Category: Tech news

Upgrade your loved one’s home office with these picks that make every day a little easier—and a little more fun.

Without any need for steering wheels or pedals, the cubes give passengers room to maneuver inside. The latest entrant, from Zoox, can hold 4.

Amateur and professional cryptographers, including those at the FBI, had been trying to decode the infamous serial killer’s message to the media for decades.

50 years after the first spacecraft touched down on our super hot neighbor (and promptly died), NASA has a plan for a tougher mechanical lander.

It took a couple swings (most of them good, some of them okay at best) but the most recent release is a crowd-pleaser.

Because of Covid-19, developers are realizing that incorporating health concerns in a building’s design isn’t just a luxury—it’s a necessity.

The electric version of Ford’s legendary sports car is a lot of fun to drive. But road trips can be derailed by an underpowered charging network.

A supply chain attack against IT company SolarWinds has exposed as many as 18,000 companies to Cozy Bear’s attacks.

On this week’s Get WIRED podcast, an editor captures the bizarre world of 2020 for his unborn daughter.

Apple’s update that enables RAW camera capture—and makes your photos more editable—is now available.

With Disney’s announcement of 22 new series, and Warner Bros. teaming up with HBO Max, the battle for every last subscriber will come to a head next year.

It remains unclear how effective the warnings will be, but the attempt alone is a promising development.

The place we’re in, the valley of the dolls between the vote and the Inauguration, is overshadowed by the battle to save our lives. The vaccines look promising, and so does the persistence of the Trumpster to play his games. Somehow we have to live with that, on both sides. In the business we’re in, the technology industry, broadband has penetrated to the point we can survive with a reasonable degree of fidelity to the world COVID erased.

This week’s move by WarnerMedia to release all 2021 pictures on HBO Max and in theaters is both a capitulation to reality and a political gambit to negotiate with theater owners. Disney, with their theme parks and investments in streaming crescendoing in layoffs and rebuilding, announced a mix of 80% streaming with only 20% theatrical. Trump’s TikTok deadline has already passed, and the administration is pretending to not pay attention in order to keep negotiations for a buyout alive. The incoming government talks of a working bromance between Biden and McConnell. It’s the opposite of reality TV, or TV reality.

Newsletters straddle mainstream and social media, rolling up links that blur the credibility of publications with the Wild West of uncredentialed freelancers. Some of these voices are playing the newsletter sweepstakes, choosing to move from a salaried position to their own subscription model. For those publications funded in part by a paywall, the transition to a newsletter comes with opportunity and risk. Selling a subscription for a single voice competes with the bundled voices of a paywall publication eventually diluting potential readers’ available funds. We’re seeing this same subscription saturation dynamic in the rise of streaming networks.

Another trend, notification-based news, is making inroads with live streaming over social networks. The pandemic has forced many students into working from home over Zoom for interactive sessions mixed with traditional lecture-type webinars. Events normally covered by trade publications have yielded at least for now to influencer and analyst driven watch parties. Podcasts forego subscription and advertiser revenue for lead generation and industry traction. The 24/7 nature of work from anywhere fights for eyelid time with binge viewing, listening, and reading.

Beyond the virus’s impact on audiences, the productions themselves have new challenges. The FX series Fargo ceased production in March, as did ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy. When you see the completed shows, it’s fascinating to try and guess which scenes were shot under the much tighter strictures of the fall. Grey’s Anatomy used the pandemic as a plot point, but it took a few shows for the actors to settle into a more relaxed rhythm. Pre-pandemic footage from the abbreviated series’ previous season lived uncomfortably alongside the new material to cover the transitional story line.

Citizen Kane, considered broadly as the best film Hollywood ever made, spawned a Netflix production about the author of the screenplay, one Herman J. Mankiewicz. Presented in black and white with Kane-like musical scoring and the original film’s innovations in deep focus photography and low angle shots that include the ceilings of sets, the story uses flashbacks and time-jumping to great effect. It’s streaming meets MGM’s catch phrase from the time: All the stars in the heavens. Director David Fincher tells the New York Times how he overshoots by 20% the number of pixels so he can post process and polish the rough edges and camera jiggles into a precise reflection of the intricate vision of his cinema universe.

40 years ago this week John Lennon was murdered by a troubled fan. I was watching Monday Night football when Howard Cosell broke in with the news. What was left of my childhood vanished in that moment. I was newly divorced, struggling to keep my momentum going, no idea of what our world would become, and stupid with sadness over someone I’d never met. The Beatles was this magic machine, a coalition of the fleeting imperfection of the group and the unifying perfection of what they had accomplished.

The days tick by. The vaccine trucks roll. The Supreme Court denies another desperate move to overturn the will of the people. Nobody told me there’d be days like these. Strange days indeed.

__________________

The Gillmor Gang — Frank Radice, Michael Markman, Keith Teare, Denis Pombriant, Brent Leary, and Steve Gillmor . Recorded live Friday, December 4, 2020.

Produced and directed by Tina Chase Gillmor @tinagillmor

@fradice, @mickeleh, @denispombriant, @kteare, @brentleary, @stevegillmor, @gillmorgang

For more, subscribe to the Gillmor Gang Newsletter and join the backchannel here on Telegram.

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Welcome back to Human Capital, where I break down the latest in diversity, equity and inclusion, and labor in tech. This week, Twitter dropped its latest diversity report and Tesla released its first one ever. Meanwhile, Google CEO Sundar Pichai apologized for the way things went down with Dr. Timnit Gebru, a prominent researcher in artificial intelligence ethics.

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Google’s Sundar Pichai will investigate events that led up to Dr. Timnit Gebru’s exit

In light of artificial intelligence researcher Dr. Timnit Gebru’s exit from Google last week, Google CEO Sundar Pichai sent a memo to staffers, obtained by Axios, saying the company would investigate “the circumstances that led up to Dr. Gebru’s departure, examining where we could have improved and led a more respectful process.”

In Pichai’s memo, he said the company needs to “accept responsibility for the fact that a prominent Black, female leader with immense talent left Google unhappily.” He also noted how it’s had a “ripple effect” through underrepresented communities at Google.

In response, on Twitter, Gebru said she didn’t see any plans for accountability. Instead, she said she saw “further gaslighting.” In an interview with Venture Beat, Gebru said Pichai’s memo is “dehumanizing” and makes her “sound like an angry Black woman.”

They paint me as this angry Black woman because they put you in this terrible workplace, and if you speak up about it, then you become a problem, and then they start talking about de-escalation strategies.

You write emails, they get ignored. You write documents, and they get ignored. Then you discuss how it’s being done and then they talk about you as if you’re like some angry Black woman who needs to be contained.

More Black women and Latinas are founding startups, according to Project Diane

Since 2018, the number of Black women and Latina founders doubled from 334 startups to more than 650, according to Project Diane. These women have also raised more money than they did in 2018, but they’re still raising less than the national average. 

This year, Black women and Latina founders raised $3.1 billion compared to just $1 billion in 2018. Still, the median seed round for Black women is $125,000 and $200,000 for Latina founders, while the national median seed is $2.5 million.

Tesla finally released a diversity report

Tesla released its first-ever diversity report, showing the company is 34% white, 22% Hispanic, 10% Black, 21% Asian and 7% “additional groups” in the United States. Those breakdowns are not bad, but it’s worth noting Tesla employs many of those folks in its factories, which are notoriously problematic and have been the subject of allegations around racism and discrimination.  

At the leadership level, Tesla is 59% white, 25% Asian, 4% Black and 4% Hispanic. Just 1% of those in leadership roles are from “additional groups.”

Meanwhile, Tesla’s gender diversity is objectively bad. Men account for 79% of Tesla’s overall workplace and 83% of its leaders in the United States.

Twitter shows slight improvement in latest diversity report

Twitter released its latest quarterly diversity report showing an increase in the representation of women, Black, Latinx and multiracial employees across the whole company. Additionally, representation of women and Black people increased at the leadership level. Despite those gains, Twitter is still 56.7% male and 41% white. 

Uber wants drivers and delivery workers to get priority access to COVID-19 vaccine

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi sent a letter to all 50 governors asking them to prioritize giving drivers and delivery workers the vaccine as essential workers. In the letter, Khosrowshahi argues that the work of drivers and delivery people has become essential. That’s why Uber wants them to get the vaccine “quickly, easily and for free,” he wrote in the letter. Additionally, Uber has offered to help share information about the vaccine and encouraging those who are eligible to get vaccinated.

Apple was reportedly complicit in violating Chinese labor laws

Three former Apple Supplier Responsibility employees recently said the company did nothing when its suppliers violated the temporary worker labor law in China. That law required that no more than 10% of a factory’s workforce be temporary workers. According to The Information, Apple didn’t take action because it was worried about an increase in costs, a drain on resources and delays in product launches. 

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