19 data releases to coincide with political considerations and who now operates website floridacovidaction.com, had her home raided by the FL state police who seized computers and cellphones, the Miami Herald reported. The FDLE affidavit in support of…
Will ‘Vision AI’ Be The Next Frontier for Developers?
A partner at an early-stage investment firm argues that “in the 2000s everyone was learning HTML and making a website. In the 2010s everyone was learning to develop mobile apps. In the 2020s all the developers are going to build Vision AI.” Where the web had its impact was by digitizing manual paper-based processes… I believe the next big wave is…
Ticketmaster To Require Negative COVID-19 Test Or Vaccination To Attend Concerts
Ticketmaster is planning to check the coronavirus vaccination status of concert-goers prior to shows once a treatment is approved. The New York Post reports: The ticketing giant plans to have customers use their cellphones to verify their inoculation or whether they’ve tested negative for the virus within a 24- to 72-hour window, according to the exclusive report. The plan, which is…
Lee Kun-hee, Who Built Samsung Into a Global Giant, Dies At 78
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: Lee Kun-hee, who built Samsung into a global giant of smartphones, televisions and computer chips but was twice convicted — and, in a pattern that has become typical in South Korea, twice pardoned — for white-collar crimes committed along the way, died on Sunday in Seoul, the South Korean capital….
People In The Developing World Thought They Were Buying Cheap Cellphones. They Were Also Getting Robbed.
An anonymous reader shares a report: When Mxolosi saw a Tecno W2 smartphone in a store in Johannesburg, South Africa, he was attracted to its looks and functionality. But what really drew him in was the price, roughly $30 — far less than comparable models from Samsung, Nokia, or Huawei, Africa’s other top brands. […] But its success can come at…
Amazon Makes Employees Delete TikTok From Phones, Citing Security Risk
Amazon has asked its employees to delete the Chinese-owned video app TikTok from their cellphones, citing “security risks,” according to a company email sent on Friday. From a report: In the email, which was obtained by The New York Times, Amazon officials said that employees must delete the app from any devices that “access Amazon email.” Employees had to remove the…
Supreme Court Upholds Cellphone Robocall Ban
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Associated Press: The Supreme Court on Monday upheld a 1991 law that bars robocalls to cellphones. The case, argued by telephone in May because of the coronavirus pandemic, only arose after Congress in 2015 created an exception in the law that allowed the automated calls for collection of government debt. Political consultants and…
World’s Pile of Electronic Waste Grows Ever Higher: Study
The world’s mountain of discarded flat-screen TVs, cellphones and other electronic goods grew to a record high last year, according to an annual report released Thursday. New submitter Splyncryth writes: The U.N.-backed study estimated the amount of e-waste that piled up globally in 2019 at 53.6 million metric tonnes (59.1 million tons) – almost 2 million metric tons more than the…