Amid fanfare in March, California officials celebrated the launch of a multimillion-dollar contract with Verily — Google’s health-focused sister company — that they said would vastly expand COVID testing among the state’s impoverished and underserved communities. But seven months later, San Francisco and Alameda counties — two of the state’s most populous — have severed ties with the company’s testing sites…
Tag: oakland
Judge Orders Twitter To Unmask FBI Impersonator Who Set Off Seth Rich Conspiracy
AmiMoJo shares a report from NPR: A federal judge in California has ordered that Twitter reveal the identity of an anonymous user who allegedly fabricated an FBI document to spread a conspiracy theory about the killing of Seth Rich, the Democratic National Committee staffer who died in 2016. The ruling could lead to the identification of the person behind the Twitter…
Silicon Valley Tech Workers Angered By Proposal to Make Some Mandatory Telecommuting Permanent
“The Metropolitan Transportation Commission, a regional government agency in the San Francisco Bay Area, voted Wednesday to move forward with a proposal to require people at large, office-based companies to work from home three days a week as a way to slash greenhouse gas emissions from car commutes,” reports NBC News: It’s a radical suggestion that likely would have been a…
Epic Tries New Gambit To Restore Fortnite in Apple App Store
Epic Games made another pitch to a judge to block Apple from removing Fortnite from its App Store in what the game maker calls “retaliation” for offering in-app purchases through its own marketplace. From a report: Friday’s request for a court action comes after Epic was denied an order last month that would have temporarily stopped Apple from delisting Fortnite. The…
Pandemic Sends Videogame Museum Into Two-Year Shutdown
Oakland’s nonprofit “Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment” housed 40,000 historic pieces of videogame memorabilia — including 11,000 playable games. In 2017 they were the ones urging America’s copyright office to allow museums and libraries to circumvent DRM to preserve abandoned online games like FIFA World Cup, Nascar and The Sims. The museum’s sponsors include GitHub, Google, PlayStation, and Dolby Digital….
Temperature in Death Valley Today: 130 Degrees, Earth’s Highest Since at Least 1931
The Washington Post reports:
In the midst of a historic heat wave in the West, the mercury in Death Valley, California surged to a searing 130 degrees on Sunday afternoon, possibly setting a world record for the highest temperature ever observed during the month of August. If the temperature is valid, it would also rank among the top three highest temperatures ever…
Jack Dorsey Donates $3 Million To US Mayors For Universal Basic Income Pilot Programs In 15 Cities
Jack Dorsey, the billionaire CEO of Twitter and Square, is donating $3 million to help fund Mayors for a Guaranteed Income (MGI), a new coalition of 15 mayors across the country who want to explore the idea of universal basic income — a recurring payment to residents — in their cities. Forbes reports: The coalition was created on June 29 by…
Boston Votes To Ban Government Use of Facial Recognition
Boston is now the largest city on the East Coast to ban facial recognition technology for municipal use. They join cities like San Francisco, Oakland, California, and Cambridge, Massachusetts. CNET reports: The ordinance passed unanimously and will prevent the capital city from using facial recognition technology or obtaining software for conducting surveillance using the technology. “Boston should not be using racially…
2 views from space: San Francisco Bay
We thought many of you would enjoy these two images from space of one of Earth’s most captivating places: San Francisco Bay. The European Space Agency (ESA) shared the image above on May 15, 2020. It’s a view of San Francisco Bay from the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission, which consists of twin Earth-observing satellites, launched in…read more » Source: https://earthsky.org/todays-image/esa-satellite-image-san-francisco-bay…
Facebook Accuses NSO Group of Using US Servers for Spying
Facebook has accused the Israeli surveillance technology company NSO Group of using servers located in the U.S. to infect hundreds of smartphones with spyware. From a report: The allegation comes as part of a lawsuit that Facebook initiated last year accusing the NSO Group of using WhatsApp accounts to hack into the phones. Facebook owns the popular messaging app. In a…