Facebook published an internal memo today trying to minimize the morale damage of TechCrunch’s investigation that revealed it’d been paying people to suck in all their phone data. Attained by Business Insider’s Rob Price, the memo from Facebook’s VP of production engineering and security Pedro Canahuati gives us more detail about exactly what data Facebook was trying to collect from teens and adults in the US and India. But it also tries to claim the program wasn’t secret, wasn’t spying, and that Facebook doesn’t see it as a violation of Apple’s policy against using its Enterprise Certificate system to distribute apps to non-employees — despite Apple punishing it for the violation.

For reference, Facebook was recruiting users age 13-35 to install a Research app, VPN, and give it root network access so it could analyze all their traffic. It’s pretty sketchy to be buying people’s privacy, and despite being shut down on iOS, it’s still running on Android.

Here we lay out the memo with section by section responses to Facebook’s claims challenging TechCrunch’s reporting. Our responses are in bold and we’ve added images.

Memo from Facebook VP Pedro Canahuati

APPLE ENTERPRISE CERTS REINSTATED

Early this morning, we received agreement from Apple to issue a new enterprise certificate; this has allowed us to produce new builds of our public and enterprise apps for use by employees and contractors. Because we have a few dozen apps to rebuild, we’re initially focusing on the most critical ones, prioritized by usage and importance: Facebook, Messenger, Workplace, Work Chat, Instagram, and Mobile Home.

New builds of these apps will soon be available and we’ll email all iOS users for detailed instructions on how to reinstall. We’ll also post to iOS FYI with full details.

Meanwhile, we’re expecting a follow-up article from the New York Times later today, so I wanted to share a bit more information and background on the situation.

What happened?

On Tuesday TechCrunch reported on our Facebook Research program. This is a market research program that helps us understand consumer behavior and trends to build better mobile products.

TechCrunch implied we hid the fact that this is by Facebook – we don’t. Participants have to download an app called Facebook Research App to be involved in the stud. They also characterized this as “spying,” which we don’t agree with. People participated in this program with full knowledge that Facebook was sponsoring this research, and were paid for it. They could opt-out at any time. As we built this program, we specifically wanted to make sure we were as transparent as possible about what we were doing, what information we were gathering, and what it was for — see the screenshots below.

We used an app that we built ourselves, which wasn’t distributed via the App Store, to do this work. Instead it was side-loaded via our enterprise certificate. Apple has indicated that this broke their Terms of Service so disabled our enterprise certificates which allow us to install our own apps on devices outside of the official app store for internal dogfooding.

Author’s response: To start, “build better products” is a vague way of saying determining what’s popular and buying or building it. Facebook has used competitive analysis gathered by its similar Onavo Protect app and Facebook Research app for years to figure out what apps were gaining momentum and either bring them in or box them out. Onavo’s data is how Facebook knew WhatsApp was sending twice as many messages as Messenger, and it should invest $19 billion to acquire it.

Facebook claims it didn’t hide the program, but it was never formally announced like every other Facebook product. There were no Facebook Help pages, blog posts, or support info from the company. It used intermediaries Applause (which owns uTest) and CentreCode (which owns Betabound) to run the program under names like Project Atlas and Project Kodiak. Users only found out Facebook was involved once they started the sign-up process and signed a non-disclosure agreement prohibiting them from discussing it publicly.

TechCrunch has reviewed communications indicating Facebook would threaten legal action if a user spoke publicly about being part of the Research program. While the program had run since 2016, it had never been reported on. We believe that these facts combined justify characterizing the program as “secret”

The Facebook Research program was called Project Atlas until you signed up

How does this program work?

We partner with a couple of market research companies (Applause and CentreCode) to source and onboard candidates based in India and USA for this research project. Once people are onboarded through a generic registration page, they are informed that this research will be for Facebook and can decline to participate or opt out at any point. We rely on a 3rd party vendor for a number of reasons, including their ability to target a Diverse and representative pool of participants. They use a generic initial Registration Page to avoid bias in the people who choose to participate.

After generic onboarding people are asked to download an app called the ‘Facebook Research App,’ which takes them through a consent flow that requires people to check boxes to confirm they understand what information will be collected. As mentioned above, we worked hard to make this as explicit and clear as possible.

This is part of a broader set of research programs we conduct. Asking users to allow us to collect data on their device usage is a highly efficient way of getting industry data from closed ecosystems, such as iOS and Android. We believe this is a valid method of market research.

Author’s response: Facebook claims it wasn’t “spying”, yet it never fully laid out the specific kinds of information it would collect. In some cases, descriptions of the app’s data collection power were included in merely a footnote. The program did not specify specific data types gathered, only saying it would scoop up “which apps are on your phone, how and when you use them” and “information about your internet browsing activity”

The parental consent form from Facebook and Applause lists none of the specific types of data collected or the extent of Facebook’s access. Under “Risks/Benefits”, the form states “There are no known risks associated with this project however you acknowledge that the inherent nature of the project involves the tracking of personal information via your child’s use of Apps. You will be compensated by Applause for your child’s participation.” It gives parents no information about what data their kids are giving up.

Facebook claims it uses third-parties to target a diverse pool of participants. Yet Facebook conducts other user feedback and research programs on its own without the need for intermediaries that obscure its identity, and only ran the program in two countries. It claims to use a generic signup page to avoid biasing who will choose to participate, yet the cash incentive and technical process of installing the root certificate also bias who will participate, and the intermediaries conveniently prevent Facebook from being publicly associated with the program at first glance. Meanwhile, other clients of the Betabound testing platform like Amazon, Norton, and SanDisk reveal their names immediately before users sign up.

Facebook’s ads recruiting teens for the program didn’t disclose its involvement

Did we intentionally hide our identity as Facebook?

No — The Facebook brand is very prominent throughout the download and installation process, before any data is collected. Also, the app name of the device appears as “Facebook Research” — see attached screenshots. We use third parties to source participants in the research study, to avoid bias in the people who choose to participate. But as soon as they register, they become aware this is research for Facebook

Author’s response: Facebook here admits that users did not know Facebook was involved before they registered.

What data do we collect? Do we read people’s private messages?

No, we don’t read private messages. We collect data to understand how people use apps, but this market research was not designed to look at what they share or see. We’re interested in information such as watch time, video duration, and message length, not that actual content of videos, messages, stories or photos. The app specifically ignores information shared via financial or health apps.

Author’s response: We never reported that Facebook was reading people’s private messages, but that it had the ability to collect them. Facebook here admits that the program was “not designed to look at what they share or see”, but stops far short of saying that data wasn’t collected. Fascinatingly, Facebook reveals it was that it was closely monitoring how much time people spent on different media types.

Facebook Research abused the Enterprise Certificate system meant for employee-only apps

Did we break Apple’s terms of service?

Apple’s view is that we violated their terms by sideloading this app, and they decide the rules for their platform, We’ve worked with Apple to address any issues; as a result, our internal apps are back up and running. Our relationship with Apple is really important — many of us use Apple products at work every day, and we rely on iOS for many of our employee apps, so we wouldn’t put that relationship at any risk intentionally. Mark and others will be available to talk about this further at Q&A later today.

Author’s response: TechCrunch reported that Apple’s policy plainly states that the Enterprise Certificate program requires companies to “Distribute Provisioning Profiles only to Your Employees and only in conjunction with Your Internal Use Applications for the purpose of developing and testing” and that “You may not use, distribute or otherwise make Your Internal Use Applications available to Your Customers”. Apple took a firm stance in its statement that Facebook did violate the program’s policies, stating “Facebook has been using their membership to distribute a data-collecting app to consumers, which is a clear breach of their agreement with Apple.”

Given Facebook distributed the Research apps to teenagers that never signed tax forms or formal employment agreements, they were obviously not employees or contractors, and most likely use some Facebook-owned service that qualifies them as customers. Also, I’m pretty sure you can’t pay employees in gift cards.

Bangkok, Thailand – The small park in Bangkok’s Rama III district is mostly popular with runners circling its neatly trimmed garden track to the sound of birdsong.

But on Thursday, they were joined by a convoy of fire trucks and half a dozen military drones, drawing dozens of curious onlookers.

After an hour setting up, the drones and water cannon were pumping thick plumes of water into the empty sky above. Speakers blared warnings about the operation and instructed runners to keep their distance.

The odd display was the Thai government’s latest attempt at curbing the alarmingly high levels of pollution that have been plaguing the capital for weeks. The drones, geared with water tanks and fire-fighting sprinklers, were supposed to break up the smog that has been smothering the city of around 10 million people for at least a month.

Initially, Thailand‘s authorities said the worsening pollution was being blown over from China, predicting that it would be gone within a week or so. Then, as the smog persisted, they tried cloud seeding. Now, drones and water cannon are their latest salvo.

“Do they actually think this is going to help?” asked Gong, a 50 year-old man who comes to the park often to use its free-weight gym.

“The only thing happening today is that runners are getting wet and they have to watch out for these drones,” he said, drawing laughter from weightlifters nearby.

Thailand deployed water cannon and drones to a local park in Bangkok to try and disperse the toxic smog that’s been hanging over the city for weeks [Caleb Quinley/Al Jazeera]

Toxic air

As amusing as they might have have found the scene, Bangkok residents are welcoming any attempts to combat the toxic smog that has forced authorities to close more than 400 schools, advise people to wear a mask when they’re not indoors and limit the time they spend outside.

New research from Thailand’s National Institute of Development Administration (NIDA) suggests Bangkok’s air has reached particularly concerning levels of toxicity, with the lingering smog being full of dangerous heavy metals and various carcinogenic compounds.

Professor Siwatt Pongpiachan, director of NIDA and a global leading expert on urban pollution, told Al Jazeera he was concerned to find that Bangkok’s air contained dangerous levels of cadmium, tungsten, arsenic and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) inside the fine dust air, known as PM 2.5.

Siwatt explained that their levels are particularly dangerous, based on the World Health Organization’s (WHO) standards for measuring safe air, adding that Bangkok’s pollution was largely coming from within the city itself.

Drones have been used as part of Thailand’s efforts to shift the smog that’s settled over the city. [Caleb Quinley/Al Jazeera] [Al Jazeera]

PAHs are toxic carcinogenic compounds that can be sourced to forest fires, car exhausts, cigarette smoke and insecticides, among others. 

The Thai capital, meanwhile, has some 10 million registered vehicles pollutant-pumping factories and numerous daily cremations.

Siwatt said the widespread burning of sugarcane fields in northern provinces is also contributing to the crisis, which makes tackling the problem extremely difficult. 

The WHO has been campaigning to decrease toxic pollution around the globe for years, educating the public on the dangers to health and urging governments to prioritise clean air as megacities such as Delhi and Beijing struggle with debilitating levels of pollution. Its guideline for PM2.5 is for an annual average of no more than 10 micrograms per m3.

‘Sense of urgency’

Bangkok has never seen pollution on this scale, and many residents were shocked at the smog lurking above. On social media, where Thais often go to express their outrage, memes comparing the city to post-apocalyptic backdrops in films such as Bladerunner 2049 and Mad Max have been widely shared.

Many are concerned the government is focusing on the symptoms rather than the cause of the problem.

“I think we need to push the government with a sense of urgency if we want to see positive results,” said Sirima Panyametheekul, an academic in the Department of Environmental Engineering at Thailand’s Chulalongkorn University. “We need urgent measures to be implemented, like reducing the density of traffic and cleaning the streets.”

Thailand also needs to adopt more stringent measures of PM2.5, he added.

The density of the microscopic particles can reach 50 micrograms per m3 before the government has to act, according to Sirima, who recommends that level be halved.

Right now, air quality is sitting around 61 to 93 micrograms per m3 depending on the location. 

“I know that’s challenging,” she said. “But it’s important. If not 25, we can at least start at 35 or 30.”

Women protective mask at the bus stop in heavy air pollution in Bangkok last month. [Sakchai Lalit/AP Photo]

Need for legislation

The government, which dropped a plan to use sugar water that was supposed to “capture” the toxins, stands by its approach to the current air crisis. 

“It’s going to work,” said Somjiak Nonthagaew, the director of Bangkok’s Fire and Rescue Department, on deploying drones and fire-fighting equipment to combat the smog.

“It should definitely help, but of course not 100 percent. We would have liked to do more, but we have limited options and resources. But we sprayed at six locations today, and we think it was a success,” added Nonthagaew, between shouting loud updates into his phone as mist began to descend over the park.

But Siwatt is not convinced.

He says Thailand needs to develop policies that would reduce the toxic compounds in the air, citing neighbouring countries such as Singapore and the Philippines. He’s also urging authorities to introduce a Clean Air Act, like the one the British government rolled out after the deadly 1952 London Smog, which blanketed the UK capital for several days.

Thai authorities say that the current smog should lift in a few days as a result of their tackling operations. According to Somjiak, they plan to spray water cannons and fly drones until the air quality improves.

But without major changes, the smog is bound to return.

“It’s going to take a few years before we see any Clean Air Act laws,” Siwatt said. “And before thinking about the time frame, we need to convince the government and all the future political parties to agree that Thailand really needs clean air.”

Little detail is available on the new game at this time, but Dr. Mario was a 1990 puzzle game that tasked players with rearranging different colored pills as they fall to clear them off of the game board and eliminate viruses.

The gameplay of the original title was similar to Tetris, and it should translate well to mobile devices.

Nintendo says that Dr. Mario World will be free to play with in-app purchases, with Nintendo aiming to release the game in “early summer 2019” in Japan, the United States, and dozens of other countries.

Dr. Mario World may be Nintendo’s first game of 2019, as its other title, Mario Kart Tour, won’t be coming out until the summer. It was originally scheduled to launch right around March.

Nintendo has released five mobile games thus far, four of which have been free-to-play and three of which have been highly successful. Fire Emblem Heroes, Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, and Dragalia Lost are current free-to-play titles, while Miitomo, Nintendo’s first mobile game, is now defunct. Nintendo’s only paid app so far has been Super Mario Run.

Apple has blocked Google from distributing its internal-only iOS apps on its corporate network after a TechCrunch investigation found the search giant abusing the certificates.

“We’re working with Apple to fix a temporary disruption to some of our corporate iOS apps, which we expect will be resolved soon,” said a Google spokesperson. A spokesperson for Apple said: “We are working together with Google to help them reinstate their enterprise certificates very quickly.”

[Update: 7pm pacific: Apple has restored Google’s Enterprise Certificate so its internal apps will now function, TechCrunch has learned from a source. Googlers had lost access to employee-only iOS versions of their pre-launch test apps like YouTube, Gmail, and Calendar as well as their food and shuttle apps as well, causing a massive loss of productivity that will surely make it more careful about abiding by Apple’s policies.]

TechCrunch reported Wednesday that Google was using an Apple-issued certificate that allows the company to create and build internal apps for its staff for one of its consumer-facing apps, called Screenwise Meter, in violation of Apple’s rules. The app was designed to collect an extensive amount of data from a person’s iPhone for research, but using the special certificate allowed the company to allow users to bypass Apple’s App Store. Google later apologized, and said that the app “should not have operated under Apple’s developer enterprise program — this was a mistake.”

It followed in the footsteps of Facebook, which we first reported earlier this week was also abusing its internal-only certificates for a research app — which the company used to pay teenagers to vacuum up their phone’s web activity.

It’s not immediately clear how damaging this will be for Google. Not only does it mean its Screenwise Meter app won’t work for iPhones, but also nor will any other app for which the search giant relies on the certificate.

According to The Verge, many internal Google apps have also stopped working. That means many early and pre-release versions of its consumer-facing apps, like Google Maps, Hangouts, Gmail and other employee-only apps, such as its transportation apps, are no longer functioning.

Facebook faced a similar rebuke after Apple stepped in. We reported that after Apple’s ban was handed down, many of Facebook’s pre-launch, test-only versions of Facebook and Instagram stopped working, as well as other employee-only apps for coordinating office collaboration, travel and seeing the company’s daily lunch schedule. Neither block affects apps that consumers download from Apple’s App Store.

Facebook has more than 35,000 employees. Google has more than 94,000 employees.

It’s not known when — or if — Apple will issue Google or Facebook new internal-only certificates, but they will almost certainly have newer, stricter rules attached.

After TechCrunch caught Facebook violating Apple’s employee-only app distribution policy to pay people for all their phone data, Apple invalidated the social network’s Enterprise Certificate as punishment. That deactivated not only this Facebook Research app VPN, but also all of Facebook’s internal iOS apps for workplace collaboration, beta testing and even getting the company lunch or bus schedule. That threw Facebook’s offices into chaos yesterday morning. Now after nearly two work days, Apple has ended Facebook’s time-out and restored its Enterprise Certification. That means employees can once again access all their office tools, pre-launch test versions of Facebook and Instagram… and the lunch menu.

A Facebook spokesperson issued this statement to TechCrunch: “We have had our Enterprise Certification, which enables our internal employee applications, restored. We are in the process of getting our internal apps up and running. To be clear, this didn’t have an impact on our consumer-facing services.”

Facebook pays teens to install VPN that spies on him

Meanwhile, TechCrunch’s follow-up report found that Google was also violating the Enterprise Certificate program with its own “market research” VPN app called Screenwise Meter that paid people to snoop on their phone activity. After we informed Google and Apple yesterday, Google quickly apologized and took down the app. But apparently in service of consistency, this morning Apple invalidated Google’s Enterprise Certificate too, breaking its employee-only iOS apps.

Google’s internal apps are still broken. Unlike Facebook that has tons of employees on iOS, Google at least employs plenty of users of its own Android platform, so the disruption may have caused fewer problems in Mountain View than Menlo park. “We’re working with Apple to fix a temporary disruption to some of our corporate iOS apps, which we expect will be resolved soon,” said a Google spokesperson. A spokesperson for Apple said: “We are working together with Google to help them reinstate their enterprise certificates very quickly.”

TechCrunch’s investigation found that the Facebook Research app not only installed an Enterprise Certificate on users’ phones and a VPN that could collect their data, but also demanded root network access that allows Facebook to man-in-the-middle their traffic and even deencrypt secure transmissions. It paid users age 13 to 35 $10 to $20 per month to run the app so it could collect competitive intelligence on who to buy or copy. The Facebook Research app contained numerous code references to Onavo Protect, the app Apple banned and pushed Facebook to remove last August, yet Facebook kept on operating the Research data collection program.

When we first contacted Facebook, it claimed the Research app and its Enterprise Certificate distribution that sidestepped Apple’s oversight was in line with Apple’s policy. Seven hours later, Facebook announced it would shut down the Research app on iOS (though it’s still running on Android, which has fewer rules). Facebook also claimed that “there was nothing ‘secret’ about this,” challenging the characterization of our reporting. However, TechCrunch has since reviewed communications proving that the Facebook Research program threatened legal action if its users spoke publicly about the app. That sounds pretty “secret” to us.

Then we learned yesterday morning that Facebook hadn’t voluntarily pulled the app, as Apple had actually already invalidated Facebook’s Enterprise Certificate, thereby breaking the Research app and the social network’s employee tools. Apple provided this brutal statement, which it in turn applied to Google today:

We designed our Enterprise Developer Program solely for the internal distribution of apps within an organization. Facebook has been using their membership to distribute a data-collecting app to consumers, which is a clear breach of their agreement with Apple. Any developer using their enterprise certificates to distribute apps to consumers will have their certificates revoked, which is what we did in this case to protect our users and their data.

Apple is being likened to a vigilante privacy regulator overseeing Facebook and Google by The Verge’s Casey Newton and The New York Times’ Kevin Roose, perhaps with too much power, given they’re all competitors. But in this case, both Facebook and Google blatantly violated Apple’s policies to collect the maximum amount of data about iOS users, including teenagers. That means Apple was fully within its right to shut down their market research apps. Breaking their employee apps too could be seen as just collateral damage since they all use the same Enterprise Certification, or as additional punishment for violating the rules. This only becomes a real problem if Apple steps beyond the boundaries of its policies. But now, all eyes are on how it enforces its rules, whether to benefit its users or beat up on its rivals.

Luckily there are plenty of developers out there who are trying to create the perfect iOS inbox, but it’s hard to sort through the dozens of email apps available. We dove into the App Store in our latest YouTube video and rounded up a handful of the best email apps we found.

Spike

Spike, a free app, is a conversation-based email app that used to be called Hop. The app’s aim is to turn emailing into more of a message like conversation, organizing the inbox into a chat-style window.

Spike removes email headers, signatures, and more to make the emailing experience chat-like, and it prioritizes emails sent by people while filing newsletters and other automatic emails to other folders. Other features include a unified inbox, email grouping options, quick responses, a unified calendar, and snooze. Spike is unusual and not our first choice, but it’s definitely unique and could be what some people are looking for.

Polymail

Polymail, also free, is more of a traditional email app. It has a sleek, clean interface with a useful comment and mention feature that’s available on the desktop for teams.

On iOS, Polymail offers useful features like quick tags, read later, and read receipts to let you know what someone has received and read your email. You can also get reminders to follow up on an email that someone has read but not responded to. Other unique features include a calendar invite option in the compose window, one-click unsubscribe, email scheduling, click and attachment tracking, and more.

Polymail is one of the more useful apps if you want to better track who is viewing your emails, but if you don’t need that functionality, there may be better apps for you.

Airmail

Airmail, priced at $4.99, started as a Mac app and then expanded to iOS. Airmail is a straightforward email app with a focus on minimalism. There’s a single unified “All Inboxes” view for quick email management, but if you swipe from the left, there’s access to folders for to-do lists, snoozed emails, and attachments, which is handy for finding specific content.

Airmail keeps it simple with options to reply, delete, and archive when viewing an email, though there are an expanded set of features in the compose window, including tracking, send later options, reminders, and templates. Airmail is compatible with a wide range of other services and apps so you can better integrate the apps you already use with your email app.

Airmail’s interface isn’t going to appeal to everyone, especially on iOS, but it offers a good cross-platform experience.

Spark

Spark, a free app from Readdle, is one of our top email app picks. Spark offers up a Smart Inbox that presents your most important emails first, saving the junk, newsletters, and less important tasks for later.

Emails are automatically categorized into sections that include Personal, Notifications, and Newsletters, but you can use a single firehose inbox option if you want. Spark has a robust search engine, which makes it easy to find any email, something that we liked about the app.

Spark has tools for discussing and collaborating on emails with your team, and it’s one of the few email apps with these kinds of tools. It also offers options for scheduling emails and snoozing emails, plus there are smart notifications so you only get pinged when there’s something important to see.

Other Spark features include followup reminders, integrations with other services, and customizable swipe gestures.

Edison Mail

Edison Mail, another free app, is super popular on the App Store for a reason. It has a clean, modern look, customizable swipe settings, and all of the tools that you need for managing your email.

Edison Mail’s design is reminiscent of the design of the Mail app, so it fits well on the iPhone, but it offers a richer feature set than the Mail app. There’s an included personal assistant that organizes your inbox, sorting out subscriptions, travel emails, bills, receipts, and package emails.

It lets you track packages and sends an alert when something is out for delivery, and it can do other things like send notifications for upcoming flights. Traditional tools are included too, like snooze options, send undo, and one-tap unsubscribe. It also integrates with Face ID, providing another layer of protection for your inbox.

Conclusion

Of all the email apps listed above, which are some excellent options for email management, we liked Spark and Edison the best, with Edison ranking as our top favorite. If you’re looking for a new email app to try out, it’s worth taking a look at everything on the list.

Did we miss your favorite email app? Let us know which one you prefer in the comments.

It seems inevitable that the high seas will eventually play host to a sort of proxy war as automated vessels clash over territory for the algae farms we’ll soon need to feed the growing population. But this rocket-launching robo-boat is a peacetime vessel concerned only with global weather patterns.

The craft is what’s called an unmanned semi-submersible vehicle, or USSV, and it functions as a mobile science base — and now, a rocket launch platform. For meteorological sounding rockets, of course, nothing scary.

It solves a problem we’ve seen addressed by other seagoing robots like the Saildrone: that the ocean is very big, and very dangerous — so monitoring it properly is equally big and dangerous. You can’t have a crew out in the middle of nowhere all the time, even if it would be critical to understanding the formation of a typhoon or the like. But you can have a fleet of robotic ships systematically moving around the ocean.

In fact this is already done in a variety of ways and by numerous countries and organizations, but much of the data collection is both passive and limited in range. A solar-powered buoy drifting on the currents is a great resource, but you can’t exactly steer it, and it’s limited to sampling the water around it. And weather balloons are nice, too, if you don’t mind flying it out to where it needs to be first.

A robotic boat, on the other hand, can go where you need it do and deploy instruments in a variety of ways, dropping or projecting them deep into the water or, in the case of China’s new USSV, firing them 20,000 feet into the air.

“Launched from a long-duration unmanned semi-submersible vehicle, with strong mobility and large coverage of the sea area, rocketsonde can be used under severe sea conditions and will be more economical and applicable in the future,” said Jun Li, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, in a news release.

The 24-foot craft, which has completed a handful of near-land cruises in Bohai Bay, was announced in the paper. You may wonder what “semi-submersible” means. Essentially they put as much of the craft as possible under the water, with only instruments, hatches, and other necessary items aboveboard. That minimizes the effect of rough weather on the craft — but it is still self-righting in case it capsizes in major wave action.

The USSV’s early travels.

It runs on a diesel engine, so it’s not exactly the latest tech there, but for a large craft going long distances solar is still a bit difficult to manage. The diesel on board will last it about 10 days and take it around 3,000 km, or 1,800 miles.

The rocketsondes are essentially small rockets that shoot up to a set altitude and then drop a “driftsonde,” a sensor package attached to a balloon, parachute, or some other descent-slowing method. The craft can carry up to 48 of these, meaning it could launch one every few hours for its entire 10-day cruise duration.

The researchers’ findings were published in the journal Advances in Atmospheric Sciences. This is just a prototype, but its success suggests we can expect a few more at the very least to be built and deployed. I’ve asked Li a few questions about the craft and will update this post if I hear back.

SiriusXM this week offered a few more details on how it plans to leverage its newest asset, Pandora, following its $3.5 billion acquisition of the streaming music service last year, which officially closes on Friday. At the time of the deal, the company spoke about the potential for cross-promotion opportunities between the services and new subscription packages. Now, those efforts are getting off the ground — starting with a promotion within the Pandora app for SiriusXM subscriptions, followed by the launch of Pandora channels within the SiriusXM app.

Currently, SiriusXM offers a variety of programming packages, ranging from a cheaper ($11/mo) “Mostly Music” sampling of channels all the way up to a premium “All Access” ($21/mo) subscription. It also runs various time-limited promotions that offer its service for as little as $5 per month for a set period, like six months.

According to Sirius XM CEO James Meyer — speaking to investors on the Q4 earnings call on Wednesday — the company will now start promoting special SiriusXM packages to Pandora listeners.

The company, he said, intends “to capitalize on cross-promotion opportunities between SiriusXM’s more than 36 million subscribers across North America and Pandora’s approximately 70 million monthly active users. In early February, we will begin a targeted promotion to SiriusXM subscribers and Pandora listeners,” he noted. “Select Pandora listeners will receive an offer to obtain a unique $5 a month ‘Mostly News,’ ‘Mostly Music’ or ‘News Talk’ [SiriusXM subscription] package in their satellite-equipped vehicle.”

In other words, SiriusXM will be pushing low-cost $5 per month streaming plans within the Pandora app itself.

The company believes the cross-promotions will be successful because of the overlap in the two services’ customer bases. It found that approximately half of the owners of the SiriusXM-enabled vehicle fleet of 100 million cars have used Pandora in the past two years, for example. SiriusXM aims to leverage those Pandora listeners’ data in order to convert, retain or bring them back to SiriusXM.

In addition, the exec said that existing SiriusXM subscribers would receive extended 14-day trials to Pandora’s Premium service.

By mid-2019, the company plans to launch a new Pandora-powered channel within its own SiriusXM app, based on their favorite artist. It will also add a new radio channel to the SiriusXM app that’s driven by the latest trends from Pandora’s “billions of thumbs” — meaning the “thumbs up” (likes), songs receive within the streaming app.

Meyer spoke briefly about the challenges facing Pandora — specifically a decline in listening hours, which SiriusXM believes can be fixed by improving Pandora’s in-car listening statistics, making the Pandora app more compelling, and adding more content.

“This is just the beginning. We expect, over time, to create new, unique audio packages that will bring together the best of both services, creating a powerful platform for artists to reach their fans and to create new audiences,” said Meyer.

The merger of the two companies has not been without upheaval, though.

This week, the company announced that Pandora CEO Roger Lynch and other executives would be stepping down, including general counsel Steve Bene, CFO Naveen Chopra and chief human resources officer Kristen Robinson. Meyer will instead lead the combined company, he said, in order to streamline decision-making and increase the speed of the integrations.

SiriusXM reported record revenues for the fourth quarter and year, at $1.5 billion and $5.8 billion, respectively. Net income was $251 million for the quarter, up from a loss of $37 million in the year-ago period. Full-year 2018 net income grew 81 percent to a record $1.2 billion.

The newly combined company will have more than 100 million listeners in North America, with nearly 40 million self-paying subscribers and more than 75 million on trials or using ad-based products.

We began seeing a handful of visits from devices running an iOS 12.1.4 update on January 29, the day after the bug was widely publicized and spread across the internet.

Apple on Monday said that a software fix for the issue would come “later this week,” but now that it’s Thursday, there’s not a lot of time left. Apple could still release the update later today, but if not, Friday morning is the likely target launch date.

The FaceTime eavesdropping bug allowed iPhone users to exploit a privacy-invading Group FaceTime flaw that let one person connect to another person and hear conversations (and see video, in some cases) without the other person ever having accepted the call.

The mother of the teenager who originally discovered the bug shared convincing evidence that she contacted the Cupertino company as early as January 20. She did not receive a response from Apple despite sending emails and a video.

It’s not clear, therefore, when the right team at Apple learned of the bug and when work on a fix was started. We did not see signs of iOS 12.1.4 in our analytics data prior to January 29, but it’s possible Apple was working on a fix earlier than that.

The multi-day wait for an official solution to perhaps one of the worst Apple-related privacy bugs we’ve seen, however, does suggest that development on iOS 12.1.4 did not start too far ahead of when the bug went public.

Animated characters are as old as human storytelling itself, dating back thousands of years to cave drawings that depict animals in motion. It was really in the last century, however—a period bookended by the first animated short film in 1908 and Pixar’s success with computer animation with Toy Story from 1995 onwards—that animation leapt forward. Fundamentally, this period of great innovation sought to make it easier to create an animated story for an audience to passively consume in a curated medium, such as a feature-length film.

Our current century could be set for even greater advances in the art and science of bringing characters to life. Digital influencers—virtual or animated humans that live natively on social media—will be central to that undertaking. Digital influencers don’t merely represent the penetration of cartoon characters into yet another medium, much as they sprang from newspaper strips to TV and the multiplex. Rather, digital humans on social media represent the first instance in which fictional entities act in the same plane of communication as you and I—regular people—do. Imagine if stories about Mickey Mouse were told over a telephone or in personalized letters to fans. That’s the kind of jump we’re talking about.

Social media is a new storytelling medium, much as film was a century ago. As with film then, we have yet to transmit virtual characters to this new medium in a sticky way.

Which isn’t to say that there aren’t digital characters living their lives on social channels right now. The pioneers have arrived: Lil’ Miquela, Astro, Bermuda, and Shudu are prominent examples. But they have are still only notable for their novelty, not yet their ubiquity. They represent the output of old animation techniques applied to a new medium. This Techcrunch article did a great job describing the current digital influencer landscape.

So why haven’t animated characters taken off on social media platforms?  It’s largely an issue of scale—it’s expensive and time-consuming to create animated characters and to depict their adventures.  One 2017 estimate stated that a 60-90 second animation took about 6 weeks.  An episode of animated TV takes between 1–3 months to produce, typically with large teams in South Korea doing much of the animation legwork. That pace simply doesn’t work in a medium that calls for new original content multiple times a day.

Yet the technical piece of the puzzle is falling into place, which is primarily what I want to talk about today. Traditionally, virtual characters were created by a team of experts—not scalable—in the following way:

• Create a 3D model
• Texture the model and add additional materials
• Rig the 3D model skeleton
• Animate the 3D model
• Introduce character into desired scene

Today, there are generally three different types of virtual avatar:  realistic high-resolution CGI avatars, stylized CGI avatars, and manipulated video avatars. Each has its strengths and pitfalls, and the fast-approaching world of scaled digital influencers will likely incorporate aspects of all three.

The digital influencers mentioned above are all high-resolution CGI avatars. It’s unsurprising that this tech has breathed life into the most prominent digital influencers so far—this type of avatar offers the most creative latitude and photorealism. You can create an original character and have her carry out varied activities.

The process for their creation borrows most from the old-school CGI pipeline described above, though accelerated through the use of tools like Daz3D for animation, Moka Studio for rigging, and Rokoko for motion capture. It’s old wine in new bottles. Naturally, it shares the same bottlenecks as the old-school CGI pipeline: creating characters in this way consumes a lot of time and expertise.

Though researchers like Ari Shapiro at the University of Southern California Institute for Creative Technologies are currently working on ways to automate the creation of high-resolution CGI avatars, that bottleneck remains for obstacle for digital influencers entering the mainstream.

Stylized CGI avatars, on the other hand, have entered the mainstream. If you have an iPhone or use Snapchat, chances are you have one. Apple, Samsung, Pinscreen, Loom.ai, Embody Digital, Genies, and Expressive.ai are just some of the companies playing in this space. These avatars, while likely to spread ubiquitously a la Bitmoji before them, are limited in scope.

While they extend the ability to create an animated character to anyone who uses an associated app, that creation and personalization is circumscribed: the avatar’s range is limited for the purposes of what we’re discussing in this article. It’s not so much a technology for creating new digital humans as it is a tool for injecting a visual shorthand for someone into the digital world. You’ll use it to embellish your Snapchat game, but storytellers will be unlikely to use these avatars to create a spiritual successor to Mickey Mouse and Buzz Lightyear (though they will be a big advertising / brand partnership opportunity nonetheless).

Video manipulation—you probably know it as deepfakes—is another piece of tech that is speeding virtual or fictional characters into the mainstream. As the name implies, however, it’s more about warping reality to create something new. Anyone who has seen Nicolas Cage’s striking features dropped onto Amy Adams’ body in a Superman film will understand what I’m talking about.

Open source packages like this one allow almost anyone to create a deepfake (with some technical knowhow—your grandma probably hasn’t replaced her time-honored Bingo sessions with some casual deepfaking). It’s principally used by hobbyists, though recently we’ve seen startups like Synthesia crop up with business use cases. You can use deepfake tech for mimicry, but we haven’t yet seen it used for creating original characters. It shares some of the democratizing aspects of stylized CGI avatars, and there are likely many creative applications for the tech that simply haven’t been realized yet.

While none of these technology stacks on their own currently enable digital humans at scale, when combined they may make up the wardrobe that takes us into Narnia. Video manipulation, for example, could be used to scale realistic high-res characters like Lil’ Miquela through accelerating the creation of new stories and tableaux for her to inhabit. Nearly all of the most famous animated characters have been stylized, and I wouldn’t bet against social media’s Snow White being stylized too. What is clear is that the technology to create digital influencers at scale is nearing a tipping point. When we hit that tipping point, these creations will transform entertainment and storytelling.

A Kurdish asylum seeker has won one of the most important Australian literature prizes, the Victorian Prize for Literature.

However, Iranian Kurd Behrouz Boochani was unable to accept the award personally in Melbourne because he is being kept in the offshore detention centre on Manus Island.

Boochani won the award, which comes with a monetary prize of $73,000, for his book “No Friend but the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison” which was written in Farsi while he was held in the detention centre that has now been closed.

It comprises of text messages sent mostly through WhatsApp to the translator.

The book was also judged to be the best non-fiction book.

Boochani has been living in the detention centre on Manus Island since 2013, and like all detainees, is not allowed to leave the island.

“It’s a paradoxical feeling,” said Boochani.

“I don’t want to celebrate this achievement while I still see many innocent people suffering around me,” he told The Age daily. “Give us freedom. We have committed no crime, we are only seeking asylum.”

He fled Iran as he was in danger of being arrested by authorities over his journalism work.

Boochani attempted to reach Australia by boat from Indonesia twice.

On his first attempt, the boat sank and Boochani was rescued by Indonesian fishermen. 

In July 2013, his boat, which had 75 asylum seekers, was intercepted by the Australian Navy and he was transferred to the Manus Island detention centre.

Manus is a territory belonging to Papua New Guinea, but it has been used by Canberra since 2013 as a place to send asylum seekers who try to reach Australia.

The practice has been denounced as contravening the migrants’ and detainees’ human rights.

Many congratulated Boochani on Twitter but also criticised Australia’s “hypocrisy” and “cognitive dissonance”.

“I think it’s so great that Behrouz Boochani won the VPLA for nonfiction tonight, but I’m also struggling with the cognitive dissonance of a nation celebrating the story, the work, of a man we’re still torturing,” author Omar Sakr wrote on Twitter.

“[He] is still imprisoned, and kept stateless by us. We must free them.”

I think it’s so great that Behrouz Boochani won the VPLA for nonfiction tonight, but I’m also struggling with the cognitive dissonance of a nation celebrating the story, the work, of a man we’re still torturing. Who is still imprisoned, and kept stateless by us. We must free them

— Omar Sakr (@OmarjSakr) January 31, 2019

“Does anyone else see the jarring hypocrisy of a country that is applauding a literary achievement with one hand and torturing the author with the other?” another wrote.

Does anyone else see the jarring hypocrisy if a country that is applauding a literary achievement with one hand and torturing the author with the other?
Congratulations @BehrouzBoochani on an outstanding achievement.#Manus #EndIndefiniteDetention

— Leo Jai (@lionheartleojai) January 31, 2019

A new mobile banking startup called Step wants to help bring teenagers and other young adults into the cashless era. Today, cash is used less often, as more consumers shop online and send money to one another through payment apps like Venmo. But teenagers in particular are still heavily burdened with cash — even though they, too, want to spend their money on things that require a payment card, like Amazon.com purchases or mobile gaming, for example.

That’s where Step comes in.

The company aims to address the needs of what it believes is an underserved market in mobile banking — the 75 million children and young adults under the age of 21 in the U.S., who are still being forced to use cash.

This market isn’t the “unbanked,” it’s the “pre-banked,” explains Step CEO CJ MacDonald, whose previous startup, mobile gift card platform Gyft, sold to First Data several years ago.

Above: Step CEO, CJ MacDonald

“We’re building an all-in-one banking solution that primarily focuses on teens and parents,” he says. “We want it to be a teen’s first bank account. We want to be a teen’s first spending card. And we want to teach financial literacy and responsibility firsthand.”

MacDonald, along with CTO Alexey Kalinichenko, previously of Square and financial services startup Token, founded Step in May 2018. The 10-person team also includes several prior Gyft employees.

Last summer, Step closed on $3.8 million in seed funding from Sesame Ventures, Crosslink Capital and Collaborative Fund. Crosslink general partner Eric Chin sits on the board.

While there are a number of mobile banking apps out there today — like Chime, Monzo, Simple, Revolut and others — Step will specifically target teens, 13 and up, and other young adults with its marketing. Teens under 18 still need parents’ approval to sign up, of course. But the goal is to encourage the teens to bring the idea to their parents — not the other way around.

Step’s focus on this younger demographic puts it in a different space, where there are fewer competitors. Its more direct rivals are not the bigger mobile banks, but rather startups like teen debit card and bank app Current, or the parent-managed debit card for kids from Greenlight.

The mobile banking service Step provides will also aim to be more comprehensive than just a debit card. It will offer a combination of checking, savings and a Visa card that works as both credit and debit.

The card includes Visa’s Zero Liability Protection on all purchases from unauthorized use, and allows parents to set spending limits.

Parents will also be able to connect their own bank accounts to Step to instantly transfer in funds, which can then be distributed to kids’ accounts for things like allowances and chores, or other everyday spending needs. Step’s bank account itself is backed by Evolve Bank, so it’s FDIC-insured up to $250,000.

Unlike Current, which charges a subscription to use its service, Step aims to be a fee-free bank for consumers. Users don’t have to pay for their account, and there are no fees for things like overdrafts. Instead, Step’s plan is to generate revenue through traditional means — like interchange fees and by way of lending practices, once it has established a deposit base.

The company pays a 2.5 percent interest rate on deposits, offers a round-up savings feature and a range of budgeting tools and supports free instant transfers between Step accounts. It also provides access to a network of 35,000 ATMs with no fees.

Beyond simply facilitating mobile banking, Step’s bigger goal is to teach teens to become financially responsible.

“Schools do not teach kids about money. A lot of families don’t talk about money. And it’s a crucial life skill that’s not really addressed properly when people are growing up,” says MacDonald, who says he was lacking in life skills in this area, even as a young college grad.

“There were ‘Money 101’ skills that I had not learned — that no one had talked to me about. Things like building credit, how many credit cards you should have, debt to income ratio,” he continues. “A lot of people get released into the real world without experience [in those areas],” he says.

Long-term, after solving the needs associated with everyday banking transactions, Step wants to layer on other products and services — like tools that allow a family to save together for college, for example.

The company is launching the banking service under an invite-only system to scale up.

Today, it’s opening a waitlist and referral program. When you invite a friend, you each receive one dollar. Access will then be rolled out on a first-come, first-serve basis this spring. Users can join Step through the website, iOS or Android application.

Apple no longer discloses iPad, iPhone, or Mac unit sales in its earnings reports, leaving us with these estimated figures, which can vary quite significantly between research firms. With the iPhone, for example, estimated shipments have ranged from 65.9 million to 68.4 million to 71.7 million for the quarter.

Apple reported sales of 13.2 million iPads in the fourth quarter of 2017, when it was still disclosing unit sales, so the Strategy Analytics data suggests that iPad unit sales have grown nearly 10 percent on a year-over-year basis.

Strategy Analytics estimates that the iPad‘s average selling price was $463, an increase of just over four percent from $445 in the year-ago quarter. This sounds unsurprising, as Apple raised prices with its new iPad Pro lineup in 2018, with the cheapest model starting at $799 compared to $649 in 2017.

Apple remained the world’s most popular tablet vendor, easily topping Samsung’s estimated 7.5 million tablet shipments in the quarter, according to Strategy Analytics. Amazon, Huawei, and Lenovo round off the top five with an estimated 5.5 million, 4.6 million, and 2.3 million shipments respectively.

On an operating system basis, however, Android tablets from multiple brands still commanded an estimated 60 percent of the market.

Apple reported iPad revenue of $6.7 billion in the quarter, a 17 percent increase over the year-ago quarter.

Users can discover FuboTV content within the TV app now, and all shows and films will be marked with an “Available on: FuboTV” tag when they’re available in the streaming service. Subscribers can add these movies to their Up Next queue in the TV app, and when they begin watching them in FuboTV, the TV app will keep track of their progress.

When first opening a movie or TV show from the TV app into FuboTV, subscribers will see a splash screen asking for permission to connect FuboTV to Apple’s app. Once connected, users will be able to keep track of their FuboTV content in the TV app across their Apple devices, including Apple TV, iPhone, and iPad. As of writing, Apple has not yet added FuboTV into the list of supported apps on its website.

There are nearly 90 apps supported in the TV app as of 2019, including a few live news apps, but PlayStation Vue and now FuboTV are the only over-the-top live TV streaming services available to connect to the TV app. Rival live TV streaming platforms that lack this feature include DirecTV Now, Hulu With Live TV, and YouTube TV.