Here's A Letter Tech Companies Are Signing To Urge Trump To Protect Young Immigrants

In a letter circulated by the Silicon Valley lobbying group FWD.us, tech companies are voicing opposition to reports that President Trump will end an Obama-era program that allows young, undocumented immigrants to stay in the United States.

Frederic J. Brown / AFP / Getty Images

On Thursday, Fox News reported that Trump will end Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the program also known as DACA, as early as Friday. Enacted by the Obama administration in 2012, the policy grants young immigrants who meet certain criteria a temporary reprieve from deportation. The reports are unconfirmed as of now.

But the news elicited strong criticism from tech companies, which say immigrants are a crucial part of their workforce. Uber and Microsoft publicly condemned the reported changes on Thursday. Meanwhile, FWD.us is collecting signatures on a letter that protests the potential move.

The letter has not yet been released, but BuzzFeed News obtained a current version of it. FWD.us declined to comment.

Open Letter from Leaders of American Industry

Since the country’s birth, America has been the land of opportunity – welcoming newcomers and giving them the chance to build families, careers, and businesses. In turn, our nation has been strengthened and fueled by the energy, drive, and passion of immigrants. As entrepreneurs and business leaders, we are concerned about new developments in immigration policy that threaten the future of Dreamers, young undocumented immigrants brought to America as children.

The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which allows nearly 800,000 Dreamers the basic opportunity to work and study without the threat of deportation, is in jeopardy. All DACA recipients grew up in America, registered with our government, submitted to extensive background checks, and are diligently giving back to our communities and paying income taxes. More than 97 percent are in school or in the workforce, 5 percent started their own business, 65 percent have purchased a vehicle, and 16 percent have purchased their first home. At least 72 percent of the top 25 Fortune 500 companies count Dreamers among their employees.

Unless we act now to preserve the DACA program, all 780,000 hardworking young people will lose their ability to work legally in this country, and every one of them will be at immediate risk of deportation. Our economy would lose $460.3 billion from the national GDP and $24.6 billion in Social Security and Medicare tax contributions.

Dreamers are vital to the future of our companies and our economy. With them, we grow and create jobs. They are part of why we will continue to have a global competitive advantage.

We call on President Trump to preserve the DACA program. We call on Congress to pass the bipartisan DREAM Act.

It’s the right thing to do for America.

In response to a query from BuzzFeed News, Lyft confirmed that co-founders Logan Green and John Zimmer have signed it. BuzzFeed News has learned that Uber has also signed it. Sources told BuzzFeed News that Google intends to sign it as well. This post will be updated with more names as they become public.

In a public statement, Uber said it opposes ending DACA.

“Dreamers grew up here, live here, and are contributing to our communities and our economy," an Uber spokesperson said in a statement Thursday. "Their contributions make America more competitive and they deserve the opportunity to work, study, and pursue the American dream.”

So did Microsoft.

"DACA recipients bring a wide array of educational and professional backgrounds that enable them to contribute in crucial ways to our nation’s workforce," said president Brad Smith in a blog post. "They are part of our nation’s universities and work in every major industry. They are artists, advocates and health care providers. They help meet the needs of our communities and our companies.

CEO Satya Nadella followed up with a more personal note on LinkedIn. "As I shared at the White House in June, I am a product of two uniquely American attributes: the ingenuity of American technology reaching me where I was growing up, fueling my dreams, and the enlightened immigration policy that allowed me to pursue my dreams," he wrote.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates and follow BuzzFeed News on Twitter.

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Labor Board Files Complaint Against Tesla

Brendan Smialowski / AFP / Getty Images

In April, when Tesla employees interested in unionizing claimed the electric car company was illegally intimidating them, Tesla dismissed the allegations as "entirely without merit."

But the National Labor Relations Board disagrees. On Thursday, the Oakland regional office of the NLRB filed a complaint against Tesla, having found merit in the employee’s charges of coercion and interference.

In February, the United Automobile Workers union filed four separate charges with the National Labor Relations Board alleging Tesla had illegally surveilled and coerced factory workers attempting to distribute information about the union drive.

The NLRB complaint filed Thursday provides further detail about what happened in February. It notes that security guards asked the employees distributing leaflets to produce employee ID badges, and told them to leave the premises. The complaint also cites Tesla’s confidentiality agreement, which says workers are prohibited from communicating with the media, sharing photos of their work facility on social media, or forward work emails to a personal account, among other things. It also names at least three individual Tesla managers or supervisors who personally “interrogated” employees about union activities or “attempted to prohibit” employees from discussing union activities.

As such, wrote NLRB regional director Valerie Hardy-Mahoney, the agency determined that Tesla “has been interfering with, restraining and coercing employees in the exercise of their rights.”

The board’s complaint isn’t the last word on the case. It will next be reviewed by an administrative law judge at a hearing. It could also be settled.

For its part, Tesla continues to say the union’s allegations are baseless.

“For seven years, the UAW has used every tool in its playbook: misleading and outright false communications, unsolicited and unwelcomed visits to the homes of our employees, attempts to discredit Tesla publicly in the media, and now another tactic that has been used in every union campaign since the beginning of time — baseless ULP [unfair labor practices] filings that are meant only to generate headlines,” a Tesla spokesperson wrote via email. “These allegations, which have been filed by the same contingent of union organizers who have been so outspoken with media, are entirely without merit.” (The full statement is published in full below.)

The workers who initially brought the charges are part of a unionization effort that calls itself Fair Future at Tesla. A spokesperson from that group provided a statement from some of the workers.

“I joined others in filing the charges for myself, but I also did it for my coworkers — they need to know we have rights, and that we can speak up about what we are seeing and experiencing,” said Tesla production associate Jonathan Galescu in a statement. “I want to thank the NLRB for hearing us and the UAW for having our backs as we continue our fight to address the issues on the shop floor and form our union.”

The NLRB case against Tesla is directly linked to the UAW’s attempt to form a union at Tesla’s Fremont, CA factory, where workers have publicly alleged long hours, low pay, and dangerous working conditions, resulting in frequent 911 calls and countless long term injuries.

The confidentiality agreement is a particular bone of contention; Tesla has insisted that the agreement it asks workers to sign — which prohibits them from sharing photos of Tesla’s facility or talking about work on social media, among other things — is typical of any tech company. But back in February, California lawmakers warned Tesla in a letter that its confidentiality agreement was overreaching, and could have a “a chilling effect on workers' ability to engage in protected activity,"

In May, Tesla replaced its head of human resources, part of a larger department shakeup that followed the union effort, allegations of dangerous working conditions, and potential labor law violations that occurred in the course of Tesla’s union drive.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has pushed back against the allegations that the Fremont factory is unsafe, or that workers are paid less than those employed elsewhere in the auto industry; he’s also apologized to workers, reportedly spent time working next to them on the factory line, and offered to install free frozen yogurt machines throughout the plant.

But these are tough times at Tesla, with production of the latest car, the Model 3, ramping up to meet Musk’s stated goal of high production volume by September. In an earnings call earlier this month, Musk warned that the company would experience “at least six months of production hell."

Tesla’s hearing at the National Labor Relations Board is scheduled for November 14.

Here's Tesla's full statement on the NLRB's complaint against it:

“As we approach Labor Day weekend, there’s a certain irony in just how far the UAW has strayed from the original mission of the American labor movement, which once advocated so nobly for the rights of workers and is the reason we recognize this important holiday. Faced with declining membership, an overwhelming loss at a Nissan plant earlier this month, corruption charges that were recently leveled against union leaders who misused UAW funds, and failure to gain traction with our employees, it’s no surprise the union is feeling pressured to continue its publicity campaign against Tesla. For seven years, the UAW has used every tool in its playbook: misleading and outright false communications, unsolicited and unwelcomed visits to the homes of our employees, attempts to discredit Tesla publicly in the media, and now another tactic that has been used in every union campaign since the beginning of time – baseless ULP filings that are meant only to generate headlines. These allegations, which have been filed by the same contingent of union organizers who have been so outspoken with media, are entirely without merit. We will obviously be responding as part of the NLRB process.”

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After Harvey, Small Social Networks Prove Their Might

The North Houston Rescue Zello Channel

On Wednesday morning, with flood waters still rising in Houston, voices bubbled inside the relatively obscure walkie-talkie app Zello, coordinating a volunteer effort to get help to those in need.

“I have an 18-foot flat bottom aluminum boat, I need to know where to go this morning," one member of the app’s 500-plus person North Houston Rescue channel told the group.

”Is there any need for a couple of jet skis and four guys?” another asked. Almost instantly and with calm precision, group administrators directed them to areas that could use their help.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey — which has left thousands seeking shelter — small, locally oriented social networks like Zello are showing their strength as organizing tools. Though social networks are an imperfect substitute for rescue infrastructure, a listen into Zello, or a peek into Nextdoor (where neighbors are working to inform and help each other), or even a visit to Harvey-related Facebook groups shows why people are relying on these networks. They are focused, intensely local, and put critical information in front of the right audiences quickly with little distraction or noise.

“It’s not 911, but it’s pretty effective,” Zello CEO Bill Moore told BuzzFeed News. The app, used exactly like a Walkie Talkie, is filed with channels made up of dozens of members spread far apart, something the traditional devices cannot support.

Harvey related channels dominate Zello's Trending section

Houston volunteer organizations seem to think so too. Houston-area app opens on Zello are up 600% compared to last week, with an average session time of more than 22 minutes, Moore said. The app’s new user registration in the Houston area is up 20 times over last week.

Moore said Zello is effective because it helps people convey a sizable amount of information, along with emotion and level of urgency, quickly — so responses come fast. “It’s a higher burden but because of that it’s pretty effective and it creates a level of trust.”

Zello is working so well that some people are using Facebook to direct people to the download the app. “I am overwhelmed and can't coordinate the amount of volume of requests for rescues....here is a better way... Download the Zello App,” Tricia Bell Montalbano, a Houston resident helping with the relief effort, wrote on Facebook this Monday. “There are boats and rescuers responding thru this app to help people. Please share so people know how to get people on a rescue list!!”

Houston-area residents are also flocking to neighborhood-based social app Nextdoor, using it to share updates with their neighbors and offer help. On Sunday, Houston resident Joseph Graham tweeted a screenshot from a Nextdoor community where one resident’s home was filling up with water. “A rescue is desperately needed," the resident wrote. "Have been calling for help but can't get through." Within an hour, a fellow Nextdoor member got them on a boat and they were off to safety.

"That was one of several moments that made me tear up," Graham, who lives in Houston's Historic Heights neighborhood, told BuzzFeed News. "We live in a big city, so it’s not super neighborly. When you’re online and everyone’s in need, everybody drops that big city mentality. It’s a very Houston moment, everybody dropping everything to help each other."

Taylor Darnell, a resident of Houston’s East Downtown district, told BuzzFeed News that her Nextdoor community has featured running updates on flooded streets, volunteer requests, and places to give donations. She’s solicited donations inside Nextdoor herself, for a non-profit she runs that’s providing backpacks to students impacted by the storm. Darnell, an infrequent Nextdoor user before Harvey, said she regularly checks the app before other social platforms and the news. “Everyone that you’re connecting with is in a radius where the same thing that’s happening to you is most likely happening to them,” she said. “It helps a lot.”

Nextdoor has been proactive too. The company partnered with the National Weather Service months ago to distribute weather alerts. Before Harvey hit, he NWS used Nextdoor to notify Houston-area residents of the incoming storm, sending them information to prepare for it and take action when it arrived.

Requests for updates inside Taylor Darnell's Nexdoor community

Taylor Darnell

Member activity in the affected areas is five times greater than normal, Nextdoor told BuzzFeed News, and its membership in those areas is up 650%. Close to 100 local agencies are using Nextdoor to connect with residents in the affected areas, the company said.

Though Facebook is a major social platform of more than 2 billion members, its groups form individual mini-social networks of their own, operating outside the usual broadcast-style method of sharing content on the platform. And these groups have been active too, used to coordinate everything from animal rescue to boat dispatch.

Though small social networks have proven indispensable to some, they also come with risks. The hype around their utility can cause people to view them as a savior, even though they don't employ the tried and true methods of a system like 911.

There is also a risk of vigilantism. In Zello’s North Houston Rescue channel, for instance, the discussion Wednesday turned to looters after one member of the group suggested shooting them on sight. "Where are the looters located? We do have weapons on board,” one group member volunteered. Eventually, a trickle of group members insisted looters be left alone. And the topic was dropped.

“Oh, it’s used for bad, yes. Cartels, gangs, ISIS and others. Like any communications tool, it’s used for good and evil both,” Zello’s Moore said. “It’s a net positive but it’s not without risk. It doesn’t replace law.”

Lam Thuy Vo and Blake Montgomery contributed reporting to this story.

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10 best in class - top tacticool gear for back to school

We’ve got the ultimate back to school gear guide curating the very best with a tactical twist.

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Meet BB-9E: BB8's evil cousin in the next 'Star Wars' movie

In the upcoming "Star Wars: The Last Jedi," a new robot named BB-9E will be part of the show.

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Apple's iPhone 8 Event Set for Sept. 12

Apple will host its iPhone 8 event on Sept. 12, CNBC reported. The company sent invites out to the press with a note: "Let's meet at our place. Please join us for the first-ever event at the Steve Jobs...

Photo Credit: AP

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Apple sends out invites for its iPhone event, sets Sept. 12 date

Apple has sent out invites for its upcoming product event, where it is expected to show off three new iPhones.

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'Pokemon Go' gets three new Legendary Pokemon: Raikou, Entei, and Suicune

Just as Articuno, Zapdos, Moltres and Lugia cycle out of Pokemon Go this week, three new Legendary Pokemon will take their place.

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Heading back to school? Brazzers has some free porn for you

The porn site wants to help 'ease your load' this semester.

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Virtual reality dating is here, and it's terrible

Most people dread being stuck in a coffee shop with a bad first date — let alone outer space.

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Death threat against mosquito gets guy's Twitter account permanently frozen

A Japanese man recently found his Twitter account permanently frozen after tweeting a violent message alongside a picture of a corpse: "Bastard!

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Instagram hack reveals celebrities' contact details

A bug in Instagram's software let cyber-attackers have access to celebrities personal information, including email addresses and phone numbers.

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Scientists detect strange repeating radio burst on the other side of the cosmos

Fast radio bursts, or FRBs, have baffled scientists for the past decade. Until recently, we've only seen a FRB repeat once, and now we've observed another. But what does this latest discovery mean?

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Exposed: Massive spambot exposes 711 million email addresses

'For a sense of scale, that's almost one address for every single man, woman and child in all of Europe,' according to security researcher Troy Hunt.

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Apple could be the world's first trillion-dollar company

Apple is rolling out its new iPhone next month — and it could make the tech giant the world’s first trillion-dollar company.

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Google critic reportedly ousted from think tank funded by company

Barry Lynn, a scholar who wrote a critical assessment about Google on a think tank’s website, reportedly said the piece cost himself and his team their jobs due to pressure from the tech giant.

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Planetarium's digital step a drawcard for tourism

Wollongong is already home to New South Wales' largest planetarium, but by the end of this year it will have the most advanced digital projection system in the country.

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Stuart Creal Science Centre

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Here's What Apple CEO Tim Cook Had To Say About Hurricane Harvey

Drew Angerer / Getty Images

Apple CEO TIm Cook addressed the effects of Hurricane Harvey in an email to employees on Wednesday afternoon and said that the company had helped raise more than $3 million for relief efforts.

"Because Texas is home to more than 8,700 of our coworkers, the storm’s impact is felt by all of us," he wrote in a message obtained by BuzzFeed News, adding that the iPhone maker has a global crisis management team on the ground that is helping to move some employees and their families.

Cook noted that he was in Austin last week, a day before Harvey hit the Texas shore, and asked the employees donate food and supplies at Apple's Austin campus. Apple also allowed customers to donate to the American Red Cross through its App Store, with the company matching employee donations two-for-one. So far Apple users have raised more than $1 million dollars, while the company has pledged $2 million.

Another technology leader, Facebook, took a different approach in soliciting donations from users for Hurricane Harvey, routing donations made through the social networking platform to the Center for Disaster Philanthropy, a lesser-known organization that BuzzFeed News examined on Tuesday. Facebook had previously partnered with the American Red Cross for disaster fundraising efforts.

Cook said he hoped that some of Apple's Houston area stores would be back in operation on Thursday.

"Though our stores in the Houston area are still closed today, we’re working hard to get as many as possible open tomorrow to serve people who have been impacted by the storm," he wrote. "Our teams are eager to help with problems large and small, and they know there are lots of people in that area who need it."

Here is Cook's email in its entirety:

Team,

As you know, Hurricane Harvey is having a devastating impact on Texas and Louisiana. Our thoughts are with our employees in the storm zone and the millions of people whose lives have been disrupted by rain, wind and floods. I want to update you on some of the things Apple has been doing to help, and ways that you can get involved.

On the ground, Apple’s global crisis management team is working to support our employees directly affected by the flooding in Texas. The team is in close contact with Apple employees in the Houston area, and they’re actively doing everything they can to assist, including moving some employees and their families to safety. Apple employees in the Houston area have generously been helping people displaced by the flooding by opening their homes to team members and their families, and in some cases, assisting in rescue operations. We’re also proud that the US Coast Guard is using Apple products in those efforts, with nearly two dozen USCG helicopters specially equipped with iPads to help coordinate search and rescue teams.

As Harvey was making landfall, we put in motion critical donation programs. Apple is making it easy for customers to donate directly to the American Red Cross through the App Store, iTunes and apple.com, and we’re matching employee donations two-for-one. Thanks to your generosity and that of our users, Apple has helped raise more than $1 million in just the past few days. That’s in addition to the $2 million Apple pledged to the Red Cross over the weekend.

Though our stores in the Houston area are still closed today, we’re working hard to get as many as possible open tomorrow to serve people who have been impacted by the storm. Our teams are eager to help with problems large and small, and they know there are lots of people in that area who need it.

I was in Austin the day before Harvey came ashore, and the team was already bracing for the storm and the long recovery. Today that work continues. At our Austin campuses, we are kicking off a donation drive in partnership with the Central Texas Food Bank and Caffè Macs to collect food, diapers and personal hygiene items — all things that are critical in the aftermath of a storm of this magnitude.

Because Texas is home to more than 8,700 of our coworkers, the storm’s impact is felt by all of us. There’s still much to do, and Apple is committed to help.

Tim

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Investor Lawsuit Against Former Uber CEO Sent To Arbitration

Adnan Abidi / Reuters

A Delaware judge on Wednesday told former Uber Technologies chief executive Travis Kalanick and one of the company’s largest investors to hash out their differences behind closed doors, sending a lawsuit against the tech billionaire to arbitration.

Earlier this month, Benchmark — a storied venture capital outfit that has invested in the likes of eBay, Twitter and Snapchat — filed its suit against Kalanick, accusing him of fraud and alleging that he had attempted to interfere with Uber’s search for a new CEO. After Kalanick and Benchmark spent the last few weeks sniping at each other in court filings and elected new CEO Dara Khosrowshahi on Monday, lawyers for both sides appeared in Delaware to argue in front of Judge Samuel Glasscock in the state’s Court of Chancery.

The judge’s decision is a victory for Kalanick, who may now be able to keep the case out of the public eye and avoid depositions. It’s been a horrendous year for the Uber cofounder and former CEO, who was forced to resign in June after employee complaints, press reports and two internal investigations revealed sexual harassment, discrimination and executive misbehavior at the ride-hailing giant.

"Mr. Kalanick is pleased that the court has ruled in his favor today and remains confident that he will prevail in the arbitration process,” a Kalanick spokesperson said in a statement. “Benchmark's false allegations are wholly without merit and have unnecessarily harmed Uber and its shareholders."

An Uber spokesperson declined to comment. A spokesperson for Benchmark did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Kalanick still remains on Uber’s board, which also includes Benchmark partner Matt Cohler. The former CEO also currently controls two other unoccupied board seats, which were granted to him in a 2016 decision that Benchmark is disputing in the suit.

In its lawsuit, Benchmark alleged that Kalanick had withheld crucial information about the business from investors while he was CEO and argued that he should be stripped of the board seats granted to him. Benchmark, citing press reports, also claimed that Kalanick was interfering with the company’s CEO selection process in hopes of working his way back into the top job at Uber, which was recently valued by investors at $69 billion. Benchmark’s lawyers had asked the judge to temporarily restrict Kalanick from any business matters, while they proceeded with their lawsuit, which ultimately sought to completely remove Kalanick from the board.

Judge Glascock declined Benchmark’s request and ordered both sides to engage a third-party mediator to sort out their differences. The judge also did not grant Benchmark’s request to freeze Kalanick from current business affairs, though an arbiter could still decide on the issue.

While some Uber executives and investors have distanced themselves from Benchmark’s dispute with Kalanick, others dove head first into the fray. Shervin Pishevar, an early Uber investor and a personal friend of Kalanick’s, wrote several letters to Uber’s board, offered to partially buy out Benchmark’s Uber stake and attempted to intervene in the lawsuit itself when his initial overtures were ignored. On Wednesday morning, Pishevar released a verbose and vociferous statement regarding Benchmark’s lawsuit against Kalanick, which Forbes said he initially penned to inspire Kalanick’s legal team last week.

“Let just cause give pause to those who would ever dream of ever emulating the shameful shenanigans of these sanctimonious hypocrites who fling filings and letters de haut en bas: when it is we who have the higher moral ground and or letters and filings will rain down upon their platforms, exposing them as bitterly barren barons of moral turpitude,” Pishevar wrote.

Meanwhile, at an all-hands meeting held on Wednesday morning, Kalanick and other board members put on a united front to introduce Uber employees to Khosrowshahi for the first time. Kalanick took the stage to a standing ovation and reportedly teared up in his first meeting with employees since he resigned in June.

Khosrowshahi was interviewed by Uber board member Arianna Huffington; the two discussed how to change Uber’s notoriously aggressive work culture, his plans to find a chairman to lead Uber’s divisive board, the possibility of an IPO in the next three years and the leaks that have resulted from clashes between the company’s leaders.

Huffington also asked Khosrowshahi about the possibility that Expedia CFO Mark Okerstrom will follow Khosrowshahi to Uber, which Khosrowshahi reminded her on stage wasn’t public information yet. A spokesperson for Expedia told BuzzFeed News that the company has ”no indication he is leaving Expedia.” Khosrowshahi said his replacement at Expedia could be announced as soon as today.

According to Uber’s communications team’s Twitter account, Khosrowshahi’s first words to Uber’s staff were a blend of praise for Kalanick and promises of better management to come.

"This company has to change,” he said. “What got us here is not what’s going to get us to the next level."

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13 Hard Words We Learned From This Uber Investor's Letter

Shervin Pishevar

Patricia De Melo Moreira / AFP / Getty Images

Shervin Pishevar is a technology investor who was an early backer of Uber. He also writes letters. Lately, he has been spilling ink on one topic in particular: an ongoing legal battle between the Uber cofounder Travis Kalanick and the venture capital firm Benchmark for control of the ride-hail behemoth.

Pishevar's latest missive, released on Wednesday, surpasses all his others in style and diction. There's a rich tradition of investors firing off pointed dispatches, though most practitioners of the form work for Wall Street hedge funds. Pishevar, with Benchmark as his subject, manages to infuse the genre not only with venom but also with some particularly obstreperous difficult hard words and phrases.

Here's Pishevar:

@EricNewcomer / Twitter / Via Twitter: @EricNewcomer

Let's take a look at what we've learned. All definitions are from Merriam-Webster online.

1. "We find ourselves swimming in the crucible of one of the grandest business and moral battles of our generation..."

Crucible:

2: a severe test

3: a place or situation in which concentrated forces interact to cause or influence change or development

2. "...and find strength in each stroke of our proverbial digital pens, that we wrote with the indelible, eternal and permanent ink of righteousness."

Indelible:

1 a: that cannot be removed, washed away, or erased; b: making marks that cannot easily be removed

2 a: lasting; b: unforgettable, memorable

3. "We write with the souls of thousands of lives saved, the lives of millions of jobs created liberating multitudes of drivers from the shackles of servitude to iniquitous taxi cartels..."

Iniquitous, or characterized by iniquity:

1: gross injustice

2: a wicked act or thing

4. "...of corrupt cabals that choked cities with their pollution of air and morals."

Cabal:

1: the contrived schemes of a group of persons secretly united in a plot (as to overturn a government); also: a group engaged in such schemes

5. "Their allegiance was met by this unholy alliance of perfidious..."

Perfidious, or characterized by perfidy:

1: the quality or state of being faithless or disloyal

6. "...greed devolving rapidly into the audacity of vituperative..."

Vituperative:

uttering or given to censure : containing or characterized by verbal abuse

7. "...unparalleled predatory rapacity."

Rapacity, or the quality of being rapacious:

1: excessively grasping or covetous

2: living on prey

8. "Let us strike tomorrow with the full and fulsome courage of our convictions."

Fulsome:

1 a: characterized by abundance; b: generous in amount, extent, or spirit; c: being full and well developed

2: aesthetically, morally, or generally offensive

3: exceeding the bounds of good taste

4: excessively complimentary or flattering

9. "Let our just cause give pause to those who would ever dream of ever emulating the shameful shenanigans of these sanctimonious hypocrites..."

Sanctimonious:

1: hypocritically pious or devout

10. "...who fling filings and letters de haut en bas."

De haut en bas (French):

: of superiority : of or with condescension

11. "It is we who have the higher moral ground and our letters and filing will hail down upon their platforms, exposing them as bitterly barren barons..."

Barren:

1: not reproducing: such as a: incapable of producing offspring — used especially of females or matings; b: not yet or not recently pregnant; c: of plants: habitually failing to fruit barren apple trees

2: not productive: such as a: producing little or no vegetation; b: producing inferior crops; c: unproductive of results or gain

12. "...of moral turpitude."

Turpitude:

inherent baseness : depravity

13. "And as the summer sets, we let us be steward of truth who in unison proclaim: fiat justitia ruat caelum."

Fiat justitia ruat caelum (Latin):

let justice be done, though the heavens fall

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Samsung gets sweaty with Gear Fit2 Pro and Sport watches, IconX wireless earbuds

Samsung's Gear Sport is a cross between a smartwatch and fitness tracker, but it's not the only wearable the company is introducing. It's releasing alongside the new Gear Fit2 Pro and Gear IconX wireless earbuds.

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Brain-like neural networks study space-time distortions at breakneck speed

Researchers have used brain-like "neural networks" to analyze key distortions in space-time 10 million times faster than conventional methods can do so.

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This Futuristic Doctor’s Office Is Rolling Across The United States

Jay Watson / Forward

The Google and Uber veterans behind Forward, a new San Francisco health care startup, want to bring their vision for reinventing the doctor’s office to the wider public — so they’re putting it on four wheels.

In January, Forward opened its first concierge clinic in downtown San Francisco. It’s complete with slick tools like iPads to check in patients, biometric-reading body scanners, blood and genetic tests, and giant interactive screens that display your vital signs during visits. Being a Forward member — a $149-a-month commitment that isn’t covered by insurance — also gets you body-monitoring wearables and constant access to doctors and nurses via email and text.

Although Forward’s leaders won’t disclose how many patients have enrolled, they say they’re encouraged by the response and now plan to open up offices in other cities. And to drum up anticipation in those places, Forward has built a pop-up office: an 11-foot-tall, 18-foot-long, nearly 9-foot-wide mobile trailer.

The trailer will first be on display Wednesday in San Francisco, and will be there for the rest of August and early September before it motors to other cities that the company will reveal on Twitter. “We want to tell the story to more people and help catalyze the conversation around ‘What is health care now? What could health care be?’” cofounder Ilya Abyzov told BuzzFeed News.

Visitors to Forward’s mobile trailer will be able to meet a handful of staff members on-board, and try out the body scanner and interactive screen. Some other services — like the blood and genetic tests — won’t be available, though. If they like what they see, they can sign up for a discounted price of $99 a month. Abyzov says the company won’t hang on to any health data from non-customers.

Abyzov was an early Uber employee who was part of launching UberX. Founder and CEO Adrian Aoun previously sold a startup to Google and founded Sidewalk Labs, Alphabet’s experimental urban-design division. Other founders include Erik Frey, who previously oversaw various artificial-intelligence projects at Google, and Rob Sebastian, who led product strategy for several Google projects. Overall, Forward has 80 employees, including six doctors.

Forward has raised $100 million, a person familiar with the situation told BuzzFeed News. A company spokesperson declined to comment.

Jay Watson / Forward

Forward isn’t comprehensive: It doesn’t cover services like hospitalizations, surgeries, or specialist care. Instead, the company says it focuses on encouraging people to proactively take care of their health, before problems and conditions develop. It bears noting that the people most likely to use Forward are tech-savvy and affluent like its founders, a relatively select group compared to the US population as a whole.

“A lot of what we’re trying to do with Forward is build a health care system that’s something you’re excited about, you’re engaged in, and gets better outcomes,” Abyzov said. “It’s part of that bigger story of why can’t health care be something that’s compelling, that’s beautiful, that’s super well-designed, designed to the same standard that Warby Parker designed their store against?”

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Facebook is matching donations to Hurricane Harvey recovery

Donating to Hurricane Harvey recovery is now as simple as a few clicks inside Facebook -- and your dollar goes twice as far now that the social media company has pledged to match the donations, up to $1 million.

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Amazon Alexa and Microsoft Cortana team up to take on Google

The voice assistant business is about to get even more interesting, as Amazon and Microsoft announced a partnership that will see Alexa and Cortana playing nice with each other.

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Mayweather vs McGregor: 2.9 million viewers watched fight on pirated streams, says security firm

The much-hyped fight between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Conor McGregor reached more than 2.9 million viewers via pirated streams, according to data from digital security expert Irdeto.

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Web's oldest neo-Nazi site taken offline

Following in the footsteps of fellow white supremacist site DailyStormer, Stormfront has been shut down by its domain provider, TechCrunch reports.

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Artificial intelligence is writing the next 'Game of Thrones' book

Winter is kind of here.“Game of Thrones” fans have grown so impatient for George R.R. Martin to finish the next “A Song of Ice And Fire” book – the series that the HBO show is based on – that an artificial intelligence system just wrote the beginning of the sixth book.

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Netflix hack day creates clever audiobook mode

Integrating audio descriptions with original audio tracks works surprisingly well and removes the need for a TV.

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Uber says it is cooperating with DOJ in bribery probe

Uber’s controversial year continues as a preliminary investigation by the Justice Department has been launched against the ride-sharing app for possible violations of bribery laws.

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Social Media Saved Harvey Victims In Texas — But That's Not Really A Plan

Houston residents being evacuated Tuesday by volunteers from San Antonio.

Mark Ralston / AFP / Getty Images

Tuesday afternoon, with floodwaters rising in Houston and residents still stranded in their homes, hundreds of people turned to the walkie-talkie app Zello, which posts short voice messages in an ever growing feed, to coordinate help.

One Zello group, Houston Harvey, posted hundreds of messages an hour. Among boat owners offering their services and drivers curious for a safe route out of town, much of the chatter focused on Heidi, a mother with an unspecified illness and two autistic sons, one of whom used a wheelchair.

“She’s on the emergency evacuation list several times over,” said a woman with the username mswrt. “We’re trying to get somebody out to her as fast we can.”

“What is the location for that mom with the autistic kids?” asked a man who used the handle yert68. “We have a low-water boat able to get to her, and we’re in the Baytown area right now.”

A third user, sarah1118, gave the address. “She is in an apartment complex that is slowly rising. And she is alone with her two sons and she needs a boat that can accommodate her son’s wheelchair.”

But Zello’s limitations were quickly apparent. It didn't offer a way to respond directly to other users if they hadn't been added as a contact. New messages, posted in real time, overwhelmed older ones. Some gave advice that only might be helpful. Others were just dead air. A quiet man who offered no other information simply asked “How can I help?” No one responded to him. Clearly, no one was in charge.

“The Coast Guard is in that area,” said a user identified as CW2009. “I’m not sure if they’re rescuing them.”

Eventually, according to a woman who said she was Heidi’s sister, the Coast Guard came for Heidi, but they didn’t rescue her. Misty, who said she was in touch with the Coast Guard, said it was because they couldn’t take the wheelchair, and Heidi wouldn’t, or maybe couldn’t, take her son out of it.

“It’s ridiculous. You have two kids and an adult that needs medication. No food, needs supplies, and they left her there behind,” the sister said.

Another user weighed in: did the Coast Guard help?

The response: “They’ve already left the area.”

------

That Texans have turned to social media in the wake of a historic flood shouldn't be surprising. As of Monday, according to the Federal Communications Commission, 16 of the area's 911 call centers were having problems dealing with the deluge of calls they were receiving. That sent people needing help to Twitter, Facebook and Zello to summon help.

But while that's potentially valuable, it is an imperfect way for governments to help disaster victims, Michael Lindell, a professor emeritus at Texas A&M University and the former director of its Hazard Reduction & Recovery Center, told BuzzFeed News.

For one, he said, “You’re not going to wind up with 100% of the local population reading the local emergency management’s Facebook pages."

For another, social media, with its thousands of users, offers little consistency in standards and practices, making dependence on it risky. Apps such as Zello, better known as a protest organizing tool in countries such as Turkey, Russia and Venezuela, aren't well known in Texas, and the app itself is a major drain on a smartphone battery.

In disaster areas, the internet can be as unreliable as any utility. Nearly 200,000 people have lost internet in their homes due to Harvey, according to the FCC, and internet service on cell phones has been hampered, with 364 cell phone towers in 27 counties in Texas and Louisiana suffering at least partial service outages.

Global Blocks, an activist group that grew out of censorship in Turkey and monitors internet outages around the world, noted that some areas, like Corpus Christi, suffered severe internet outages when the storm hit.

Others, like the city of Victoria, southwest of Houston, have suffered sustained trouble getting online. Dyn Research, an Oracle property that studies connectivity, found correlations between power outages — widespread in Harvey’s wake — and loss of internet connection.

That hasn’t stopped Texas authorities from trying to use social media to coordinate a hodgepodge attempt to connect aid workers and those in need of help. But even as they used it, they recognized its limitations.

At one point, Ed Gonzalez, the sheriff in Harris County, which includes Houston, requested that citizens in need of rescue stop tweeting him and call 911 instead, even though he admitted that it was at times impossible to get through.

Still, he used social media himself. On Sunday, he tweeted that a pregnant woman on Angelo Street was going into labor and needed help, and tagged the Houston Fire Department. Later, he tweeted that she’d gotten an ambulance.

But Twitter wasn’t a great system: another woman tweeted to him, adding a screengrab of a Facebook comment that another pregnant woman needed help. Gonzalez tweeted her address, tagging the Houston Fire Department and City of Houston Office of Emergency Management. But it wasn’t clear if they saw the tweet and were able to help, and he didn’t mention her again.

Conflicting and inadequate communications echo 2005’s Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, which killed 1,833 people, displaced 600,000, and cost an estimated $130 billion. A congressional report on Hurricane Katrina found that inoperable or damaged communications systems drastically exacerbated problems caused by Katrina.

New Orleans police didn’t have functional communications for three days, and for a period, first responders were restricted to using only two radio channels on a backup system.

Louisiana state police found that damaged towers for its radio system, used by 70 agencies and 10,000 users and last updated in 1996, “severely hampered the ability of emergency responders operating on the state system to communicate with other emergency services personnel.”

That, of course, was before the creation of Twitter in 2006 or the introduction of the iPhone in 2007. The Houston flooding from Harvey makes clear both developments have changed the way disaster communications can work.

At the Digital Operations Center of the Red Cross in Dallas, Texas, volunteers monitored social media distress calls using an in-house software that pulled data from Facebook, Twitter and other web sites using search terms like “hurricane” or “storm.”

The in-house tool clustered the social media data it pulled in various ways — word clouds, heat maps, most tweeted posts and most popular images and videos — and allowed Red Cross workers to monitor the needs of people affected by disasters like Harvey closely.

“Social media is extremely important to the Red Cross because it allows us to connect to more people," said Krysta Smith, a digital communications specialist. "It's a live feed that lets us know immediately what we’re facing, what residents are facing, and what actions need to be taken.”

But it has its limitations. The geolocation function can be inaccurate, for one.

Still, it shows the ways first responders could make better use of the last decade's advance in personal communications – if public officials and taxpayers are willing to commit to making it happen.

“Society has priorities,” Lindell said. “Could you develop evacuation plans for everybody in Houston? Of course. But the question is how likely is that to happen? How much are you willing to pay now for the capacity for something that might not happen for another 150, 250 years?”

Alex Kantrowitz contributed.

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Facebook Ditched The Red Cross For Hurricane Harvey Relief

Facebook

Facebook is steering donations for Hurricane Harvey relief to a tiny, little-known charity called the Center for Disaster Philanthropy — and bypassing the Red Cross, its longtime partner in the midst of disasters.

During Typhoon Haiyan in 2013 and the Ebola outbreak of 2015, a button on Facebook News Feeds prompted users to send money to the Red Cross. And as floodwaters have inundated Houston, Donald Trump and Barack Obama have both publicly donated to the Red Cross, as have dozens of major corporations.

Now, Facebook is routing its millions of users, and $1 million of its own money, to the Center for Disaster Philanthropy, which in 2015 had just $3 million in revenue. A message on Facebook feeds with a donate button said, "Show your support. Facebook has matched $1 million in donations to the Center for Disaster Philanthropy."

Bob Ottenhoff, the CDP’s president and former CEO of GuideStar, a clearinghouse for information on nonprofits, said the group works to change how donors think about giving during disasters, focusing on long-term recovery. “People are motivated right now, because they’re watching television and reading newspapers,” said Ottenhoff. “But we find there’s a dramatic reduction in contributions almost immediately once the media attention is over. In a case like this, with what we see happening in Houston, it’s going to be a very long recovery.”

Facebook’s shift is a potential sign of the growing discontent with the Red Cross and other rapid-response groups’ activities in the wake of natural disasters — as well as attempts by Silicon Valley to rethink how people give money to charity, steering donations to causes tech magnates think will be the most effective.

The Red Cross has faced intense scrutiny and criticism for its work in previous disasters. During Hurricane Harvey, people have encouraged others on social media to donate to groups other than the Red Cross.

Facebook’s unusual Harvey partnership sent so many users to the CDP that the organization’s website quickly crashed. The CDP’s Facebook page was inundated with comments from people who had never heard of it, demanding to know where their money was going and even worrying that the call for donations was a “scam.”

“I donated $50 and instantly freaked out,” commented one user, Jenna Workman Travers. “I called my bank and they think it’s okay, because it hasn’t come up yet as a scam. But, I cancelled the donation because it suddenly seemed shady.”

The CDP had reached Facebook’s $1 million matching goal in less than four hours, said Ottenhoff — by far its biggest fundraising push.

“We believe the Center for Disaster Philanthropy is well positioned to help meet the recovery needs of communities in Texas,” a Facebook spokeswoman said. “CDP knows from past disasters, especially through their experiences with hurricanes and floods, that full recovery will take many years.”

Facebook still partners with the Red Cross, the spokeswoman said, by allowing the group to raise money through its own page.

Scott Olson / Getty Images

Silicon Valley has been at the forefront of rethinking how philanthropy works — with an eye, tech barons say, toward maximizing well-being with each dollar spent.

Tech figures have been major funders of GiveDirectly, a nonprofit that makes direct, unconditional cash grants to individuals living in poverty. Facebook cofounder Dustin Moskovitz’s wife, Cari Tuna, is the president of the Open Philanthropy Project, which does extensive research to identify “high-impact” charity projects. GiveWell, a charity evaluation service connected with the Open Philanthropy Project, cautions potential donors to “support an organization that will help or get out of the way.”

The investigative journalism outlet ProPublica exposed a series of catastrophic failures at the Red Cross, including a “secret disaster” of mismanagement in the wake of superstorm Sandy and Hurricane Isaac and a massive influx of donations squandered in the wake of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. One particularly blistering headline from a 2015 story: “The Red Cross Raised Half a Billion Dollars for Haiti and Built Six Homes.”

Last year was the Red Cross’s worst fundraising year since 2000, ProPublica reported. In a statement, the Red Cross said it still had an “established and ongoing” relationship with Facebook, which allowed it to raise money through a disaster fundraisers platform.

Unlike the Red Cross, which provides on-site aid, the Center for Disaster Philanthropy does not itself provide any services. Instead, it collects money and uses an advisory committee to disburse funds to smaller groups, many of them local — filling in gaps left by government organizations and large national charities.

“To have Facebook say ‘this is where we think our money should go and we welcome others to join us’ is a major tipping point in learning about recovery,” Debra Jacobs, the chief executive officer of the Patterson Foundation, told BuzzFeed News. The Sarasota-based charity announced Tuesday that it was donating $250,000 to the CDP’s Hurricane Harvey fund; it had also given money to the group in the wake of other disasters.

Facebook

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These Are The People Scraping Twitter And Crowdsourcing Rescue Requests From Harvey Victims

Scott Olson / Getty Images

Jessica Decker woke up Friday morning at her San Francisco home, having the day off from work, and began reading the news about the hurricane set to make landfall in Texas that night.

Decker, who has a background in science visualization, saw several tweets regarding relief efforts including where shelters will be located and information about food drives.

She put a call out on Twitter, tagging people she has worked with previously, asking if they’d want to map resource information. She was involved in involved in open-mapping projects in the past and wanted to see how it could help with what promised to be — and became — a historic, devastating, and deadly storm.

Danny McGlashing, a coder, responded and the two paired up to create a map of resources. They called their project Harvey Relief.

Since Friday, Harvey Relief teamed up with another group — Harvey Rescue — that was searching and mapping rescue requests on Twitter from people who were stranded. Harvey Rescue organized online by a group of people who had previously formed a private Twitter DM.

The groups have received the technical support of a mobile data collection app and have hundreds of volunteers working around the clock, scraping Twitter to log and map the information Houstonians are disseminating online.

“This community of complete strangers has come together and we are literally saving lives,” @RogueEPAstaff, who helped create Harvey Rescue, told BuzzFeed News.

The group doesn’t have a scientific methodology when it comes to collecting the data and mapping it out. The volunteers collect the SOS tweets and vet them “as much as we can” by calling and texting the phone numbers provided, Brooke Binkowski, who serves as the group's spokesperson, told BuzzFeed News.

“We’re allowing for a certain margin of error,” Binkowski said, adding that she knows there will be duplicate entries in the data and that some might be submitted from pranksters — a small price to pay if it means rescue teams will reach people in need, she said.

The group is working to fix the duplicate entries, but could not provide a timeline for when they expect that to be completed.

Harvey Rescue is comprised of about 25 people and was formed in November 2016 after the US presidential election. On Twitter, the users — who met by tweeting with the hashtag #AltGov — created a private DM group where they talk about everything from politics to their families and send each other funny memes.

They’re located all across the country and many have never met in person — or even know each other’s real names. They refer to each other by their Twitter handles and call each other friends.

“It’s obvious what we’re about,” Twitter user @altnoods told BuzzFeed News when asked about the group's politics. “But this action has nothing to do with that. We’re 100% country over party.”

“We have a lot of people who were in government when Katrina happened,” @altnoods added. “We didn’t want that to happen again."

On Sunday morning, one user suggested they collect and map out the tweets o with people asking for immediate help.

“We were having a conversation as Harvey started coming in and initially wanted to make sure some of our people in Texas were safe,” @RogueEPAstaff told BuzzFeed News. “The conversation turned to how the 911 system was not able to keep up with the volume of calls.”

At the time, local law enforcement agencies were urging people to not use social media to report their whereabouts and instead call 911.

Several people reported on Twitter and in several news outlets that their 911 calls were not going through and that they waited on the phone for a long time.

"People need to be rescued, they're desperate, of course they're going to connect on social media," @RogueEPAstaff told BuzzFeed News.

Twitter: @HarveyRescue

As the need for help grew, Harvey Rescue started to bring in more people including their family and friends who had data and mapping experience, Binkowski, who is also the the managing editor for Snopes.com, said.

Binkowski said she estimates there are about 200 volunteers involved.

“Everybody is working around the clock,” @RogueEPAstaff said, adding that the work was overwhelming. “I’ve done emergency responses at the federal level, and they say, if it feels like you’re drinking from a firehose, you’re doing it right.”

By Sunday evening, Harvey Rescue and Harvey Relief joined forces. While they’re providing similar services, they’re still operating as two distinct groups.

“We paired up with [Harvey Rescue] on Sunday and we have just volunteers mapping and updating both of these lists day and night,” Decker said.

web.fulcrumapp.com

Decker also reached out to Fulcrum, a data collection app, and requested to use the company’s Community initiative — free and open data-collecting crowdsourcing project specifically created for natural disasters such as earthquakes, tornadoes, and hurricanes.

Fulcrum CEO Anthony Quartararo told BuzzFeed News that through this tool, people on the ground in disaster areas are able to collect data that’s relevant to their humanitarian work.

Quartararo said that Fulcrum Community — which launched earlier this year — approved Decker’s request and anybody with access to Fulcrum’s website or mobile app is able to view the map created by Decker and her team.

About 1,000 entries have been put into Fulcrum related to Harvey rescue and relief efforts, Quartararo told BuzzFeed News.

Volunteers from Harvey Rescue and Harvey Relief told BuzzFeed News their work has identified a service that’s needed and was missing.

@RogueEPAstaff told BuzzFeed News that she hopes relief organizations such as FEMA and Red Cross “can take up this work and make it to something that’s usable long term.”

“I genuinely thought I’d log on and help out for a few hours on Friday,” Decker said. “I had the day off, so I was going to donate some time. All of a sudden you realize, ‘nobody is on this,” so we just had to do it.”

If you've been impacted by the storm in Texas or have a tip about rescue, relief, government, or aid efforts, call the BuzzFeed News tipline at (646) 589-8598. You can also find us on Signal, email, and SecureDrop here.

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