Amazon drivers at some U.S. facilities will soon have an extra set of eyes watching them when they hit the road to make their daily deliveries. From a report: The company recently began testing AI-equipped cameras in vehicles to monitor contracted delivery drivers while they're on the job, with the aim of improving safety. Amazon has deployed the cameras in Amazon-branded cargo vans used by a handful of companies that are part of its delivery service partner program, which are largely responsible for last-mile deliveries. The cameras could be rolled out to additional DSPs over time, and Amazon has already distributed an instructional video to DSPs, informing them of how the cameras work. Deborah Bass, an Amazon spokesperson, confirmed to CNBC that the company has begun using the AI-equipped cameras across its delivery fleet. Some details of Amazon's plans were previously reported by The Information. "We are investing in safety across our operations and recently started rolling out industry leading camera-based safety technology across our delivery fleet," Bass said in a statement. "This technology will provide drivers real-time alerts to help them stay safe when they are on the road."

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Poll about who you mute replies from on Twitter.

SpaceX disclosed in a public filing on Thursday that its Starlink satellite internet service now has "over 10,000 users in the United States and abroad." From a report: "Starlink's performance is not theoretical or experimental ... [and] is rapidly accelerating in real time as part of its public beta program," SpaceX wrote in a filing with the Federal Communications Commission. Elon Musk's company began a public beta program of Starlink in October, with service priced at $99 a month, in addition to a $499 upfront cost to order the Starlink Kit, which includes a user terminal and Wi-Fi router to connect to the satellites.

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Spotify again signaled its interest in developing new ways to monetize its investments in podcasts. From a report: In the company's fourth-quarter earnings, chief executive Daniel Ek suggested the streaming media company foresees a future where there will be multiple business models for podcasts, including, potentially, both ad-supported subscriptions and a la carte options. We understand Spotify's plans for these expanded monetization models around podcasts could be introduced in some capacity later this month at its forthcoming "Stream On" livestream event. The company revealed during earnings its podcast catalog has grown to now 2.2 million programs, said itâ(TM)s seen increasing demand for the audio format in recent months. For example, 25% of Spotify's monthly active users now engage with podcasts, up from 22% just last quarter. Podcast consumption is also increasing, with listening hours having nearly doubled year-over-year in the fourth quarter.

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The Google-sponsored Chromium project has cleaned up its act, and the result is a marked decline in queries to DNS root servers. From a report: As The Register reported in August 2020, Chromium-based browsers generate a lot of DNS traffic as they try to determine if input into their omnibox is a domain name or a search query. Verisign engineers Matthew Thomas and Duane Wessels examined the resulting traffic and reached the conclusion that it accounted for up to 60 billion DNS queries every day. Wessels has since penned a new post that went unreported when it appeared on January 7 -- the day after the US Capitol riot -- but was today resurfaced by APNIC, the Regional Internet Registry for the Asia-Pacific region. In the post he says the Chromium team redesigned its code to stop junk DNS requests, and released the update in Chromium 87. The result? "Before the software release, the root server system saw peaks of ~143 billion queries per day," he wrote. "Traffic volumes have since decreased to ~84 billion queries a day. This represents more than a 41 per cent reduction of total query volume."

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Several readers have shared this report: In what could be the nation's first such case, the city of San Francisco filed suit Wednesday against its own school district, demanding the restart of in-person instruction for more than 52,000 students. City Attorney Dennis Herrera named the San Francisco Board of Education, the San Francisco Unified School District and Superintendent Vincent Matthews as defendants in what the city says is an unprecedented legal fight between overlapping government agencies over how to reopen classes during the pandemic. Herrera said the board has had more than 10 months to develop a plan to get students back into classrooms and so far "they have earned an F." Students in districts just outside San Francisco and those enrolled in San Francisco private schools have all seen the inside of classrooms since the pandemic struck, unlike SFUSD pupils, the plaintiffs said. "Having a plan to make a plan doesn't cut it," the city attorney added. While some major metropolitan areas operate public schools from City Hall, virtually all California K-12 campuses come under the authority of local districts that are autonomous from city and county governments. San Francisco City Hall and the San Francisco Unified School District, and its school board, operate independently of each other. "This is not the path we would have chosen, but nothing matters more right now than getting our kids back in school," Mayor London Breed said. "The city has offered resources and staff to get our school facilities ready and to support testing for our educators." Representatives for the National School Boards Association, an advocacy group for public schools and local boards of education, said they believe San Francisco's lawsuit is the first civil action filed by a city against a district over Covid-19 closings. "Reopening decisions are very, very difficult, but they call for collaboration, not litigation," association CEO Anna Maria Chavez said in a statement. "Everyone wants students back in schools as soon as it is safe, but it must be a community decision based on local data that involves all of the key players from teachers and administrators to parents and local health officials." Further reading: San Francisco Vs San Francisco School Board: A Push To Get Students Back In School.

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Google is adding heart and respiratory rate monitors to the Fit app on Pixel phones this month, and it plans to add them to other Android phones in the future. Both features rely on the smartphone camera: it measures respiratory rate by monitoring the rise and fall of a user's chest, and heart rate by tracking color change as blood moves through the fingertip. From a report: The features are only intended to let users track overall wellness and cannot evaluate or diagnose medical conditions, the company said. To measure respiratory rate (the number of breaths someone takes per minute) using the app, users point the phone's front-facing camera at their head and chest. To measure heart rate, they place their finger over the rear-facing camera. A doctor counts a patient's respiratory rate by watching their chest rise and fall, and the Google feature mimics that procedure, said Jack Po, a product manager at Google Health, in a press briefing. "The machine learning technique that we leverage basically tries to emulate that," he said.

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Astronaut Alan Shepard famously claimed he hit his ball "miles and miles and miles" on the Moon in 1971 - 50 years on modern technology reveals how far he really hit it.

Microsoft today launched Viva, a new "employee experience platform," or, in non-marketing terms, its new take on the intranet sites most large companies tend to offer their employees. From a report: This includes standard features like access to internal communications built on integrations with SharePoint, Yammer and other Microsoft tools. In addition, Viva also offers access to team analytics and an integration with LinkedIn Learning and other training content providers (including the likes of SAP SuccessFactors), as well as what Microsoft calls Viva Topics for knowledge sharing within a company. If you're like most employees, you know that your company spends a lot of money on internal communications and its accompanying intranet offerings -- and you then promptly ignore that in order to get actual work done. But Microsoft argues that times are changing, as remote work is here to stay for many companies, even after the pandemic (hopefully) ends. Even if a small percentage of a company's workforce remains remote or opts for a hybrid approach, those workers still need to have access to the right tools and feel like they are part of the company. [...] Unsurprisingly, Viva is powered by Microsoft 365 and all of the tools that come with that, as well as integrations with Microsoft Teams, the company's flagship collaboration service, and even Yammer, the employee communication tool it acquired back in 2012 and continues to support. There are several parts to Viva: Viva Connections for accessing company news, policies, benefits and internal communities (powered by Yammer); Viva Learning for, you guessed it, accessing learning resources; and Viva Topics, the service's take on company-wide knowledge sharing. For the most part, that's all standard fair in any modern intranet, whether it's from a startup provider or an established player like Jive. Further reading: Microsoft CEO Nadella Bets Businesses Are Ready to Spend Big on Employee Software.

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Myanmar's new military government blocked access to Facebook as resistance to Monday's coup surged amid calls for civil disobedience to protest the ousting of the elected government and its leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. From a report: Facebook is especially popular in Myanmar and is how most people access the internet. The military seized power shortly before a new session of Parliament was to convene on Monday and detained Suu Kyi and other top politicians. It said it acted because the government had refused to address its complaints that last November's general election, in which Suu Kyi's party won a landslide victory, was marred by widespread voting irregularities. The state Election Commission has refuted the allegations. [...] Facebook users said service disruptions began late Wednesday night. "Telecom providers in Myanmar have been ordered to temporarily block Facebook. We urge authorities to restore connectivity so that people in Myanmar can communicate with family and friends and access important information," Facebook said in a statement. In 2018, Facebook removed several accounts linked to Myanmar's military, including that of Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, the officer who led this week's coup, following complaints that they appeared to fuel hatred toward the country's Muslim Rohingya minority. The Rohingya were targeted in a brutal 2017 army counterinsurgency campaign that drove more than 700,000 to neighboring Bangladesh. Critics say the army's actions constituted genocide. A Norway-based humanitarian group said Thursday that Myanmar's political crisis could create a humanitarian disaster affecting 1 million vulnerable people if international aid groups are restricted further.

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A favorite recent Twitter feature: I can filter replies so I only see, by default, replies from people I follow. It has made Twitter more civil for me. But it has a downside, that I realize when I reply to someone who doesn't follow me. They probably can't see my idea.

Israel's vaccination drive has reduced confirmed Covid-19 cases among older Israelis, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday. From a report: Netanyahu cited a 45% drop in confirmed cases and a 26% decline in hospitalizations of seriously ill patients among people age 60 and older in the past 16 days. Israel's vaccination drive, which began in late December, started with this age group, and more than 80% have had at least one dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. Further reading: Israel Is Now The First Country Where Vaccinations Are Starting To Curb The Pandemic.

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A little computer design/philosophy. Everywhere you look on a computer you see the same pattern repeating itself. Folders, sub-folders, files. If you're looking for it you see it everywhere. So why not have one really great browser for such structures, and use it everywhere. That way when you add a feature to the core, it improves everywhere. I think very quickly the computer itself would become simpler. BTW, this was the basic idea behind outliners. We never got close enough to putting code "in ROM" to complete the vision. But that was the idea.

Rumors have swirled about potential VR or AR hardware from Apple for years now. But today, The Information has published perhaps the most extensive account of what the company is working on, and it paints an ambitious picture. Engadget: According to a source with direct knowledge of the device, Apple's mixed-reality headset will contain more than a dozen cameras for tracking movement and showing real-world video to the person wearing it. It is also said to include two 8K displays, giving it an effective resolution that would far outstrip anything currently on the market. [...] The Information believes that the device is in the later stages of development and could ship as soon as 2022. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Apple's first headset isn't targeted at a wide audience -- its price point is rumored to come in around $3,000. Given the hardware specs quoted in today's report, that's not unreasonable, but it's clear that this is less a device for consumers and more a competitor to Microsoft's $3,500 Hololens 2. That headset is focused on business customers more than something the average consumer would use.

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