XPRIZE names two grand prize winners in $15 million Global Learning Challenge

XPRIZE, the non-profit organization developing and managing competitions to find solutions to social challenges, has named two grand prize winners in the Elon Musk-backed Global Learning XPRIZE.

The companies, KitKit School out of South Korea and the U.S., and onebillion, operating in Kenya and the U.K., were announced at an awards ceremony hosted at the Google Spruce Goose Hangar in Playa Vista, Calif.

XPRIZE set each of the competing teams the task of developing scalable services that could enable children to teach themselves basic reading, writing, and arithmetic skills within 15 months.

Musk himself was on hand to award $5 million checks to each of the winning teams.

Five finalists including: New York-based CCI, which developed lesson plans and a development language so non-coders could create lessons; Chimple, a Bangalore-based, learning platform enabling children to learn reading, writing and math on a tablet; RobotTutor, a Pittsburgh-based company which used Carnegie Mellon research to develop an app for Android tablets that would teach lessons in reading and writing with speech recognition, machine learning, and human computer interactions, and the two grand prize winners all received $1 million to continue developing their projects.

The tests required each product to be field tested in Swahili, reaching nearly 3,000 children in 170 villages across Tanzania.

All of the final solutions from each of the five teams that made it to the final round of competition have been open-sourced so anyone can improve on and develop local solutions using the toolkits developed by each team in competition.

Kitkit School, with a team from Berkeley, Calif. and Seoul, developed a program with a game-based core and flexible learning architecture to help kids learn independently, while onebillion, merged numeracy content with literacy material to provide directed learning and activities alongside monitoring to personalize responses to children’s needs.

Both teams are going home with $5 million to continue their work.

The problem of access to basic education affects more than 250 million children around the world, who can’t read or write and one-in-five children around the world aren’t in school, according to data from UNESCO.

The problem of access is compounded by a shortage of teachers at the primary ad secondary school level. Some research, cited by XPRIZE, indicates that the world needs to recruit another 68.8 million teachers to provide every child with a primary and secondary education by 2040.

Before the Global Learning XPRIZE field test, 74% of the children who participated were reported as never having attended school; 80% were never read to at home; and 90% couldn’t read a single word of Swahili.

After the 15 month program working on donated Google Pixel C tablets and pre-loaded with software, the number was cut in half.

“Education is a fundamental human right, and we are so proud of all the teams and their dedication and hard work to ensure every single child has the opportunity to take learning into their own hands,” said Anousheh Ansari, CEO of XPRIZE, in a statement. “Learning how to read, write and demonstrate basic math are essential building blocks for those who want to live free from poverty and its limitations, and we believe that this competition clearly demonstrated the accelerated learning made possible through the educational applications developed by our teams, and ultimately hope that this movement spurs a revolution in education, worldwide.”

After the grand prize announcement, XPRIZE said it will work to secure and load the software onto tablets; localize the software; and deliver preloaded hardware and charging stations to remote locations so all finalist teams can scale their learning software across the world.

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Tesla’s communications chief is leaving the automaker

Dave Arnold, Tesla’s senior director of communications, is leaving the company after two-and-half years years, according to sources familiar with the move.

Tesla confirmed to TechCrunch that Arnold was leaving in June.

“We’d like to thank Dave for his work in support of Tesla’s mission, and we wish him well,” a Tesla spokesperson said in a company-issued statement. “Dave will remain with the company for the next month to help transition his responsibilities to Keely Sulprizio, Tesla’s Director of Global Communications.”

Arnold became senior director of communications Tesla in July after the departure of Sarah O’Brien. O’Brien, who was previously at Apple, held the position at Tesla for two years. She later took a position at Facebook.

The top communications job at Tesla is a high-profile and critical role for the company, which unlike other automakers, doesn’t have a traditional advertising strategy. And thanks to the near-frenetic amount of attention that Tesla and CEO Elon Musk receives from investors and the press, it can also be a challenging and exhausting one. 

The typical stint for the role has been about two years.

Musk reaches his fervent fan base — and critics — via Twitter. His account now has some 26.5 million followers. Musk’s tweets, along with other announcements and controversies, translate to constant news coverage of the company.

That coverage has been largely responsible for driving sales. Tesla’s relationship with the media might be rocky at times. However, the attention by the press has also helped drive sales. The company has said in previous regulatory filings that “media coverage and word of mouth have been the primary drivers of our sales leads and have helped us achieve sales without traditional advertising and at relatively low marketing costs.”

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Stocks gain back some ground as investors assess the trade war’s impact

Stocks had their best trading day in a while on Tuesday as investors took a break from selling to assess the actual effects of the trade war with China.

Both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 gained back some of their losses with the DJIA climbing 207.06 points to close at 25,532.05 and the S&P hitting 2,834.41, up 0.8%. The Nasdaq Composite Index wrapped its trading day at 7,734.49.

Tech stocks like Cisco Systems and Microsoft both rose to lead the way for a sector that could be hit hard by any prolonged trade war between the U.S. and China. Even Apple was up 1.6% on the day after taking a bit of a pummeling as both the U.S. and China announced new rounds of tariffs and import duties.

While some investors are calling the rally more of a dead cat bounce than something that markets can sustain, other investors point out that the fundamentals behind U.S. investing haven’t changed, even as costs are set to rise.

Indeed, economists cited by The New York Times think the tariffs’ gross domestic product in the U.S. will only decline by 0.3 percentage points at most over the long term.

Still, that assessment doesn’t take into account the impact on consumer wallets and consumer confidence should a prolonged trade war and rising prices force everyday Americans to rethink their spending habits.

Even the modest gains from today’s trading don’t recoup all of the losses the markets have suffered since the new round of tit for tat tariffs began when the U.S. walked away from negotiations and imposed new duties on goods.

Tech stocks tumble as China retaliates in latest salvo of the trade war

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Apple, Google and Microsoft release patches for ZombieLoad chip flaws

Big tech is stepping in to patch newly disclosed security flaws affecting almost every Intel chip since 2011.

Researchers on Tuesday released details of the vulnerability, known as ZombieLoad — or microarchitectural data sampling as its technical name — which can leaked sensitive data stored in the processor, such as passwords, secret keys and account tokens and private messages.

You can read our coverage here. In short, don’t panic — but you should patch your systems. Here’s how.

Apple released macOS fixes

Apple has fixes out for every Mac and MacBook released during and after 2011.

The tech giant said in an advisory that any system running macOS Mojave 10.14.5, released Monday, is patched. This will prevent an attack from being run through Safari and other apps. Most users won’t experience any decline in performance. But some Macs could face up to a 40 percent performance hit for those who opt-in to the full set of mitigations.

The security update will also be pushed to Sierra and High Sierra versions. iPhones, iPads and Apple Watch devices aren’t affected by the bugs.

Google patches Android, will update Chrome

The search and browser maker also confirmed it has released patches to mitigate against ZombieLoad.

Google said the “vast majority” of Android devices aren’t affected but Intel-only devices will need to be patched once device makers make updates available

Chrome OS devices, such as Chromebooks, are already protected in the latest version and permanent mitigations will be pushed to devices in the next version.

And, the company’s Chrome team has a technical advisory out but said users should rely on patches for their computer. “Operating system vendors may release updates to improve isolation, so users should ensure they install any updates and follow any additional guidance from their operating system vendor,” said Google. In other words, make sure your Windows PC or your Mac is patched.

Google also rolled out patches to its datacenters, so cloud customers are already patched but should be aware of the company’s guidance.

Microsoft rolls out Windows updates

Microsoft has released patches for its operating system and cloud.

Jeff Jones, a senior director at Microsoft, said the software and cloud giant has been “working closely with affected chip manufacturers to develop and test mitigations” for its customers. “We are working to deploy mitigations to cloud services and release security updates to protect Windows customers against vulnerabilities affecting supported hardware chips,” he said.

In a TechNet article, the company said customers may need to obtain microcode updates for their processor directly from their device maker. Microsoft is pushing many of the microcode updates itself through Windows Update, but are also available from its website.

Software updates will be released Tuesday also through Windows Update. Microsoft also has a page with guidance for how to protect against the new attacks.

Microsoft Azure customers are already protected, the company said.

Amazon and Mozilla did not return a request for comment. We’ll update if we hear back.

Read more:

• New secret-spilling flaws affect almost every Intel chip since 2011
• Intel announces hardware fixes for Spectre and Meltdown on upcoming chips
• Apple issues Meltdown fix for Macs running Sierra and El Capitan
• Google claims its Spectre and Meltdown mitigation results in no performance degradation
• Intel tried desperately to change the subject from Spectre and Meltdown at CES
• Intel CEO: Meltdown and Spectre patches will come to 90%+ of chips in the next week

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New secret-spilling flaw affects almost every Intel chip since 2011

The Statue of Liberty gets an AR app to celebrate its new museum

This week, the new $100 million Statue of Liberty Museum opens in the shadow of one of America’s most iconic landmarks. The 26,000 square foot space offers insights into the statue’s storied history, along with context for that majority of visitors who ultimately can’t make it inside the structure.

For those who can’t don’t make it to Liberty Island at all, meanwhile, there’s the brand new Statue of Liberty app, which hits the iOS App Store today. Led by fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg, the Yap Studios-developed app offers myriad methods for bringing New York Harbor’s landmark to life.

“I told Apple I would love people who go to the Statue of Liberty to have an Apple experience,” von Furstenberg said in an event ahead of launch. “They invited me to spend two days with full immersion at Apple. The I realized that wasn’t just giving the people who visited an Apple experience, but it was also to Apple a Statue of Liberty experience. And that meant doing an app.”

Augmented reality provides the most fundamental underlying experience. There are a handful of distinct AR experiences in the app designed to offer some insights into the size, scope and history of Lady Liberty for those who aren’t able to experience it first hand.

There’s a torch panorama view, which showcases the the status view of lower Manhattan. Users can also plop a life-size AR reproduction of the statue’s foot directly in front of them or witness a recreating of the making of the statue, glimpsing inside to its struts ad watch its copper material develop the familiar green patina.

There’s an audio component, as well, including a three-part podcast mini-series narrated by von Furstenberg that explores some of the statue’s secret history. For those who end up visiting the island, there’s also a location-based audio tour in the app. Interestingly, Yap opted not to provide an in-person visual AR experience, though one could be coming down the road.

Meantime, the Statue of Liberty app is available now, only to iOS users.

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Tech stocks tumble as China retaliates in latest salvo of the trade war

Shares of technology companies were hit hard as China retaliated against the U.S. in the latest salvo of the ongoing trade war between the two countries.

The S&P 500 Index shed roughly $1.1 trillion of value while the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite Index fell 2.38 percent and 3.41percent, respectively.

On Monday, China responded in equal measure to the U.S. raising tariffs on imports to 25%, by imposing 25% duties on some $60 billion of U.S. exports to the country.

On June 1, Beijing will impose 25% tariffs on more than 5,000 products. Several more exports to the country will see their duties rise to 20%. That’s up from 10% and 5% previously. The highest tariffs seem to be on products designed to cause pain among President Donald Trump’s political base of support — animal products, fruits and vegetables that come from the Midwest.

But tech companies are particularly expose in the trade war. Indeed, the news sent technology shares spiraling in what venture capitalist (and former TechCrunch co-editor-in-chief) Alexia Bonatsos called the “Tech Red Wedding”.

Tech Red Wedding https://t.co/me8C5B3Abp

— Alexia Bonatsos (@alexia) May 13, 2019

Rising tariffs will make the tech products from Apple and other American tech companies more expensive to manufacture, which will likely cause hardware manufacturers to raise prices at home, while duties on the finished goods coming to China could make them prohibitively expensive for local buyers in the country.

More expensive consumer products also mean less money to spend on non-essential items, which could mean more frugal behavior from consumers and less spending in the on-demand economy. It could also cause a pull-back in advertising as companies retrench and cut spending in areas that are considered to be non-core.

All of that could leave tech stocks exposed — beyond algorithms just dumping holdings and taking profits in what looks to be a prolonged market downturn.

The trade war, which already took a toll on Uber’s initial public offering, took another bite out of the company’s (short term) stock market performance today.

Uber had an abysmal second day of trading

Uber was far from the only tech stock seeing red. Shares of Amazon were down 3.56 percent, Alphabet was down 2.66 percent, and Apple fell 5.81 percent. Meanwhile Facebook shares fell 3.61 percent; Netflix tumbled over 4 percent on the day.

Things may look up for some tech companies again, but they’re unlikely to receive the kind of bailouts or subsidies that the President is offering to American farmers hit by the economic battle with China. Unless Congress can get stalled negotiations around an infrastructure package back on track (something that seems less and less likely as the 2020 elections start to cast their shadow over the business of governing), there’s little hope for any government assistance that could cushion the blow.

“Our view is this could escalate for at least a matter of weeks, if not months, and it’s really to get the two back to the negotiating table and finish the deal, is probably going to require more pain in the markets…Really the only question is if we need a 5%, 10% or bigger market correction,” Ethan Harris, head of global economics at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, told CNBC.

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