Tech executives speak out against Donald Trump’s move to end DACA, Google is hiring artificial intelligence talent in China, and Lenovo fesses up to spyware.
From Twitter, technology company executives are reacting to this weekend’s announcement that the Trump administration will be shutting down Obama’s “Dreamers” immigration program, officially called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. The Dreamers program enables nearly 800,000 undocumented individuals who came to the US as children to continue to live, study, and work in the US. Hundreds of tech leaders have spoken out, including Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, and more. They say they stand by diversity and call on the US government to preserve the program.
From Reddit today, Google is hiring for at least four artificial intelligence and machine learning positions in China, which is notable considering that the tech giant has been blocked in China for more than seven years. The positions would be based in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou. China is aiming to become the world’s AI leader by 2030 thanks to a state-led development plan announced this summer. And according to Goldman Sachs, China’s AI technology is quickly catching up to the US. It looks like Google is trying to capitalize on the AI talent being fostered in the country.
And lastly, from Product Hunt, Lenovo has settled its Federal Trade Commission charges that accused it of selling more than 750,000 laptop devices between August 2014 and June 2015 with pre-installed spyware. The spyware, called VisualDiscovery, has allegedly been secretly collecting visual data on customers’ web browsing habits and using it for advertising purposes. It kept consumer’s personal info like log-in credentials, social security numbers, bank account information, medical information, and emails. The laptop maker will pay $3.5 million to 32 states in moves that mark the FTC’s continued clampdown on companies that invade customer privacy.
