Google abandoned plans to offer a major new cloud service in China and other politically sensitive countries due in part to concerns over geopolitical tensions and the pandemic, Blloomberg reported Wednesday, citing two employees familiar with the matter, revealing the challenges for U.S. tech giants to secure business in those markets. From a report: In May, the search giant shut down the initiative, known as "Isolated Region" and which sought to address nations' desires to control data within their borders, the employees said. The action was considered a "massive strategy shift," according to one of the employees, who said Isolated Region had involved hundreds of employees scattered around the world. Alphabet's Google is pouring money into cloud computing, part of a broader effort to find new sources of growth beyond search advertising. Google Cloud generated $8.9 billion in revenue in 2019 -- a 53% increase over the previous year -- as it has pushed into sectors such as finance and government that require special security clearance and features that shield confidential data. Rivals Microsoft and Amazon.com already offer these capabilities via their cloud units. Google's recent decision to nix the Isolated Region project was made partly because of global political divisions, which were exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic, according to the two employees, who requested anonymity because the project hasn't previously been made public. The initiative would have allowed Google to set up cloud services controlled by a third party, such as a locally owned company or a government agency. The result would be a business sequestered from Google's existing cloud computing services, which include data centers and computer networks. In January 2019, amid growing tensions between the U.S. and China, Google decided to pause its plans for Isolated Region in China and instead began to prioritize potential customers in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, according to the two employees.

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Robinhood users buy and sell the riskiest financial products and do so more frequently than customers at other retail brokerage firms, but their inexperience can lead to staggering losses. From a report: Richard Dobatse, a Navy medic in San Diego, dabbled infrequently in stock trading. But his behavior changed in 2017 when he signed up for Robinhood, a trading app that made buying and selling stocks simple and seemingly free. Mr. Dobatse, now 32, said he had been charmed by Robinhood's one-click trading, easy access to complex investment products, and features like falling confetti and emoji-filled phone notifications that made it feel like a game. After funding his account with $15,000 in credit card advances, he began spending more time on the app. As he repeatedly lost money, Mr. Dobatse took out two $30,000 home equity loans so he could buy and sell more speculative stocks and options, hoping to pay off his debts. His account value shot above $1 million this year -- but almost all of that recently disappeared. This week, his balance was $6,956. "When he is doing his trading, he won't want to eat," said his wife, Tashika Dobatse, with whom he has three children. "He would have nightmares." Millions of young Americans have begun investing in recent years through Robinhood, which was founded in 2013 with a sales pitch of no trading fees or account minimums. The ease of trading has turned it into a cultural phenomenon and a Silicon Valley darling, with the start-up climbing to an $8.3 billion valuation. It has been one of the tech industry's biggest growth stories in the recent market turmoil. But at least part of Robinhood's success appears to have been built on a Silicon Valley playbook of behavioral nudges and push notifications, which has drawn inexperienced investors into the riskiest trading, according to an analysis of industry data and legal filings, as well as interviews with nine current and former Robinhood employees and more than a dozen customers. And the more that customers engaged in such behavior, the better it was for the company, the data shows. More than at any other retail brokerage firm, Robinhood's users trade the riskiest products and at the fastest pace, according to an analysis of new filings from nine brokerage firms by the research firm Alphacution for The New York Times.

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The next great Lincoln Project ad. Learn their names. Every time they had a choice between America and Trump, they chose Trump. Every time.

Over the past two years, thousands of tech company employees have taken a stand: they do not want their labor and technical expertise to be used for projects with the military or law enforcement agencies. Knowledge of such contracts, however, hasn't been easy for tech workers to come by. From a report: On Wednesday, newly published research from the technology accountability nonprofit Tech Inquiry revealed that the Department of Defense and federal law enforcement agencies including Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Agency and the Federal Bureau of Prisons, have secured thousands of deals with Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Dell, IBM, Hewlett Packard and even Facebook that have not been previously reported. The report offers a new window into the relationship between tech companies and the U.S. government, as well as an important detail about why such contracts are often difficult to find. Tech Inquiry's research was led by Jack Poulson, a former Google research scientist who quit the company in 2018 after months of internal campaigning to get clarity about plans to deploy a censored version of its search engine in China called Project Dragonfly. Poulson has publicly opposed collaborations between American technology companies and the U.S. and foreign governments that aid in efforts to track immigrants, dissenters, and bolster military activity. Poulson analyzed more than 30 million government contracts signed or modified in the past five years. The Department of Defense and federal law enforcement agencies accounted for the largest share of those contracts, with tech companies accounting for a fraction of the total number of contracts.

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Doctors may be missing signs of serious and potentially fatal brain disorders triggered by coronavirus, as they emerge in mildly affected or recovering patients, scientists have warned. From a report: Neurologists are on Wednesday publishing details of more than 40 UK Covid-19 patients whose complications ranged from brain inflammation and delirium to nerve damage and stroke. In some cases, the neurological problem was the patient's first and main symptom. The cases, published in the journal Brain, revealed a rise in a life-threatening condition called acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (Adem), as the first wave of infections swept through Britain. At UCL's Institute of Neurology, Adem cases rose from one a month before the pandemic to two or three per week in April and May. One woman, who was 59, died of the complication. A dozen patients had inflammation of the central nervous system, 10 had brain disease with delirium or psychosis, eight had strokes and a further eight had peripheral nerve problems, mostly diagnosed as Guillain-Barre syndrome, an immune reaction that attacks the nerves and causes paralysis. It is fatal in 5% of cases.

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Facebook has announced that the limp "Oversight Board" intended to help make difficult content and policy decisions will not launch until "late fall," which is to say, almost certainly after the election. You know, the election everyone is worried Facebook's inability to police itself will serious affect. From a report: On Twitter, the board explained that as much as it would like to "officially begin our task of providing independent oversight of Facebook's content decisions," it regrets that it will be unable to do so for some time. "Our focus is on building a strong institution that will deliver concrete results over the long term." That sounds well enough, but for many, the entire point of creating the oversight board -- which has been in the offing since late 2018 -- was to equip Facebook for the coming presidential election, which promises to be something of a hot one.

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An anonymous reader writes: Mozilla has temporarily suspended the Firefox Send file-sharing service as the organization investigates reports of abuse from malware operators and while it adds a "Report abuse" button. The browser maker took down the service today after ZDNet reached out to inquire about Firefox Send's increasing prevalence in current malware operations. Since last year, several malware operations have hosted payloads on the service. This includes ransomware gangs like REvil/Sodinokibi, financial crime crews like FIN7, the Zloader and Ursnif banking trojans operations, and government surveillance groups targeting human rights defenders. Reasons include the fact that Firefox Send doesn't have an Report Abuse mechanism, all file uploads are encrypted (useful to dodge malware scanners), and the Firefox URL is whitelisted in most orgs (useful for bypassing email filters).

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Podcast: I tell the story of a person I knew who was cancelled.

San Quentin has exploded with Covid. "1,300 prisoners and 184 staff having tested positive for the coronavirus as of July 7."

Horseshoe crab blood is used to help develop medicine, but some people want the practice stopped.

An anonymous reader writes: Google is partnering with the Ubuntu Desktop team at Canonical to bring Linux support to its open source UI framework Flutter. Today's Linux alpha announcement also means Flutter developers can now deploy their apps to the Snap Store. Flutter group product manager Tim Sneath argues this is a big milestone because UI frameworks rarely become versatile and powerful enough for an operating system to depend on. He pointed to Windows being written in C++ rather than .NET, even for applets like the Calculator. Sneath also believes this shows Canonical is willing to invest in a first-class way to build apps for Linux, making Flutter on Linux an official part of Ubuntu. Additionally, enterprises can feel confident about picking Flutter -- it's more evidence of its longevity and technical excellence, Sneath said.

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New evidence has been found for epic prehistoric voyages between the Americas and eastern Polynesia.

Shag writes: Two days after US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said international students must leave the US if their fall classes will be taught entirely online, MIT and Harvard are suing ICE and the Department of Homeland Security. "ICE is unable to offer the most basic answers about how its policy will be interpreted or implemented," said former international student L. Rafael Reif, President of MIT. Massachusetts' state Attorney General has announced that her office will also challenge the ruling in court. Of course, MIT also develops various technologies for DHS.

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The WHO has acknowledged there is evidence that Covid-19 can be spread by airborne particles.