By BY SHERYL GAY STOLBERG from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/33yMdbc
Monday, 30 November 2020
Scott Atlas, a Trump Coronavirus Adviser, Resigns
By BY SHERYL GAY STOLBERG from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/33yMdbc
Cyber Monday scams? Fakespot says its tech can spot fraudulent reviews and sellers online
The pandemic has made it all but impossible for a retail company without an online presence to survive. While companies heavily dependent on foot traffic, like J.Crew and Sur la Table have filed for bankruptcy this year, companies that are expert in e-commerce have thrived, including Target and Walmart. Amazon has gained perhaps the most steam in 2020, attracting roughly one quarter of all dollars spent online by U.S. shoppers throughout the year.
Unfortunately, as more shopping moves online, fraud is exploding, too, and while many startups work with enterprises on the problem — flagging transactions for banks, for example — one New York-based startup, Fakespot, is using AI to notify online shoppers directly when the products they’re looking to buy are fake listings or when reviews they’re reading on marketplaces like Amazon or eBay are a fiction.
We talked earlier today with founder and Kuwaiti immigrant Saoud Khalifah about the four-year-old business, which got started in his own dorm room after his own frustrating experience in trying to buy nutritional supplements from Amazon. After he’d nabbed his master’s degree in software engineering, he launched the company in earnest.
As it happens, Fakespot was originally focused on helping enterprise customers identify counterfeit outfits and fake reviews. But when the pandemic struck, the company began focusing more squarely on consumers on platforms that are struggling to keep up and whose solutions are largely focused on protecting sellers from buyers and not the other way around.
The pivot seems to be working. Fakespot just closed on $4 million in Series A funding led by Bullpen Capital, which was joined by SRI Capital, Faith Capital and 500 Startups among others in a round that brings the company’s total funding to $7 million.
The company is gaining more attention from shoppers, too. Khalifah says that a Chrome browser extension introduced earlier this year has now been downloaded 300,000 times — and this on the heels of “millions of users” who have separately visited Fakespot’s site, typed in a URL of a product review, and through its “Fakespot analyzer,” been provided with free data to help inform their buying decisions.
Indeed, according to Khalifah, since Fakespot’s official founding it has amassed a database of more than 8 billion reviews — around 10 times as many as the popular travel site Tripadvisor — from which its AI has learned. He says the tech is sophisticated enough at this point to identify AI-generated text; as for the “lowest-hanging fruit,” he says it can easily spot when reviews or positive sentiments about a company are posted in an inorganic way, presumably published by click farms. (It also tracks fake upvotes.)
As for where shoppers can use the chrome extension, Fakespot currently scours all the largest marketplaces, including Amazon, eBay, Best Buy, Walmart, and Sephora. Soon, says Khalifah, users will also be able to use the technology to assess the quality of products being sold through Shopify, the software platform that is home to hundreds of thousands of online stores. (Last year, it surpassed eBay to become the No. 2 e-commerce destination in the U.S., according to Shopify.)
Right now, Fakespot is free to use, including because every review a consumer enters into its database helps train its AI further. Down the road, the company expects to make money by adding a suite of tools atop its free offering. It may also strike lead-generation deals with companies whose products and reviews it has already verified as real and truthful.
The question, of course, is how reliably the technology works in the meantime. While Khalifah understandably sings Fakespot’s praises, a visit to the Google Play store, for example, paints a mixed picture, with many enthusiastic reviews and some that are, well, less enthusiastic.
Khalifah readily concedes that Fakespot’s mobile apps need more attention. Indeed, these are where the company plans to spend time and resources following its new funding round. While Fakespot has been focused predominately on the desktop experience, Khalifah notes that more than half of online shopping is expected to be conducted over mobile phones by some time next year, a shift that isn’t lost on him, even while it hinges a bit on the pandemic being brought effectively to an end (and consumers finding themselves on the run again).
Still, he says that “ironically, a lot of [bad] reviews are from sellers who are angry that we’ve given them F grades. They’re often mad that we revealed that their product is filled with fake reviews.”
As for how Fakespot moves past these to improve its own rating, Khalifah suggests that the best strategy is actually pretty simple.
“We hope we’ll have many more satisfied users,” he says.
from TechCrunch
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Dr. Atlas, Trump’s coronavirus adviser, resigns.
By BY SHERYL GAY STOLBERG from NYT World https://ift.tt/3mkEYLv
Quotation of the Day: U.S. Faces a New Crisis: ‘An Extreme Level of Teacher Burnout’
By Unknown Author from NYT Today’s Paper https://ift.tt/36mmHb0
On Pandemic Schooling, de Blasio Is Actually Leading
By BY MICHELLE GOLDBERG from NYT Opinion https://ift.tt/36oH07N
Dr. Death Scott Atlas, Head Of COVID White House Death Cult, Resigns
Dr. Scott Atlas, a radiologist who was brought on 4 months ago to lead the White House COVID task force, largely because he parroted Trump's non-action game plan of simply allowing people to get sick and die from COVID, has resigned. In his resignation letter, he brags about how great the Trump administration did in handling the coronavirus. I guess 268,000 dead (so far) is considered great to Dr. Atlas.
Ironically, he stated that his "singular focus" was "to save lives and help Americans through this pandemic" and he added that he “always relied on the latest science and evidence, without any political consideration or influence.”
Resignation letter:
(Insert head slamming on desk gif here)
from Latest from Crooks and Liars
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Trump Lawyer Calls For Chris Krebs To 'Be Shot At Dawn' After 60 Minutes Interview
Appearing on Howie Carr's show on Newsmax TV, Trump lawyer Joe DiGenova called for the public execution of Chris Krebs for his interview on CBS News' 60 Minutes Sunday night after explaining in detail what the strategy is for disenfranchising millions of voters who elected Joe Biden.
The plan is pretty simple and utterly ridiculous. Republican governors will just declare the election process corrupt and either decline to send electors or else send a slate of electors for Donald Trump, regardless of the certified outcome of the actual election.
This led to a discussion of Sidney Powell's deluded legal efforts in Virginia.
"Mail-in balloting is inherently corrupt and this election proved it," DiGenova growled. "This was not a coincidence."
This is where I note once again for the record that vote-by-mail has been used routinely, and is usually reliably used by Republican voters. It is not new, and is definitely more reliable because paper ballots are utilized, creating an actual record of what happened.
But DiGenova was not at all finished. Nope, not at all.
"This was all planned, and you know anybody who thinks that this the election went well like that idiot Krebs...," he snarled as Carr interrupted to point out that Krebs was on 60 Minutes vouching for the security of the elect. "That guy is a Class A moron."
"He should be drawn and quartered." DiGenova said. "Taken out at dawn and shot."
from Latest from Crooks and Liars
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Justice Dept. asks judge to ‘immediately’ dismiss Flynn case, citing Trump’s pardon.
By BY CHARLIE SAVAGE from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/3q9unoW
Biden’s Inauguration: Expect Smaller Crowds and More Social Distancing
By BY MICHAEL D. SHEAR AND NICHOLAS FANDOS from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/36nWPeO
As Senate runoffs approach, Trump’s attacks on Georgia Republicans have worried some in his party.
By BY LISA LERER, RICHARD FAUSSET AND MAGGIE HABERMAN from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/3fPi9x6
As Trump Attacks Georgia Republicans, Party Worries About Senate Races
By BY LISA LERER, RICHARD FAUSSET AND MAGGIE HABERMAN from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/37r84ml
Citing Pardon, Justice Dept. Asks Judge to ‘Immediately’ Dismiss Flynn Case
By BY CHARLIE SAVAGE from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/3liIuVq
A Responsible Withdrawal From Afghanistan
By BY THE EDITORIAL BOARD from NYT Opinion https://ift.tt/39txG4t
Police Body Cameras Cited as ‘Powerful Tool’ Against Stop-and-Frisk Abuses
By BY ASHLEY SOUTHALL from NYT New York https://ift.tt/39t2sun
Arizona and Wisconsin Certify Biden’s Wins: ‘The System Is Strong’
By BY REID J. EPSTEIN from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/37koa0Q
How Will Biden Deal With Republican Sabotage?
By BY PAUL KRUGMAN from NYT Opinion https://ift.tt/3mvpVyQ
Black Teenager Is Fatally Shot in Argument Over Music, Police Say
By BY AZI PAYBARAH from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/37t22Se
Restrictions push the San Francisco 49ers to Arizona for December.
By BY KEN BELSON from NYT World https://ift.tt/2JqNz0O
Let This Festive Brandied Fruit Lift Your Holidays
By BY YEWANDE KOMOLAFE from NYT Food https://ift.tt/3mofRaM
Why School Districts Are Bringing Back Younger Children First
By BY ELIZA SHAPIRO AND KATE TAYLOR from NYT New York https://ift.tt/2Jqsx2a
Sunday, 29 November 2020
The Trump administration will add SMIC, China’s largest chipmaker, to its defense blacklist: report
SMIC, one of largest chip makers in the world, is among several companies that the Department of Defense plans to designate as being owned or controlled by the Chinese military, reports Reuters. Earlier this month, President Donald Trump signed an executive order, set to go into effect on January 11, that would bar U.S. investors from buying securities from companies on the defense blacklist.
In a statement to Reuters, SMIC said it continues “to engage constructively and openly with the U.S. government” and that it “has no relationship with the Chinese military and does not manufacture for military end-users or end-uses.”
The largest semiconductor maker in China, SMIC holds about 4% of the worldwide foundry market, estimates market research firm TrendForce. Its U.S. customers have included Qualcomm, Broadcom and Texas Instruments.
There are currently 31 companies on the defense blacklist. SMIC is one of four new companies that the Department of Defense plans to add, according to Reuters. The others are China Construction Technology, China International Engineering Consulting Corp and China National Offshore Oil Corp (CNOOC).
The company delisted from NYSE in May 2019, but it said that the decision was prompted by the limited trading volume and high administrative costs, not the U.S.-China trade war or the U.S. government’s blacklisting of Huawei and other Chinese tech companies.
SMIC has already been impacted by export restrictions that prevent them from purchasing key equipment from American suppliers. At the beginning of October, it told shareholders that export restrictions set by the U.S. Bureau of Industry and Security could have “material adverse effects” on its production.
The executive order, and the possible addition of new companies to the defense blacklist, is in-line with the Trump administration’s hard stance against Chinese tech companies, including Huawei, ZTE and ByteDance, that it claims are a potential national security threat through their alleged ties to the Chinese government and military. But the future of a lot of the current administration’s policies after the Joe Biden assumes the presidency on January 20 is uncertain.
TechCrunch has contacted SMIC for comment.
from TechCrunch
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California Governor Blocks Release of Manson Follower Leslie Van Houten
By BY NEIL VIGDOR from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/37ljuIc
Australia hopes a pilot program for international students can restart its crucial education sector.
By BY LIVIA ALBECK-RIPKA from NYT World https://ift.tt/3fMwaeO
‘Fargo’ Season 4 Finale Recap: Lessons Learned
By BY SCOTT TOBIAS from NYT Arts https://ift.tt/2HTf2rq
For a Day, the N.H.L. Arena Moved to the Mountains
By BY GERALD NARCISO from NYT Sports https://ift.tt/2JnEfLb
A New Outbreak Leaves a Broncos Rookie in an Awkward Position: Quarterback
By BY BEN SHPIGEL from NYT Sports https://ift.tt/39nF2qh
Biden Fractures Foot Playing With His Dog, Putting Him in a Boot
By BY ANNIE KARNI from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/3q9bfYe
The King of Trump TV Thinks You’re Dumb Enough to Buy It
By BY BEN SMITH from NYT Business https://ift.tt/2VhZDEc
What We Learned From Week 12 of the N.F.L. Season
By BY BENJAMIN HOFFMAN from NYT Sports https://ift.tt/39spilM
Ransomware Attack Closes Baltimore County Public Schools
By BY AZI PAYBARAH from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/3q6qBgd
Biden’s doctor says president-elect has hairline fracture after twisting his ankle playing with dog.
By BY ANNIE KARNI from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/33uTYyX
Biden team wants to tackle child care, elder care, preschool in one overarching plan.
By BY PAULA SPAN from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/3mpUdCU
Biden names all-female communications team with Jen Psaki as press secretary.
By BY ANNIE KARNI from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/3qcrTGs
Jennifer Psaki to Be Press Secretary as Biden Names All-Female Communications Team
By BY ANNIE KARNI from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/3fPLBmM
Republicans and Democrats Need to Work Together. Earmarks Can Help.
By BY THE EDITORIAL BOARD from NYT Opinion https://ift.tt/36l8BGM
What’s Going On in This Picture? | Nov. 30, 2020
By BY THE LEARNING NETWORK from NYT The Learning Network https://ift.tt/3fUpzPB
Saturday, 28 November 2020
Explain to me again how these fights are legit.
By BY KEVIN DRAPER from NYT Sports https://ift.tt/3lhqZot
Yeah, that Badou Jack fight was pretty lopsided (for a decision).
By BY MORGAN CAMPBELL from NYT Sports https://ift.tt/2HNwjlH
Learn a New Cookie Recipe or Make Invisible Ink
By BY KATHERINE CUSUMANO AND EMMA GRILLO from NYT At Home https://ift.tt/33qRv8E
That Mysterious Monolith in the Utah Desert? It’s Gone, Officials Say
By BY BRYAN PIETSCH from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/2Vhs7xy
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