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The European Medical Agency (EMA) has warned that information on COVID-19-related medicines and vaccines, which was stolen in a cyber attack last December and leaked online earlier this week, includes correspondence that’s been manipulated prior to publication “in a way which could undermine trust in vaccines”.

It’s not clear exactly how the information — which includes schematics of drug structures and correspondence relating to evaluation processes for COVID-19 vaccines — has been doctored.

We’ve reached out to the agency with questions.

One security researcher, Lukasz Olejnik, who has raised concerns about the leak via Twitter suggested the doctored data will be “perfect for sowing distrust” because the biotechnical language involved in the leaked correspondence will not be widely accessible.

Equally, it also seems possible that the high bar of expertise required to properly parse the data could limit how much damage the manipulated versions can do by limiting their viral appeal.

But it’s notable the EMA has raised concerns over the risk to trust in coronavirus vaccines.

“Two EU marketing authorisations for COVID-19 vaccines have been granted at the end of December/beginning of January following an independent scientific assessment,” the EMA writes in the latest update on the hack.

“Amid the high infection rate in the EU, there is an urgent public health need to make vaccines available to EU citizens as soon as possible. Despite this urgency, there has always been consensus across the EU not to compromise the high-quality standards and to base any recommendation on the strength of the scientific evidence on a vaccine’s safety, quality and efficacy, and nothing else.

“EMA is in constant dialogue with the EC, and other regulators across the network and internationally. Authorisations are granted when the evidence shows convincingly that the benefits of vaccination are greater than any risks of the vaccine. Full details of the scientific assessments are publicly available in the European Public Assessment Reports on EMA’s website,” it adds.

At the time of writing a criminal investigation into the cyber attack remains ongoing.

The attack has not been attributed to a specific hacking group or state actor and there’s no confirmation of who is responsible for trying to sew coronavirus-related disinformation by seeding doctored medical documents online.

However, last November Microsoft warned that hackers backed by Russia and North Korea had targeted pharmaceutical companies involved in the COVID-19 vaccine development efforts.

Back in June, the European Commission also raised concerns about the risks of coronavirus vaccine disinformation spreading in the coming months — simultaneously name-checking China and Russia as foreign entities it said it had confirmed as being behind state-backed disinformation campaigns targeting the region.

So suspicion seems likely to fall on the usual ‘hostile suspect’ states.

We’ve seen similar ‘doctored leak’ tactics attributed to Russia before — typically related to attempts to interfere with elections by smearing candidates for high political office.

Researchers have suggested that the hackers responsible for the 2015-16 breaches of the Democratic National Committee’s network snuck doctored data into the leaked emails — an attack that was subsequently attributed to Russia.

While, more recently, there was the infamous ‘Hunter Biden’ laptop incident — which supporters of president Trump sought to leverage against his challenger for the White House (now president-elect) in last year’s presidential race.

In that case, any disinformation punch fizzled out amid a raft of dubious claims around the finding and timing of the claimed data cache (along with much greater general awareness about the risk of digital fake smear tactics in political campaigns in the wake of revelations about the scale of Russia’s social media influence disops in the 2016 US presidential election).

In an earlier incident, from 2017, emails linked to the French president Emmanuel Macron’s election campaign also leaked online shortly before the vote — coinciding with a document dump on an Internet forum that suggested the presidential frontrunner had a secret bank account in the Cayman Islands. A claim Macron’s political movement said was fake.

While in 2019 Reddit also linked account activity involving the leak and amplification of sensitive UK-US trade talks on its platform during the UK election campaign to a suspected Russian political influence operation.

It’s not clear whether that leaked trade dossier had been doctored or not (it was heavily redacted). And it certainly did not deliver a landslide election win to Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party — which used the leaked data in its campaign. But a similar, earlier operation which was also attributed to Russia had involved the leak of fake documents on multiple online platforms. (That disinformation operation was identified and taken down by Facebook in May 2019.)

The emergence of leaks of doctored medical data linked to COVID-19 vaccines and treatments looks like a troubling evolution of hostile cyber disops which seek to weaponize false data to generate unhelpful outcomes for others — as there’s a direct risk to public health if trust in vaccine programs are undermined.

There have been state level hacks targeting medical data before too — albeit without the pandemic-related backdrop of an ongoing public health emergency.

Back in 2016, for example, the World Anti-Doping Agency confirmed that confidential medical data related to the Olympic drug tests of a number of athletes had been leaked by the Russia-linked cyber hacking group, ‘Fancy Bear’. In that case there were no reports of the data being doctored.

Source: https://techcrunch.com/2021/01/15/ema-warns-over-doctored-covid-19-vaccine-data-hacked-and-leaked-online/

Another Uber spinout is in the works.

Postmates X, the robotics division of the on-demand delivery startup that Uber acquired last year for $2.65 billion, is seeking investors in its bid to become a separate company, according to several people familiar with the plans.

The startup is being referred to as Serve Robotics, a nod to the yellow and black-emblazoned autonomous sidewalk delivery bot that was developed and piloted by Postmates X. The Serve robot, which recently partnered with Pink Dot Stores for deliveries in West Hollywood, will likely be the centerpiece of the new startup.

Uber declined to comment.

Under the deal, which is being shopped to investors, the company would be run by Ali Kashani, who heads up Postmates X and leads the Serve program. Anthony Armenta would lead the startup’s software efforts and Aaron Leiba would be in charge of hardware — keeping the same positions they hold at Postmates X.

Uber would retain an ownership stake in Serve Robotics and maintain a commercial agreement with the startup. Serve would get the IP and assets in exchange. Uber is in discussions to retain about a 25% stake in the new startup, according to one source familiar with the deal.

There is not a legal entity — as of yet — named Serve Robotics. However, a website domain serverobotics.com was registered January 6.

Uber’s path to profits

The spinoff would be in line with Uber’s streamlined business strategy that began to take shape after its public market debut in May 2019 and accelerated last year as the COVID-19 pandemic put pressure on the ride-hailing company. Two years ago, Uber had enterprises across the transportation landscape from ride-hailing and micromobility to logistics, public transit, food delivery and futuristic bets like autonomous vehicles and air taxis. CEO Dara Khosrowshahi has dismantled the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach as he pushes the company towards profitability.

In 2020, Uber offloaded shared scooter and bike unit Jump in a complex deal with Lime, sold a stake worth $500 million in its logistics spin off Uber Freight and rid itself of its autonomous vehicle unit Uber ATG and its air taxi play Uber Elevate.

Aurora acquired Uber ATG in a deal that had a similar structure to the Jump-Lime transaction. Aurora didn’t pay cash for Uber ATG. Instead, Uber handed over its equity in ATG and invested $400 million into Aurora, which gave it a 26% stake in the combined company,

In a similarly crafted deal, Uber Elevate was sold to Joby Aviation in December.

Delivery remained the one area that Uber has invested in. The company, seeing an opportunity as demand skyrocketed for its Uber Eats delivery service, started looking for an acquisition to strengthen its position. Uber tried and failed to buy Grubhub, losing out to European heavyweight Just Eat Takeaway.

Uber landed on Postmates and in July 2020 agreed to buy the delivery startup in an all-stock deal valued at $2.65 billion. The deal closed in December.

Serve, the friendly robot

Postmates’ exploration into sidewalk delivery bots began in earnest in 2017 after the company quietly acquired Kashani’s startup Lox Inc. As head of Postmates X, the company’s R&D arm, Kashani set out to answer the question: ‘why move two-pound burritos with two-ton cars?’

Postmates revealed its first Serve autonomous delivery bot in December 2018. A second-generation — with an identical design but different lidar sensors and few other upgrades — emerged in summer 2019 ahead of its planned commercial launch in Los Angeles.

Instead of working with a partner, Postmates used its own delivery data to form the foundation of how it would design and deploy a sidewalk bot, according to comments Kashani made during TC Sessions: Mobility 2020 event in October.

“When you look at the data and see that over half of deliveries are within a short distance it becomes a no brainer — these robots can actually complete them,” Kashani said at the time in reference to the application of autonomous delivery bots for delivery.

The Postmates X used historical delivery data from the company to develop a simulation, which was then used in the design of the Serve bot. It helped the team determine what battery life would be needed and the size of the cargo hold, among other features.

The bot only represented a sliver of Postmates’ delivery business. However, the company has seen an increase interest in the bot in Los Angeles and San Francisco — the two cities where it commercially operates — as COVID-19 fueled demand for contactless delivery.

Kashani noted back in October that the bots had completed thousands of deliveries in Los Angeles and was preparing to expand into the city’s West Hollywood enclave. That expansion launched late last year with a twist. The Serve robots were changed to a bright pink to match the signature color of the Pink Dot stores.

Source: https://techcrunch.com/2021/01/15/uber-planning-to-spin-out-postmates-delivery-robot-arm/

I suspect it will be a while before I get excited over wireless earbuds. It’s not for a lack of trying on the part of manufacturers. In fact, quite the contrary. The category actually matured quite quickly, compared to various other verticals in the consumer electronics space. The truth is, most major hardware makers have gotten pretty decent at making a pair of wireless buds — many for pretty cheap.

Samsung’s been in that category for a while now. I’ve liked the last several models I’ve tried from the company. The sound quality has been good, they’re generally pretty comfortable — a good experience, all around. In fact, one of the issues I’ve raised the last couple of times is the fact that Samsung didn’t offer its own equivalent to products like the AirPods Pro and Sony WF-1000XM3 (though that latter reference is starting to become a bit dated).

It’s a hole in the lineup now filled by the Galaxy Buds Pro, which slot in the high end, above the Galaxy Buds Live and Galaxy Buds+. The naming conventions could be streamlined a bit, but it’s a small complaint in the grand scheme. At $199, the Pros are $30 more than the Live and $50 more than the Pluses. More importantly, it puts them at $50 less than the AirPods Pro – their clearest analogue.

Image Credits: Brian Heater

And like Apple’s Pro buds, the Galaxy Buds are very specifically designed to operate with Samsung’s devices. You can still pair them with other Android handsets, but you’re going to lose key parts of the software integration. This honestly seems to be the way things are headed, with practically every smartphone company also manufacturing their own headphones. And certainly Samsung’s got enough market share that such a play makes sense.

If you do want to use them on another Android device, you can pair them by downloading the Galaxy Wearables app. You can pair them manually without the app, but you’ll lose a bunch more features in the process. Like past Galaxy Buds models, there’s no physical button on the case for pairing.

After several generations of devices, Samsung’s certainly got the foundation in place. And its purchase of Harman/AKG in 2017 has clearly played a key role in its ability to create some quality audio accessories. All of that comes into play here. Samsung’s made some solid choices on the design front. The charging case is remarkably compact. I was actually a bit surprised when I opened the package. It’s not nearly as long as the AirPods case, though it is a bit thicker. In any case, it’s certainly compact enough to carry around, unlike, say the Powerbeats Pro.

The battery claims are pretty impressive, given the size. The company rates the buds at five hours each and 28 hours with the case. Turn off active noise canceling and Bixby (I’ll let you guess which of those two I won’t miss) and the numbers bump up to eight and 20 hours, respectively. I will say that I was able to confidently bring the headphones with me on one of my lengthy morning sabbaticals without worrying about packing the case. That’s not something I can say about every wireless earbud.

Image Credits: Brian Heater

The headphones sport an 11-millimeter woofer and 6.5-millimeter tweeter. I found the sound to be an overall good mix, whether listening to music or a podcast. If you’re so included, you can also fiddle with the equalizer in the wearable app. It features six presets, rather than sliders, so it’s an imperfect science. But I didn’t really feel the need to mess around in there much.

The active noise canceling is solid, as well (okay, I admit it, Bixby is the one I’d drop in a heartbeat). I wasn’t really aware at how good a job it was doing drowning out street noise until I switched it off — this can be accomplished with a long press on the side touch panel or through the app. By default the former switches between ANC and transparent mode, skipping the off mode in the middle. Like the equalizer, you an adjust the level of ANC here — either high or low.

If you’re a Samsung true believer, Seamless Switch can be enabled, allowing you to, say, switch between a tablet and a phone when a call comes in. Other neat Samsung-specific features include the ability to use the buds as a kind of makeshift lavalier mic while recording video on the Galaxy S21. The SmartThings app can also be used to find misplaced buds. All in all, Samsung is clearly building up its ecosystem here.

Image Credits: Brian Heater

The design of the buds themselves has been streamlined since the extremely bean-like Buds Live. The company says they were designed to minimize contact with the ear, to help relieve pressure. It’s a shame that everyone isn’t able to try every earbud on before buying — how they fit in your own ears is obviously an extremely personal thing.

I found, however, that one of my ears tends to ache when wearing them for a prolonged period — not an issue I’ve had with either the AirPods Pro or Pixel Buds (the Powerbeats Pro are also great in this respect). I found myself fiddling with them semi-regularly and triggering the touch mechanism in the process (this can be turned off by default in the app).

Most of my issues with the Buds Pro are pretty minor. They’re a worthy update to the line and a great pair of headphones if you’re a Samsung user.

Source: https://techcrunch.com/2021/01/15/samsungs-galaxy-buds-pro-are-a-solid-airpods-alternative/

If you’ve been following the gaming space – or just the state of the world, generally – over the past 12 months, this shouldn’t come as a major surprise. Spending saw big increases pretty much across the board in 2020, as a homebound populace sought comfort and distraction in gaming. This comes in stark contrast to much of the rest of the consumer electronics space, in which economic uncertainty  curtailed purchasing on non-essentials.

According to the latest figures from NPD, spending on gaming hardware, software and accessories was up 25% in December and 27% for the full year. Hardware specifically increased 38% year-over-year for December to $1.35 billion, with the arrival of next gen consoles from Sony and Microsoft.

That’s the highest figure since the $1.37 billion hit in December 2013, the year the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 arrived. In spite of this year’s new arrivals (which were hampered by limited availability), Nintendo’s Switch once again dominated sales for the month, with the PS5 grabbing the number two spot. The Switch’s 2020 was the second highest annual performance for a console, after the Wii in 2008.

The Switch – which turns three this March – got off to a slow start, courtesy of its own limited availability. But the arrival of a new Animal Crossing title helped rocket it to the top, as isolated consumers looked for new venues for social gaming. That title took the number three spot for the year, finishing behind Call of Duty: Black Ops: Cold War and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (the former also topping the list for December).

Source: https://techcrunch.com/2021/01/15/video-game-spending-increased-27-in-2020/

The pandemic might have wiped out whole swaths of the economy, but one area that is pulsating with activity is home sales. Driven by remote work and changing commute patterns, home sales skyrocketed last year, with the National Association of Realtors predicting that the total volume when fully calculated will be the highest in 14 years.

That’s been great news for Better Mortgage (which generally brands itself as Better.com for presumably that SEO love). According to the company, it is now underwriting $3 billion per month in mortgage loans, and that’s led to huge VC interest, including most recently a $200 million round a few weeks ago led by L Catterton at a $4 billion valuation. The company has also hired more than 4,000 employees since the start of the pandemic last March.

One of those new hires is Diane Yu, who is joining the company as CTO to lead engineering and technical strategy. She has had extensive experience in advertising networks, having led engineering as CTO at Comcast for its Advanced Advertising Group. She came to Comcast via the cable and media conglomerate’s acquisition of her startup FreeWheel, which designed tools for ad management and optimization. Prior to that, she worked for nearly a decade in engineering leadership at DoubleClick.

Her addition to the C-suite follows the hiring of Kevin Ryan as CFO, who joined in October of last year. Ryan is a former long-time Morgan Stanley investment banker who led the IPO for Rocket Mortgage, one of the many neo-mortgage lenders that have risen up in recent years.

All of these hires are presumably preparation for an IPO, which has been rumored for the past few months and intensified after Ryan’s hiring. With home sales at a peak, underwriting growing rapidly, and a fleshed-out management team, Better hopes its turn to shine in the public markets has finally arrived.

Source: https://techcrunch.com/2021/01/15/diane-yu-joins-better-mortgage/