It's a Prime Day for Protests

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It's a Prime Day for Protests
Number 3573
Broadcast Date JULY 15, 2019
Episode Length 30:24
Hosts Tom Merritt, Sarah Lane, Roger Chang

Huawei news roundup as U.S. firms may get nod to restart Huawei sales in two-four weeks, Huawei will reportedly lay off hundreds of US workers, and Huawei will invest $3.1 billion in Italy.

Quick Hits

After more than a year the Republic of Chad has restored internet access to social networks including Facebook and Twitter. The blocks were put in place in March 2018 following political protests.
The Economic Times reports Apple has stopped selling the iPhone SE, 6, 6 Plus, and 6s Plus in India. That means the entry level price of an iPhone in India is now about 8,000 Rupees higher. Apple raised revenue in India in 2018-2019 despite lower volume, leading to an apparent focus on value over number of units.
Consomac reports the newest MacBook Air announced last week has a slower SSD than the 2018 model, with write speeds slightly faster but read speeds 35% slower, which likely relates to the MacBook Air also getting a $100 price discount. Consomac used Blackmagic Disk Speed Test on the new Air, and it hit speeds of 1.3 GB/s read and 1 GB/s write. The 2018 MacBook Air achieved 2 GB/s read and 0.9 GB/s write.

Top Stories

Qualcomm announced the Snapdragon 855 Plus SoC, which features higher clock speeds than the existing Snapdragon 855, and is targeted at gaming and VR. The 855 plus includes the eight-core Kryo 485 CPU, now with the main core clocked at up to 2.96GHz, paired with Adreno 640 graphics that Qualcomm claims will by 15% faster than the standard 855. The SoC will only have 4G onboard, so 5G will require a separate modem. The Snapdragon 855 Plus will be available soon, with Asus confirming it in the upcoming ROG Phone 2 coming July 23. The Galaxy Note 10 coming August 7 is another likely device to use it.
Twitter’s rolling out a new desktop version to the public that includes a new left-hand sidebar pointing to Notifications, Direct Messages, Explore, Bookmarks, Lists, and more. Direct Messages also feels a little more like an inbox where you can view and respond to conversations in one place. Profile switching, support for more themes, and advanced search all got updates as well.
Facebook's David Marcus posted his prepared testimony in advance of his appearances before the US Senate on Tuesday and US House on Wednesday. Marcus says the Libra Association has no intention of competing with sovereign currencies or entering into monetary policy. The Libra association plans to register as a money services business with the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) and will comply with anti-money laundering and Bank Secrecy Act rules. Marcus says Libra will not hold personal data beyond transaction info and personal info provided to Facebook's Calibra wallet will not be shared with the social network or used for ad targeting. The Libra Association is headquartered in Geneva and will follow Swiss Federal Data Protection regulations.
Ahead of the testimony US House Democrats are considering a bill called the Keep Big Tech Out of Finance Act. The wording is still being finalized and it has not been introduced but. The current wording would ban platforms with global revenue of more than $25 billion or more from becoming or being affiliated with a financial institution. A platform is defined as offering to the public an online marketplace, an exchange, or a platform for connecting third parties.
It's a prime day for protests. 2,000 workers are on strike at seven Amazon sites in Germany with the slogan "no more discount on our incomes." And a six-hour work stoppage is being conducted at an Amazon site in Minnesota. Leafleting and protests organized by the GMB union are happening at several Amazon sites in the UK. Amazon says its pay and working conditions compare favorably to similar businesses and it does not expect the protests to impact deliveries. Engadget's Nicole Lee has her story on the Minnesota Amazon strike up. We spoke with her about the piece on Friday.
Some US TV stations have started broadcasting in ATSC 3.0 which among other things supports 4K broadcasts with HDR at up to 120 fps. It also collects information on viewing habits from net-connected TVs and can remotely turn on TVs for emergency broadcasts. Antennas will be able to receive it but it is not backwards-compatible with ATSC 1.0 tuners. Stations must continue to broadcast ATSC 1.0 for five years after they start broadcasting ATSC 3.0. Tuners for ATSC 3.0 are not yet available but are coming next year.

Discussion

Mailbag

In episode 3571, you talked about Amazon offering retraining for staff in programming and other fields.

Having worked in a Japanese software firm for 15 years, it came as a shock to me how few people we hired for software development had studied programming at the university level -- or anywhere for that matter -- before joining us. And we had some really good programmers, too. Everyone who is hired is trained to do the thing they are hired to do.

One advantage to this method is that we had around half male, half female programming staff. When it doesn't matter what you studied before, anyone can do any task, male or female, so numbers don't get skewed by what is popular to study. The guy who graduated in marketing is trained along side the gal who studied education.

The purpose of education is to learn how to learn. The company is going to train you in the task you need to do for them. And they will continue with the training up through the ranks of management. (My first two supervisors leading the development teams were the female seniors of the department.)

This was how everything worked back in the 1990s and early 2000s. LinkedIn and other Western influence may have changed that dynamic over the past decade.

But if the factory worker wants train to become a software developer, and has the work ethic and ability to learn, I don't see why training in a different field won't work. Most of our best programmers (and later managers) hadn't even used a computer before joining our company.
Sent by Michael in overcast and unseasonally cool Yokohama

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Links



Preceded by:
"A Prime Day To Strike" 		It's a Prime Day for Protests
 Followed by:
"The Drones Beneath My Wing"
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