Friday, November 30, 2018

raceAhead: Five Breaking News Haikus

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November 30, 2018

Here’s your week in review, in haiku

 

1.

Oh, to find a way

to change the wifi password!

Tweet-free Air Force One

 

2.

If you wanna eat

out, you gotta cut it out.

It don't lie: Romaine

 

3.

Payless gets petty;

Marriott into the breach.

Deutsche: "Halte mein bier"

 

4.

Tick tock tick tock tick

tock tick tock tick tock tick tak

tik tak tik tak d'oh!

 

5.

No sense tryin' to

knock Meek back, lock him in the

cell, he didn't snap

 

 

Have a liberating and stress-free weekend.

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On Point

Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg will release data from the company's civil rights audit
The long-awaited commitment came in a one-hour meeting with Rashad Robinson, the president of Color of Change, a civil rights group that had been the target of an attempted smear campaign by a consulting firm hired by Facebook. Sandberg apologized during the meeting, and promised to make good on her pledge to release the findings of an audit investigating discriminatory advertising and voter suppression on the platform. The always essential Jessica Guynn breaks it down below. In other news, San Francisco supervisor Aaron Peskin called for legislation to have the Zuckerberg name removed from the Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg SF General Hospital and Trauma Center, citing the ongoing scandals.
USA Today
A controversial Trump judicial appointee is set to fail
South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott pulled the plug on the aspirations of Thomas Farr last night, after a contentious nomination process which included revelations of Farr's previous support for a controversial voter ID law and other voter suppression tactics targeting black voters in North Carolina. Farr is President Trump's nominee to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina; Scott, the only black Republican in Congress, joined Arizona Republican Sen. Jeff Flake and all Senate Democrats to end his bid.
NPR
Four Saint Louis police officers indicted for beating an undercover cop during protests
"[I't's gonna be a lot of fun beating the hell out of these (expletive) once the sun goes down and nobody can tell us apart!!!!" one of the officers is reported to have texted to his friends, an indication, federal prosecutors say, of their "excitement about using unjustified force against them and going undetected while doing so." The four officers hurt an undercover police officer so badly during the September 2017 protests following the acquittal of former police Officer Jason Stockley  for the fatal shooting of Anthony Lamar Smith, that he has been unable to return to work. Click through for the whole sordid story; one officer allegedly destroyed the injured officer's cell phone in an attempt to quash the investigation, and the four face a potential (but unlikely) 20 years in federal prison.
Saint Louis Today
Hate crimes in Canada up 47% last year
The crimes were primarily targeting Muslims, Jews and black people, reports Statistics Canada, with the biggest increase in crimes targeting the Muslim population. "We were shocked by the numbers - and, at the same time, we weren't," Ihsaan Gardee, executive director of the National Council of Canadian Muslims told Reuters. "This increase didn't occur in a vacuum." While the statistics include crimes that were motivated by hatred to a group, other surveys indicate that some two-thirds of these incidents go unreported to the police. The number of hate crimes more than doubled last year, from 139 to 349.
Clarion Ledger
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The Woke Leader

Michael B. Jordan chose therapy to help him shed Killmonger character
Suffering and art often go hand in hand, and playing the uniquely villainous Erik Killmonger character in Black Panther took a toll on Jordan. To play Killmonger, who sought the violent overthrow of Wakanda to seek wider justice in a racist world, Jordan found himself in a dark place. "Once I got finished wrapping the movie, it took me some time to talk through how I was feeling and why I was feeling so sad and like a little bit depressed." This revelation came as part of a longer conversation with Bill Simmons on his excellent podcast, as the pair discuss Creed II, Jordan's plans to build a LeBron James-style development "ecosystem", and more. He even gives a tantalizing preview of the upcoming film Just Mercy and his portrayal of civil rights attorney Bryan Stevenson. Jordan's interview starts at 1:02:35. Enjoy.
The Ringer
A Louisiana prep school's long con
Prepare to have your heart broken. Several of the moving college acceptance videos that went viral in the past few years came from students from the T.M. Landry College Preparatory School in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana. The small private school had made headlines for its ability to take mostly black students from humble or difficult circumstances and get them ready for an elite education. Turns out, it was all a myth. "In reality, the school falsified transcripts, made up student accomplishments and mined the worst stereotypes of black America to manufacture up-from-hardship tales that it sold to Ivy League schools hungry for diversity," reports The New York Times  in this blistering expose. Worse, after surviving a culture of fear and abuse, many students find themselves lost in college or worse.
New York Times
What technology can learn from the wisdom of the crowd
This lively analysis from "geek comedian" and commentator Heather Gold takes what she's learned about communicating in front of live audiences and helps identify what makes for authentic conversation. "I believe the single most important element in aiding someone to speak in a group is the feeling of being listened to with interest," she says. But thanks to poorly designed video chat, it will be largely impossible. She singles out the main features coded into Google Hangouts and Apple's new Group FaceTime, which make the image of the speaker REALLY BIG - rewarding the loudmouth in the chat - while making all the listeners, even the truly engaged ones, equally small. She raises fascinating questions about what this means for marginalized people in the workplace, and then explores a remedy. "Let's think about what this would look like as a piece of software design," she posits. What if the design actually helped speakers connect with the most attentive listeners?  
Medium
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Quote

I'm talking trauma. I'm talking PTSD. I'm talking the system. I'm talking racism.
Meek Mill on his new album
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China and U.S. in a Dead Heat for AI

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November 30, 2018

Jane Sun, CEO of Ctrip, the Chinese online travel site, says "talent follows opportunity." She's referring in part to her own fortunate journey. She was a finance executive in Silicon Valley in the 1990s at the semiconductor manufacturing company Applied Materials. When her husband was offered a job as an early employee of Alibaba they returned to their native China, where she joined the company she now leads. It's worth $16 billion and has ambitions to be global, beyond its role today serving Chinese travelers at home and abroad.

Sun's career timing has been impeccable. It also mirrors the rise of the Chinese technology phenomenon. After spending two days meeting entrepreneurs and executives at some of China's most dynamic companies—and also Westerners still eager to cash in on China's growth—I'm persuaded that for all the obstacles this story isn't over.

On a panel Friday morning at the Fortune Global Tech Forum in Guangzhou the chief technology officer of Ant Financial, Alan Qi, spoke about how the Alibaba-affiliate is using artificial intelligence to improve the efficiency of insurance adjusters. Jim Breyer, the veteran Silicon Valley venture capitalist, thinks eight out of the 18 most valuable companies ten years from now will be Chinese A.I. outfits. His business partner, IDG Capital's Hugo Shong thinks 10 of the 18 will be Chinese. They agree the balance will be American.

The Chinese are having positive impacts in unexpected ways. George Yip, the British business school professor and scholar of Chinese business, has done case studies on how Haier's investments in GE's appliance business and Geely's investments in Volvo helped revive neglected brands. Chinese startups are upending the education market too. Cindy Mi, founder of VIPKid, says the most popular location of her firm's online English teachers is Texas. Entrepreneur Yi Wang runs LAIX, a company that is teaching English to adults with an A.I.-driven personalized "virtual teacher."

Despite trade tensions, despite language barriers, despite China being all but closed to U.S. Internet giants, so much opportunity remains. The talent will surely continue to follow.

Adam Lashinsky
@adamlashinsky
adam_lashinsky@fortune.com

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NEWSWORTHY

Sandberg vs. Soros: Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg is under scrutiny yet again, this time over revelations she asked for an investigation into whether George Soros was shorting the company's stock. The news undercuts earlier claims Sandberg didn't know about a lobby campaign to attack the billionaire.

You can check out—but you can never leave: Marriott International is the latest to suffer a catastrophic data breach. The hotel chain disclosed hackers exploited its Starwood reservation system to obtain personal details—including passport numbers and birthdates—of hundreds of millions of customers.

Blockchain blossoms in China: The recent cryptocurrency wipeout hasn't dimmed hopes for blockchain technology in China. The CEO of Xunlei Technology, a blockchain pioneer, boasted that his company's Thunder Chain can process one million transactions per second.

Trump warms to Big Tech: In a sign of rapprochement between the White House and Silicon Valley, President Trump has invited the CEOs of Google, Microsoft, and other firms to discuss U.S. tech leadership next Thursday. Topics will reportedly included A.I., 5G, and quantum computing.

Questions abound for China's NASDAQ: President Xi recently announced plans for a new stock exchange that would give tech firms access to Chinese investors. The idea holds a lot of appeal but details remain scant on how it will all work. Some leading Chinese executives, speaking at Fortune's Global Tech Forum, shed some light on what we know so far.

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FOOD FOR THOUGHT

Are you an iPhone user who feels the App Store isn't what it used to be? I certainly am. And now I know why. In a cri-de-coeur essay, long-time app developer David Barnard calls on Apple to curtail the sketchy tricks—from keyword manipulation to abusive sign-up practices—app builders use to game the Store.

[A]s the financial incentive to build and maintain great niche apps dries up, the beautiful and diverse forest of apps that is the App Store will slowly start to look more like the unkempt Play Store [...]

Cumulatively, the apps using these tactics are creating billions of terrible experiences for iOS users. But it's not just that, they are choking out the developers who care about building great experiences and respecting users. By employing these tactics, apps are far more profitable and can afford to pay more to acquire users. Which makes it really tough for apps not employing these tactics to compete in acquiring users. And by gaming App Store search, these apps make it nearly impossible for conscientious developers to get organic search traffic on high volume keywords.

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IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Apple Music Is Coming to Amazon's Alexa By Don Reisinger

Here's How Drones Could Help With China's Wild Fires By Lucinda Shen

Combating Cancer: How A.I. Will Revolutionize Health Care By Eamon Barrett

9 Charged With Selling Samsung's Intellectual Property By Emily Gillespie

Microsoft Wins $480 Million Augmented Reality Army Contract Amid Employee Protests By Glenn Fleishman

Why Salesforce's Chief Scientist Shut Down an A.I. Project That Identifies Human Emotions By Lucinda Shen

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BEFORE YOU GO

Tall latte hold the porn: Starbucks has long had a policy barring use of its Wi-Fi networks to watch porn, but has not taken any technological measures to enforce it. That's set to change following pressure from Enough Is Enough, an anti-pornography advocacy group, which pointed out Starbucks has for years filtered porn in the U.K. and called on the company to do the same in the U.S.

This edition of Data Sheet was curated by Jeff John Roberts. Find past issues, and sign up for other Fortune newsletters.

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