Tech News Today 1711

Apple, Google, and IBM have all criticized President Trump's policy on transgender student rights. Apple told ReCode, "We support efforts toward greater acceptance, not less, and we strongly believe that transgender students should be treated as equals.” Trump overruled previous Federal guidelines that allowed transgender students to use the restroom corresponding to their gender identity.

SHA-1, a cryptographic hash function first introduced ten years ago, saw its first collision meaning two different documents produced the same cryptographic hash signature. Google has been pushing for SHA-1 to be deprecated citing its insecurities in light of more modern encryption algorithms.

Last year, police in Bentonville, Arkansas acquired a warrant to access the information contained within an Amazon Echo in a 2015 murder case. Today Amazon is balking at the warrant, claiming that it violates the first amendment.

Qualcomm is updating its VR headset reference design, leaked photos of the new Huawei sport watch to be announced at Mobile World Congress, and AI that will help clean up toxic comments sections. Plus, we talk to Leah Fessler from Quartz about her tests of how AI helpers respond to abuse.

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Links

• Apple and Google condemn Trump’s decision to revoke transgender bathroom guidelines
• Google.org is committing $11.5 million to racial justice
• At death’s door for years, widely used SHA1 function is now dead
• Amazon: Alexa and its users have a First Amendment right of protected speech.
• Qualcomm announces new VR dev kit and headset accelerator program
• This is the sportier Huawei Watch 2, in three colors
• We tested bots like Siri and Alexa to see who would stand up to sexual harassment
• Inside Uber’s Aggressive, Unrestrained Workplace Culture
• An Open Letter to The Uber Board and Investors
• Google and Jigsaw puzzle out AI fix for toxic comments