Google delays office reopening until July 2021
The Mountain View company announced that the work from home option, for employees who are not required in the office, will remain available for another 12 months. The move is attributed to the uncertainty of schools reopening for the Fall 2020 to Spring 2021 school year. CNET
dis-rup-shun: Google is confirming that which was expected — uncertainty over the Covid-19 pandemic will last well into 2021. The move will likely be followed by many companies, and will further the diaspora of urban workers to mountain, beach and lake houses, keeping restaurants, transit systems and shopping malls mostly empty for the coming year.
Atlas of Surveillance shows where surveillance is occurring
Between Ring doorbell cameras, license plate readers, traffic cameras and individual building security cameras, a fabric of surveillance points cover urban areas. The mapping project is a collaboration between the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the University of Nevada, Reno, Reynolds School of Journalism. Wired
dis-rup-shun: Just like in the action series 24, it appears that cameras are almost everywhere in urban areas, but unlike 24, accessing all the feeds quickly and easily is a bureaucratic impossibility. Perhaps the constitutional separation of states and Federal governments and their agencies will keep this an impossibility, or perhaps Google will do it first!
Chernobyl fungus could prolong space visits
The sun’s harmful radiation is filtered by Earth’s atmosphere, minimizing damage to humans. In space, however, without the filtration of the atmosphere, humans receive 20 times the radiation as on Earth, making outer space uninhabitable, long-term, for humans. A fungus that is thriving on the radioactive Chernobyl site has been sent to the International Space Station for observation and results show that it may become an important companion to space explorations, as the bacteria consumes harmful radiation and converts it to energy — enabling fast growth of the organism. CNET
dis-rup-shun: Further wonders of science — a “clean up” fungus is available to do what mankind has not figured out how to — clean up harmful radiation. Just when you thought Earth could never undo the damage inflicted by man, we see an auto-correction mechanism. Does such an organism exist for the damages caused by global warming?
Apple begins manufacturing iPhone 11 in India
Apple holds 1% of the share of the Indian smartphone market, but it is a dominant player in that country’s luxury phone market. After striving to find a contract manufacturer in India, its partner Foxconn has started building iPhones in Chennai. TechCrunch
dis-rup-shun: The move enables Apple to reduce its reliance on China-based factories while increasing its presence in the world’s second largest smartphone market, from which it could launch a lower end iPhone built especially to take advantage of the enormous market.