NewsBytes Briefing: Google extends work from home and more
A lot has happened in the world of technology since last evening. Google's boss Sundar Pichai officially announced that the company is giving its employees an option to work from home until July next year. The decision came in light of the deteriorating COVID-19 crisis and is applicable to all Google employees who are not needed in office. Here are other major updates.
Twitter contractors spied on celebrities, including Beyoncé
A shocking report from Bloomberg revealed that Twitter's contractors used the company's internal tools to spy on celebrities, including Beyoncé, a few years ago. Apparently, they made a game out of the tools (without being checked), which were meant for resetting accounts and dealing with content violations, and created fake help-desk inquiries to look into celebrities' accounts, their personal data, and approximate location.
Garmin confirmed attack, services now coming back online
As Twitter drew flak for letting contractors exploit its tools, Garmin confirmed that it was targeted by a cyberattack that led to its days-long outage. The company claims that there is no indication of data theft and that only online services were affected — which are now in the process of getting back to normal. Garmin Connect cloud-sync is already live.
Intel's chief engineering officer leaves
Days after announcing a delay in 7nm chips, Intel has reshuffled its hardware executives. The company has announced that Dr. Venkata Murthy Renduchintala, who had been heading the design, manufacturing of Intel chips with other hardware efforts, will be leaving the company for an unspecified reason on August 3. The group Renduchintala led is being split, with chipset efforts going under Dr. Ann Kelleher.
Other important developments to note
Among other things, Qualcomm debuted its Quick Charge 5 technology with a promise to charge devices to 50 percent in just 5 minutes, which is 70% faster than Quick Charge 4. Meanwhile, Microsoft said that hydrogen fuel cells powered its datacenters for 48 hours, the Indian government launched Mausam weather forecast app, and Mark Zuckerberg faced the accusation of lying to Congress in 2018.
Finally, some COVID-19 updates
India on Monday reported 47,704 cases of COVID-19, taking the total tally close to 15 lakh, and 654 new deaths. Separately, a high-ranking Israeli R&D team arrived in Delhi to test 4 different rapid testing technologies for COVID-19. Prime Minister Modi also said that the testing for the disease will be scaled up to 10 lakh per day in the coming weeks.
