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Adstoppi Updates | Changes in functionality in “Search Wall”

How it works?

“Searchwall” is now available and functional Navigate to Menu->SearchWall and start earning. Type in the unique keyword into the form and submit

*NEW: You will be redirected to the result page Click one of the link in the result page containing the keyword

How to earn? You can submit 20 Keywords per day. You will earn $0.005 each correct keyword

https://adstoppipro.com/blog/adstoppi-updates–changes-in-functionality-in-search-wall More blog here

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Updates | New “Search Wall” another way of earning extra income

How it works?

“Searchwall” is now available and functional Navigate to Menu->SearchWall and start earning. Type in the unique keyword into the form and submit A confirmation email will be sent to your registered email Click on the link on the email to confirm *Note: If you can’t find the email, check your SPAM folder

How to earn? You can submit 20 Keywords per day. You will earn $0.005 each correct keyword https://adstoppipro.com/blog/updates–new-search-wall-another-way-of-earning-extra-income More blog here

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Tesla shut down its California and New York factories amid coronavirus pandemic

Tesla will temporarily shut down its car manufacturing plant in Fremont, California, starting at the end of Monday, March 23rd, joining nearly every other major automaker in suspending its US operations due to the effects of the coronavirus pandemic. The announcement comes after days of back-and-forth with the local authorities about whether the company was exempt from a recent shelter-in-place order in the San Francisco Bay Area. Tesla will also suspend most operations at its solar panel factory in Buffalo, New York.

“Despite taking all known health precautions, continued operations in certain locations has caused challenges for our employees, their families and our suppliers,” the company wrote in a press release. “As such, we have decided to temporarily suspend production” at both factories.

Hourly employees at both factories will “continue to receive their normal pay through Monday, after which point we will provide paid leave during suspended operations,” according to an email from the company’s regional HR boss Valerie Workman viewed by The Verge. “Those who have been working from home should continue to do so and consider it business as usual. We understand you will have many questions and we will be providing you with additional resources in the coming hours and days,” Workman wrote.

Tesla says it will keep some “basic operations” up and running, like work on its charging infrastructure. The company’s Gigafactory in Nevada will continue as normal, despite a recent initiative from the state’s governor asking all nonessential businesses to close.

Tesla will keep making vehicle deliveries during the shutdown. The company says it is leveraging its app and its cars’ smartphone connectivity to implement “touchless deliveries” in “many locations” to help mitigate any spread of the virus. With the touchless deliveries, “customers are able to unlock their new cars at a delivery parking lot via the Tesla App, sign any remaining relevant paperwork that has been placed in their car, and return that paperwork to an on-site drop-off location prior to leaving,” the company says.

The leaders of six counties across the San Francisco Bay Area announced the shelter-in-place order on Monday, and as part of it, told all “nonessential businesses” to close down. But Tesla kept its car factory open, despite not seeming to fit the order’s definition of an “essential business.”

Late Tuesday evening, the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office announced that it believed Tesla was “not an essential business,” and said the company should scale back to the most basic operations, like payroll. Tesla’s factory remained open, though.

Workman told employees that it was because the company had been told it was considered “national critical infrastructure” by the Department of Homeland Security, though the government agency has not responded to multiple requests to confirm this. Guidance issued by its Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency on Thursday did not list automotive manufacturing among a list of “critical infrastructure.”

On Thursday, the local police department tweeted that the police chief and members of the city’s management team was scheduled too meet with “Tesla Factory management” to “discuss cooperation for compliance with the County Health Officer’s Order.” Just a few hours later, Tesla announced the factory closure. https://adstoppipro.com/blog/tesla-shut-down-its-california-and-new-york-factories-amid-coronavirus-pandemic More blog here

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Updates | New “Puzzle Wall” another way of earning extra income

Adstoppi is now offering another new platform

How it works? “PuzzleWall” is now available and functional Navigate to Menu->PuzzleWall and start earning. Solve the image puzzle A confirmation email will be sent to your registered email Click on the link on the email to confirm *Note: If you can’t find the email, check your SPAM folder

How to earn? You can solve 25 Image Puzzles per day. You will earn $0.005 each puzzle solved

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Facebook marking legitimate news about coronavirus as spam due to a software bug

Facebook started marking some posts linking to information and articles about the coronavirus and COVID-19 as spam, as observed by one Verge reporter and many users on Twitter on Tuesday evening.

The issue was due to a “bug in an anti-spam system,” according to Guy Rosen, Facebook’s vice president of integrity. Rosen said the company began working on a fix as soon as discovering the issue.

We’re on this – this is a bug in an anti-spam system, unrelated to any changes in our content moderator workforce. We’re in the process of fixing and bringing all these posts back. More soon.

Guy Rosen (@guyro) March 17, 2020 Here are a few examples of affected Facebook posts:

.@Facebook — Oh wow and then three in a row !

How is @TomHanks being okay be SPAM? And again this is from @Upworthy not exactly a new publication. All I did was share it. pic.twitter.com/SYhYknzJ9Z

Kristine Schachinger (@schachin) March 17, 2020 Something is going on on Facebook. I’ve seen four separate people in the past couple hours saying their posts about coronavirus were marked as “spam”. And one of them is an epidemiologist.

Then my link to the Canadian gov’s website about EI was removed too. #COVID19 pic.twitter.com/tFAUqLzHus

Aylan (AY like Day – LAN like LandBack) Couchie (@AylanX) March 17, 2020 Seems as if any article being shared on @Facebook regarding COVID-19 is being reported as spam. Even the article below. What the hell FB? You have bigger fish to fry. https://t.co/doSV6TQXDR

…hello, meow (@shoppurrr) March 17, 2020 Incredible. @Facebook said my post of this Dallas Morning News article highlighting that two people in their 20s and 30s are in critical care in Dallas County and that young people aren’t invincible went against their guidelines and was removed.https://t.co/HqoIdzzcSi

Kathryn Watson (@kathrynw5) March 17, 2020 Following publication of The Verge’s report, Rosen said Facebook had resolved the issue and restored the affected posts. “We’ve restored all the posts that were incorrectly removed, which included posts on all topics not just those related to COVID-19,” Rosen explained. According to Facebook, the issue was with an automated moderation tool and was not related to any changes to its moderator workforce.

We’ve restored all the posts that were incorrectly removed, which included posts on all topics – not just those related to COVID-19. This was an issue with an automated system that removes links to abusive websites, but incorrectly removed a lot of other posts too.

Guy Rosen (@guyro) March 18, 2020 The company previously announced that it would remove false claims and conspiracy theories about coronavirus in January. Facebook also joined Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Reddit, Twitter, and YouTube in publishing a joint statement yesterday committing to fighting coronavirus-related fraud and misinformation.

A new report published by Ranking Digital Rights argued on Tuesday that Facebook’s current approach to moderation may not be able to address the issue of coronavirus-related misinformation on its platform. https://adstoppipro.com/blog/facebook-marking-legitimate-news-about-coronavirus-as-spam-due-to-a-software-bug More blog here

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Updates | New “Captcha Wall” another way of earning extra income

CAPTCHA: Telling Humans and Computers Apart Automatically A CAPTCHA is a program that protects websites against bots by generating and grading tests that humans can pass but current computer programs cannot. For example, humans can read distorted text as the one shown below, but current computer programs can’t:

The term CAPTCHA (for Completely Automated Public Turing Test To Tell Computers and Humans Apart) was coined in 2000 by Luis von Ahn, Manuel Blum, Nicholas Hopper and John Langford of Carnegie Mellon University.

Adstoppi is now offering this newest platform.

How it works? “CaptchaWall” is now available and functional Navigate to Menu->CaptchaWall and start earning. Type in the Captcha Code into the form and submit A confirmation email will be sent to your registered email Click on the link on the email to confirm

How to earn? You can submit 20 Captcha Code per day. You will earn $0.008 each correct code

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Disney delays Mulan and New Mutants over coronavirus fears

Disney is delaying Mulan’s release due to the coronavirus pandemic spreading across the world, according to Variety. There is no new release date at this time. The movie was originally scheduled to open on March 27th.

Disney is also delaying New Mutants, Fox’s newest entry in the X-Men franchise, that was set to be released on April 3rd. New Mutants has already been delayed multiple times for an assortment of reasons. There is no expected release date for it at this time, either. The third movie Disney is postponing is Antlers, another movie from Searchlight Pictures that Disney picked up following its acquisition of 21st Century Fox.

Mulan, New Mutants and Antlers are the latest films to be delayed because of the pandemic. A Quiet Place II, No Time To Die, and Peter Rabbit 2 were all delayed over the last couple of weeks. Other studios, like Magnolia, have canceled the theatrical release of certain titles, turning them into streaming and rental-only options.

Mulan is one of Disney’s biggest movies of the year. It follows Pixar’s Onward, which debuted to less than stellar box-office numbers. Mulan was particularly important for Disney internationally especially in hot regions like China. Disney hadn’t announced a release date for Mulan in China, but considering the outbreak of coronavirus is most prevalent in China right now, it seems unlikely the movie will get a release date there anytime soon.

Coronavirus started spreading in Wuhan, China back in December 2019. Since then, the coronavirus has spread to just about every country. More than 130,000 cases have been confirmed, and more than 4,200 people have died.

Questions about how the coronavirus will affect Disney’s overall business are on executives’ minds. Executive chairman Bob Iger told shareholders at the company’s annual shareholder meeting on March 11th that “it’s fair to say we’re all sobered by the concern that we feel for everyone affected by this global crisis,” adding that “these are challenging times for everyone.” The company decided to close its Disneyland park in Anaheim for the rest of March.

“What we’ve demonstrated over the years is that we’re incredibly resilient,” Iger told shareholders. “If you think about the world today, what we create has never been more necessary or more important.”

Disney’s next big movie is Black Widow the first installment in Marvel’s Phase 4. It’s unclear if Black Widow, which is set to be released on May 1st, will hit that date. https://adstoppipro.com/blog/disney-delays-mulan-and-new-mutants-over-coronavirus-fears More blog here

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The World Health Organization has joined TikTok to fight coronavirus misinformation

The World Health Organization launched a TikTok account on Friday as part of its efforts to cut through coronavirus misinformation online. A specialized public health agency of the United Nations, WHO is one of the leading organizations working to contain the spread of the virus.

In WHO’s first video, Benedetta Allegranzi, technical lead of infection prevention and control, describes measures people can take to protect themselves from the novel coronavirus and directs them to the organization’s website for additional information.

“We are joining [TikTok] to provide you with reliable and timely public health advice,” WHO wrote in the description of its first video.

TikTok has been flooded with memes about the novel coronavirus over the past few weeks, with some users pretending to be infected. In one case, a teenager made a video suggesting that their friend was the first Canadian confirmed to have caught the virus. TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The launch of the TikTok account is part of WHO’s work to get accurate information concerning the novel coronavirus to people online. According to the MIT Technology Review, WHO and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have spent the last couple of weeks of the outbreak fighting misinformation regarding the virus on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Tencent, and TikTok.

Information from WHO already tops Google results for search queries about the novel coronavirus. Facebook users scrolling through their news feeds are also met with messages directing them to visit government websites for information on the virus. Twitter users see a message that says “Know the facts” and directs them to visit the CDC’s website for “the best information on the novel coronavirus” when they search for content related to the virus. TikTok also links users who search for virus-related content to the WHO website.

The coronavirus information partnerships are similar to how platforms reacted to criticism over anti-vaxx content on their platforms over the past few years.

WHO has also made strides to post accurate novel coronavirus information to its other social media accounts like Instagram. The organization’s Instagram feed is filled with infographics outlining how people can protect themselves from the virus. https://adstoppipro.com/blog/the-world-health-organization-has-joined-tiktok-to-fight-coronavirus-misinformation More blog here

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U.S. set its first coronavirus death confirmed in Washington state

A person in Washington state died after contracting the novel coronavirus, health authorities announced on Saturday. It is the first death attributed to the virus in the U.S. Officials also announced two new cases in Washington state linked to a long-term care facility, including the first confirmed case in a healthcare worker in the United States.

“We are dealing with an emergency evolving situation,” Amy Reynolds, of the Washington state health department, told the Associated Press. A spokesperson for EvergreenHealth Medical Center in King County, Washington confirmed to the AP that the patient died there. The patient who died was a man in his 50s with chronic underlying health conditions, Jeff Duchin, a health officer for Public Health, Seattle & King County said during a press conference today. It is not yet known how or when he contracted the virus.

The other two cases announced today were both linked to a long-term care facility in Washington state. One was a resident of the facility, a woman in her 70s who remains in serious condition. The other was a healthcare worker at the facility, a woman in her 40s, who officials say is in satisfactory condition. Of the 108 residents and 180 staff at the facility, 27 residents and 25 staff members have symptoms of the virus, Duchin said. Symptoms include a fever, cough, and shortness of breath. Testing to confirm whether or not those individuals have COVID-19 is underway.

Having an outbreak of the virus in a long-term nursing facility is particularly concerning for public health officials. “We are very concerned about an outbreak in a facility where there are many older people,” Duchin said. While most cases of COVID-19 are mild, elderly people and people with underlying health conditions are at greatest risk for severe symptoms of the virus.

The news of the death and the new cases comes one day after three new cases of coronavirus with unknown origin were reported in the United States. Before this week, the only confirmed cases of the virus in the country originated after a person traveled to an area of the world hard-hit by the disease, or developed after a person had close contact with a confirmed case. Cases with unknown origins are alarming to health authorities because their presence indicates that the disease is likely circulating within the population.

“It is a sad day in our state as we learn that a Washingtonian has died from COVID-19. Our hearts go out to his family and friends,” Jay Inslee, the governor of Washington, said in a statement. “We will continue to work toward a day where no one dies from this virus.”

The virus, which causes the disease COVID-19, has spread to 57 countries around the world since it emerged in China in December. The respiratory disease has infected more than 85,000 people and killed more than 2,900. In the United States, 66 people with COVID-19 have been identified.

Until last week, the only people who were tested for the virus in the United States were people who had traveled to areas where the virus was circulating, or who had close contact with confirmed cases. After a public backlash against the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s testing restrictions, the testing criteria were expanded. After the expansion, more cases were swiftly identified. https://adstoppipro.com/blog/us-set-its-first-coronavirus-death-confirmed-in-washington-state More blog here

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Reddit CEO Steve Huffman says TikTok is ‘fundamentally parasitic’ due to privacy concerns

Reddit CEO and co-founder Steve Huffman called TikTok “fundamentally parasitic” due to concerns over privacy during an appearance at the Social 2030 venture capital conference this week (via TechCrunch). Huffman specifically called out TikTok’s practice of fingerprinting to track devices as being of particular concern.

“Maybe I’m going to regret this, but I can’t even get to that level of thinking with [TikTok],” Huffman said at the event, “because I look at that app as so fundamentally parasitic, that it’s always listening, the fingerprinting technology they use is truly terrifying, and I could not bring myself to install an app like that on my phone.”

The fingerprinting Huffman is referring to is a combination of audio and browser tracking to determine which users are watching and sharing a video on both the app and on the web, as detailed by researcher Matthias Eberl on Rufposten. TikTok parent company ByteDance claims that its fingerprinting techniques are used to identify malicious browser behavior, but Eberl notes his skepticism given that the website still appears to work perfectly fine when those scripts are disabled.

“I actively tell people, ‘Don’t install that spyware on your phone,'” Huffman went on to add.

He’s not the only tech executive worried about TikTok. Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg had similar comments, noting that she was concerned about the fledging video app on NBC’s “Byers Market” podcast. “They’re huge, they’re growing really quickly, they’ve gotten to bigger numbers faster than we ever did,” Sandberg said.

Sandberg also raised similar security concerns, highlighting the fact that TikTok is “a Chinese company, if people are concerned about data I think there’s a lot to be concerned about there.”

That said, it is a little ironic for a Facebook executive to be concerned about another company’s laxity toward user privacy, given its recent issues with scandals like the Cambridge Analytica breach and its $5 billion Federal Trade Commission fine over privacy concerns last year (the largest the agency has ever issued). https://adstoppipro.com/blog/reddit-ceo-steve-huffman-says-tiktok-is-fundamentally-parasitic-due-to-privacy-concerns More blog here

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Steven Seagal settles with SEC over 2018 cryptocurrency promotion

Steven Seagal, best known for fighting off bad guys with roundhouse kicks in movies like Above the Law, has settled a case with the Securities and Exchange Commission over promoting a cryptocurrency on social media. The action star will pay $314,000, and won’t be allowed to promote any security digital or otherwise for three years.

Seagal “failed to disclose he was promised $250,000 in cash and $750,000 worth of B2G tokens in exchange for his promotions,” which included posts plugging Bitcoiin2Gen and its initial coin offering in 2018, the SEC says. “Bitcoiin” is not a typo.

“These investors were entitled to know about payments Seagal received or was promised to endorse this investment so they could decide whether he may be biased,” Kristina Littman, chief of the SEC Enforcement Division’s Cyber Unit, said in a statement.

Seagal was announced as a brand ambassador for Bitcoiin2Gen in February 2018. In the announcement, which referred to him as a Zen Master, the company said Seagal was aligned with the company’s mission because “what he does in his life is about leading people into contemplation to wake them up and enlighten them in some manner.”

Seagal’s promotion of the coin came a few months after the SEC issued a report that categorized ICOs as securities. And Bitcoiin2Gen received a cease-and-desist order from the state of New Jersey in March 2018 for “fraudulently offering unregistered securities in violation of the Securities Law.” Seagal’s tenure as its brand ambassador ended later that month, Coindesk reported.

Under federal law, anyone who promotes a “virtual token or coin” also has to say how they’re being compensated for the promotion, the SEC notes in its announcement. According to the SEC, Seagal didn’t do that.

Seagal did not admit or deny the SEC’s findings, but will pay the $157,000 he earned from the arrangement; this represents about 20 percent of what he was supposed to receive in Bitcoiin2Gen’s currency. He’ll also pay a penalty of $157,000. https://adstoppipro.com/blog/steven-seagal-settles-with-sec-over-2018-cryptocurrency-promotion More blog here

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Timex is releasing a GPS smartwatch with 25 days of battery life

Timex, the company that made those plastic watches you probably wore when you were a kid, has announced a new addition to its lineup of Ironman GPS trackers.

The Timex Ironman R300 GPS is available now on Timex’s website for $120.

Timex is touting the R300 as its first smartwatch, but it has sold fitness trackers with smart features including a touchscreen, GPS, speed and distance tracking, phone calls, and the ability to upload workout data in the past.

Still, labels aside, it’s fair to say that this is Timex’s most advanced smartwatch to date. It provides guided workouts from “top athletes and coaches,” an always-on display, and sleep tracking. It also sports a whopping 25 days of battery life, according to the company, though that drops down to 20 hours if you’ve got GPS turned on. And it’s water-resistant to 30 meters, so you can even wear it swimming if need be.

If this device is good, which we won’t know until we’ve tested it ourselves, it could offer many of the same features as the best GPS watches at a lower price point. https://adstoppipro.com/blog/timex-is-releasing-a-gps-smartwatch-with-25-days-of-battery-life More blog here

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President Trump’s reckless coronavirus statements put the entire US at risk

President Trump seems to have wished a vaccine for the new coronavirus into existence. “I think that whole situation will start working out,” he told reporters at a press conference in India. “We’re very close to a vaccine.”

At a Senate hearing that same day, Trump’s acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf took a similar line, promising a vaccine would be ready within “several months.”

“You’re telling me we’re months away from having a vaccine?” asked Senator John Kennedy (R-LA). “That’s your testimony as head of the Department of Homeland Security?”

“That’s what I’ve been told by HHS and CDC, yes,” Wolf responded.

None of it was true. The CDC estimates that a vaccine for the new coronavirus is unlikely to be available in the next 12-18 months, far too late to be useful in preventing an outbreak in the US. Asked about the ambitious estimate in the same hearing, HHS Secretary Alex Azar said simply, “that’s never happened in human history.”

The White House has walked back Trump’s comments, claiming the president was talking about the development of an Ebola vaccine. (The VSV Ebola vaccine has been in use since 2016, but was only licensed by the FDA in December.) But more broadly, the White House continues to insist the disease is not a threat, with one senior advisor describing the disease as largely contained within the US. It’s a direct contradiction of guidance from the CDC, which is treating a US-based outbreak as an inevitability.

This is not a good time to be spreading confusion about public health. Once confined to Wuhan, then to China, the new virus is now spreading internationally, with hundreds infected in Italy, South Korea, and Japan. Preparing for a US outbreak is going to require ample medical resources, robust communication, and, most importantly, the public trust. Instead, Trump has minimized the threat and spread bizarre lies, making it hard for the average citizen to know what to expect. When a US outbreak does happen, that confusion could encourage panic a panic that could amplify the damage from the disease itself.

So far, Trump seems most concerned about the disease’s effect on the stock market. His first statements on the possibility of a US outbreak came yesterday, after a 3 percent drop that wiped out the last two months of gains. “The coronavirus is very much under control in the USA,” Trump tweeted. “CDC & World Health have been working hard and very smart. Stock Market starting to look very good to me!” The same day, National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow told The Washington Post that the market would rally, and investors “should seriously consider buying these dips.”

The White House’s approach makes sense if you’re focused on the short-term movement of financial markets, but it’s terrible for public health. As emergency managers pointed out, public officials should be preparing for the worst and making sure any impact that happens doesn’t take hospitals and local governments by surprise. The CDC has been straightforward about that worst-case scenario, but Trump seems eager to walk it back, which could convince local governments and public health officials to stand down at the worst possible time.

More recently, Trump used the disease funding request as an opportunity to take shots at his political rivals. “Cryin’ Chuck Schumer is complaining, for publicity purposes only, that I should be asking for more money than $2.5 Billion to prepare for Coronavirus,” the president tweeted in the wake of the Senate hearing. “He didn’t like my early travel closings. I was right. He is incompetent!” https://adstoppipro.com/blog/president–trumps-reckless-coronavirus-statements-put-the-entire-us-at-risk More blog here

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Amazon is expanding its cashierless Go model into a full-blown grocery store

Amazon is getting more serious about its brick-and-mortar retail ambitions with its first-ever Amazon-branded grocery store. The store opens today in Seattle’s Capitol Hill district, confirming reports from last year that Amazon was developing a more ambitious version of its cashier-less Go model. The new store, which The Verge toured late last week, is indeed modeled after a standard Amazon Go location, but it has been expanded to include a wide array of grocery items you’d find at, say, Amazon-owned Whole Foods.

In fact, the store does source a number of its items, including some produce and meat and other fresh food, from Whole Foods suppliers. It also carries Whole Foods’ 365 brand for certain items. But Amazon’s store offers other products, including breakfast cereal and soda, that you won’t find at Amazon’s higher-end, organic-focused subsidiary.

Amazon says the store combines the product availability and low prices of a grocery chain like Publix or Walmart with the convenience and quick shopping times of its Go model, with a selection that includes both big mainstream brands and local, organic produce. It joins the nearly 20 Go stores currently open throughout the country in cities like New York and San Francisco.

Amazon Go stores use overhead cameras and computer vision technology, paired with smartphone geofencing, to track both shoppers and items throughout the store. That way, the system can identify when a specific person has picked something off the shelf and placed it in their cart, and even when they decided to put something back.

The end result is that customers don’t have to sit through check out. When you’re done at a Go store, you just walk out and your receipt is sent to you through Amazon’s companion app. The same is true of Amazon’s new grocery store, which features shopping carts, but no checkout lanes or counters.

Amazon says its Go system has been trained to handle tricky situations that are unique to grocery stores, like customers handling unpackaged produce that looks similar and sits next to other fruits and vegetables or unboxed baked goods that might get stuffed into a single plastic bag. You can even buy alcohol by taking it off the shelf and walking out, although a human employee will have to check your ID before you enter the store if you intend to peruse the libations aisle.

Go stores have so far focused on prepared foods, snacks, and a light amount of grocery items including frozen food and condiments. Some have acquired licenses to sell alcohol, too. But no Go store to date has the size or scope of Amazon’s new Go Grocery, as it’s called. The location, at 610 E. Pike Street, is 10,400 square feet, while a standard Go store tends to fall between 1,200 and 2,300 square feet.

This grocery effort is starting small, Amazon’s Dilip Kumar, the company’s vice president of physical retail and technology, tells The Verge. Kumar says Amazon has no immediate plans to open more grocery stores. But if it succeeds, an Amazon-branded grocery store using its Go model, which allows customers to get in and out much quicker, could become a fast-growing avenue for the e-commerce giant to continue expanding its offline footprint. https://adstoppipro.com/blog/amazon-is-expanding-its-cashierless-go-model-into-a-full-blown-grocery-store More blog here

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Donald Trump ads will take over YouTube for Election Day

YouTube’s homepage will feature ads in support of Donald Trump’s reelection campaign on election day 2020, Bloomberg reported on Thursday.

Trump’s reelection campaign bought out YouTube’s masthead ad space for “early November” including election day, November 3, according to Bloomberg. By purchasing this highly trafficked ad space, the Trump campaign is betting that the visibility could aid his candidacy in some of the most important days leading up to the election.

This isn’t the first time that the Trump campaign purchased the coveted masthead ads ahead of important election events. Last summer, Trump’s reelection campaign spent between $500,000 to $1 million on the ad space ahead of the first Democratic presidential debate in June. The debate was livestreaming on YouTube, and the ads blasted Trump’s face and message to potential future Democratic voters. An unusually high number of candidates qualified for that debate, so it was split into two days.

Bloomberg reported Thursday that the YouTube banner is “more akin to a Super Bowl ad” than a traditional targeted ad buy. It’s not clear how much Trump’s reelection campaign spent on the ad space, but it can cost campaigns more than $1 million a day.

In October 2019, YouTube introduced a specialized tool called Instant Reserve that allowed campaigns to reserve ad space in particular regions on particular days, with an eye towards state primary contests. Starting the following November, that initial release gave candidates the option to buy any times through the end of 2020. https://adstoppipro.com/blog/donald-trump-ads-will-take-over-youtube-for-election-day More blog here

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Coronavirus email hoax led to violent protests in Ukraine

An email that appeared to come from Ukraine’s ministry of health containing false information about coronavirus cases in the country led to a number of violent protests and standoffs with police, reports BuzzFeed News.

The email originated from outside Ukraine, according to a government statement, and it falsely claimed there were five cases of coronavirus in the country. In reality, there have been zero reported cases of the virus in Ukraine. But the email was sent the same day evacuees from China landed in the country, and some Ukranian residents protested the evacuees’ arrival by blocking roads that led to medical facilities and, in some cases, by smashing the windows of the buses carrying those evacuees.

To try and calm citizens, Ukraine’s Center for Public Health released a statement saying reports of five cases of coronavirus were false, and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky published a Facebook post saying the evacuees were all healthy and that they would be quarantined for two weeks out of extra caution. Zelensky also urged citizens not to block their arrival.

There have only been two confirmed cases of Ukrainians with the coronavirus, and they are among many who have been infected while on the cruise ship that was docked off the coast of Japan. They have fully recovered, reports BuzzFeed News.

With so many people searching for information online about coronavirus, there is continued risk that people may come across misinformation and hoaxes about the disease, especially on social networks like Facebook and Twitter that are ill-equipped to handle fast-changing global news events and the flood of user-generated posts that accompany them. Recode has put together a good summary of some of the most pervasive corona virus hoaxes that have been widely shared. And we also have a guide about how to investigate information online and determine if it’s false or misleading. https://adstoppipro.com/blog/coronavirus-email-hoax-led-to-violent-protests-in-ukraine More blog here

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Japan is proceeding the mission to explore Mars’ moons

Japan is moving ahead with plans to land a spacecraft on Phobos, one of Mars’ moons. If successful, the mission would mark the first time any country has touched down on the surface of the Martian moon and potentially the first round-trip mission to the Mars system.

Japan’s space agency, JAXA, announced today that the Martian Moons Exploration (MMX) project had officially moved into the development phase. This means that the team will start working on the hardware and software for the mission ahead of a planned launch in 2024.

MMX will take off sometime in 2024 and arrive at Mars around 2025. It will spend the next three years surveying both moons of Mars, Phobos and Deimos, creating detailed maps of their surfaces. During that time, MMX will also land on Phobos and take a sample, digging at least two centimeters into the surface. The team also plans to include a rover to hop around on the surface, similar to the one released on an asteroid in 2018. The spacecraft will be equipped with 11 instruments taking detailed measurements during the entire mission. If all goes well, the mission will return back to Earth with the sample from Phobos by 2029.

Phobos is an intriguing target for planetary scientists. Researchers still aren’t sure if Phobos and Deimos are asteroids captured by Mars’ gravity or if they were formed after something huge slammed into the planet. The new mission could help answer those questions.

People are also interested in Phobos as a stepping stone for future human missions to Mars. “Humans can realistically explore the surfaces of only a few objects and Phobos and Deimos are on that list,” Jim Green, NASA chief scientist, said in the JAXA announcement. “Their position orbiting about Mars may make them a prime target for humans to visit first before reaching the surface of the Red Planet, but that will only be possible after the results of the MMX mission have been completed.”

NASA will be contributing two instruments to the MMX mission: one that will be able to analyze elements on the moon’s surface and a “pneumatic sampling device.” NASA researchers have been discussing missions to Phobos for years, including crewed missions. A paper from a 2007 workshop held out hope that human missions to the Martian moons “will help get and keep the Humans to Mars ball rolling earlier than otherwise possible.”

MMX could help get that ball rolling again. Hopefully, it will be more successful than its predecessors. In 1988, the Soviet spacecraft Phobos 2 was set to send both a rover and lander to the surface of the moon. Sadly, its computer malfunctioned just before it was scheduled to send out its explorers, and the mission was deemed a failure. The last attempt to land anything on Phobos didn’t fare any better: the Russian Phobos-Grunt mission launched in 2011 but didn’t make it past Earth orbit. Instead, it crashed back into the Pacific in 2012. https://adstoppipro.com/blog/japan-is-proceeding-the-mission-to-explore-mars-moons More blog here

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