A collection point
...and some of my own.
Analysis of hospital traffic and search engine data in Wuhan China indicates early disease activity in the Fall of 2019 Nsoesie, Elaine Okanyene, Benjamin Rader, Yiyao L. Barnoon, Lauren Goodwin, and John S. Brownstein Harvard University: The global COVID-19 pandemic was originally linked to a zoonotic spillover event in Wuhan’s Huanan Seafood Market in November or December of 2019. However, recent evidence suggests that the virus may have already been circulating at the time of the outbreak. Here we use previously validated data streams - satellite imagery of hospital parking lots and Baidu search queries of disease related terms - to investigate this possibility. We observe an upward trend in hospital traffic and search volume beginning in late Summer and early Fall 2019. While queries of the respiratory symptom “cough” show seasonal fluctuations coinciding with yearly influenza seasons, “diarrhea” is a more COVID-19 specific symptom and only shows an association with the current epidemic. The increase of both signals precede the documented start of the COVID-19 pandemic in December, highlighting the value of novel digital sources for surveillance of emerging pathogens. In August, we identify a unique increase in searches for diarrhea which was neither seen in previous flu seasons or mirrored in the cough search data. While surprising, this finding lines up with the recent recognition that gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms are a unique feature of COVID19 disease and may be the chief complaint of a significant proportion of presenting patients. This symptom search increase is then followed by a rise in hospital parking lot traffic in October and November, as well as a rise in searches for cough. While we cannot conclude the reason for this increase, we hypothesize that broad community transmission may have led to more acute cases requiring medical attention, resulting in higher viral loads and worse symptoms Britain gave Palantir access to sensitive medical records of Covid-19 patients in £1 deal Sam Shead: Britain’s National Health Service has given secretive U.S. tech firm Palantir access to private personal data of millions of British citizens, according to a contract published online. The NHS health records that Palantir has access to can include a patient’s name, age, address, health conditions, treatments and medicines, allergies, tests, scans, X-Ray results, whether a patient smokes or drinks, and hospital admission and discharge information. Any data that may make patients personally identifiable are replaced with a pseudonym or aggregated before they’re shared with Palantir. Details of the Covid-19 data store were first made public in March but the U.K. government refused to publish the all-important data-sharing agreements following a number of freedom of information requests, including one by CNBC. The contracts were finally published last week after OpenDemocracy and Foxglove threatened legal action. Co-founded by billionaire Peter Thiel, an ally of President Donald Trump, Palantir has developed data trawling technology that intelligence agencies and governments use for surveillance and to spot suspicious patterns in public and private databases. Customers include the CIA, FBI, and the U.S. Army. Palantir sees a huge opportunity in Europe and now has more staff in its London office than it does at its headquarters in Palo Alto, California. Twitter tests a feature that calls you out for RTing without reading the article Taylor Hatmaker for TechCrunch: Twitter and other social networks are regularly deluged with divisive conspiracy theories and other misleading claims, but misinformation isn’t the only thing driving users apart. Polarization is a baked-in feature in the way social platforms work, where sharing content that confirms existing biases is never more than a single click away. With the test feature, Twitter is tinkering with how to slow that process down by urging users to pause and reflect. In May, Twitter began testing a prompt that warns users they’re about to tweet a potentially harmful reply, based on the platform’s algorithms recognizing content that looks like stuff often reported as harmful. China’s Trillion-Dollar Campaign Fuels a Tech Race With the U.S. Beijing plans to spend $1.4 trillion in the next five years in sectors including 5G, artificial intelligence and data centers Liza Lin for WSJ: China has embarked on a new trillion-dollar campaign to develop next-generation technologies as it seeks to catapult the communist nation ahead of the U.S. in critical areas. Since the start of the year, municipal governments in Beijing, Shanghai and more than a dozen other localities have pledged 6.61 trillion yuan ($935 billion) to the cause, according to a Wall Street Journal tally. Chinese companies, urged on by authorities, are also putting up money. The government is pushing hardest for investment in building new 5G networks. Supercharged 5G mobile connections are expected to underpin a whole new world of next-generation connected devices, collectively known as the internet of things, that businesses believe could revolutionize daily life and manufacturing alike. The balance of that money is slated to flow into the building of new data centers and intercity rail networks, development of homegrown artificial intelligence chips, smart factories, electric-vehicle charging stations and ultrahigh-voltage power facilities. Preferential policies favoring Chinese companies mean foreign companies are unlikely to see much of a windfall from the campaign, foreign business groups said. Twitter deletes 170,000 accounts linked to China influence campaign Content focused on Covid-19 and the protests in Hong Kong and over George Floyd in the US Josh Taylor for the Guardian: Twitter has removed more than 170,000 accounts the social media site says are state-linked influence campaigns from China focusing on Hong Kong protests, Covid-19 and the US protests in relation to George Floyd. The company announced on Thursday that 23,750 core accounts – and 150,000 “amplifier” accounts that boosted the content posted by those core accounts – had been removed from the platform after being linked to an influence campaign from the People’s Republic. Researchers at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute found that while Twitter is blocked from access in China, the campaign was targeted at Chinese-speaking audiences outside the country “with the intention of influencing perceptions on key issues, including the Hong Kong protests, exiled Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui and, to a lesser extent, Covid-19 and Taiwan”. The researchers analyzed 348,608 tweets between January 2018 and April 2020 and found most tweets were posted during business hours in Beijing between Monday and Friday, and dropped off on the weekends. The tweets usually contained images featuring Chinese-language text, with researchers finding that the primary targets of the campaign were people living in Hong Kong, followed by broader Chinese diaspora. The vast majority of the accounts (78.5%) had no followers and 95% had fewer than eight followers, but those accounts had a high level of engagement, albeit not organic. That pointed to the use of commercial bot networks, the research said. The major themes of the tweets were that that Hong Kong protesters were violent, and the US was interfering with the protests; accusations about Guo; the Taiwan election; and praise of China’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Focus has now shifted to the Black Lives Matter protests in the US, accusing the country of “hypocrisy for its criticism of the response by police to protests in Hong Kong, while the US’s own police and troops use violence against protests in the US, and warns Hong Kong protesters not to think they can rely on the US for support against China’s national interests”. An Additional 140,000 User Accounts May Have Been Accessed Maliciously, Nintendo Says...On top of the original 160,000 Ryan Craddock: Nintendo has issued an updated statement to its official customer support website today, warning users that April's data breach may have impacted considerably more accounts than initially reported. You may remember that back in April, Nintendo confirmed that around 160,000 user accounts which used a Nintendo Network ID to log in may have been affected by unauthorized logins. It was warned that these users' personal info may have been viewed by a third party, though credit card information remained safe. A number of users did report that their accounts were used to buy in-game items in titles such as Fortnite, however. In today's updated statement, Nintendo notes that further investigation into the data breach has revealed that there were "approximately 140,000 additional NNIDs that may have been accessed maliciously", on top of the original 160,000. Passwords for these NNIDs have been reset and those account holders have been contacted. Nintendo recommends that users enable two-step verification. Babylon Health App Leaked Patients’ Video Consultations Graham Cluley: Babylon Health, makers of a smartphone app that allows Brits to have consultations with NHS doctors, has admitted that a “software error” resulted in some users being able to access other patients’ private video chats with GPs. The data breach came to light after one user, Rory Glover, tweeted that he was shocked to find the app’s “GP at Hand” functionality had given him unauthorised access to “over 50 video recordings”: “Why have I got access to other patients video consultations through your app? This is a massive data breach. Over 50 video recordings are on this list!” To make mistakes is human, and software developers are (mostly) human… so it’s not a surprise to hear that a complex app like this might have bugs. However, it underlines the importance of proper quality control and testing before an app – especially one like this which is used for communicating personal and sensitive medical information – is rolled out to the public. A U.S. Secret Weapon in A.I.: Chinese Talent By Paul Mozur and Cade Metz: New research shows scientists educated in China help American firms and schools dominate the cutting-edge field. Now industry leaders worry that worsening political tensions will blunt that edge. More of China’s top A.I. talent ends up in the U.S. than anywhere else. Of 128 researchers with undergraduate degrees from Chinese universities whose papers were presented at the A.I. conference, more than half now work in the U.S. The Trump administration is now moving to limit Chinese access to advanced American research, as relations between the United States and China reach their worst point in decades. That worries many of the companies and scientists in the heady realm of cutting-edge A.I., because much of the groundbreaking work coming out of the United States has been powered by Chinese brains. China sees artificial intelligence as a field of strategic importance. It has thrown vast amounts of money at researchers with an aim of getting them to work for Chinese companies and institutions. The United States has noted China’s technology ambitions with alarm. It has cracked down on espionage and bolstered enforcement of disclosure rules at American universities and institutions. Last month, The New York Times reported that the Trump administration planned to cancel the visas of Chinese researchers and graduate students who have direct ties to universities affiliated with China’s military. Chinese-born researchers are a fixture of the American A.I. field. Li Deng, a former Microsoft researcher and now chief A.I. officer at the hedge fund Citadel, helped remake the speech recognition technologies used on smartphones and coffee-table digital assistants. Fei-Fei Li, a Stanford professor who worked for less than two years at Google, helped drive a revolution in computer vision, the science of getting software to recognize objects. At Google, Dr. Li helped oversee the Google team that worked on Project Maven, the Pentagon effort. Google declined to renew the Pentagon contract two years ago after some employees protested the company’s involvement with the military. The Google team worked to build technology that could automatically identify vehicles, buildings and other objects in video footage captured by drones. In the spring of 2018, at least five of the roughly dozen researchers on the team were Chinese nationals, according to one of the people familiar with the arrangement. A certain amount of government restriction is natural. The Pentagon typically bars citizens of rival foreign powers from working on classified projects. China also has a long history of carrying out industrial espionage in the United States. For many Chinese students, the decision to stay or go has been more personal than political. Robert Yan, a former Google employee, returned to China to work at an A.I. start-up. The Bay Area didn’t suit him. He hated driving and missed Chinese food. A native of Shanghai, he thought he could advance more quickly in his home culture. Still, Mr. Yan said, only about one out of 10 of his Chinese colleagues in the United States chose to go home. For those looking to do high-end theoretical research, many Chinese companies still weren’t the best place, he said. “Compared to Google I now have far less freedom,” Mr. Yan said. “At a start-up you need to have a reason to do each task. We’re chasing efficiency. That does not facilitate doing things because you’re curious.” United adds touchless check-in kiosks to airports across the US Brian Heater: As Americans are ramping up to start traveling amid a loosening of COVID-19 restrictions, United has announced the addition of 219 touchless check-in kiosks across the U.S. The new check-in option was one of a number of initiatives announced as part of the carrier’s CleanPlus strategy of addressing travel during the pandemic. When travelers scan their phone or a printed pass, the device will automatically print out luggage tags and boarding passes. The first systems rolled out in Orlando, Boston, Dallas/Fort Worth and Chicago on May 10, before adding an additional 20 kiosks. This latest move brings the system to every U.S. airport where United operates kiosks. Additional systems will be added to domestic and international airports through next month, according to the airline. And from the security cameras upstairs.... Putin fury: Russian oil spill pollutes Arctic waters in worst accident of modern times OIL has travelled 12 miles north from a collapsed fuel tank and is at risk of polluting the Arctic Ocean. By GURSIMRAN HANS: Officials say it is the worst accident of modern times in the Arctic region of Russia. The leak began on May 29 and 21,000 tonnes have contaminated the Ambarnaya river and surrounding subsoil. Alexander Uss, governor of Krasnoyarsk region, said: "The fuel has got into Lake Pyasino. Investigators believe the storage tank sank because of melting permafrost. Norilsk has been historically among one of the world's most polluted cities. According to a 2018 NASA study based on satellite data, Norilsk tops the list for worst sulphur dioxide pollution, spewing 1.9 million tons of the gas over the Arctic tundra. Apparently Putin learned of the massive oil spill not through reports, but through social media. Brazil deforested 10,000 square km of Amazon rainforest in 2019, up 34% on year Reuters: Brazil’s space research agency INPE recorded 10,129 square kilometers of deforestation (3,911 square miles) for its benchmark annual period from August 2018 to July 2019. That’s an area about the size of Lebanon and a 34.4% rise from the same period a year earlier. Monthly data shows that deforestation has continued to worsen in 2020, rising 55% for January to April, as compared to the same period in 2019. Leave a Reply. |
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