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Intel is reportedly close to buying transit app creator Moovit

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It’s easy to see why Intel would be interested in Moovit, and not just because of existing financial backing. The startup uses a mix of AI and data analytics to monitor real-time traffic and offer transit directions to roughly 800 million people. That could be valuable for robotaxis and other driverless vehicles that need to consider live traffic to choose the fastest routes. If your Intel-powered ride avoids gridlock to reach your destination on time, you’ll know who to thank.

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After Math: Keeping occupied in a time of quarantine

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Twitter

SOPA Images via Getty Images

Twitter has seen a 24 percent jump in its daily users since the start of the COVID-19 crisis, 166 million users in total. Because apparently we aren’t all collectively miserable enough as it is without it.

British Museum

British Museum

Following the Smithsonian’s image release in February, the British Museum posted pictures of 4.5 million pieces in its collection online this week, nearly 300,000 of which have never been shown to the public. It’s a feel-good gesture in these uncertain times, so long as you ignore just where and how the British got all this stuff.

NHS

Engadget

While they may not have sufficient supplies of PPE, workers for the UK’s National Health Service have access to more games than they could play in a lifetime thanks to the Games for Carers program. Because our priorities have to lie somewhere.

Spotify

Engadget

With commutes a thing of the past, the number of people accessing Spotify from their homes instead of their cars has jumped 50 percent. And boy howdy do people like listening to podcasts on there. There are now more than a million podcasts available if you’re looking for something to listen to while you clean your apartment for the fourth time this week.

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Samsung’s $399 Galaxy A51 comes to AT&T and Xfinity Mobile

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Samsung’s Galaxy A51 is a viable alternative to the iPhone SE if you’re looking for a mid-priced phone, but you’ve been out of luck if you wanted to get it through a carrier besides Sprint or Verizon (Engadget’s parent company). You won’t have to wait longer for more options, though. AT&T and Xfinity Mobile have announced (via The Verge) that they’re carrying the A51, with orders open now. This is the LTE model rather than the 5G variant due in the summer, but you might not mind given the $399 price and lack of ubiquitous 5G coverage.

The A51 is running on a middling Exynos 9611 chip and doesn’t boast the zoom photography, wireless charging or 120Hz displays of the Galaxy S20 series, but it still offers a lot for the money. The 6.5-inch 1080p OLED screen, quad rear cameras (48MP main, 12MP ultrawide, 5MP macro and 5MP depth), sizeable 4,000mAh battery and headphone jack should tick some of the biggest checkboxes for many users. This is for people who want the essence of a modern Samsung phone and aren’t particularly worried about performance.

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India requires all workers to use its COVID-19 tracking app

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Like in other countries, widespread adoption of contact tracing apps could prove vital to curbing the spread of the new coronavirus. They might reduce or eliminate the need for further lockdowns while humanity waits for a vaccine. However, governments have generally shied away from requiring these apps, in part to assuage fears they might be used for mass surveillance. India clearly isn’t as worried about public perception.

Privacy activists aren’t happy, to no one’s surprise. Although the app relies on anonymous device identities and stores encrypted records of Bluetooth interactions with other devices, the Internet Freedom Foundation said the app doesn’t meet data protection standards or provide enough transparency for algorithms. Mozilla warned that it wasn’t certain how Aarogya Setu’s data would be used, and that there weren’t sufficient privacy laws to protect the public. This won’t necessarily lead to abuses of power, but there might not be much to stop those misuses if they do occur.

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Senate bill would set privacy requirements for COVID-19 tracking

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This would theoretically prevent Apple, Google and government agencies from collecting more data than they should, or funnelling it into the hands of marketers and others who might abuse it.

However, privacy advocates are concerned it doesn’t do enough and might even worsen consumer safeguards. Public Knowledge Policy Counsel Sara Collins claimed that the bill only covers contact tracing data, not other health or location info, and could still let companies determine who was infected. The bill also “gratuitously preempts” the FCC’s stronger privacy measures for carriers, Collins said, and doesn’t give the FTC the resources or authority to take action. On top of this, the bill could force states to adopt federal rules even if they want to implement stronger approaches.

There’s no guarantee the Act will become law, at least as-is. Provided the Republican-backed bill passes in the Senate, a counterpart bill still has to go through the Democrat-led House. There could be significant disagreements over key points, especially if Democrats share Collins’ belief that it’s really a deregulatory measure in disguise. Nonetheless, this shows how the privacy implications of COVID-19 tracking apps have become hot issues no matter what your political leanings might be.

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Virgin and O2 might merge to create a UK telecom giant

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Two of the bigger telecoms in the UK are reportedly close to uniting. The Guardian sources say the owners of Virgin Media and O2, Liberty Global and Telefonica, are in talks for a UK joint venture that would unite their mobile, internet and TV efforts. The exact motivations for the union wouldn’t be clear, but this would help the two fend off heavyweights BT and Sky.

The companies involved have declined to comment.

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Boosted’s planned products included e-bikes and an ‘Ultimate’ skateboard

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Boosted as you know it is no more, but it apparently had ambitious plans before Lime snapped up its assets. YouTuber Sam Sheffer has obtained images of what the company had been working on before its effective shutdown, and it was clearly keen to expand into new areas. There were two e-bikes in development, the “P2” and the likely longer-ranged “Bullet” — you could have had a serious commuting machine.

The plans also included upgrades to Boosted’s core electric skateboard line. There was a quad-motor “Ultimate” board for enthusiasts who wanted a ridiculously powerful four-wheeler, while a “Little” board would have improved on the Boosted Mini with a more comfortable ride. A Tony Hawk-themed board was even in the works, Sheffer said, although an LED-lined board appears to have an older prototype. And if you thought the Boosted Rev was overkill, a more modest scooter was also in the cards.



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Juul may exit France, Spain and other European markets

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Juul is preparing to leave five European countries within the year, according to BuzzFeed News. The e-cigarette maker is reportedly planning to pull out of Austria, Belgium, Portugal and Spain in July followed by France at the end of the year. Unlike all the shutdowns and layoffs reported over the past months, BuzzFeed’s source says the decision didn’t have anything to do with the coronavirus pandemic.

Austria’s, Belgium’s and Portugal’s markets are apparently too small in the first place. Juul enjoys relatively high sales in Spain and France compared to the rest of the continent, but not high enough to justify the costs of running a business there and the trouble of dealing with regulators. The European Union has stringent requirements when it comes to e-cigarette products, as the publication notes, requiring companies to stick to a nicotine limit of 20 milligrams per milliliter of fluid. Meanwhile, a single Juul pod can contain up to 59 milligrams of nicotine per milliliter in the US.

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Kickstarter may cut up to 45 percent of its workforce

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Kickstarter has discussed layoffs as the COVID-19 pandemic ravages its crowdfunding business, and it now looks like those job cuts may be particularly severe. In a message to Gizmodo, the company has confirmed plans to cut a large portion of its workforce after the OPEIU (the union representing Kickstarter employees) said it had ratified a layoff agreement on May 1st. The union said layoffs could affect up to 45 percent of the workforce, according to a notice sent to Engadget, although Kickstarter disputes that number when it doesn’t factor in voluntary buyouts.

The terms could ensure a relatively soft landing for those who leave. The arrangement provides four months of severance pay and either six (for those earning $110,001 or less) or four (for those above $110,001) months of healthcare coverage. They’ll be free to work for competitors the moment they accept severance, and they’ll have “recall rights” to return to Kickstarter if a job similar to theirs opens up within the next year.

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HBO Max pre-order promo drops price to $12 per month for the first year

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HBO Max is taking a page out of the Disney+ playbook by offering sizeable discounts to early adopters. The streaming service is running a pre-order promotion that drops the price from $15 per month to $12 for the first year if you’re either a new subscriber or a “returning eligible” HBO Now customer. That’s less than Netflix’s standard HD plan, Variety said. However, there is a catch: you can’t just sign up wherever you intend to get service.

The discount is only available if you sign up through the HBO Max website or otherwise go directly through WarnerMedia. You can’t just go through other distributors (who already take a cut of WarnerMedia’s revenue). That shouldn’t be a problem for most people, but it’s worth noting if you were thinking of signing up through a partner.

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