Recommended Reading: High-tech COVID-19 testing at home

Behind the high-tech COVID-19 tests you probably haven’t heard about

Victoria Song, The Verge

Rapid antigen tests are all the rage these days, but there are some tech-based options that offer the accuracy of a PCR lab test with at-home convenience of what you can get at your local pharmacy. The Verge examines a few options with the pros and cons of each one, from pricing to the time it takes to get the results.

Before Uvalde, a platform fails to answer kids’ alarms

Casey Newton, Platformer

Livestreaming app Yubo appears to have been the Uvalde shooter’s primary social platform. Despite many threats of violence that were reported by several other users, no action was taken. Newton discusses why platform reporting tools aren’t effective. the state of content moderation and what needs to be done to strengthen these systems.  

Installing a payphone in my house

Bertrand Fan

This excellent blog post chronicles how a game of cat-and-mouse setting up ISP service via payphones and fake credit card numbers as a kid created a life-long fondness for old tech. 

Activision Blizzard faces unfair labor practices complaint over staff unionization efforts

The Communications Workers of America has filed an unfair labor practices complaint against Activision Blizzard, accusing the company of retaliating against workers over their unionization efforts. If you’ll recall, the quality assurance workers at the Activision studio Raven Software announced their plans to unionize in January. That’s after Activision cut 12 of its QA contractors despite, according to a Washington Post report from January, Raven departmental management asking for those workers to be kept on. Workers at the studio went on strike following the event, demanding that all contractors be hired as full-time employees. 

In its complaint filed with the National Labor Relations Board, the CWA accused the company of violating federal law by terminating those QA workers. The group also pointed out that Activision reorganized the studio by disbanding the QA team and embedding testers in other departments just mere days after they requested union recognition. In addition, Activision Blizzard allegedly withheld pays and benefits in April in response to the workers’ unionization efforts. 

According to previous reports, the company also actively and strongly discouraged workers from voting to unionize. Union organizer Jessica Gonzalez revealed on Twitter back in January that Activision VP of QA Chris Arends posted a message on a locked Slack channel diminishing the benefits of unionization. “A union doesn’t do anything to help us produce world-class games, and the bargaining process is not typically quick, often reduces flexibility, and can be adversarial and lead to negative publicity,” Arends wrote. 

A piece by The Washington Postalso said that company leadership held town meetings to dissuade workers from organizing and sent out emails with a message that says “Please vote no.” Those efforts had failed, and CWA won the election to unionize at Raven with a vote of 19 to 3. Xbox head Phil Spencer reportedly said before the vote that he would recognize a Raven union once Microsoft’s acquisition of the developer is complete.

Game Workers Alliance/CWA organizing committee members Erin Hall, Lau Nebel-Malone and Marie Carroll said:

“The reorganization and withholding of pay raises and other benefits and the company’s failure to rehire laid off QA testers were clearly attempts by Activision to intimidate us and interfere with our union election in violation of the National Labor Relations Act.”

Meanwhile, an Activision spokesperson disputed the allegations in a statement sent to Bloomberg:

“We respect and believe in the right of all employees to decide whether or not to support or vote for a union, and retaliation of any kind is not tolerated.”

As the news organization notes, complaints filed with the NLRB are investigation by regional offices. In case they’re found to have merit and aren’t settled, they can be prosecuted by the agency’s general counsel.

Update, 6/6/22, 10AM ET: This story has been updated with additional citations for the claim that Activision Blizzard cut 12 QA contractors despite Raven departmental leadership requesting to keep those contractors employed.

Watch Blue Origin’s fifth crewed New Shepard launch at 9AM ET

After delaying the planned launch from May 20th due to an issue with backup systems, Blue Origin is finally ready to send New Shepard on its next journey to the edge of space. The NS-21 mission is New Shepard’s 21st flight and its fifth with passengers on board. It takes place today at 9AM ET and you can watch it live below. The stream will start an hour before launch.

The passengers include electrical engineer and former NASA test lead Katya Echazarreta, who will become the first Mexican-born woman and youngest American woman to fly to space. She’s making the trip as part of Space for Humanity’s sponsored Citizen Astronaut Program. 

Civil production engineer Victor Correa Hespanha, meanwhile, will become the second Brazilian to reach space. The other passengers are business jet pilot Hamish Harding, co-founder of private equity firm Insight Equity Victor Vescovo, Dream Variation Ventures co-founder Jaison Robinson and investor Evan Dick, who was part of the NS-19 mission in December.

Blue Origin’s first crewed flight took place last July, with founder Jeff Bezos, his brother Mark and, at the time, the youngest and oldest people to travel above the Kármán line on board. William Shatner became the oldest person to reach space on the second crewed mission. Subsequent flights took place in December and March.

Amazon’s consumer chief Dave Clark is departing the company

Dave Clark, who headed Amazon’s worldwide consumer operations, announced he is resigning after 23 years at the company. The former Kentucky warehouse manager was in charge of overseeing the company’s retail business as well as its warehouse and shipping operations, which expanded due to the pandemic. Clark tweeted the announcement today along with an email sent to his team, writing that he had discussed “transitioning out of Amazon” for some time with family and those close to him. Clark was promoted to his current role only last year, following the departure of longer-serving executive Jeff Wilke.

Clark’s resignation comes as the company is dealing with its first quarterly loss in seven years, a unionization push and more warehouse space than it needs. Clark was in charge of the company’s logistic operations, which he expanded as demand soared during the pandemic. The company reported in April that excess warehouse space would contribute to $10 billion in excess costs for the first half of 2022.

The executive regularly defended Amazon’s warehouse operations, even amid criticism of its unsafe working conditions. After John Oliver investigated Amazon warehouses in an episode of Last Week Tonight, Clark tweeted that Oliver was “wrong on Amazon” and that the company was “proud of the safe, quality work environment” of its facilities.

Clark’s resignation will be effective in July, according to a regulatory filing by Amazon. So far a successor has not been named.

5G voice calls arrive for some T-Mobile customers in Salt Lake City and Portland

Telecoms have been slow to hop on the 5G bandwagon — your smartphone normally relies on 4G or LTE for old-fashioned phone calls. But T-Mobile is venturing forward by launching its commercial Voice over 5G service today in limited areas of Portland and …

Hyundai says it’s the first to pilot a large autonomous ship across the ocean

Autonomous ships just took a small but important step forward. Hyundai’s Avikus subsidiary says it has completed the world’s first autonomous navigation of a large ship across the ocean. The Prism Courage (pictured) left Freeport in the Gulf of Mexico on May 1st, and used Avikus’ AI-powered HiNAS 2.0 system to steer the vessel for half of its roughly 12,427-mile journey to the Boryeong LNG Terminal in South Korea’s western Chungcheong Province. The Level 2 self-steering tech was good enough to account for other ships, the weather and differing wave heights.

The autonomy spared the crew some work, of course, but it may also have helped the planet. Avikus claims HiNAS’ optimal route planning improved the Prism Courage’s fuel efficiency by about seven percent, and reduced emissions by five percent.

As you might have guessed, the feat didn’t quite usher in an era of zero-crew shipping. The other half of the trip still required human navigation, and most of the route was in the open sea. It would have been tougher for an autonomous system to control the entire voyage, particularly in ports where docking and packed waterways would pose additional challenges.

Avikus plans to commercialize HiNAS 2.0 by the end of the year. And even if fully AI-driven shipping is nowhere on the horizon, the company hopes its Level 2 autonomy will mitigate crew shortages, improve safety and reduce the environmental impact of seaborne transportation. The firm also expects to bring this navigation to leisure boats, not just giant merchant ships. Your next pleasure ride aboard a cabin cruiser or yacht might not always require someone at the helm.

FTC says victims of crypto scams have lost more than $1 billion since 2021

The world of crypto continues to draw scam artists and fraud. People have reported losing a combined total of over $1 billion due to crypto scams since the beginning of 2021, according to an FTC report released today. From January 2021 through March of this year, more than 46,000 individuals filed a crypto-related fraud report with the agency. The median individual reported loss in these reports was $2,600.

Perhaps ironically, the most common coins used in scams are also the most widely used, as well as a top stablecoin. A total of 70 percent of scams used Bitcoin as the payment method, followed by Tether (10 percent) and Ether (9 percent). Ether is the prime currency of choice for NFTs, a relatively new crypto market where fraudsters and hackers have thrived.

Crypto investment scams were the most common type of scam reported to the FTC, accounting for an estimated $575 million in losses. Normally these scams target amateur investors by promising them large returns in exchange for an initial investment.

“Investment scammers claim they can quickly and easily get huge returns for investors. But those crypto ‘investments’ go straight to a scammer’s wallet,” wrote the FTC’s Emma Fletcher in a blog post.

Romance scams also account for a large slice of reported scams, totaling $185 million in losses. Many of these scammers reach individuals by social media or dating apps. A type of dating app scam known as “pig slaughtering” — where criminals build a fake relationship with a victim in order to con them into investing in crypto — has become more common, reported CoinTelegraph.

It’s important to note that the FTC report is only a small snapshot of how much crypto fraud has truly occurred, since the agency is relying on direct reports submitted by victims. An FTC paper estimated that less than five percent of fraud victims reported it to a government entity, and likely an even smaller number report to the FTC. As crypto becomes more popular, the number of scams have also increased. Blockchain platform Chainanalysis estimated that illicit addresses received over $14 billion in crypto last year, nearly twice the amount in 2020.