Category: Sports

Vaccine passports are coming. Here’s why they’re controversial

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Vaccine passports—proof that you’ve been vaccinated against COVID-19—are at this point an inevitability. Countries including Seychelles, Cyprus, Georgia, Romania, Poland, Iceland, and Estonia will require travelers to have a COVID-19 vaccination to enter. Now, lots of tech companies are working on building apps that certify a traveler is vaccinated. But there are a few problems with vaccine passports, and the World Health Organization has voiced its distaste for the concept. The main concern is that vaccine distribution is not globally equitable and vaccine passports could create social stratification. “At the present time the use of certification of vaccination as a requirement for travel is not advised because quite simply vaccination is just not available enough around the world and is not available certainly on an equitable basis,” said Michael Ryan, head of the WHO’s health-emergencies program, at a press conference. The organization says that it thinks providing vaccinated people with an official certification is valuable for public health purposes, but that vaccination should not entitle a person to more freedoms than an unvaccinated person. This is particularly true, the WHO notes, because there is no proof that any of the COVID-19 vaccines prevent transmission of COVID-19 Read More …

The CDC’s program to track vaccine effectiveness over time leaves out 60 million Americans

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The digital divide can be deadly. That has been the stark lesson of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has revealed how decades of underinvestment in digital infrastructure have left millions of Americans cut off from help during COVID-19. This has prevented many from finding vaccine appointments, it has thwarted efforts to release contact-tracing apps, and now it’s undermining the safety of the vaccine. The COVID-19 vaccines have been widely heralded as incredibly safe and effective, far exceeding even the most optimistic hopes for how quickly and effectively we could develop the jab. But given the historic speed with which the vaccines were rolled out, more data is needed. This is why the CDC developed v-safe , a long-term vaccine surveillance program. Post-injection surveillance is crucial, not only to monitor for side effects (which are quite rare and mild), but also to remind users about their second dose and monitor how long the vaccines remain effective. The problem is that the CDC made a crucial error, one that could undermine v-safe and lead to blind spots in the data it collects. You see, v-safe requires a smartphone. That may not sound like a big hurdle, but the truth is that at least one in five Americans lacks access to a smartphone. Read More …

How tech companies can work with HBCUs to meaningfully improve equity

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Over the past few years, we’ve seen various efforts to address racial disparity in terms of opportunity, access, and financial support for Black entrepreneurs and technologists. This includes everything from big tech company reports that document progress in diversifying their workforce to the onboarding of high-profile diversity and inclusion officers to address and improve the lack of D&I internally. But progress has still been glacially slow. That’s why corporations need to adopt a “yes, and” approach when it comes to improving diversity in the technology industry. This way of thinking comes from the world of improv, where all actions are supposed to be built upon. Instead of adopting “yes, and,” corporations all too often follow the lead of their competitors or simply dust off last year’s playbook, choosing comfort over innovation—yes, we need a more diverse workforce, so let’s do more of the same. The technology industry’s engagement with historically Black colleges and universities as a vehicle to recruit talent is one area where a “yes, and” approach would pay significant dividends. Although companies like Google, Apple, and others from the Fortune 1000 have committed more than $66 billion to racial equality initiatives since the killing of George Floyd by police, this funding alone will not solve the issue of bias toward and ultimately lack of access for HBCU students when it comes to getting into the tech industry. Are HBCUs a great source for STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) graduates? Absolutely. Read More …

Andrew Yang has some concerns about Zoom

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There’s nobody quite like Andrew Yang, the erstwhile presidential phenomenon whose campaign for a universal basic income found an unlikely ally in the Trump White House—and helped lay the groundwork for direct cash payments during the pandemic. He’s a political outsider who loves to be on the inside; a tech cheerleader who worries about artificial intelligence; a progressive who’s not afraid of Joe Rogan; and now a New York City mayoral candidate who’s . . . never voted for mayor. He’s also a serial entrepreneur, with deep ties to the tech community and strong opinions about how the public and private sectors should cooperate to foster innovation. That’s one of Fast Company’ s bailiwicks too, so we decided to catch up with the father of two (and former Fast Company columnist) in New York to discuss the Great Reopening, the future of bitcoin, why Manhattan beats Miami, and the trouble with Zoom. Fast Company: Congrats on the latest poll . Were you surprised at all to be leading the field with 32%? Andrew Yang: I’m excited that New Yorkers are excited. I think a lot of people are frustrated with what’s been going on in the city this past number of months and years. We know we need a different kind of leadership. I’m thrilled that people see that we can do better for ourselves. That’s my main mission, to restart the engine of New York’s economy and get the agencies and bureaucracies functioning at a higher level. Right—the number one thing on most people’s minds right now is the reopening the economy. We’re poised for a massive rebound in economic activity, but there’s a general feeling that the guidance from the government—on schools, restaurants, where and when you can take off your mask—has been confusing and slow. I’ve talked to dozens, maybe hundreds of business owners here in New York City, small-business owners, comedy clubs, restaurants, bars—and they were very frustrated with the operating guidelines and the lack of visibility. Right now there are different restrictions in New York State as opposed to New York City, which I think made sense at a certain point during the pandemic, but it makes less and less sense now, given the expanded vaccination rates and the fact that infection rates are falling. So number one is, can you reopen your doors? Number two, can you manage all of your financial obligations, primarily rent? If you were the average bar or a restaurant, you might owe somewhere between 3 and 10 months of back rent, even if your landlord is cutting you a break in terms of your cash obligations. Read More …

Why software legend Ray Ozzie wants to monitor your home’s air quality

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“I don’t know you’ve seen this thing yet, but it’s light enough, and it’s got Velcro mounting, so if you have a sunny window somewhere in the house, you can just open the window, reach out, and—after you turn it on—just stick it out there, and it’ll be solar-charged and run autonomously.” Ray Ozzie is on the other end of a Zoom call showing off Airnote, the new air quality monitor from his latest startup, Blues Wireless . As he talks, he brandishes the device—a palm-sized white box with a small LCD display, a built-in AT&T data connection, and an angled top that sports a solar panel. I am at least mildly surprised to find myself in the position of having Ray Ozzie explain a new gadget to me. Since the 1980s, after all, he has been known as one of the biggest brains in software—the mastermind behind pioneering “groupware” application Lotus Notes (still extant as HCL Notes ) and then Groove and Talko , two intriguing collaboration startups he ended up selling to Microsoft. In between Groove and Talko, he  served as Microsoft’s chief software architect , succeeding a fellow named Bill Gates and bootstrapping Azure , the portfolio of cloud-based services that eventually turned out to be the future of the company. Ray Ozzie [Photo: courtesy of Blues Wireless] Then again, Ozzie’s intellect has always been focused on the future of communications and collaboration, and that connects some of the dots between his past lives and Blues. Since 2019, the startup has been quietly working on Internet of Things (IoT) hardware and services designed to make it much easier to give just about anything a wireless internet connection. Its pilot customers—whom Blues isn’t ready to talk about yet—have built its Notecard system-on-module board into their own creations. With Airnote, Blues has become its own customer, embedding Notecard in a $149 air quality monitor intended for outdoor use and aimed at both consumers and businesses. It goes on sale on Blues’ site today and is scheduled to ship in early April. To Ozzie, the way Blues shuttles data across the net is still a form of collaboration, even if it’s not human-to-human. “The opportunity here is really to collaborate with machines, not just with people,” he says. The company, which employs around 30 people, is also a personal opportunity for him to go back to basics, getting his hands dirty in ways he’d left behind decades ago: “I haven’t done hardware since the seventies or coded since ’96, and it’s been an amazing journey.” A failure to communicate The ideas that became Blues Wireless have their roots in natural disaster and the challenges of disseminating essential information in its wake—another fact that links the company to Ozzie’s bona fides in communications. Ten years ago this week, Japan suffered the most powerful earthquake in its history , which spawned a  massive tsunami . Those catastrophes in turn led to the meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant , which—just by themselves—required the evacuation of 154,000 people. To complicate matters further, the Japanese government and the power plant’s managers were soon criticized for their inadequate communications about the nuclear accident and its implications to the country’s residents Read More …