It’s another Thursday, and it’s time for this week’s top news stories in the wonderful, wide world of technology with Mark Starling on First News 570. You can listen to Mark and I point, laugh, and pontificate about the goods technology delivers to the world every Thursday morning at 6:43 am, Eastern. You can to us LIVE online or using the iHeartRadio app.
Yesterday, Facebook and Samsung announced plans to donate more than 2,000 devices to the British National Health Service for us in Nightingale hospitals. Samsung will delivering Galaxy XCover 4S devices to the service since they are sturdier and can be used while wearing gloves. NHS had already planned to order 20,000 devices (at cost!) during the coronavirus pandemic. Facebook is donating 2,050 of its Portal video conferencing device to NHS hospitals. The Portals will be sent to hospitals and care homes in London, Essex, Manchester, Newcastle, and Surrey. In addition to the phones, Samsung has also pledged sanitation units and other hardware in England.
TESLA PREVIEWS VENTILATOR USING MODEL 3 TECHNOLOGY
Earlier this week, Tesla previewed a ventilator made using Model 3 technology in its lab. Tesla began working on a ventilator after New York Mayor, Bill de Blasio, asked the company to help mitigate the Nation’s ventilator shortage during this crisis. (New York is the hardest hit American city) Tesla was criticized for building a brand new ventilator from scratch instead of using a reference design. Tesla countered that it would take them less to build a ventilator from spec using parts and technology they’re familiar with. Again, Elon Musk, my generation’s Howard Hughes.
ZOOM HIRES NEW EXEC TO HELP BEEF UP SECURITY
Sometimes, being in the spotlight can be problematic. We reported on the wide phenomenon of Zoombombing on First News 570 because of security and privacy issues in the Zoom app. Yesterday, El Goog, had banned employees from installing Zoom on their corporate laptops. (My company has also blocked Zoom in its internal networks) In the span of 24 hours, Zoom has hired Alex Stamos, Facebook’s former security executive, to advise the company on ways it can make its application more secure. Stamos has written an article on Zoom security already, and appears ready to work. Zoom shares were once flying high, but had been down a third in the last 10 days. Shares were up by 3.8% yesterday afternoon after the announcement. Experts say that Zoom will need about 90 days to strengthen their security and test it before any updates hit production. I haven’t had any security issues with Zoom, although that doesn’t mean there aren’t any. I actually had a Zoom biz call yesterday.
