Hartley Charlton, writing for MacRumors:

"Now, more than ever, people need a secure payment solution they can rely on. We're excited to be able to put the control back into our customers' hands, by launching Samsung Pay Card” […]

Samsung Pay Card offers five percent cashback on purchases from Samsung, and one percent cashback at other retailers. […]

Unlike ‌Apple Card‌, Samsung Pay Card does not offer a physical card. It is a purely digital service available via NFC on Samsung smartphones and smartwatches.

I think we’re past the point of nitpicking over which device or OS had a particular feature first and who copied it — smartphones have matured to the point where virtually any new idea is bound to be iterated upon by a competitor — but credit cards don’t really have anything to do with smartphones.

To me, Apple Card didn’t even seem like a very strong product, and the credit card market didn’t seem like a space that a company like Apple would want to be in. The fact that Samsung (and Verizon, for what it’s worth) has now blindly followed Apple into that thicket a year later is just another indicator that they’ll never be anything more than shameless copycats who happen to have a side gig making household appliances.

Side note: “Samsung Pay Card” is a clunky, unattractive name that sounds like it was poorly translated from another language, and the design of the card itself looks like something you’d apply for in a Best Buy.

Robert Burnson, reporting for Bloomberg*:

In the new lawsuit, filed Monday in state court in Redwood City, California, the company is accused of collecting, storing and profiting from the biometric data of more than 100 million Instagram users, without their knowledge or consent.

The practice violates an Illinois privacy law that bars the unauthorized collection of biometric data, according to the lawsuit. Under the law a company can be forced to pay $1,000 per violation -- or $5,000 if it’s found to have acted recklessly or intentionally.

Everything Facebook does is either reckless or underhanded. The company is defined by their old motto of “move fast and break things”.

The system needs to come down hard on Facebook. Clearly, they don’t care about legal slaps on the wrist: what they need is a hard, legal kick in the balls that causes them to double over in pain and take a beat to catch their breath. Prosecutors need to not back down and accept a measly settlement, they need to pursue every dime they can in the hopes that they get enough to teach Facebook a real lesson, and if it financially levels them and drives the whole operation into the ground, so be it. All of Facebook’s products are doing more harm than good at this point, anyway.

#deletefacebook

*Quick note to remind readers that last year, Bloomberg was the publication that put out “The Big Hack”, a sensational piece by Jordan Robertson and Michael Riley which claimed that many American companies, including Apple and Amazon, were having data siphoned from their servers by a tiny, Chinese military unit designed chip which had made its way onto their motherboards during production in Chinese factories without the companies’ knowledge. All parties involved denied the claims made by the Bloomberg reporters after conducting internal investigations which yielded no evidence that such tampering had occurred. Bloomberg has offered no evidence to corroborate their “reporting”. By all accounts, it seems like The Big Hack was a big farce. Until Bloomberg retracts the story or corroborates it, their institutional credibility must be questioned.

From the Biden campaign’s website:

Kamala Harris Will Be The Next Vice President of The United States.

My first response to this news wasn’t outright disappointment, just the kind of let down you feel when you’re expecting something incredible and receive us something acceptable but bland. I just don’t feel like this pick really energizes the ticket or adds to it in a way that other options couldn’t have.

My first pick for Joe Biden’s VP was Stacy Abrams, followed by Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar. There was a lot of speculation about Kamala Harris in recent weeks, but in her last few debates, she just didn’t seem very genuine to me, so I was hoping it wouldn’t be her. Plus, there was the issue of her record which didn’t sit well with me, but I suppose the Biden campaign has decided that, while unsavory, her record isn’t likely to be a disqualifying issue for many of the undecided voters they’re gunning for. Kamala checks a few demographic boxes while keeping the ticket moderate enough not to scare away undecided independent voters. I liked Abrams most because I thought it would be a good move for the campaign to announce a fresh, young running mate with more progressive ideas, but I suppose the DNC wasn’t going to pick Biden’s running mate based what I or anyone else would’ve liked.

All in all, Kamala is more exciting than Mike Pence, but I feel like the Biden campaign has fumbled an opportunity to get people excited.

From The New York Times:

President Trump is considering new immigration regulations that would allow border officials to temporarily block American citizens and legal permanent residents from returning to the United States from abroad if authorities believe they may be infected with the coronavirus. In recent months, Mr. Trump has imposed sweeping rules that ban entry by foreigners into the United States, citing the risk of allowing the virus to spread from hot spots abroad. But those rules have exempted two categories of people attempting to return: American citizens and non-citizens who have already established legal residence.

This is outrageous and treasonous.

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Gary NG, reporting for iPhone in Canada:

According to the founders [of Prepear], Apple “has opposed the trademark application for our small business, Prepear, demanding that we change our obviously pear shaped logo, used to represent our brand in the recipe management and meal planning business.” […]

Prepear says they are a small company with only five staff and legal costs have already cost them “many thousands of dollars” plus laying off one team member, in their legal fight against the iPhone maker.

From Apple’s notice of opposition to Prepear:

The Consumers encountering Applicant’s Mark are likely to associate the mark with Apple. Applicant’s Mark consists of a minimalistic fruit design with a right-angled leaf, which readily calls to mind Apple’s famous Apple Logo and creates a similar commercial impression

I’m usually inclined to defend Apple but this is a real stretch. Are all other potential minimalistic fruit designs completely off the table now? Would a left-angled leaf have made it better? It just seems like Apple is throwing their weight around here for no real benefit and to the detriment of real people. It’s disappointing.

Shan Li and Jennifer Calfas, reporting for The Wall Street Journal:

The U.S. has surpassed five million confirmed cases of the coronavirus as some states saw sharp upticks while others showed signs that the spread of the virus was easing.

The U.S. continues to lead the world in number of confirmed cases, followed by Brazil with about three million cases and India with more than two million, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Brazil and India. Great company we’re keeping these days.

It’s been a little over two weeks since we hit 4,000,000. Still, it seems to be the south’s fault.

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Sam Byford, reporting for The Verge:

Google has discontinued the Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL, its flagship phones that were released in October of last year. Both devices are out of stock in Google’s store in the US, though some variants are still available in other regions for the time being. […]

It’s unusual for Google to discontinue a Pixel phone so quickly. The Pixels 2 and 3 were on sale for around 18 months each, with Google stopping sales roughly six months after the introduction of their successors. The move means Google technically no longer has a flagship phone for sale.

Wow. Hard to imagine Apple pulling the plug on a current flagship iPhone before releasing the next one.

Russel Brandom, reporting for The Verge:

 President Trump has signed a new executive order which will block all transactions with Bytedance, TikTok’s parent corporation, in an effort to “address the national emergency with respect to the information and communication technology supply chain.” It isn’t effectively immediately, but has a 45 day deadline.

“The spread [of apps controlled by the Chinese government] continues to threaten the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States,” the order reads. “The United States must take aggressive action against the owners of TikTok to protect our national security.”

Did Trump make this decision because his understands that TikTok is a national security threat? No. He made this decision because he’s a small person: he’d probably never even heard of TikTok before a bunch of teenagers hurt his feelings by using it to screw up his rally by bloating the number of expected attendees by requesting tickets despite not intending to attend.

But, would the U.S. better off without TikTok? Yes, we would. And 45 days isn’t a ton of time to arrange an international business acquisition.

Harriet Torry, reporting for The Wall Street Journal:

The U.S. economy contracted at a record rate last quarter and weekly jobless claims rose for the second straight week, amid signs of a slowing recovery as the country continues to struggle with the coronavirus pandemic.

The Commerce Department said U.S. gross domestic product—the value of all goods and services produced across the economy—fell at a 32.9% annual rate in the second quarter, or a 9.5% drop compared with the same quarter a year ago. Both figures were the steepest in records dating to 1947.

It’s a good thing we elected a businessman whose market savvy uniquely positions him to be able to shield the American economy from disaster and deliver us to a new era of economic prosperity. No, wait.

It’s a good thing we have the opportunity to reelect a businessman whose market savvy uniquely positions him to be able to fix the American economy after he drove it into the ground by fumbling the federal response to a global pandemic.

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Bruce Haring, reporting for Deadline:

Taylor Swift’s new folklore album has had a fabled sales beginning.

Since its Thursday release,  the album surpassed 1.3 million global sales in its first twenty-four hours, according to her Republic Records label.

Beyond that, folklore also dominated on the global streaming platforms. Spotify said Swift’s total of 79.4 million streams is a new record for an album by a female artist. Apple Music’s total of 35.47 million is a new high for a pop album.

That means the album will easily debut at No. 1 on the Billboard albums chart, and will have the best showing since Swift’s Lover album came out in 2019.

Taylor Swift is an icon and that’s all there is to it.

---

A thorough ‘folklore’ review is forthcoming, but I do want to jot down a few quick thoughts.

1. At first I thought the songs all sounded a bit too similar, but the more you listen, the more distinct they really are. Plus, it was one in the morning the first time I listened to it, so I was a bit tired and not at my most aurally discerning.

2. The vibe of the album was much slower and more mellow than any of her previous albums, and it’s her first to be categorized as “alternative” instead of “country” or “pop”.

3. Each song has layers of rich detail that weave myth, reality, past, and present in a way that’s truly incredible. Not only that, but there are themes, story lines, and lyrics that recur throughout the album, almost like a puzzle or riddle waiting for listeners to parse together; Taylor is quickly becoming a lyrical J.K. Rowling. That said, as a history major and someone who really appreciates stories, this album feels like it was made for me. One song in particular felt remarkably specific to one of the most emotionally monumental events I’ve experienced this year, and it came a mere 18 hours after said event. Crazy.

4. I was right about the harmonica!

Kim Lyons, reporting for The Verge:

In the latest instance of iOS 14’s beta mode tattling on unexpected app behavior, some users reported that they were seeing the green “camera on” indicator while using Instagram when they were just scrolling through their feeds, not taking a photo or video. 

An Instagram spokesperson said in an email to The Verge that the behavior was a bug and that it’s being fixed.

A bug. Sure.

Don’t forget that Instagram’s privacy policy (which is exactly the same as Facebook’s) provides them with the legal leeway to access your camera at virtually any time, and then do whatever they want with whatever they may happen to see. Convenient.

#deletefacebook

Jim Morrill and Francesca Chambers, reporting for The Charlotte Observer:

Trump had forced Republicans to move the event to Florida after failing to get guarantees he could have a full house in Charlotte because of the coronavirus. But Jacksonville, like the rest of Florida, has been hit with a surge of COVID-19 cases. Trump said Thursday it was irresponsible to hold the convention there.

“I told my team it’s time to cancel the Jacksonville, Florida, component of the GOP convention,” he told reporters at the White House. “We’re going to do some other things with tele-rallies and online the week that we’re discussing ... I’ll still do a convention speech in a different form. But we won’t do a big crowded convention per se, it’s just not the right time for that.”

Womp womp.

Too bad they moved it from Charlotte.

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That didn’t take long. Just fourteen days to add another million cases — that’s a 33% increase from July 9th — and it’s almost entirely the south’s fault. Like I said when we hit three million, these next few are on us.

On the bright side (ha), at least the Trump administration seems to be taking this a little bit more seriously now. 
God knows how long that’ll last, but hopefully it’s not an act.

Southerners, listen up:

• Stop being selfish and put on a mask. Don’t confuse inconvenience with oppression.

• Wash your hands, and carry some hand sanitizer.

• Don’t listen to antivaxxer bullshit. Or do, honestly, cause if you’re that far gone you’re beyond reason. If your kids die from COVID-19 because you won’t get them their shots, don’t act surprised, Darwin called that shit like a hundred years ago. Can’t believe we’re still having the conversation about vaccines.

• Stay home.

• Push your representatives to renew the $600 weekly unemployment benefit so that people whose jobs aren’t essential can stay home.

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From Taylor Swift on Twitter:

Most of the things I had planned this summer didn’t end up happening, but there is something I hadn’t planned on that DID happen. And that thing is my 8th studio album, folklore. […]

Before this year I probably would’ve overthought when to release this music at the ‘perfect’ time, but the times we’re living in keep reminding me that nothing is guaranteed. My gut is telling me that if you make something you love, you should just put it out into the world. That’s the side of uncertainty I can get on board with.

Usually when Taylor Swift is gearing up to drop a new single, she always drops little breadcrumbs and Easter eggs for fans to collect and theorize about what they could mean and whether they’ll lead to new music, but this time, there was none of that. Not only were there no signs of a single, we’re getting an entire album. And we’re getting it at midnight TONIGHT. As a big Taylor Swift fan, it’s pretty safe to say I was blindsided but thrilled by this announcement.

I really like the aesthetic so far, the black and white forest vibes feels a bit more introspective and genuine than Lover, and generally less girly, which is cool. We’ll see how the music stacks up.

Lame, funny prediction just for the hell of it: my gut tells me at least one song will prominently feature a harmonica.

UPDATED: 7/23/20, 15:14

Matthew Pierce, writing for The Daily Boulder:

Marco Rubio showed his true colors on Saturday by sharing a photo of him and the late Elijah Cummings to pay tribute to the late Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) – a beloved civil rights icon.

Rubio took to Twitter where he shared a photo of him and Cummings with a message that read: “It was an honor to know & be blessed with the opportunity to serve in Congress with John Lewis, a genuine and historic American hero. May the Lord grant him eternal peace.”

Of course, Rubio’s first attempt also had a typo in it.

Lots of other Republicans apparently felt obligated to say a something as well. Even Bryan Kemp made a statement, the Georgia governor who, in the words of podcast host and former National Security Spokesman Tommy Vietor, “has done more to disenfranchise black voters in Georgia, maybe than anyone else alive at this moment”.

The Republican response to Lewis’s death has been disgusting and hypocritical. They would be doing everyone a favor, themselves included, by keeping Lewis’s name out of their mouths (as well as MLK’s, Abraham Lincoln’s, and a long list of other people who actually stood up for true American ideals). They’ve spent their careers trying to undo the progress made by people like Lewis, so it’s cowardly and in poor taste for them to cling to his legacy now that he’s dead. It’s obvious gaslighting.

Quick note: if your response to Rubio’s and Sullivan’s blunders is “it was a mistake anyone could make, they look the same!”, you’re a racist.

UPDATED: 7/23/20, 23:19

Alana Wise, reporting for NPR:

President Trump took to the White House briefing room on Tuesday to praise his administration's response to the virus that has killed more than 140,000 Americans so far. In a reversal of his recent statements and tone, he acknowledged the severity of the pandemic and urged Americans to comply with preventative measures. 

"It will likely unfortunately get worse before it gets better," Trump said in uncharacteristically somber remarks, encouraging Americans to social distance, practice good hygiene and wear masks.

The president said his administration is in the process of developing a strategy for the coming months, including developing treatments and vaccines for COVID-19. 

Trump — who has mostly cast mask usage as a personal choice and declined to wear one himself — urged people to wear face masks, citing a spike of cases in the Sun Belt in recent weeks. 

"Whether you like the mask or not, they have an impact," he said.

Is this a realization that their plan of ignoring the pandemic and hoping it will disappear was not only stupid and ineffective, but costing them support? Is it just an attempt to correct course for their political strategy? I truly hope so, becuause if it’s the result of some new discovery about the virus, we should be scared. What could the administration have learned that would caused Trump to change his tone so suddenly and drastically?

Check out CopyrightBro’s COVID-19 coverage roundup.

Erica Werner and Jeff Stein, reporting for The Washington Post:

The Trump administration is trying to block billions of dollars for states to conduct testing and contact tracing in the upcoming coronavirus relief bill, people involved in the talks said Saturday.

The administration is also trying to block billions of dollars that GOP senators want to allocate for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and billions more for the Pentagon and State Department to address the pandemic at home and abroad, the people said.

Point me in the direction of a single public health expert who says we need less testing. I’ll wait.

Of course we don’t need less testing, we need far more testing, and we need more accurate tests. I’ve been saying this for months, as has anybody with a brain. The fact that Trump thinks we need less testing indicates at best a wholly political approach to addressing the pandemic, and at worst a complete misunderstanding of object permanence.

One of the best ways to safely get the economy back up and running would be to let people who we suspect have immunity (those with COVID-19 antibodies) go out and keep businesses afloat while those who haven’t yet been exposed continue to stay home. The crazy thing is that if everyone played along, we could put this whole thing behind us in a matter of weeks. Blocking funding for testing would be idiotic, selfish, and cruel (nothing new for the Trump administration), but it’s also a huge miss from a political perspective: Americans love an opportunity to rally behind their president to achieve a common goal or defeat a common enemy. Why would the Trump administration pass up such an opportunity during an election year? It’s remarkable hubris and short-sightedness.

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A few of my most despised senators have teamed up again, but this time, they’re not trying to destroy strong encryption so that the government can spy on us, they’re just peddling some xenophobic bullshit clearly designed to pander to their base.

Senators Thom Tillis, Marsha Blackburn, and Tom Cotton (all from my despised senator list) have joined forces again, this time with Senators Martha McSally and Josh Hawley to introduce legislation that provides an avenue for U.S. citizens to sue the Chinese government for the loss of life and financial hardships they’ve endured as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Not only do they blame China for the pandemic’s disastrous (yet preventable) effects on the U.S., but the press release on Tillis’s website goes so far as to compare the COVID-19 pandemic to 9/11, as if it was somehow an instance of state sponsored terrorism (which won’t help to tamp down preposterous, idiotic, completely unproven conspiracy theories that the coronavirus was designed as a weapon in a Chinese lab). They purport that their bill “is closely modeled after the 2016 Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA), that gave more legal remedies to victims of terrorism, particularly those of 9/11 victims”. Again, obvious pandering, this time packaged with a pathetically weak comparison.

These senators have a remarkable ability to talk out of both sides of their mouth. They’re simultaneously downplaying the severity of the pandemic to make the Trump administration’s inadequate response seem acceptable (god forbid they piss off the Trump klan), and hyping up the death toll and financial costs to rile up their base against a common (and more or less manufactured) enemy. 

The bill doesn’t provide any directive or course of action for citizens seeking to hold the United States government responsible for the ongoing, reckless negligence that they’ve branded as a “response” to the disease.

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John Gruber, everybody:

Trump’s problem with Bush isn’t partisan. It’s about adherence to foundational American ideals such as the rule of law, and the idea that the President of the United States is the leader of all Americans, not just those who support him. Say what you want about Bush’s presidency, when the nation faced a true crisis on 9/11, he brought the nation together. 

When faced with this crisis, Donald Trump, mind-bogglingly, drove the country further apart. His remaining supporters are with him not despite this, but because of it, like pigs wallowing in mud.

Zachary Cohen, Luke McGee, and Alex Marquardt, reporting for CNN:

Russian cyber actors are targeting organizations involved in coronavirus vaccine development, according to a new warning by US, UK and Canadian security officials on Thursday that details activity by a Russian hacking group called APT29, which also goes by the name “the Dukes” or “Cozy Bear.” […]

Cozy Bear is one of two hacking groups linked to Russian intelligence that is believed to have accessed the Democratic National Committee's internal systems in the lead-up to the 2016 US election, but Thursday's announcement is the first time this group has been named in connection to cyberattacks related to the coronavirus pandemic.

The NCSC, which is the UK's lead technical authority on cyber security and part of the UK's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), assessed that APT29 "almost certainly operate as part of Russian Intelligence Services". […] This assessment is also supported by partners at the Canadian Communication Security Establishment (CSE), the US Department for Homeland Security (DHS) Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the National Security Agency (NSA), the NCSC said. […] "APT29's campaign of malicious activity is ongoing, predominantly against government, diplomatic, think tank, healthcare and energy targets to steal valuable intellectual property," according to a press release.

Russia? Conduct a cyber attack against the United States!? They would never!

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