Comment on China's Real Auto Powerhouse Is Based In Detroit

A Chinese city plans to turn its contact-tracing app into a permanent health tracker, deepening fears that surveillance tech introduced to fight COVID-19 will outlast the pandemic. Authorities in the eastern city of Hangzhou have proposed combining medical records, physical exam results, and data on lifestyle choices to create a healthcare score for citizens.

Nearly two months after its launch and several privacy-related concerns, India has finally open-sourced its coronavirus tracking app, Aarogya Setu. The makers of the app today released the source code of the Android version; the source code of the iOS version will be released in the coming weeks. The government also opened up a bug country program with rewards up to ₹100,000 ($1,325) for finding bugs in the app.

That’s right, Apple might be putting ambient light sensors into future pairs of its earbuds. The reason? So they can be used as part of a health monitoring system. This comes from a (paywalled) Digitimes report that states Apple is expected to “incorporate ambient light sensors (ALS) in next-generation ‌AirPods‌ devices in the coming [one to two] years.” Now, the report in question doesn’t specify exactly why Apple would put ambient light sensors in future AirPods, but the common consensus (and something suggested by this other Digitimes piece) is that it’ll have health or biometric tracking features.

Recently, I was reading Rolf Dobell’’s The Art of Thinking Clearly, which made me think about cognitive biases in a way I never had before. I realized how deeply seated some cognitive biases are. In fact, we often don’t even consciously realize when our thinking is being affected by one. For data scientists, these biases can really change the way we work with data and make our day-to-day decisions, and generally not for the better.

Xiaomi’s Redmi sub-brand is synonymous with affordable hardware — primarily smartphones. Today, Redmi launched its first audio product, the Redmi Earbuds S, at ₹1,799 ($23). While these truly wireless buds aren’t a carbon copy of the Airpods,they do have a few drawbacks (which should be expected at this price point).