The Daily Populous

Saturday March 24th, 2018 day edition

image for Best Buy walks away from Huawei, leaving it with zero US retail partners

Best Buy is the latest major retail partner to dump Huawei's products after the US Senate and House Intelligence committees targeted Huawei smartphones over spying concerns earlier this year.

Huawei was poised to make a big break into the US market this year via deals it had lined up with AT&T and Verizon.

Once the Intelligence Committee caught wind of Huawei's plans, it started contacting Huawei's partners and pressuring them to cut ties with the company.

The only places to buy Huawei phones in the US now are Internet retailers like Amazon and Newegg.

Huawei is also one of the few smartphone manufacturers with its own line of SoCs, just like Samsung and Apple.

ZTE, another Chinese smartphone OEM with close ties to the Chinese government, is often mentioned as an espionage concern alongside Huawei.

ZTE has somehow managed to dodge this latest round of pressure and still sells smartphones at Verizon, AT&T, and Best Buy locations. »

Facebook: Cracking the Code

Authored by thoughtmaybe.com

Facebook is an enormously powerful corporation, harnessing both the self-disclosed and gleaned personal data of over 2 billion people.

Cracking the Code looks at the insides of this giant machine and how Facebook turns your thoughts and behaviours into profits—whether you like it or not.

Cracking the Code also explains how Facebook uses vast troves of web data to manipulate the way you think and feel, as well as act—all in the sole interests of Facebook, masquerading as “community.” »

Cambridge Analytica offices searched over data storage

Authored by bbc.co.uk

The London offices of Cambridge Analytica have been searched by enforcement officers from the UK's information commissioner.

A group of people, some wearing ICO enforcement jackets, entered the building housing Cambridge Analytica's London headquarters at 20:00 GMT on Friday - less than an hour after a High Court judge granted the warrant.

The ICO applied for the warrant to access the databases and servers of Cambridge Analytica. »

Mark Zuckerberg Has Lost $9 Billion in the Last Week

Authored by thewrap.com
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Mark Zuckerberg isn’t exactly waiting around for his tax return, but it’s been a rough financial week for the Facebook chief exec nonetheless.

The CEO’s net worth has dropped more than $10 billion in the last week as Facebook stock has fallen 14 percent in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica data leak.

Shares of the social network continued their week-long slide on Friday, slumping 3.3 percent to $159.45 per share. »

White House announces ban on most transgender service members

Authored by cbsnews.com
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President Trump announced Friday a new transgender policy for the military that would ban most transgendered people from military service.

The announcement was expected, since it was part of President Trump's executive memo in August 2017 reinstating a pre-2016 ban on transgender military service.

The ban does not go into effect immediately because the ban is the subject of several ongoing lawsuits. »