Antitrust and Competition Law (and Consumer Protection)
All Things Tech
The Next Big Data Battlefield: Server Geography [Ozy]. Big Tech is defining the pandemic, from shopping to streaming to possibly even governing. It is a far cry from the recent past when talk of breaking up Google, Amazon, and Apple preoccupied a Congress concerned about privacy violations and unassailable corporate monopolies. But the titans of digital commerce have had more than a reprieve via the pandemic, riding to the rescue with contact tracing and a global supply network. Even shadowy counterparts like data-mining firm Palantir have become essential in their own right.
Big Tech is emerging from the crisis stronger than ever. Combined market value of leading tech companies has hit new record as demand soars [FT]
Technology sector sheds record number of jobs in April. U.S. technology firms shed a record 112,000 jobs in April 2020, erasing total job gains over the past year, according to an analysis of Labor Department data by IT trade group CompTIA. Steep decline dashes hopes that enterprise IT would be a bright spot in an economy battered by the coronavirus pandemic [WSJ]
Tech Workers fear their jobs will be automated in wake of coronavirus. Concern about automation among tech workers exceeds that in other industries, KPMG says [WSJ]
AI isn’t magical and it won’t help you reopen your business. The coronavirus is helping to erode the hype around artificial intelligence, says Christopher Mims [WSJ]
Digital technologies and firm performance: Evidence from Europe [EconPapers]
The new AI tools spreading fake news in politics and business. Growth of artificial intelligence software is driving ‘democratisation of propaganda’ [FT]
Pandemic gives fresh momentum to digital voice technology [Dawn]
The Pandemic Has Made Sudden Heroes of the Tech Companies—for Now. Shelter-in-place orders have made us more enamoured of the very same tech platforms we love to hate. But consumers’ ambivalence will return. [WSJ]
EU coronavirus recovery plan entails broad tech investments. Part of the European Union’s plan to recover from the coronavirus pandemic calls for investments in artificial intelligence, supercomputers, 5G networks, and other technologies [Reuters]. European Union plans $2 trillion coronavirus response effort. If implemented, the plan would represent a historic step in knitting together member nations’ finances [WSJ]
The European Investment Bank on the growing digital divide in Europe and the United States [EconPapers]
Read the OECD’s note on Start-ups, Killer Acquisitions, and Merger Control
What Satya Nadella Thinks about circumstances today [NYT]
Chrome [browser] will start blocking resource-heavy ads in August. There are three possible thresholds an ad can hit to be blocked: 4MB of network data, 15 seconds of CPU usage in any 30 second period, or 60 seconds of total CPU usage. [Venture Beat]
Algorithms associating appearance and criminality have a dark past [Aeon]
Facebook buys Giphy to integrate with Instagram [Express Tribune] [The Verge] and WhatsApp is under fire for exploiting its digital payment services in India [Express Tribune]. Facebook’s Giphy acquisition sounds antitrust alarms in Congress. Republicans and Democrats are skeptical of the deal [The Verge]
Facebook to shift permanently to a more remote workforce. Social network says half of staff will work from home in five to 10 years [FT] CEO Mark Zuckerberg sees long-term benefits in working from home, though tech giant will need new tools, techniques to manage policy shift [WSJ]
Sundar Pichai Says Google doesn't plan to go entirely remote. The Google & Alphabet CEO discusses working from home, weathering antitrust probes, and how the company needs to do a better job on diversity [Wired]
Rana Foroohar says Big Tech’s viral boom could be its undoing. The industry might seem unstoppable in this crisis, but ultimately it will be curbed [FT]
Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway discuss If the Government Have a Chance Against Google [Ny Mag]
As Machines Get Smarter, How Will We Relate to Them? Millennia of evolution have left us ill prepared to crack open the black box of AI and peer inside [Wired]
Time to close the digital divide. Internet access has helped billions cope with lockdown, but many are still without it [FT]
China accelerates tech plans. China is speeding up its plans to become a world leader in key technologies, says Bloomberg. Beijing is planning to inject an estimated $1.4 trillion over six years into its economy through the deployment of wireless networks, artificial intelligence, and other technologies, according to the report.
Artificial Intelligence and Cybersecurity - Task Force Evaluation of the HLEG Trustworthy AI Assessment List by Lorenzo Pupillo, Afonso Ferreira, and Stefano Fantin. The goal of this Task Force is to bring attention to the market, technical, ethical and governance challenges posed by the intersection of AI and cybersecurity, focusing both on AI for cybersecurity but also cybersecurity for AI.
Five strategies for putting AI at the centre of digital transformation [Wharton]
The growing digital divide in Europe and the United States by Désirée Rückert, Reinhilde Veugelers, and Christoph Weiss
Science Has an Answer as to why Zoom exhausts you . On video calls, looming heads, staring eyes, a silent audience, and that millisecond delay disrupt normal human communication [WSJ]
Trump Signs Executive Order Targeting Social Media. Measure seeks to limit the broad legal protection that federal law provides online platforms [WSJ]. US president seeks to change law that gives Twitter and others immunity from lawsuits [FT]. Trump’s order on Social Media could harm one person in particular: Donald Trump himself. Without certain liability protections, companies like Twitter would have to be more aggressive about policing messages that press the boundaries — like the president’s [NYT]. Tweeter-in-chief Trump hands Facebook and Twitter a gift. US president’s proposed executive order against social platforms has stirred up outrage — and engagement [FT]. See also Business Insider.
Why Big Tech isn’t fighting Trump in public this time. Apple, Google, and Amazon fought loudly against Trump over immigration. Now he’s attacking them and they’re quiet [Recode]
One thing worse than not being talked about… satirical websites are testing Facebook's policy on not being the 'arbiter of truth' by running false headlines claiming Mark Zuckerberg is dead or abusive [Business Insider]
According to a Wall Street Journal investigation, Facebook executives knew the platform’s algorithm was leading to increased polarisation. Mark Zuckerberg and policy chief Joel Kaplan nixed any proposed solutions, though, fearing they might limit user growth. Despite other social media outlets banning political ads––even false political ads––Facebook refuses to risk the loss of income. Facebook included the infamous news site Breitbart on its new “high quality” news tab. That news outlet has been widely criticized for posting extremist, “alt-right” content and conspiracy theories.
Joanna Stern on how to tweet responsibly: a guide to twitter in 2020. Between increased discussion of pandemics and politics, Twitter has turned into a messy place. Here are the tools and policies to know about upon entering [WSJ]
The Endless Frontier Act (EFA) is an exception since it seeks to turbocharge American “discovery, creation, and commercialization of critical tech.” Core proposals include (i) Restructure the National Science Foundation into the National Science and Technology Foundation (NSTF) (ii) in the NSTF, stand up a Technology Directorate that receives $100 billion over five years and operates like DARPA (iii) hand the Commerce Department $10 billion to invest across 10-15 regional tech hubs over five years. This would be good for U.S. universities and businesses, because EFA would pad R&D budgets, establish new scholarships, and create cutting-edge labs and fabrication plants.
The EFA is a specific response to China, whose tech industrial base is now a true contender with the U.S. China plans to invest $1.4 trillion in emerging tech over the next six years. Chinese chipmaker SMIC recently announced a $2 billion investment from state-backed funds. Tencent will spend $70 billion on tech infrastructure over the next five years.
On 30 May 2020 SpaceX launched two astronauts, changing spaceflight forever. The test mission will clear the way for regular crewed launches from the United States for the first time in nearly a decade [Wired] [TechCrunch]
Musk makes history: SpaceX just launched 2 people into orbit for the first time, kicking off the rocket company's most important mission since its founding 18 years ago [Business Insider]
Gamemakers Inject AI to Develop More Lifelike Characters. New techniques could save videogame companies millions and make games more realistic [Wired]. It is, after all, a multi-billion-dollar industry!
Antitrust and Competition Law (and Consumer Protection)
Why Does a Hospital Monopoly Want to Re-Open the Economy? The University of Pittsburgh Medical Centre has strong views on the right way to manage Covid. It also has deep conflicts of interest. [Matt Stoller]
Can We Even Stop Monopolisation in a Pandemic? Matt Stoller gives four examples that show it is hard to tell the difference between consolidation and healthy adjustment to a pandemic.
Herbert Hovenkamp On the Meaning of Antitrust's Consumer Welfare Principle [SSRN]
Competition policy responses to COVID-19 [OECD]
Does antitrust have digital blind spots? [SSRN]
Antitrust Law and Blockchain(s): Preparing the Field [SSRN]
FTC Commissioner, Noah Phillips, on Let’s (NOT) Stop All the Mergers: The Case for Letting the Agencies Do Their Jobs [Truth on the Market]
Cristina Caffarra, Gregory Crawford, Tommaso Valletti on “How tech rolls’: Potential competition and ‘reverse’ killer acquisitions” [Voxeu]
How is the FTC protecting us during the pandemic? [Politico]
EU state aid rules hinder tech bailouts, say industry groups. Trade associations in France, Germany, UK and Ireland ask Brussels for more flexibility [FT]
Google is about to be hit with multiple antitrust cases in the U.S., reports WSJ [Boing Boing] [Motley Fool]
Amid growing antitrust concerns, Facebook goes “faceless” in DC with new lobby group [Salon]
Why All the Shouting About Google? Here’s the one question that matters: Does Google rig the system to squash its rivals and hurt us? [NYT]
The evolution of EU antitrust policy: 1966-2017 by Pablo Ibáñez Colomo and Andriani Kalintiri
The economics of the German investigation of Facebook's data collection by Oliver Budzinski, Marina Gruésevaja, and Victoriia Noskova.
The importance of digital platforms and related data-driven business models is ever increasing and poses challenges for the workability of competition in the respective markets. Due to such challenges, investigations of such markets are of high interest. One of recent cases is the investigation of Facebook's data collection practices by German competition authorities. This paper, in contrast to the wide stream of legal studies on this case, aims to analyse whether Facebook's practices regarding data collection could constitute an abuse of market power from an economic perspective, more specifically against the background of modern data economics.
Data-related behaviours from a competition law perspective by Michael Gu, Charles Xiang [China Business Law Journal]
Big Tech goes on pandemic M&A spree despite political backlash. Rate of deal making by Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Microsoft is highest since 2015 [FT]
As part of that spree, Amazon is in advanced talks to buy self-driving-car tech company Zoox, expecting to value Zoox at less than its last private valuation [WSJ]
Apple recently acquired Canadian machine learning start-up, Inductiv. Giving the signature Cupertino deal confirmation, Apple said it “buys smaller technology companies from time to time and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans.” [Bloomberg]
Bill Baer on improving antitrust law in the United States [Brookings]
Big Data, Cybersecurity, Digital Strategy, and Privacy
Who’s who at Facebook [CNBC]
Facebook recruits great and good for a chance at change [FT]. Facebook finally has a good idea [NYT]. Who’s Up for the Job of Decontaminating Facebook? An independent panel has all the hallmarks of the United Nations, except potentially much less effective [NYT]. Facebook’s independent oversight board could be overwhelmed by the challenge. Can 40 part-time members oversee moderation on a platform of 2.37 billion? [The Verge]. Will Facebook’s oversight be successful in holding it accountable? [Washington Post]
Facebook, don’t exploit us in our time of need. Who seems poised to benefit from social distancing? Big Tech [NYT]
Facebook Messenger adds safety alerts—even in encrypted chats. By using metadata instead of content to spot suspicious behavior, the social network can keep privacy intact [Wired]
The Coronavirus revives Facebook as a news powerhouse. More than half of all news consumption on Facebook in America is about the virus, according to an internal report [NYT]
The US government is getting ready to sue Google for monopolising online ads. ‘We think Google has 7,000 data points on just about every human being alive’ [The Verge]
Arizona is suing Google for misleading location tracking practices. “When consumers try to opt out of Google’s collection of location data, the company is continuing to find misleading ways to obtain information and use it for profits,” said Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich to the Washington Post.
Big Tech Is Telling Employees to Stay Home Longer. Why You Should Too. Facebook and Google are making remote work a more permanent option, and it's a lesson for every business [Inc]
You NEED to Act Even If Your Company Is Compliant With EU GDPR: comparing India’s Personal Data Protection Bill with the EU GDPR [CPO Magazine]
MEPs take stand against UK fingerprint data exchange scheme. Lawmakers in the European Parliament’s Civil Liberties committee have signalled their disapproval at the UK’s participation in a fingerprint data exchange scheme with EU member states after the country’s decision to withdraw from the bloc. [Euractiv]
Mitch McConnell is pushing the Senate to pass a measure that would let the FBI collect Americans' web-browsing history without a warrant [Business Insider]
Roderick Thomas on being under watchful eyes, surveillance [Star Revue]
The Second Paraguay Who Defends Your Data? Report finds ISPs in South America still have a long way towards public commitments to privacy and transparency [Electronic Frontier Foundation]
.ORG domain registry sale to Ethos Capital rejected, a stunning victory for public interest internet. ICANN Withholds Consent, Says Deal Lacked ‘Meaningful Plan to Protect’ .ORG Community [Electronic Frontier Foundation]
COVID-19 and Digital Rights: ensuring that technology supports freedom, justice, and innovation for all the people of the world [Electronic Frontier Foundation]. See also a Virtual Discussion of COVID-19 and Digital Rights
The Challenge of Proximity Apps For COVID-19 Contact Tracing [Electronic Frontier Foundation]
We need more than Big Data to track the virus. We must take social context into account if we are to stop the spread of the disease, says Gillian Tett [FT]
APAC firms still coming to grips with data protection. More governments in Asia are implementing data protection regimes, but challenges such as checkbox compliance and the lack of effective staff training remain [ComputerWeekly]
The Commission that pushed a cybersecurity overhaul hopes coronavirus boosts the effort. The Cyberspace Solarium Commission on March 11 released its 182-page report calling for a far more muscular stance against U.S. digital adversaries such as Russia and China and new cybersecurity executives with broad powers to cut through red tape at the White House and State Department [Washington Post]
ShinyHunters is a Hacking Group on a data breach spree. In the first two weeks of May, they've hit the dark web, hawking 200 million stolen records from over a dozen companies [Wired]
Tech could be used to track employees—in the name of health. Makers of product-tracking beacons suggest using the tools to help enforce social distancing in the workplace [Wired]
Parents have long suspected Pokémon rewires kids’ brains. Now there’s evidence [Aeon]
The technologies the world is using to track coronavirus — and people [Venture Beat]
FBI Probe Ties Florida Attack to al Qaeda, Faults Apple. Top U.S. officials accuse iPhone maker of providing almost no help in probe of last year’s Pensacola shooting; company says it co-operated extensively [WSJ]
European Commission Vice President for Values and Transparency Věra Jourová and Commissioner for Justice Didier Reynders issued a joint statement on the 2nd anniversary of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) [EU]
Top EU data protection agency under pressure to act against Internet giants as GDPR turns 2 years old [Privacy News Online]
Google faces fresh GDPR challenge over advertising tracking [Which-50]
Learning From GDPR And CCPA [Forbes]
GDPR Review – Recommendations for the EU’s Data Protection Framework [BitKom]
GDPR ‘most important challenge’ for advisers [FT Adviser]
Guy Wilmot on What are our GDPR obligations as a business? Most businesses should have little difficulty complying with GDPR if they follow some pretty basic policies and procedures [Portfolio Adviser]
The U.S. v China: who is winning the key technology battles? China leads in 5G, but the U.S. has an edge in other crucial niches—for now [WSJ]
Why consumers are willing to share personal information on smartphones [Wharton]
The UK’s Test and Trace app has not passed data protection impact assessment. Public Health England failed to complete the required impact assessment before launching the Covid-19 Test and Trace programme [ComputerWeekly]. Singapore’s TraceTogether is least intrusive in terms of privacy communications compared with similar apps in the region, study finds [Computer Weekly]
Books
The best books of the week 8 May 2020. Nature’s healing power, the ‘deep state’, lessons on the far-right — and cooking for despots [FT]
20 Books to Read in Quarantine This Summer. The Atlantic’s picks for immersive, escapist, or nostalgic reading—wherever you are
Sally Haldorson looks at five books that she has found insightful over the years that are relevant to the times we're in and how we might get through them [Porchlight Books]
Slowdown: The End of the Great Acceleration—and Why It’s Good for the Planet, the Economy, and Our Lives by Danny Dorling. If you read business books, you have read for a decade or more about how exponential the rate of change is in the world today, and how to best react to and keep up with it as an individual or organization. But what if the rate of change is actually slowing down? Slowdown gives us time to reflect, and time to change what really matters. It gives us time itself.
The Hour of Fate: Theodore Roosevelt, J.P. Morgan, and the Battle to Transform American Capitalism by Susan Berfield.
What would it look like if we reigned in Wall Street, put a check on corporate power and the increased concentration and monopolization of our economy? It might look a lot like what Theodore Roosevelt did at the beginning of the last century, much of which are best illustrated by his public battle with John Pierpont Morgan. Concentrated wealth, often the result of corporate domination, causes the kind of economic inequality that can undermine powerful societies. It challenges the notion of democracy; politics seems rigged in favour of the rich and influential. It can leave people feeling helpless and desperate.
Roosevelt recognised that, “said that making change could be dangerous but doing nothing could be fatal.” The wealthy were still extremely wealthy when he left office, but his policies helped protect workers and more broadly share the prosperity and abundance that they helped create. We are once again seeing levels of concentrated wealth that match those that existed when Roosevelt came to power, and this book a timely examination of how we might address it. See also Goliath: The 100-Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy by Matt Stoller.
Humankind: A Hopeful History, by Rutger Bregman. A study that argues our natures are far better than we have often been led to think [FT]
Francesca Mari reviews Aaron Glantz’s Homewreckers: How a Gang of Wall Street Kingpins, Hedge Fund Magnates, Crooked Banks, and Vulture Capitalists Suckered Millions Out of Their Homes and Demolished the American Dream in the NY Review of Books
Companies
Volkswagen warns of rising costs as car market faces deep recession. Carmaker says suppliers are passing on higher charges for components in threat to industry’s profits. [FT]
And a German court rules against Volkswagen in 'dieselgate' scandal, [Guardian]
German car industry gets cold shoulder from Berlin. Politicians and public reluctant to see sector receive special assistance [FT]
Fiat Chrysler, Peugeot Scrap Billion-Dollar Dividends as Merger Faces Pressure. Car makers say merger is still on track, but pressure has mounted on cash pay-outs tied to the deal [WSJ]
Elon Musk Threatens to Move Tesla Out of California Amid Fight Over Coronavirus Closure [Slate]. 'F--- Elon Musk': California assemblywoman responds to Tesla CEO's threats to move the company's main factory [Business Insider]. But in the end, California blinked. California officials capitulate to Elon Musk, allow Tesla plant to reopen [CNN]
Scott Galloway on The Fourth Great Unlock [No Mercy/No Malice]
The airline business is terrible. It will probably get even worse. An industry that is intimately familiar with failure confronts a crisis unlike any other. Executives say they have no idea when passengers will return. [NYT]
American Airlines and Delta move to cut thousands of jobs. World’s two largest carriers have been barred from compulsory lay-offs until October [FT]
IATA raises alarm over bailout debts. Global airline debts are set to rise by more than a quarter to $550 billion by the end of 2020 after governments announced $123 billion in total support [Express Tribune]
Airlines plot economy comfort like bunk beds and separated seats to lure flyers. Economy passengers will be more critical than ever for the fortunes of carriers in a post-coronavirus world [Ozy]
State-owned carriers like Singapore Airlines, Finnair, and Emirates are receiving financial help with ease and are counterintuitively thriving. While countries like the U.S. have had to hire charters to repatriate citizens, those with national carriers were able to easily bring citizens home on their own planes [Ozy]
How Pan Am Helped the Allies Win WWII in Africa [Ozy]
Flying Dirty: Why Airlines Emissions Rise Even When They Try to Cut. While airlines have been promising for a long time to reduce emissions, a new study finds every one of the 58 largest companies have increased carbon output in recent years [Ozy]
In a Digital World, Your Most Valuable Property Is Intellectual [Forbes]
Dump on Your Office All You Like. You’ll Miss It When It’s Gone. Your workplace shaped your identity in ways you never knew [NYT]
Chinese companies could be delisted from US stock exchanges. The US Senate passed a bill that would require Chinese firms that want to be listed to verify they were not controlled by a foreign government, and undergo an audit by US auditors, which Chinese law prohibits [Market Watch]
How Airbnb went from Successful Start-up to Crisis Mode. It was supposed to be the hottest public offering of 2020. Instead, the home-sharing giant just cut 25% of its workforce and expects revenue to be less than half of what it was in 2019 [WSJ]
Is there really any other brand globally known? Hertz, Car Rental Pioneer, Files for Bankruptcy Protection. The company, which had amassed a large debt, has been devastated by the sharp drop in travel during the pandemic [NYT] See also Business Insider.
UK draws up 3-year plan to remove Huawei from 5G networks. Huawei was previously approved to build about one-third of the least-sensitive portions of the U.K.'s next-generation networks. Downing Street under pressure after allowing Chinese telecoms group a limited role [FT]. The Trump administration scores a major victory with the United Kingdom's decision for an emergency review of Huawei’s role in its 5G telecommunications networks. A series of increasingly harsh U.S. sanctions have made it impossible for the United Kingdom to work with the Chinese telecom [Guardian].
Intel is acting like only the paranoid survive, and the CEO wants to keep it that way. Bob Swan sees a future company of more empowered managers: ‘If you know the right thing to do, just go do it’
China's Oppo steps up chip ambition as US ban hits Huawei [Nikkei Asian Review]
Coinbase shakes up the crypto prime broker race with its acquisition of Tagomi [The Block]
China’s Baidu finishes building ‘world’s largest’ test ground for autonomous vehicle, smart driving systems. Baidu says it has completed the world’s largest site to test both autonomous driving and vehicle-to-infrastructure communication [SCMP]
Corporate Governance
Finding Your Footing in a Sea of Regulations and Guidance [Navex Global]
After COVID-19, Where Was the Board? [Navex Global]
Conflict of Interest Disclosures: A 21st Century Approach [Navex Global]
Board oversight of human capital management no longer a nice-to-have for smaller public companies [National Law Review]
e-Commerce
Virus boost for Amazon is not without risks. The e-Commerce giant’s increasing power will attract greater scrutiny [FT]
Amazon to the Rescue of the Fashion World! With some help from Vogue and the CFDA, the e-Commerce giant is opening a new store to showcase independent designers. [NYT]
Amazon angles to grab back customers. After losing some online shoppers to rivals during the pandemic, the retail giant is turning back to faster shipping times and big sales [NYT]
Trends in Digital Commerce in Sub-Saharan Africa [Disruptive Competition Project]
e-Commerce booming amid COVID-19 pandemic [WMC action news]
China’s e-commerce amid COVID-19 [Global Risks Insight]
Is the e-commerce shift going to last? [TechCrunch]
Visa sees ‘massive’ digital acceleration with millions trying e-commerce for the first time [Market Watch]
How e-Commerce's Explosive Growth Is Attracting Fraud [Forbes]
A Little e-Commerce Has Big Ripples. Online shopping has changed our behavior, reordered the nature of work and challenged our cities [NYT]
Facebook unveils its Shops e-commerce platform [TechCrunch]
Is Stablecoin the Next Big Thing in e-Commerce? [HBR]
Dubai's 'city' for e-Commerce [CNN]
The e-commerce boom makes warehouses hot property. The warehouse king battles a master of the universe [Economist]
Internet and e-Commerce Paper: how to shoot in the dark [Forbes]
COVID-19 and E-Commerce are Changing Retailers’ Real Estate Footprints [National Law Review]
Seven fundamentals of building a successful e-Commerce Store [Forbes]
The long-term impact COVID-19 will have on attitudes toward e-commerce [ICX Association]
Economics
Multinationals fear rise in protectionism because of pandemic. Survey reveals companies’ deep concerns that US and other advanced economies will impose more barriers to trade [FT]
Shane Greenstein on The Basic Economics of Internet Infrastructure [here]
The Hot IPO Trend of 2020: Pay Up Now, Acquire Something Later [WSJ]
Reopening the economy will divide societies. The virus picks us off unevenly, and an effective response must recognise that [FT]
See The Road to Recovery: Which Economies are Reopening? [Visual Capitalist]
The Worst Unemployment Spike In U.S. History – 1 Out Of Every 4 Workers Has Filed For Unemployment Benefits In 2020 [Economic Collapse]
An infographic on Regional Economic Trends in May 2020 [Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation]
Expect a miserable May jobs report in the U.S. April’s employment numbers put the unemployment rate at 14.7%, and the data due Friday is expected to be substantially worse [WSJ]
And Don’t Expect A Quick Recovery. Our Survey Of Economists Says It Will Likely Take Years [FiveThirtyEight]
Education
How eLearning Has Improved Education During The COVID-19 Pandemic. The advancement in technology has changed the educational system by achieving improvements in productivity. During the period of COVID-19, distance learning has become the appropriate way for educators as well as for students. [eLearning Industry]
Barack Obama tells 2020 graduates: ‘If the world’s going to get better, it’s going to be up to you.' Read the transcripts of two speeches on Washington Post.
For young people, emotions are highly contagious social viruses [Psyche]
Flashback: History's Unintended Consequences, from OZY and iHeartRadio, is that cool history course you wish you could have taken in college. Learn about history’s craziest connections and wildest turning points. Four episodes are available now.
The University of Minnesota's Open Textbook Library provides educators, students, and lifelong learners an excellent resource for finding high-quality digital textbooks. Here, you will find a large collection of openly-licensed textbooks that can be downloaded for free as PDF or e-book files.
Entertainment
The Woman Who Made Netflix’s ‘Tiger King’ Must-See Quarantine TV. The streaming-video giant’s Lisa Nishimura explains why documentary storytelling is booming, describes taking film pitches via Zoom [WSJ]
The 17 best sci-fi movies you can stream on Netflix right now [Insider]
Couldn’t have hoped for better news. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Coming to CBS All Access [Star Trek]. Also, New Star Trek series based on the USS Enterprise is heading to CBS All Access. It takes place a decade before the original series [The Verge]. The hero of the new Star Trek series, Christopher Pike, is the only captain that predates Kirk [Mashable]
“Grant:” The Wisdom and Weaknesses of a Warrior. A History miniseries on Ulysses S. Grant is executed at the highest level [WSJ]
Sci-Fi and Satire Merge in Amazon’s ‘Upload’ and Netflix’s ‘Space Force.’ The producer behind ‘The Office’ and ‘Parks and Recreation’ has two new shows that explore the perils of technology and the absurdities of bureaucracy in the not-too-distant future [WSJ]
Global
The Pandemic Isn’t Changing Everything. It is just speeding up trends that were already underway, says Ruchir Sharma [NYT]
54 Ways Coronavirus Has Changed Our World [NYT]
Tom Friedman on How We Broke the World. Greed and globalisation set us up for disaster [NYT]
Larry Summers says Covid-19 looks like a hinge in history. The pandemic will be remembered alongside the 1914 Archduke assassination and the 1938 Munich Conference [FT]
China’s new normal may be major export after pandemic. Multinationals like Ford and Starbucks look at lessons from e-commerce and distancing as lockdowns begin to ease [FT]
As China’s Economy Slows, Its Slow Economy Takes Root. As the frailties of the country’s fast-growth model become clearer, Chinese communities are adopting slow living as an alternative [Ozy]
Will it be a downsized Dubai that emerges from pandemic? The emirate’s economy is especially vulnerable, and may need a bailout from its big brother, Abu Dhabi [FT]
How Covid-19 Has Changed The Planet - BBC Click [YouTube]
And how it will continue to change the planet… Economic giants are restarting. Here’s what it means for climate change. The recovery plans coming out now in Europe, China and the United States take different directions. Europe goes Green, America slashes environmental protection, and China moves towards coal [NYT]
How to restart national economies during the coronavirus crisis [McKinsey]. When can your region reopen? It depends on the strength of its health system [McKinsey]
South Korea’s early success breaking the COVID19 epidemic in the country has now ‘dimmed’, as the The Wall Street Journal puts it, with a new potential outbreak. A 29-year-old man hit five different bars in one part of Seoul and exposed as many as 2,000 people. More than fifty new cases have now been identified tied to this one man [Talking Points Memo]
Putin Is Well on His Way to Stealing the Next Election [The Atlantic]
WTO chief Roberto Azevêdo to step down early, in September 2020, a year before the end of his term. Move comes after tussles with Trump administration and as trade faces pandemic turmoil [FT]
Ursula von der Leyen’s audacious bid for new powers to tackle the crisis in Europe [FT]
Tea and capitalism. The China tea trade was a paradox: a global, intensified industry without the usual spectacle of factories and technology [Aeon]
The technological contest between China and the United States by Alfredo Toro Hardy. China’s proclaimed aim of becoming the world’s leader in science, technology and innovation by the mid twenty first century has triggered an intense competition with the United States. The latter, feeling threatened in its supremacy in this field, has reacted forcefully.
In the United States, the coronavirus shutdown has not stopped black people from dying unjustly. On 25 May, George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis, begging for his life with a police officer’s knee on his neck. On 13 March, EMT Breonna Taylor was shot to death by police officers who burst into the wrong apartment. In February, jogger Ahmaud Arbery was killed by two vigilantes.
How East Asians in the UK are fighting back against a rising tide of racism [South China Morning Post - SCMP]
Locusts are affecting food security in Asia and Africa [CNN]
Health and Nutrition
Why your sleep and wake cycles affect your mood [Harvard Health]
So where did the new coronavirus come from? Research into its origins raises questions about how it became so infectious in human beings [WSJ]
Some Data May Be Worse Than No Data in the COVID Era [WebMD]
Trump Quits the World Health Organisation. After repeatedly blaming it for the extent of the deadly pandemic that’s claimed more than 100,000 American lives, President Trump on Friday said he was terminating his nation's membership in the WHO [Ozy]
What growing epidemic in China killed 843,000 people across the nation in 2017? More than quarter of world’s diabetes patients – 114 million – live in the country, but only 39 per cent of sufferers are aware of their condition [SCMP]
Tech’s First Big Plan to Tackle Covid-19 Stumbles: ‘An App Is Not Going to Fix This.’ Effort to join Silicon Valley tech giants including Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon with the White House to fight the coronavirus is faltering [WSJ]
Life Hacks
In mid-March, as lockdowns dramatically changed our definition of the workplace, the staff of The Wall Street Journal kicked off the “Making it Work” series. Over the course of 11 weeks, more than 50 Making it Work articles offered fresh insights into how the coronavirus was shaping life on the job.
Living the Coronavirus Work-From-Home Life? Slow Wi-Fi? Incessant notifications? Slack taking over your life? You’re not alone. WSJ’s Joanna Stern provides daily solutions to readers’ tech problems.
The secret power of Checklists. Use them to give your brain a break [EverWideningCircles]
Three ways to better understand disappointments at work. The next time you’re confounded by an unexpected or confusing situation at work, use these practical strategies to move forward with greater success. [Strategy+Business]. For further insights, read “Three ways to demystify disappointments at work.”
How to Reinvent Yourself: A Quick Guide [Life Optimiser]
How to Find Your Most Productive Time of Day [Life Hacker]
Stefan Van Der Stigchel on The Rituals of Concentration. Sometimes a ritual is exactly what you need to get yourself fully into concentration mode [Porchlight Books]
The story of seat belts [Quartz]
Podcast: 68 Ways to Be Better at Life. Kevin Kelly on why enthusiasm beats intelligence, how to really listen, and why the solution to bad technology is more technology. [Freakonomics]
When “Grin and Bear It” Isn't the Right Answer — This Behavioural Scientist Shares What to Do Instead [First Round Review]
For many people engaged in social distancing, more time at home means more time experimenting in the kitchen. The video tutorials from ChefSteps provide inspiration and instruction to get you started. This YouTube channel strives to "cook smarter," offering a collection of free, short videos designed to impart cooking school techniques to regular folks in the kitchen. Videos cover cooking tips and recipe demonstrations, from nutritious meal prepping advice to indulgent desserts.
Joplin is a note taking and to-do list application similar to Evernote. It is designed to handle large numbers of notes organised into notebooks. Joplin is able to import Evernote's .enex export files. The application also supports synchronizing notebooks across devices, using a number of cloud services including: Nextcloud, Dropbox, and OneDrive. Available for Windows, Linux, macOS, Android, and iOS devices. Joplin is free software.
The Rituals of Concentration by Stefan Van Der Stigchel. Sometimes a ritual is exactly what you need to get yourself fully into concentration mode.
This Small Change in Your Language Can Help Downplay Negativity [The Emotion Machine]
Want to Be More Productive? Try Doing Less [HBR]
Management and Leadership
Corporate Buzzwords Are the Worst. After publishing an article on office jargon [Corporate Buzzwords Are How Workers Pretend to Be Adults], The Atlantic asked for your most loathed examples.
How COVID-19 is reversing economies of scale. Technology was already pushing mass markets and production to become more personalised and distributed, and the novel coronavirus is accelerating the shift [Strategy+Business]
Victor Lapuente, Kohei Suzuki, Steven Van de Walle on Goats or wolves? Private sector managers in the public sector [Wiley]
The kinetic leader: Boldly reinventing the enterprise Findings from the 2020 Global Technology Leadership Study [Deloitte]
Personalizing change management in the smartphone era. A global manufacturer is blending digital technology, analytics, and behavioural science to personalise its change program. Its experience offers lessons for leaders everywhere [McKinsey]
Reimagining the post-pandemic organisation [McKinsey]
In Beyond Performance 2.0: A Proven Approach to Leading Large-Scale Change (John Wiley & Sons, 2019), McKinsey’s Scott Keller and Bill Schaninger draw on their long experience, and the most comprehensive research effort of its kind, to provide a practical, proven guide for executives managing corporate transformations. “A better way to lead large-scale change,” the first article in the series, explains how and why the authors’ approach works. The second, “Getting personal about change,” provides an in-depth look into the mind-set shifts required for generating meaningful change. The third, “The forgotten step in leading large-scale change,” examines the most often neglected stage of the change process. The fourth article, Managing the change journey, discusses how to generate ownership and energy for success [McKinsey]
Miscellaneous
Many of us strive to stay well-informed of local and international events, but sometimes the news can be stressful or discouraging. To help counterbalance this, the data visualization website Information is Beautiful recently embarked on a new project, Beautiful News Daily. The project offers its visitors a collection of good news, positive trends, uplifting statistics and facts, all beautifully visualised.
Conscious Style Guide. Inclusivity is a core tenant of both personal and professional interactions. Launched by award-winning editor Karen Yin in 2015, this site curates articles, guides, and newsletters promoting "inclusive, empowering, and respectful language." The site also produces a monthly newsletter that covers topics relevant to inclusivity and highlights news stories that show thoughtful writing, e.g., the April 2020 edition included resources for conscious coverage of COVID-19. Conscious Style Guide is endorsed by several members of the science and journalism communities, including NASA and the Chicago Manual of Style Online.
Crocs Are Back In Style. And Not Just Because of Coronavirus. Stay-at-home adults are wearing the comfy shoes. So are young shoppers who want to be seen. ‘They are the Nickelback of footwear.’ [WSJ]
Open Broadcaster Studio. It can be a surprisingly difficult task to record and stream video over the internet. Users must often assemble a pipeline of several different tools that each handle a different aspect of the production process. Open Broadcaster Studio wraps the entire process into a single, simple to use application. It can be used to pre-record video content, but it truly shines as a tool for live streaming. Multiple popular streaming services are supported including YouTube and Facebook Live.
NPR's newest podcasts, Short Wave, gives a scientific spin on daily news. New episodes are released every weekday, each averaging around 10 minutes in length. Short Wave allows listeners to develop a more complex understanding of today's headlines, with time to spare.
The car has become the ultimate personal protective equipment today, becoming a mini-shelter on wheels, safe from contamination, a cocoon that allows its occupants to be inside and outside at the same time [NYT]
History of Infographics: Cave Symbols to Interactive Visuals [Learning Hub]
The Competitive Enterprise Institute says Federal regulations cost an estimated $1.9 trillion per year, many of which hinder virus response, economic recovery
Music
Too black, too queer, too holy: why Little Richard never truly got his dues [The Guardian]
Robbie Robertson Remembers Little Richard: ‘It Can’t Get Better Than That and It Never Did’ [Rolling Stone]
Here is a trip down memory lane. 100s of videos from Rock Hall of Fame induction ceremonies (Talking Heads, Prince, Stooges, more) on its YouTube channel
Stevie Wonder turns 70. Over five albums in the ’70s, Wonder’s music focused on our humanity in a way much of society refused to accept. And still hasn’t. [The Undefeated]
The Guardian’s best albums of 2020 so far. Looking at the list, I realised there is so much music out there that I am completely unaware of.
U2's 40 greatest songs – ranked! As Bono turns 60 (10 May), we look back at how the Irish greats turned scratchy post-punk into a stadium-filling proposition – and continue to move with the times [The Guardian]
Dave Audé’s remixes of The Police song, Don’t Stand So Close to Me, can be downloaded here.
Launched in 2016, Musicmap is a fascinating interactive visualisation of music history that “attempts to provide the ultimate genealogy of popular music genres,” including the relationships and influences between genres. Musicmap has a colourful infographic designed to resemble a city skyline, with each "building" color-coded and labelled as a different musical "super-genre." Clicking a building brings up a synopsis of its genre with a list of subgenres at the bottom This site is amazing!
Pakistan
Consumers taken for a ride? A critical analysis of the Competition Commission of Pakistan’s order on Uber’s acquisition of Careem in Pakistan [Business Recorder]
Farrukh Saleem, End the lockdown [The News]
People of Interest
In response to David Brooks, Who Is Driving Inequality? You Are, in the New York Times, here’s a rebuttal by Paul Heideman in Jacobin Magazine: Don’t Listen to David Brooks: It’s Not You, It’s the 1 Percent.
Rodrigo Garcia’s letter to his father, Gabriel García Márquez. Not a day goes by that I don’t come across a reference to your novel “Love in the Time of Cholera.” It’s impossible not to speculate about what you would have made of all this. [NYT]
Angelina Jolie: A Mother’s Strength. This year, I’m remembering my mom’s spirit, and the power of so many women I’ve met around the world [NYT]
Contact Tracing, Debt, and the Oil Crash. Corruption, lobbying, corporate malfeasance, and frauds: a weekly unconventional selection of must-read articles by investigative journalist Bethany McLean [ProMarket].
Bill Gates Has Regrets. Years before the Covid-19 pandemic, the billionaire tried to warn global leaders of the threat from new infectious diseases. Few listened. Now, ‘I feel terrible.’ [WSJ]
Trump's wave of attacks on Barack Obama is an attempt to neutralize him as a powerful surrogate for Joe Biden [Business Insider]
Lori Loughlin (of Full House fame) pleads guilty in college admissions scandal. Plea agreements for the actress and her husband, designer Mossimo Giannulli, include prison time [WSJ]
Joe Biden Answers Your Most Searched Questions About Him. The Democratic presidential candidate responds to the internet's most searched questions, including his stances on immigration, education, and gun control [Wired]
The hypocrisy of Mike Pompeo. In the few short years since his time in Congress, the secretary of state has conveniently reversed himself on multiple fronts [Wired]
Jared Diamond: lessons from a pandemic. The coronavirus crisis should usher in an age of global co-operation, argues the Pulitzer Prize-winning geographer [FT]
Rutger Bregman — outspoken historian and scourge of Davos. The Dutch writer speaks about tax, our inner altruism, and why big names mean so little [FT]. An article on his book is in the Books section.
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