Business, Spoken

Technical quarrels between quantum computing experts rarely escape the field’s rarified community. Late Monday, though, IBM’s quantum team picked a highly public fight with Google. In a technical paper and blogpost, IBM took aim at potentially history-making scientific results accidentally leaked from a collaboration between Google and NASA last month. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The operations overlords of WIRED make me use Airtable. It's a hip workflow tracker, with pretty color coding and copious tabs and a “robust” API that syncs with Slack. It's also, apparently, a superhero. The Captain America of spreadsheets. Airtable isn't just a shinier version of Excel—it's on a self-professed mission to “democratize software creation by enabling anyone to build tools that meet their needs. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

In November 2017, a Reddit account called deepfakes posted pornographic clips made with software that pasted the faces of Hollywood actresses over those of the real performers. Nearly two years later, deepfake is a generic noun for video manipulated or fabricated with artificial intelligence software. The technique has drawn laughs on YouTube, along with concern from lawmakers fearful of political disinformation. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

In January, Liz O’Sullivan wrote a letter to her boss at artificial intelligence startup Clarifai, asking him to set ethical limits on its Pentagon contracts. WIRED had previously revealed that the company worked on a controversial project processing drone imagery. O’Sullivan urged CEO Matthew Zeiler to pledge the company would not contribute to the development of weapons that decide for themselves whom to harm or kill. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

As casual dining chains have declined in popularity, many have experimented with surveillance technology designed to maximize employee efficiency and performance. Earlier this week, one Outback Steakhouse franchise announced it would begin testing such a tool, a computer vision program called Presto Vision, at a single outpost in the Portland, Oregon area. Your Bloomin' Onion now comes with a side of Big Brother. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

In March, Yoshua Bengio received a share of the Turing Award, the highest accolade in computer science, for contributions to the development of deep learning—the technique that triggered a renaissance in artificial intelligence, leading to advances in self-driving cars, real-time speech translation, and facial recognition. Now, Bengio says deep learning needs to be fixed. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

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The social media company acquires CTRL-Labs, a “brain-machine-interface” startup that lets users control devices by tapping signals off a wristband. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

An international cybersecurity group has evicted the Chinese telecom company to comply with US sanctions. That could allow malware to spread more easily. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Regulators say Juul hasn't proved its claim that e-cigarettes are safer than tobacco, and uses misleading appeals to kids. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

A bill approved by the state senate would set a three-year moratorium on police use of recognition algorithms. Privacy advocates want a permanent ban Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

State attorneys general revealed investigations into possible anticompetitive behavior by tech giants, adding to probes by Congress and federal agencies. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

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Opinion: A growing black and brown diaspora of data must be used for equality, not oppression. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The Pew Research Center reports 56% of Americans trust law enforcement to use the technology responsibly, despite concerns over fairness, and bans in some cities. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

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The short-term rental startup has settled lawsuits with Boston and Miami, agreeing to turn over data officials say they need to police the industry. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The artificial intelligence lab cofounded by Elon Musk said its software could too easily be adapted to crank out fake news. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Instagram users like Usher, Martha Stewart, and Rick Perry posted a meme warning about a new rule that doesn't actually exist. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

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French company Idemia’s algorithms scan faces by the million. The company’s facial recognition software serves police in the US, Australia, and France. Idemia software checks the faces of some cruise ship passengers landing in the US against Customs and Border Protection records. In 2017, a top FBI official told Congress that a facial recognition system that scours 30 million mugshots using Idemia technology helps “safeguard the American people. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

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When 17-year-old Emma Logan wants to make plans with her friends, she turns to Snapchat. “At this point it’s just the easiest way to contact everyone,” she wrote via text. “I use it if I’m trying to get them to respond.” All her friends have Snapchat, and they all check it more frequently than they do their text messages “(no matter how much I hate that lol). Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Republican and Democratic lawmakers alike are furious over reports that the Federal Trade Commission is prepared to settle with Facebook over widespread privacy violations for just $5 billion. But that doesn’t mean there’s currently an acceptable bipartisan solution floating around the marble halls of the Capitol. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

On the second evening of Prime Day, Amazon’s annual sales bonanza, Anne Marie Bressler received an email from Amazon that had nothing to do with the latest deals. The message, sent from an automated email address Tuesday, informed her that the Align nutritional supplements she ordered two weeks earlier were probably counterfeit. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The messages started arriving on a Sunday afternoon in mid-May. “Just wanted to draw your attention to this,” one began. “Rumors are starting to surface,” another informed me. “I’d be very interested in getting your thoughts,” a third suggested. My correspondents, mostly strangers, were polite but insistent. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

For years the US government has warned the world that Chinese telecom giant Huawei is not to be trusted. Some governments agree: Australia and Japan have blocked Huawei gear from their next-generation 5G wireless networks. But others, including US allies, disagree. A UK Parliament committee rejected a proposed ban on British telecom carriers using Huawei gear. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

At a recent postmortem for the so-called Twitter tax break, the divisive San Francisco policy that drew tech companies to a beleaguered stretch of downtown, the tone at City Hall was chilly. Tech offices---the likes of Twitter, Zendesk, and Uber---had indeed arrived as promised, but residents of the city’s Mid-Market neighborhood told officials that little uplift came with the logos. “I’ve seen the number of people who are sleeping on the street increase. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Is venture capital harming entrepreneurship? At first blush, this seems like an odd question. VCs have been the lifeblood of virtually every successful tech startup for generations, enabling entrepreneurs to create and refine innovative products and rapidly scale to self-sustaining profitability. WIRED OPINION ABOUT Leonard Sherman is an Executive in Residence and faculty member at Columbia Business School. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

From 2010 to 2011, I worked on YouTube’s artificial intelligence recommendation engine—the algorithm that directs what you see next based on your previous viewing habits and searches. One of my main tasks was to increase the amount of time people spent on YouTube. At the time, this pursuit seemed harmless. But nearly a decade later, I can see that our work had unintended—but not unpredictable—consequences. In some cases, the AI went terribly wrong. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Amazon announced Thursday that it will spend up to $700 million over the next six years retraining 100,000 of its US employees, mostly in technical skills like software engineering and IT support. Amazon is already one of the largest employers in the country, with almost 300,000 workers (and many more contractors) and it’s particularly hungry for more new talent. The company currently has more than 20,000 vacant US roles, over half of which are at its headquarters in Seattle. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Amazon makes an expensive pledge to its workers, a hacker group hits 17,000 domains, and butt plugs are being used for scientific research. Here's the news you need to know, in two minutes or less. Want to receive this two-minute roundup as an email every weekday? Sign up here! Today's Headlines Amazon pledged $700 million to teach its workers to code This morning, Amazon announced a $700 million initiative to retrain US employees for high-skill, mostly technical jobs over the next six years. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Twitter and Instagram would like us all to be a little bit nicer to each other. To that end, this week both companies announced new content moderation policies that will, maybe, shield users from the unbridled harassment and hate speech we wreak on each other. Instagram’s anti-bullying initiative will rely on artificial intelligence, while Twitter will use human moderators to determine when language “dehumanizes others on the basis of religion. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Darren Elias knows poker. The 32-year-old is the only person to have won four World Poker Tour titles and has earned more than $7 million at tournaments. Despite his expertise, he learned something new this spring from an artificial intelligence bot. Tom Simonite covers artificial intelligence for WIRED. Elias was helping to test new software from researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and Facebook. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The US women’s national soccer team is extremely good at two things: scoring goals and selling merchandise. Even before it won a second consecutive World Cup championship Sunday, the players’ home jersey, which is designed by Nike, became the top-selling soccer jersey ever in one season on Nike.com, according to the athleticwear company. Sales were still going strong after the historic victory. But on Amazon Monday, another story unfolded. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Last year, Ben Bartlett, a member of the Berkeley city council, proposed an unusual idea to his colleagues: putting affordable housing on the blockchain. The city was facing an unprecedented housing crisis and the prospect of cuts to federal housing assistance. Why not turn to local residents to help fund a solution? The city would issue bonds, as governments often do when they need to finance big-ticket projects, and break them up into small pieces called “minibonds. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Facebook has begun pilot tests of new content moderation tools and policies after an external audit raised numerous issues with the company’s current approach to tackling hate speech. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices