Odds and Ends 

Maintain data security when staff is working from home

The coronavirus pandemic has left governments floundering, businesses unprepared and citizens scrambling for hand sanitizer like it’s worth its weight in gold. The sense of general unpreparedness has a lot of people on edge. Not surprising, since we’re on the edge of a global health emergency and it’s impossible to predict exactly how government, travel or day-to-day business will operate during this outbreak. Many tech companies already allow their staffs to work from home. Remote work policies are increasingly popular across the tech industry as companies push flexible working arrangements.…

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Odds and Ends 

Myriota raises $19.3 million to expand its IoT satellite constellation

Internet of things satellite connectivity startup Myriota has raises a $19.3 million Series B funding round, led by Hostplus and Main Sequence Ventures, with additional funding from Boeing, former Australian PM Malcolm Turnbull, Singtel Innov8 and others. The company has now raised $37 million in Funding, and has four satellites on orbit already, with a plan to expand that to 25 by 2022 with the help of this new funding. Myriota provides low-cost, power efficient direct satellite connectivity for IoT uses, including industrial applications like equipment monitoring and measurement of…

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Headlines 

Dogs working from home during coronavirus crisis? There’s an Instagram account for that

@DogsWorkingFromHome made its first post during the onset of the coronavirus crisis, and already has hundreds of submissions An errant ear appearing in the bottom right corner of the screen. A blur of fur flashing in the background, followed by a crash. The chance to check out our colleagues pets during video conferences can be a voyeuristic joy for workers stuck at home during the novel coronavirus pandemic. It took Mark Polchleb, a brand manager from Melbourne, just one day to realise that experience deserved its own home online. I…

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Headlines 

Facebook to remove misleading Trump ‘census’ ads

Presidents re-election campaign had sponsored misleading ads, which actually linked to Republican fundraising site Facebook has announced it will remove a series of misleading ads from Donald Trumps re-election campaign. The Trump Make America Great Committee posted 2,000 iterations of an ad this week, asking users to respond to the Official Congressional District Census. Instead of information at the Census Bureau, however, the posts linked to a once-in-a-decade event that seeks to count every person in the country, with drastic consequences for resource allocation and government representation nationwide. Trumps campaign…

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Headlines 

Susan Fowler: When the time came to blow the whistle on Uber, I was ready

The former Uber engineer has written a memoir about exposing the companys systemic sexism she hopes it will help other women in the industry Before Susan Fowler was a whistleblower she was a violinist, and before she was a violinist she fed fruit flies to spiders that were milked for their venom at a small Arizona business known as Spider Pharm. In February 2017, Fowler was thrown into the public eye after she published a damning blogpost exposing the toxic sexism she experienced working as a software engineer at Uber.…

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Headlines 

Microsoft Surface Laptop 3 review: still sleek, just no longer unique

USB-C, faster processors and new design options continue to keep Microsofts Windows 10 laptop near the top of the pile Microsofts top-quality laptop is now in its third generation, with new ports, new processors and a slight redesign, with the option to ditch the unique Alcantara for plain old aluminium. The 999 and up Surface Laptop 3 is Microsofts vision of what a traditional laptop should be. For the most part thats the same as everyone else, with traditional aluminium body, glass-covered screen and hinge that does not rotate all…

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Headlines 

From renewables to Netflix: the 15 super-trends that defined the 2010s

It was the decade of austerity, fracking, populism and internet lies. But not everything about the 2010s was terrible The plastics backlash Garbage, including plastic waste, is seen at the beach in Costa del Este, Panama City. Photograph: Luis Acosta/AFP via Getty Images It was once the height of metropolitan chic: the dash into Starbucks for a skinny decaf caramel latte en route for work, the takeaway cup a mark of upward mobility. Those were the days of Sex and the City, when the culture of doing everything on the…

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