Day: April 26, 2021

Apple is following through on its pledge to crack down on Facebook and other snoopy apps that secretly shadow people on their iPhones in order to target more advertising at users. The new privacy feature, dubbed “App Tracking Transparency,” rolled out Monday as part of an update to the operating system powering the iPhone and iPad. The anti-tracking shield included in iOS 14.5 arrives after a seven-month delay during which Apple and Facebook attacked each other’s business models and motives for decisions that affect billions of people around the world.  “What this feud demonstrates more than anything is that Facebook and Apple have tremendous gatekeeping powers over the market,” said Elizabeth Renieris, founding director of the Technology Ethics Lab at the University of Notre Dame. But Apple says it is just looking out for the best interests of the more than 1 billion people using iPhones. “Now is a good time to bring this out, both because of the increasing amount of data they have on their devices, and their sensitivity (about the privacy risks) is increasing, too,” Erik Neuenschwander, Apple’s chief privacy engineer, told The Associated Press in an interview.  Once the software update is installed — something most iPhone users do — even existing apps already on the device will be required to ask and receive consent to track online activities. That’s a shift Facebook fiercely resisted, most prominently in a series of full-page newspaper ads blasting Apple.  Until now, Facebook and other apps have been able to automatically conduct their surveillance on iPhones unless users took the time and trouble to go into their settings to prevent it — a process that few people bother to navigate.  “This is an important step toward consumers getting the transparency and the controls they have clearly been looking for,” said Daniel Barber, CEO of DataGrail, a firm that helps companies manage personal privacy. In its attacks on Apple’s anti-tracking controls, Facebook blasted the move as an abuse of power designed to force more apps to charge for their services instead of relying on ads. Apple takes a 15% to 30% cut on most payments processed through an iPhone app. Online tracking has long helped Facebook and thousands of other apps accumulate information about their user’s interests and habits so they can show customized ads. Although Facebook executives initially acknowledged Apple’s changes would probably reduce its revenue by billions of dollars annually, the social networking company has framed most of its public criticism as a defense of small businesses that rely on online ads to stay alive. Apple, in turn, has pilloried Facebook and other apps for prying so deeply into people’s lives that it has created a societal crisis. FILE – Apple CEO Tim Cook speaks during the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in San Jose, Calif., June 4, 2018.In a speech given a few weeks after the January 6 attacks on the U.S. Capitol, Apple CEO Tim Cook pointed out how personal information collected through tracking by Facebook and other social media can sometimes push people toward more misinformation and hate speech as part of the efforts to show more ads.  “What are the consequences of not just tolerating but rewarding content that undermines public trust in life-saving vaccinations?” Cook asked. “What are the consequences of seeing thousands of users join extremist groups and then perpetuating an algorithm that recommends more?”  It’s part of Apple’s attempt to use the privacy issue to its competitive advantage, Barber said, a tactic he now expects more major brands to embrace if the new anti-tracking controls prove popular among most consumers.  In a change of tone, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently suggested that Apple’s new privacy controls could help his company in the long run. His rationale: The inability to automatically track iPhone users may prod more companies to sell their products directly on Facebook and affiliated services such as Instagram if they can’t collect enough personal information to effectively target ads within their own apps.  FILE – Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg appears on a screen as he speaks remotely during a hearing before the Senate Commerce Committee on Capitol Hill, Oct. 28, 2020.”It’s possible that we may even be in a stronger position if Apple’s changes encourage more businesses to conduct more commerce on our platforms by making it harder for them to use their data in order to find the customers that would want to use their products outside of our platforms,” Zuckerberg said last month during a discussion held on the audio chat app Clubhouse.  In the same interview, Zuckerberg also asserted most people realize that advertising is a “time-tested model” that enables them to get more services for free or at extremely low prices. “People get for the most part that if they are going to see ads, they want them to be relevant ads,” Zuckerberg said. He didn’t say whether he believes most iPhone users will consent to tracking in exchange for ads tailored to their interests. Google also depends on personal information to fuel a digital ad network even bigger than Facebook’s, but it has said it would be able to adjust to the iPhone’s new privacy controls. Unlike Facebook, Google has close business ties with Apple. Google pays Apple an estimated $9 billion to $12 billion annually to be the preferred search engine on iPhone and iPad. That arrangement is currently one element of an antitrust case filed last year by the U.S. Justice Department. Facebook is also defending itself against a federal antitrust lawsuit seeking to break the company apart. Meanwhile, Apple is being scrutinized by lawmakers and regulators around the world for the commissions it collects on purchases made through iPhone apps and its ability to shake up markets through new rules that are turning it into a de facto regulator. “Even if Apple’s business model and side in this battle is more rights protective and better for consumer privacy, there is still a question of whether we want a large corporation like Apple effectively ‘legislating’ through the app store,” Renieris said. 
 
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A Cameroonian company has created a veterinary counseling app designed to help farmers and ranchers who live far away from veterinarians to detect animal diseases and give them guidance online.Cameroonian rabbit breeder Thierry Bayabon lost three-quarters of his stock to disease a few months ago. Like most small-scale Cameroonian farmers, he was not familiar with diseases that affect animals. Bayabon says the deaths could have been prevented, but it took too long to find a veterinarian to visit his remote farm. He says two weeks after the cases, as the situation was getting worse, he was successful in getting a veterinarian. The vet came on-site and was able to determine the problem.To help breeders like Bayabon avoid such costly losses, a Cameroonian startup designed the free online application, Veto.The app analyzes audio questions about symptoms, gives treatment advice, and helps breeders and ranchers share information.It also allows them to send photos and videos to actual veterinarians, like Mangoua Cédrick, for analysis.”In those villages, they have no vet personnel,” Cédrick said. “And with an advent of a zoonotic disease like tuberculosis, I mean, you taking the picture for the analysis may help you save life, because zoonoses are diseases that attack humans or that are transmissible between animal to human.”The Veto app’s main challenge is that it requires an internet connection, which is expensive and hard to come by in Cameroon’s remote villages.The app’s developers say they are working on the problem so it can be useful to more people raising livestock.Franklin Djomo, chief marketing officer for Veto, says their research and development teams are actively working to develop a module that is not connected to the internet so that it can operate in rural areas. While the veterinary diagnostic app has connection limitations, its practical use is not limited to Cameroon, or even West Africa. The Veto app is currently available in Cameroon’s official languages — French and English — and also in Arabic and Swahili.  
 
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Thirty-seven percent of surveyed countries are still experiencing disruptions in vaccinating children against deadly diseases like measles compared to 2020 levels, according to a press release from the World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance.
The disruptions stem from the COVID-19 pandemic, the groups say.
They also say 60 lifesaving campaigns are currently “postponed in 50 countries, putting around 228 million people — mostly children — at risk for measles, yellow fever and polio.”  
As the world marks World Immunization Week 2021, which takes place in the last week of April, the groups are calling for countries to increase investments in vaccines.
The groups say investment could save 50 million lives by 2030.
“If we’re to avoid multiple outbreaks of life-threatening diseases like measles, yellow fever and diphtheria, we must ensure routine vaccination services are protected in every country in the world,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement.
Measles outbreaks have been reported in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Pakistan and Yemen, according to the groups. They added that further outbreaks were likely as children are not vaccinated.
“As COVID-19 vaccines are at the forefront of everyone’s minds, it is more critical than ever that children maintain access to other lifesaving vaccines to prevent devastating outbreaks of preventable diseases that have started to spread alongside the pandemic,” said David Morley, president and CEO of UNICEF Canada. “We must sustain this energy on vaccine rollout to also help children catch up on their measles, polio and other vaccines. Lost ground means lost lives.”
UNICEF said it delivered 2.01 billion vaccines in 2020 compared to 2.29 billion in 2019.
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Senegal banned single-use plastics a year ago, but the regulation has been poorly enforced and plastic waste still litters the coastline and threatens health. For Earth Day (April 22) this year, a group of Senegalese surfers, scuba divers, and activists took matters into their own hands and to set an example for others to follow.  From bottles and bags to food wrappers and fishing nets, plastic waste is piling up on Senegal’s beaches, harming the environment that people and animals depend on.  A bird stands atop a mound of rubbish overlooking a polluted canal in Dakar, Senegal, Apr. 23, 2021.Toxic chemicals from plastic leach into the water and can build up in fish, which are a vital part of the Senegalese diet.  Senegal’s Ministry of Public Health notes links between plastic pollution and infertility, heart disease, cancer, and other health problems.  “All of these products that are used by the industry can be dangerous,” said Public Health director Dr. Marie Khémesse Ngom Ndiaye.  “In terms of pollution, they can attack all of our organs, but equally those of animals.  But especially, as you’ve seen in all these documentaries and studies, it impacts marine life.” The Senegalese government passed a law in 2015 banning single-use plastics, but little changed.  The law was rescinded to make way for new legislation that specifically targeted plastic cups, straws, plates, bags and bottles. It went into effect in 2020, but it’s still rarely enforced.  “There is not necessarily enough information,” said Aisha Conte, president of Zero Waste Senegal. “The population, the users, are not well enough informed about the existence of this law and its different statutes.” Franck Chabert, owner of the Barracuda Dive Club, pulls rubbish from the sea floor during an underwater cleanup for Earth Day in Dakar, Apr. 23, 2021.To mark the anniversary of last year’s ban, and this year’s Earth Day, Dakar’s Barracuda Scuba Diving Club and activists held a coastal cleanup.   Clean Senegal’s Khadim Diouf wore a plastic costume while sorting the waste to underscore the need to make an impact.  Volunteers sort rubbish found under water and along the beach during an underwater cleanup for Earth Day in Dakar, Apr. 23, 2021.“I think we can do it — us, the citizens of the world,” he said.  “I don’t just mean the citizens of Senegal, but the citizens of the world.  Everyone must protect their environment.  That’s what we must do.” Until then, Diouf and other activists said they will continue to campaign for a cleaner Senegal.   
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U.S. space agency NASA said the experimental Mars helicopter Ingenuity — in its third flight Sunday on the red planet — flew farther and faster than ever, including during test flights on Earth.NASA scientists said the vehicle took off and rose to about 5 meters off the surface of the planet — the same height it reached on its second flight Thursday and slightly higher than on its initial flight a week ago. This time, Ingenuity flew about 50 meters down range from its position, traveling at a top speed of about 2 meters a second. The entire flight was about 80 seconds.As data from the flight was received at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, the Ingenuity team said it was “ecstatic” to see how the helicopter performed. Program director Dave Lavery said the flight Sunday was what the team had planned for, “and yet, it was nothing short of amazing.”The initial data from the flight came in from NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover, which is parked several meters from where the helicopter took flight. The agency said segments of that video showing most of the helicopter’s 80-second journey across its flight zone will be sent back to Earth in the days ahead.  The Ingenuity team has been pushing the helicopter’s limits by adding instructions to capture more photos of its own, including from the color camera, which captured its first images on the flight last Thursday.  Ingenuity weighs just 1.8 kilograms and was packed away on the Perseverance rover when it landed on Mars in February. It was unfolded and dropped from the rover about three weeks ago.NASA considers Ingenuity a technology demonstration designed to test flight capability in the thin Martian atmosphere. It has specially designed rotors that spin much faster than they would have to on Earth to achieve flight. It also has innovative batteries and solar cells for recharging.Aside from cameras, Ingenuity carries no scientific instruments. 
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A top European Union official said Sunday that Americans who have been vaccinated against COVID-19 should be able to travel to Europe by summer, easing existing travel restrictions.European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told The New York Times that the union’s 27 members would accept, unconditionally, all those who are vaccinated with vaccines that are approved by the European Medicines Agency. The agency has approved the three vaccines used in the United States.”The Americans, as far as I can see, use European Medicines Agency-approved vaccines,” von der Leyen said. “This will enable free movement and travel to the European Union.”She did not say when travel could resume. The EU largely shut down nonessential travel more than a year ago.European Union countries agreed this month to launch COVID-19 travel passes that would permit people who have been vaccinated against the disease, recovered from an infection or have tested negative to travel more easily.
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