Call to diversify COVID app effort
Researchers say it’s time to look beyond the COVIDSafe contact tracing app in harnessing phones to help fight coronavirus.
Hello and welcome to The Download, The Australian’s technology blog for the latest tech news.
1.00pm: Trump targets WeChat
President Donald Trump has signed a second executive order imposing restrictions on transactions between individuals in the US and Tencent Holdings, which operates the Chinese social media app WeChat.
This is additional to an earlier executive order where he imposed a 45-day limit on any financial dealings by US firms to buy TikTok. After that time, TikTok effectively would be banned in the US if it remained a Chinese company.
Though lower-profile in the US, WeChat is a do-everything app that is deeply integrated into the lives of more than one billion people in China, as well as in the Chinese diaspora. In addition to messaging, it also processes transactions and other functions. WeChat has 19 million daily active users in the US, according to app data tracker Apptopia, compared with the 100 million users that TikTok says it has in the country. A Tencent spokesman declined to comment.
The executive order comes hours after the Senate unanimously passed a bill prohibiting federal employees from using TikTok on government-issued devices as US national-security concerns mount.
The Wall Street Journal
Chris Griffith 11.55am: Time to diversity COVID app offering
Researchers say it’s time to look beyond the COVIDSafe contact tracing app in harnessing phones to help fight coronavirus.
Researchers from Monash and La Trobe universities have reviewed 29 phone-based offerings for keeping track of coronavirus infections. They looked at applications developed by governments, healthcare organisations and universities from 19 countries to identify best practice in COVID-19 apps. The paper is published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research Nursing.
La Trobe cyberpharmacist and researcher Kevin Yap says newer apps go beyond notifying users if they have crossed paths with an infected person.
“We have seen the emergence of symptom monitoring apps that collect information about a user’s health, and information apps that provide details about the coronavirus, good hygiene practices and guidelines to follow. Some countries developed quarantine apps, using mobile phone signals and GPS to ensure that quarantine measures were being followed,” he says.
Dr Yap says a multi-pronged approach is needed. “The best practice mHealth app for COVID-19 should feature contact tracing, symptom monitoring and information provision about the pandemic,” he says. “ The information provided should be from credible sources, preserves privacy and open-sourced. It may also incorporate wearable tech or artificial intelligence.
“We have identified these elements as features of the ideal COVID-19 app, but technology like this will only be effective if it is government-led and accepted by the community.”
Danielle Couch from the Monash School of Rural Health says many apps have pushed the limits of user privacy, while receiving limited uptake.
Researchers found that Australia is not the only country facing problems with its contact tracing app. In Japan, only 7.7 million of its 126 million people have downloaded its ‘Cocoa’ app. Earlier, it had a software bug that stopped users from registering a positive test result.
Italy’s Immuni app has been downloaded about 4.2 million times; its population is about 60 million. France’s app has been downloaded just 2.3 million times.
It’s still early days. Apple and Google’s ENS (expose a notification system) software appears to be doing well in Ireland and Germany, and it’s only now starting to roll out in the US. We’ll soon see from multiple locations how successful it is.
There are other avenues worth exploring, and some are relatively simple. We reported earlier that Woolworths is trialling the use of QR codes at some stores in Melbourne. People enter the store, scan a QR code with their phone, and provide their name and number.
An easier system would be for Woolworths customers to give consent to have their name and phone number recorded when they use their Woolworths rewards card at checkout. Customers could be given an incentive, for example 3000 Woollies points, for agreeing to this.
We’ve seen this week in New South Wales at least three cases of Woolworths supermarkets being listed as hot spots, due to someone there having coronavirus. Using such a system, it would be relatively easy to alert – even by email – customers who were in the store at those times and suggest they get a test. That could easily work better than gleaning the same information through the COVIDSafe app.
This idea could be generalised. We have suggested that a universal app could be built (maybe by government) that lets you scan your phone over a reader at a restaurant and bar, to register your name and phone number as a visitor. Maybe it could be incorporated in the shop’s payments device. This would radically aid the work of manual contact tracers faced with COVID-19 outbreaks at a venue.
The government app could be expanded to send you a notification if there is a hotspot in your area. You could opt to receive SMS’s warning you of new hot spots in your city, and imploring you to get tested if you have been near them at a specified time. In emergencies, network wide broadcast messages could be sent that urge people to avoid areas or to inform them to wear masks. They could be received in a language of choice.
If you wanted to go further, we could have an app that stores your location data on your device privately for a few weeks. The app could receive updates as to where breakouts have occurred, perform a location match by accessing your data, and warn you to get a test. You’d be storing less location data than people willingly give to Google Maps every day for their commercial advertising goals.
We (and the world) have adopted a Bluetooth-matching system for phone contact tracing which is a huge ask technically to get right. It’s possibly the most difficult approach technically we could have chosen involving phones. With common-old SMS, we’d not be spending so many weeks wondering if it can work. Remember the KISS principle.
Chris Griffith 11.00am: CSIRO launches accredited face mask testing
Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO, has launched the country’s first accredited surgical face mask testing facility in Melbourne.
It says the new facility can provide a rapid turnaround on surgical face mask testing, helping manufacturers fast-track the supply of masks for frontline healthcare workers.
CSIRO in a statement says the new facility is a boost for Australian companies, who won’t have to send masks and materials overseas for testing, saving money and time.
CSIRO chief executive Larry Marshall says the initiative is yet another way science is tackling the COVID-19 pandemic. “It’s inspiring to see Australian science enabling Australian businesses to supply life-saving surgical face masks to protect our frontline health care workers,” Dr Marshall says.
Chris Griffith 10.30am: Sony announces new generation premium headphones
Sony’s 1000X family headphones have been among the best in the market, along with Bose, Beats, B&O, Jabra, Sennheiser and others.
So when the next generation of this headphones comes out, it’s something. The new WH-1000XM4 offers much of what its third generation predecessor did: noise cancelling, audio settings for different environments, an ability to fine tune the sound and, of course, excellent quality.
Sony says generation four offers improved noise cancelling, additional features for personalising and controlling music, and automatic adjustments of ambient sound. There’s hands free calling and a better fit with a lighter design. There’s also speak-to-chat which automatically pauses the music when you speak. There’s no need to press buttons to change to speaking.
The headphones detect when they are being worn and adapts playback to help save battery power. They are now available in Australia for $549.95.
9:00am: Facebook bans pro-Trump committee from advertising
Facebook is temporarily banning a Republican political action committee, the Committee to Defend the President, from advertising after it repeatedly shared content that was deemed false by the social media company’s external fact-checkers, it said on Thursday.
“As a result of the Committee to Defend the President’s repeated sharing of content determined by third-party fact-checkers to be false, they will not be permitted to advertise for a period of time on our platform,” Facebook spokesman Andy Stone said in a statement.
The company declined to specify the length of the advertising ban or which of the committee’s posts prompted it.
Politicians’ ads and posts are not subject to Facebook fact-checking, a policy that has drawn heat from lawmakers, but content from political groups like PACs can be fact-checked.
The group’s Facebook page, which has almost one million “likes,” has had four “false” or “partly false” fact-checking labels attached to content since the start of July.
The group was founded as the Stop Hillary PAC in 2013 and has spent more than $15 million to advance the agenda of US President Donald Trump, according to its website. It claims to reach millions of Americans via digital and telemarketing channels.
It did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Trump campaign likewise did not immediately respond.
Reuters, which is one of Facebook’s fact-checking partners, determined last month that one of the group’s advertisements took a quote from Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden out of context, misleadingly claiming he made racist comments in 1985. The Biden campaign last year wrote to Facebook asking the company to reject an ad by the PAC that it said was false, according to a CNN report.
The Biden campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Reuters
Chris Griffith 8.45am: Quibi announces a free version for Australia
Troubled short form movie platform Quibi is offering a free ad-supported version in Australia in New Zealand to test the waters of alternative consumer offerings.
Quibi is different to regular movie platforms such as Netflix and Stan. News, movies and television shows are sliced and diced into no more than 10-minute segments on a phone — like a rump steak chopped into mince so you can eat it with a spoon.
When we reported on Quibi in January, we said it had already been backed by millions of dollars on advertising, had many of the movie houses in Hollywood aboard, a host of big-name celebrities and a plan to produce $US1bn ($1.38bn) in content in up to 7000 episodes.
There are big names behind Quibi. Its founder is film producer Jeffrey Katzenberg, former chairman of Walt Disney Studios and former DreamWorks chief executive. His CV includes producing Disney classics such as The Little Mermaid, Aladdin and The Lion King.
Quibi’s chief is Meg Whitman, former president and chief executive of eBay and Hewlett-Packard. She was strategic planning vice-president at the Walt Disney Company in the late 1980s and has been on the board of DreamWorks. In 2010, Forbes listed her net worth as $US1.3bn.
The vision of Quibi is that you could open your phone and watch a short movie episode, or catch up on the news while waiting on a rail platform, or in the bus, or during a 10-minute break at work.
Quibi sought to create movies that show different frames depending on whether you’re watching in portrait or landscape. For example, if someone is looking at a text message with their phone in portrait orientation, you might get to read the contents if you switch your phone to landscape. Quibi was very much wedded to phones, and consuming media on the go.
Unfortunately the pandemic has dealt a cruel blow to Quibi. People are no longer out and about needing a quick-fix of media to fill those interludes waiting for buses. They are at home with full access to their regular streaming movie platforms whenever they want. They of avoiding public transport.
Quibi does offer a free trial like many services do, but its ad supported free version goes further. Obviously Katzenberg and Whitman understand the environment has changed and will do everything they can to make Quibi successful in this pandemic environment. You can pay $7 per month to go ad free.
Chris Griffith 8:00am: Facebook slides in under Microsoft
Microsoft may believe it has almost stitched a deal with TikTok and the US government to buy the embattled Chinese short-video social media platform. Companies have 45 days to make a deal with TikTok stick, under an executive order by President Donald Trump.
However the Seattle-headquartered company will have to watch its back with Facebook now formally announcing Instagram Reels as a competitor in the US. Facebook plans to slide into base underneath Microsoft and snatch a fair bit of TikTok’s audience for free, minus the relatively small amounts it is paying some TikTok celebrities to defect.
“Reels invites you to create fun videos to share with your friends or anyone on Instagram,” says Facebook in a post. “Record and edit 15-second multi-clip videos with audio, effects and new creative tools. You can share reels with your followers in Feed and if you have a public account you can make them available to the wider Instagram community through a new space in Explore.
“Reels in Explore offers anyone the chance to become a creator on Instagram and reach new audiences on a global stage.”
Reels looks mostly a carbon copy of what TikTok offers, however the added lure of accessing the Instagram audience with a wider variety of content might see lots of TikTokers put their energies into creating newer forms of content on Instagram. Many already have Instagram accounts.
In addition, many TikTokers are already moving to other platforms, such as Triller.
Microsoft also faces other issues. The Republican-majority US Senate has now voted to ban Federal US employees from using TikTok on government-issue devices, despite knowledge of a possible Microsoft purchase in the wings. A number of other US government and private bodies have also banned its use.
Another question is whether it is feasible for Microsoft to operate TikTok only in the US, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, and leave current parent Chinese based ByteDance to run it in the rest of the world. The problem remains that, if TikTok is split into two, either users will miss out on much of its global content, or alternatively, there is the risk of data of users in one sector of TikTok leaking to the other, which doesn’t alleviate the original security concerns. There has been a suggestion that Microsoft may buy the whole caboodle.
Commentators are still puzzled by Microsoft’s move, given that in recent years it has been drifting away from the consumer market, instead building an incredibly successful business in cloud under CEO Satya Nadella. Few of its other offerings will appeal to fun-loving, gyrating teenage TikTokers. If Microsoft heavily pitches Office 365, Microsoft Teams and the cloud to them, they’d probably yawn. Nor would their content suit LinkedIn.
Microsoft, too, hasn’t the best reputation when it comes to building audiences out of acquisitions. When it purchased Skype, the service was the doyen of consumer video calling and ‘Skype’ was a household word. Under Microsoft, Skype has lost much of this high profile, and while still widely used, when it came to the pandemic, the verb was now ‘Zoom’.
We will see where this goes.
Atlassian founders add $4bn to their personal fortunes
The personal fortunes of two of the nation’s richest businessmen rocketed by a massive $4bn on paper Friday when investors responded to their tech company beating revenue expectations.
How DeepSeek has exposed the short lifespan of monopolies
The top investors will tell you that monopolies are the best investments money can buy but as the emergence of China’s DeepSeek shows, assumptions about sectors can be short lived.