As reported by 9to5mac.com, Apple plans to soon announce a system for scanning photos stored in the smartphone's memory. The system is designed to detect images of child abuse (so they tell!). The solution is based on a fully closed black box like AI based hashing algorithm (aka “neuralMatch” system). At the start the neuralMatch system will be trained using a database from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and will be limited to iPhones in the United States. But both parts will change fast. System is planned to cover many categories of images and will be used worldwide in 2022 already.

Images will be scanned locally and without notifying or informing the owner of the smartphone, but also without transferring the full initial data to the cloud. During the scanning process, the system compares the photo on the phone with the data of the images of illegal content known to Apple. If there are coincidences with samples of incorrect images, according to the corporation, the system will presumably contact the administrators - low-paid residents of India or Bangladesh, who will carry out further work and decide how to act in your case. Among the actions, a complete instant phone lock is possible to prevent the possibility of deleting evidence.

The solution is based on hashing algorithms that are already used in the iCloud cloud storage when uploading photos. In general terms, the machine learning system that allows Apple Photos to recognize objects works in a similar way.

https://www.ft.com/content/14440f81-d405-452f-97e2-a81458f5411f

It is clear that Apple want to underplay the coming feature, constantly referring to hashing and such. In reality such algorithm will be constantly evolving and will report and send your private photos for constantly widening number of reasons.

For reference - all blocking and internet censorship in Mordor (and in all other countries) also started from child abuse and pedophiles. As it is universal thing that is very hard to complain about.

Also interesting

The update will be rolling out at a later date, along with several other child safety features, including new parental controls that can detect explicit photos in children's Messages.

It will be huge blow for 12-18 year olds who flirts and already have sex or petting, so they share such images with their partners. Now parents will be getting copy of each such thing. Creepy.

They fired 147 out of 500 people (making all the remaining work for this guys) based on some black box AI solution that analyzed all their activity, like number of chat messages and number of code lines submitted, number of emails they got. Yes, such primitive. Owner explained the mass layoffs by the fact that the company stopped showing 40% growth, and profits rose only around 50% (but wages did not change at all in 2020).

In parallel they cut 10% of the wage fund as all the rest are also clearly not efficient and owner still have only two yachts, one in EU and one in US, but last info is not certain.

OLED panels accounted for tiny 2.6% of the market in Q1 2021, according to consultancy TrendForce, thanks to a reduction in the price differential between OLED and LCD. At the same time, in the same period, the share of 8K LCD-panels fell to 0.2%, since they were not very profitable for manufacturers and at the same time the demand was several times lower than their expectations.

Chinese panel suppliers accounted for 58.3 percent of the market, up 5 percent from the first quarter of 2020, thanks in large part to an increase in the number of production lines, TrendForce reports. Taiwan suppliers, on the contrary, lost 2.2% - their share fell to 21.1%. The reason is the lack of growth of the corresponding industries and even a change in the profile of activities from the production of TV panels to the production of other IT products. Korean suppliers slashed shipments to 14.3% after Samsung Display closed its Korean factories L7-2 and L8-1-2 and sold its plant in China's Suzhou province to CSOT. Finally, the share of Japanese suppliers rose to 6.3%.

https://www.debugbear.com/blog/chrome-extension-performance-2021

China's crackdown on private enterprise has wiped out more than $1.2 trillion in market value for many powerful Chinese companies and stoked fears about the future of innovation in the world's second largest economy.

But the end goal of Beijing's aggressive bid for control isn't about creating chaos. The government wants to make clear to its corporate champions that tapping capitalist markets is fine — as long as it is on the ruling Chinese Communist Party's terms.

Chinese authorities slap companies with fines, ban apps from stores and demand that some firms completely overhaul their businesses.

The way Beijing sees it, the efforts to rein in private enterprise are meant to protect the economy and the country's citizens from instability. They're also intended to fix longstanding concerns around overwork, data privacy and inequality in education. "Ultimately, Beijing's crackdown on private business is about control," said Alex Capri, a research fellow at the Hinrich Foundation. "The main priority is about preventing behavior amongst private companies that could engender more independent and potentially non-conformist activities, which undermines Beijing's state-centric model."

The crackdown is "unprecedented in terms of its duration, intensity, scope, and the velocity of new policy announcements," analysts from Goldman Sachs wrote in a research report last week that called the strategy a "rebalancing of socialism and capital markets."

"Chinese authorities are prioritizing social welfare and wealth redistribution over capital markets in areas that are deemed social necessities and public goods," they added.

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/08/04/tech/china-crackdown-tech-education-mic-intl-hnk/index.html

The Galaxy S21 series has failed to replicate the success of any of its predecessors since the Galaxy S5. The Korean edition of Businesspost reports that the Galaxy S21 had sales of 13.6 million units in the first six months. Compared to sales of the S20, this figure is 20% lower. Compared to the S10, the drop is an impressive 47%.

The study, conducted by Prof. Eli Schwartz, founder of the Center for Travel Medicine and Tropical Disease at Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer, looked at some 89 eligible volunteers over the age of 18 who had tested positive for coronavirus, and were living in state-run Covid-19 hotels. After being divided into two groups, 50% received ivermectin, and 50% received a placebo. Each patient was given the drug for three days in a row, an hour before eating.

83% of participants were symptomatic at recruitment. 13.5% of patients had comorbidities of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, chronic respiratory disease, hypertension or cancer. The median age of the patients was 35, ranging from 20 to 71-years-old.

Treatment was discontinued on the third day, and patients were monitored every two days thereafter. By day six, 72% of those treated with ivermectin tested negative for the virus, vs. 50% of those who received the placebo.

Meanwhile, just 13% of ivermectin patients were able to infect others after six days compared to 50% of the placebo group - nearly four times as many.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.31.21258081v1

It seems like blocking and banning information is required to keep virus spreading level at required numbers.

As we know from other research - modern vaccines are designed such way that they do almost nothing with delta variant concerning its spreading. They only prevent lot of hard cases requiring hospitalization.