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A Pharma Company Is Sponsoring An iPhone App To Fight The Opioid Crisis It Helped Start

Darren Mccollester / Getty Images

The pain medication OxyContin has been widely blamed for setting off the opioid epidemic, one in which more than 15,000 people in the United States fatally overdosed on prescription painkillers in 2015 alone.

Now, the drug’s maker, Purdue Pharma, is starting a study that asks chronic pain patients to log their symptoms on iPhones and Apple Watches, so their doctors can keep tabs on them and, ideally, decrease or eliminate their medications.

Purdue plans to partner with Geisinger Health System in Pennsylvania, a state that has been hard-hit by opioid abuse, to recruit hundreds of patients this summer for a yearlong study. Purdue began experimenting with ResearchKit, Apple’s software framework for clinical trial apps, in 2015. This is Purdue’s first official foray into remote health-monitoring technology.

Researchers at Purdue and Geisinger hope that wearables and smartphones will help doctors better understand patients’ real-time experiences, prescribe them painkillers only as needed, and cut health care costs. While some public health experts say the study potentially has merit, they acknowledge that Purdue’s involvement can, at the very least, look awkward.

“I’m just very suspicious that they’re interested in developing a tool that will help people get off of their medicines,” said Andrew Kolodny, co-director of the Opioid Policy Research Collaborative at Brandeis University. “When I hear about this, I wonder if it’s all an effort by Purdue to get good [public relations].”

Robert Jamison, an anesthesia and psychiatry professor at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, said abuse of OxyContin “triggered some of the problems we’re facing today.” He added of Purdue, “I’m sure they’re looking for some positive press out of this, [so they can] say, ‘We’re trying to make things better.’”

“I know that sounds like, ‘What a crazy thing for a company that produces opioids to do,’” Tracy Mayne, Purdue’s executive director of medical affairs strategic research, told BuzzFeed News. “But it comes from that level of commitment to addressing the problem in the US.”

Family members hold pictures of loved ones killed by the opioid epidemic during a news conference on Capitol Hill.

Alex Wong / Getty Images

Since 1996, OxyContin has generated billions for Purdue. The private, family-owned pharmaceutical company aggressively marketed the drug and long held an outsized market share: Its patent on the original formula didn’t expire until 2013. In 2007, top executives pleaded guilty to federal prosecutors’ charges that it had misbranded OxyContin as less addictive than it actually was and misled regulators, doctors, and patients about its risks. Purdue was fined $635 million. Other lawsuits have since been filed.

Purdue knew for decades that OxyContin’s painkilling effect often tapered off hours before the advertised 12-hour mark — a problem that led many patients to become addicted, the Los Angeles Times reported last year. With OxyContin prescriptions falling in the US, the company’s owners are now using some of the same old marketing tactics, from patient discounts to seminars training doctors to prescribe opioids, to push the painkiller in Latin America, Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and other regions, according to the Times.

But Purdue executives say their new ResearchKit study is one of several efforts the company has made to stem opioid abuse. They co-sponsored a prescription-monitoring program in Virginia, so prescribers can see and make decisions based on patients’ medication history, and granted $1 million to the National Association Boards of Pharmacy to promote prescription-monitoring nationwide. They’re working on non-opioid pain treatments and distributed the CDC’s new opioid-prescribing guidelines to medical professionals. They’ve also sponsored studies on why patients hang on to unused opioids, and the characteristics of Medicaid members who use opioids. These preliminary studies are being presented this week at the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy’s annual meeting.

At the meeting, Purdue will also present early research about a multi-faceted treatment program for chronic pain patients at Geisinger, which involves a three-day educational seminar, a year of follow-up, and coordination and goal-setting with primary care doctors.

For the new ResearchKit study, the health system plans to digitize this program by handing out Apple Watches and iPhones to more than 200 patients. Eligible patients will have chronic pain conditions like back pain, advanced osteoarthritis, and rheumatoid arthritis, and will already routinely take painkillers, Mayne said. (Geisinger did not make a doctor available to comment on the study.)

The devices will passively record metrics like physical activity, heart rate, sleep quality, and GPS data (not a patient’s exact location, Mayne said, but a measure of how far they’re moving outside their home). Patients will also self-report information like how much pain they’ve felt that day or at a given moment, how depressed they feel, and how much medication they’re taking.

All this information will be integrated into the patient’s electronic medical record and shared with their doctor at Geisinger. Both sides will be encouraged to constantly communicate with each other about what is and isn’t working, via text, email, phone, and the app itself.

One data-based recommendation a doctor could make, according to Mayne: A patient who was averaging 1,000 steps a day, and is now doing 5,000, should aim for 10,000 steps six months down the road. Another doctor might observe that a patient’s pain is lessening as their medication doses decrease, something that they may not necessarily know when a patient is going about their life outside the clinic.

“The goal is to be able to reduce reliance on pain medications, and for some patients, that would absolutely include complete discontinuation,” Mayne said. “I don’t expect that to be a large group… but certainly a goal is if someone can actually discontinue medication.”

Oxycodone pain pills.

John Moore / Getty Images

Jamison says the study “sounds like a real good plan.” He and his colleagues have conducted a similar, forthcoming study in which pain patients communicated with their doctors through an app — for both iOS and Android — and tracked their activity through a wearable device, in this case a Fitbit.

That study involved 100 or so people and lasted about three months, while Purdue and Geisinger intend to run theirs for a year in a bigger group of patients. In addition to the 200-person Apple Watch group, researchers will study 200 people who have gone through Geisinger’s specialized pain treatment program in person; 400 enrollees who are in Geisinger’s pain clinics but not its specialized treatment program; and a control group of 600 to 800 pain patients.

Sustaining patient enthusiasm over a year will be the main hurdle, Jamison says. Based on his experience, he said, “People will use it for a while, and then they’ll drop off unless they have some sort of sense that ‘this information is very, very valuable and is going to make a difference in my care.’”

He added of Purdue: “I gotta believe they’re sincere.”

Still, Kolodny doubts the experiment will give doctors more useful data than they already have, or actually help curb addiction.

“Getting patients off of opioids is very difficult,” he said. “Just because a prescriber recognizes a patient should come off, doesn’t mean the patient’s going to be capable of it.”

LINK: Almost Half Of Patients Prescribed Opioids For A Month Get Hooked For A Year

LINK: A Recent Spike In Cocaine Overdose Deaths Has Been Linked To The Opioid Epidemic

LINK: iPhone Apps Could Be A Revolution In Health — If People Use Them

Quelle: <a href="A Pharma Company Is Sponsoring An iPhone App To Fight The Opioid Crisis It Helped Start“>BuzzFeed

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Do You Rinse Your Lemons?

It has recently come to my attention that some people do a completely absurd thing: They rinse lemons before using them. Not just if they’re going to put a slice in a drink, but even if they’re just going to use little juice for say, a salad dressing.

A quick poll of friends and coworkers revealed that people are bitterly divided on this issue. Those who rinse think it’s disgusting that people wouldn’t rinse, and the non-rinsers think it’s a big waste of time.

Well, when life hands me a debate about lemons, I make some phone calls and fix myself a tall glass of sweet, refreshing journalism lemonade.

First, I spoke to Jaydee Hanson, senior policy analyst for the Center for Food Safety, an organization that advocates a variety of agricultural issues, like trying to keep genetically modified apples out of supermarkets and encouraging popcorn producers to use bee-friendly pesticides.

“Yes, lemons definitely should be washed,” Hanson told me. His reasoning was that the rind is chock-full of pesticides that could transfer to the lemon while cutting, or transfer onto your hands while you touch the rind. “In addition to having pesticides on them, they also have antibiotics on them,” Hanson continued. “Most people don’t realize this. The EPA granted emergency use of antibiotics on citrus crops to prevent citrus greening.” Citrus greening is a bacterial disease passed along by bugs that has been plaguing U.S. citrus crops in the last few years.

Hanson admits that the amount of pesticides on a lemon aren’t exactly deadly. “Are you going to die from it? Not unless you’re allergic to the antibiotics.”

Hmm. I know plenty of people who are allergic to antibiotics, and I’ve never heard of anyone ever having a reaction from eating fruit. If this sounds perhaps a little alarmist, you’re not the only one thinking that.

Lemons at the grocery store, touched by who knows how many germy hands.

Katie Notopoulos / BuzzFeed News

Jim Adaskaveg is a professor of plant pathology at University of California, Riverside, who specifically studies post-harvest fruit problems and sanitizing fruit. His career is basically dedicated to whether or not you should rinse a lemon.

To understand if you should rinse a lemon, you first have to understand what rinsing would actually accomplish. Are you really washing off those pesticides and antibiotics? Nope&#033; “Most lemons in a supermarket are processed and treated and ready to be consumed,” Adaskaveg explained. Fruit is washed at a processing plant between the field and the supermarket. After it’s washed, they’re treated with a wax and a safe fungicide to keep them from getting moldy.

And the wax means that any trace amount of pesticide residue is not really getting washed off anyway – at least not be a few seconds of rinsing.

However, Askaveg still is in favor of rinsing. The reason? Germs from whoever touched them at the grocery store: the manager who set up the display, or a customer who test-squeezed a few. Or even you when you touched them before washing your hands. “The pesticides aren’t really dangerous, even though people think they are,” he said. “The risk of any poisoning is astronomically low compared to germs from handling.”

So there you go. Whether you believe the food safety guy or the fruit packing professor about the dangers of potential pesticide residue, they still agree that a rinse is worth it. Most of all, this is terrible news for me, since it means my husband was right. Goddammit.

Quelle: <a href="Do You Rinse Your Lemons?“>BuzzFeed

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The Facebook App Now Has Camera, Direct, And Stories, Three Features That Copy Snapchat

From left to right: Facebook Camera, Direct, and Stories.

Facebook

Facebook will start globally rolling out three features today on iOS and Android that strongly resemble Snapchat. They&#039;re called Camera, Direct, and Stories.

Facebook Direct — disappearing photos and videos with options to add text and filters — mimics the individual Snaps people send to each other. Facebook Stories copies Snapchat Stories, even in name — they&039;re ephemeral photos and videos that appear as a circle at the top of your news feed for 24 hours. Comments on a Story and images and videos on Direct will disappear whenever the content they&039;re responding to does. To take photos and videos for Direct or Stories, you have to launch Facebook Camera.

The company said it has been testing these features since August and that it began developing them in response to people sharing more photos and videos on Facebook. In its Q4 2016 earnings call, Facebook boasted that 1.15 billion users access the social network only on its mobile app every month, though it didn&039;t specify what percentage of total users that number accounted for.

Facebook&039;s algorithm will rank your friends&039; stories based on its determination of “how close you are with them,” Facebook product manager Connor Hayes told BuzzFeed News.

Facebook offered to buy Snapchat for $3 billion in 2013, but Snap founder Evan Spiegel turned Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg down. Snap made its initial public offering in late February 2017 at a valuation of $34 billion.

In a briefing, Hayes didn&039;t deny Snapchat&039;s influence on Facebook&039;s new features. Snapchat “had really pioneered Stories and did a great job uncovering the fact that [Stories] are a great way to communicate visually,” he said. “We see Stories as a format that will be consistent across social media for everyone to create and share visual content.” The company had previously denied that Snapchat affected its decision to create similar features.

Snapchat-esque features are now available in all of Facebook&039;s flagship apps: Whatsapp, Instagram, Messenger, and now Facebook Camera, Direct, and Stories. Each app has a different use case, Facebook said, and you won&039;t be able to cross-post content among them. They&039;re also only available in app form, not on your desktop.

“While the story format within Messenger lends itself more to &039;who’s up for coffee?&039; and an ensuing thread, the story format in Facebook is more aligned with how people share photos and videos there already — though the content people share on Stories will be more lightweight,” Hayes said.

The social network has introduced a number of different filters within Camera, Direct, and Stories, including overlays for local holidays or slang. It&039;s also partnered with several film studios and artists to create filters in the mold of popular characters and artworks, like the Minions.

These filters aren&039;t sponsored, as some of Snapchat&039;s are, and brands won&039;t have access to the Facebook Stories feature for now. Stories also won&039;t show ads at launch, though they may later.

Quelle: <a href="The Facebook App Now Has Camera, Direct, And Stories, Three Features That Copy Snapchat“>BuzzFeed

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This Chatbot Can Help Immigrants Who Work In Tech

In the film “For Here Or To Go,” Indian-born computer programmer Vivek Pandit&#039;s offer to join a startup is rescinded when the company discovers it would have to sponsor Pandit&039;s H-1B visa transfer.

Via trailers.apple.com

Visabot — a Facebook Messenger chatbot that guides immigrants through the visa application process — just added a capability that will make Silicon Valley very happy. Starting today, Visabot can help people navigate the labyrinthine process of transferring their H1-B work visa to a new employer.

Often, tech workers who are in the US on H-1B — or “skilled worker” visas — work for corporations like Google, Microsoft or Intel, which have giant legal teams that help with visas. But say a visa holder at one of those companies gets a job offer from a hip new startup — they can’t take the gig unless that startup is willing to sponsor their visa transfer, an expensive and complicated process. This state of affairs — which happens to be the plot of For Here Or To Go, a recently released film about Indian tech workers in Silicon Valley — leaves a lot of foreign-born computer programmers feeling trapped.

“When startups are hiring, they need [the job filled], like, tomorrow,” Visabot CEO Artem Goldman told BuzzFeed News. “The startup usually doesn’t care about all these visa issues. They don’t want to spend time and money on that — they can’t.”

For now, Visabot isn’t doing regular H-1B applications, only H-1B transfers, and the pros at Visabot’s partner law firms still check its work. But Goldman says regular H-1B applications will be available soon, though not by this year’s April 3 deadline.

Visabot — which already offers tourist visa extensions, artist visas, and help with DACA — works kind of like TurboTax: the algorithm walks applicants through the application process with a series of questions. First, you select which type of visa fits your needs, and then provide Visabot with information about you — where you live, went to school, where you work, etc.

Visabot then asks you to upload the necessary documents, and even sends notifications when deadlines creep up. “It’s going to be kind of like a lawyer, but better, because it’s a machine, so there’s no mistakes,” said Goldman. While some think it’s too risky, about half of the lawyers Goldman talks to say their jobs could be made a easier by artificial intelligence.

“We still can’t say that we will replace an immigration lawyer in the next five years, because there are so many complicated types of visas,” Goldman said. “But what we can do is save lots of their time. By doing this, they’re going to have more clients, and the clients are going to have lower prices.”

One early Visabot client, a twenty-year-old Romanian singer named Afina Madoian, confirmed that getting an O-1 artists visa through the bot was easier than it would have been to find a lawyer in Romania.

“A lot of companies take money and don’t do anything,” Madoian said. What she liked about Visabot is that she got a price upfront. She started gathering documents in September and, after a lawyer reviewed and submitted her application, got her approval in February; the whole process cost her $4,000. Madoian said while she would recommend using Visabot, she might not have been willing to entrust her US visa — something she’s wanted since childhood — to a robot if she hadn’t originally been put in touch with Goldman through a friend.

Since Visabot launched late last year, it’s processed more than 50,000 applications for various types of visas. Goldman acknowledged that the nationwide panic over immigration law induced by some of President Trump’s policies has been good for business. Whenever the president tweets about immigration, Goldman says Visabot sees a bump in traffic. “We joke to investors that Donald Trump is our head of PR,” said Goldman. But that attention isn’t always good.

“We have a lot of people from like Africa and Arab countries saying, ‘Guys, I need to have a Green Card please, how much is it going to cost?’ I’m feeling bad when I can’t help, but I can’t,” Goldman said. “It’s not about us improving or changing the immigration system. What we do is making the process of immigration — this bureaucratic, difficult and unclear process — as easy as it is with bots.”

Quelle: <a href="This Chatbot Can Help Immigrants Who Work In Tech“>BuzzFeed

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A Tesla Employee Says He Was Racially And Sexually Harassed At Work

A former Tesla employee has filed suit against the electric car manufacturer, alleging ongoing racial discrimination and harassment at the company&#039;s Fremont, California plant.

The lawsuit is accompanied by a profane video that the employee, DeWitt Lambert, says was shot on his phone by one of the coworkers who harassed him.

View Video ›

video-cdn.buzzfeed.com

The suit goes on to detail other forms of harassment, from the juvenile — “filling Mr. Lambert&039;s back pockets with gold nuts and screw” and “hiding Mr. Lambert&039;s tools” — to the disturbing, including prodding him with power tools and making repeated sexual, violent, and racist statements.

In a press release, Lambert is quoted as saying that since starting at Tesla in 2015, “I’ve experienced discrimination worse than anything I experienced growing up in Alabama and I’m scared for my safety every evening when I leave the plant.”

Lambert also alleges that Tesla didn&039;t do enough to protect him from abuse at the hands of his colleagues.

In a lengthy statement, Tesla acknowledged that Lambert made the company aware of the above video in summer 2016, but says the HR team lost track of the complaint due to a personnel change. Tesla says it previously investigated complaints of harassment from Lambert in 2015, following an altercation he had with colleagues. That investigation proved inconclusive and the case was closed; Lambert was transferred to another team.

The men who Lambert accused of harassing him told Tesla they were friends outside of work, and later, after Tesla says Lambert threatened to sue, the men produced a screenshot of a Facebook message Lambert had sent as proof that he himself used the same racially charged language.

Tesla, which says some individuals in the matter have been fired while DeWitt is suspended with pay, is investigating the matter, and says its initial investigation “should have continued uninterrupted until all the facts were known.”

“We will continue to take action as necessary, including parting ways with anyone whose behavior prevents Tesla from being a great place to work,” the company said in an email statement.

Prior to this incident, Tesla says Mr. Lambert had been given a “final written warning” regarding his habit of posting photos of the Tesla facility to social media.

Earlier this year, a worker at the same facility, Jose Moran, wrote a post on Medium detailing his own set of issues with working conditions at Tesla, from long hours to injuries. Moran&039;s allegations, which Tesla CEO Elon Musk has disputed, were accompanied by a call for Tesla employees to join a union. Lambert’s lawsuit similarly alleges that working 12 hour days doing repetitive movements on the factory line without breaks resulted in a back injury; when he complained to Tesla, Lambert’s suit says he was “refused alternative work.”

In February, Musk wrote a letter to employees arguing against unionization, and offering to install free frozen yogurt machines in the factory, where production of the Model 3 will begin later this year.

Quelle: <a href="A Tesla Employee Says He Was Racially And Sexually Harassed At Work“>BuzzFeed

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A New Lawsuit Alleges Racism And Harassment At Tesla

A former Tesla employee has filed suit against the electric car manufacturer, alleging ongoing racial discrimination and harassment at the company&#039;s Fremont, California plant.

The lawsuit is accompanied by a profane video that the employee, DeWitt Lambert, says was shot on his phone by one of the coworkers who harassed him.

View Video ›

video-cdn.buzzfeed.com

The suit goes on to detail other forms of harassment, from the juvenile — “filling Mr. Lambert&039;s back pockets with gold nuts and screw” and “hiding Mr. Lambert&039;s tools” — to the disturbing, including prodding him with power tools and making repeated sexual, violent, and racist statements.

In a press release, Lambert is quoted as saying that since starting at Tesla in 2015, “I’ve experienced discrimination worse than anything I experienced growing up in Alabama and I’m scared for my safety every evening when I leave the plant.”

Lambert also alleges that Tesla didn&039;t do enough to protect him from abuse at the hands of his colleagues.

In a lengthy statement, Tesla acknowledged that Lambert made the company aware of the above video in summer 2016, but says the HR team lost track of the complaint due to a personnel change. Tesla says it previously investigated complaints of harassment from Lambert in 2015, following an altercation he had with colleagues. That investigation proved inconclusive and the case was closed; Lambert was transferred to another team.

The men who Lambert accused of harassing him told Tesla they were friends outside of work, and later, after Tesla says Lambert threatened to sue, the men produced a screenshot of a Facebook message Lambert had sent as proof that he himself used the same racially charged language.

Tesla, which says some individuals in the matter have been fired while DeWitt is suspended with pay, is investigating the matter, and says its initial investigation “should have continued uninterrupted until all the facts were known.”

“We will continue to take action as necessary, including parting ways with anyone whose behavior prevents Tesla from being a great place to work,” the company said in an email statement.

Prior to this incident, Tesla says Mr. Lambert had been given a “final written warning” regarding his habit of posting photos of the Tesla facility to social media.

Earlier this year, a worker at the same facility, Jose Moran, wrote a post on Medium detailing his own set of issues with working conditions at Tesla, from long hours to injuries. Moran&039;s allegations, which Tesla CEO Elon Musk has disputed, were accompanied by a call for Tesla employees to join a union. Lambert’s lawsuit similarly alleges that working 12 hour days doing repetitive movements on the factory line without breaks resulted in a back injury; when he complained to Tesla, Lambert’s suit says he was “refused alternative work.”

In February, Musk wrote a letter to employees arguing against unionization, and offering to install free frozen yogurt machines in the factory, where production of the Model 3 will begin later this year.

Quelle: <a href="A New Lawsuit Alleges Racism And Harassment At Tesla“>BuzzFeed

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A New Lawsuit Alleges Racism And Harassment At Tesla

A former Tesla employee has filed suit against the electric car manufacturer, alleging ongoing racial discrimination and harassment at the company&#039;s Fremont, California plant.

The lawsuit is accompanied by a profane video that the employee, DeWitt Lambert, says was shot on his phone by one of the coworkers who harassed him.

View Video ›

video-cdn.buzzfeed.com

The suit goes on to detail other forms of harassment, from the juvenile — “filling Mr. Lambert&039;s back pockets with gold nuts and screw” and “hiding Mr. Lambert&039;s tools” — to the disturbing, including prodding him with power tools and making repeated sexual, violent, and racist statements.

In a press release, Lambert is quoted as saying that since starting at Tesla in 2015, “I’ve experienced discrimination worse than anything I experienced growing up in Alabama and I’m scared for my safety every evening when I leave the plant.”

Lambert also alleges that Tesla didn&039;t do enough to protect him from abuse at the hands of his colleagues.

In a lengthy statement, Tesla acknowledged that Lambert made the company aware of the above video in summer 2016, but says the HR team lost track of the complaint due to a personnel change. Tesla says it previously investigated complaints of harassment from Lambert in 2015, following an altercation he had with colleagues. That investigation proved inconclusive and the case was closed; Lambert was transferred to another team.

The men who Lambert accused of harassing him told Tesla they were friends outside of work, and later, after Tesla says Lambert threatened to sue, the men produced a screenshot of a Facebook message Lambert had sent as proof that he himself used the same racially charged language.

Tesla, which says some individuals in the matter have been fired while DeWitt is suspended with pay, is investigating the matter, and says its initial investigation “should have continued uninterrupted until all the facts were known.”

“We will continue to take action as necessary, including parting ways with anyone whose behavior prevents Tesla from being a great place to work,” the company said in an email statement.

Prior to this incident, Tesla says Mr. Lambert had been given a “final written warning” regarding his habit of posting photos of the Tesla facility to social media.

Earlier this year, a worker at the same facility, Jose Moran, wrote a post on Medium detailing his own set of issues with working conditions at Tesla, from long hours to injuries. Moran&039;s allegations, which Tesla CEO Elon Musk has disputed, were accompanied by a call for Tesla employees to join a union. Lambert’s lawsuit similarly alleges that working 12 hour days doing repetitive movements on the factory line without breaks resulted in a back injury; when he complained to Tesla, Lambert’s suit says he was “refused alternative work.”

In February, Musk wrote a letter to employees arguing against unionization, and offering to install free frozen yogurt machines in the factory, where production of the Model 3 will begin later this year.

Quelle: <a href="A New Lawsuit Alleges Racism And Harassment At Tesla“>BuzzFeed

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Samsung Reverses Plans To Throw Away 4.3 Million Explosive Galaxy Note7s

Jung Yeon-je / AFP / Getty Images

Samsung has announced that it will refurbish and sell some Galaxy Note7 phones, which is a reversal of its previous plans to dispose all 4.3 million of the recalled phones outright. The Note7 was recalled in the US in September 2016 and later in China for fire hazards after people reported that their phones were exploding.

A Samsung spokesperson told BuzzFeed News that it will not sell or rent refurbished Note7 phones in the US. In a statement, the company outlined three commandments that will govern how the phone is recycled:

“First, devices shall be considered to be used as refurbished phones or rental phones where applicable.

Second, salvageable components shall be detached for reuse.

Third, processes such as metals extraction shall be performed using environmentally friendly methods.”

Samsung didn&#039;t say how it would determine which phones would be recycled and which ones would be refurbished for future sale or rental.

Greenpeace protesters interrupted Samsung&039;s Mobile World Congress just a month ago with demands for the company to recycle the devices in an environmentally friendly way. A Samsung spokesperson told BuzzFeed News, “the objective of introducing refurbished devices is solely to reduce and minimize any environmental impact.” Greenpeace published a jubilant blog post about the refurbishment effort titled “You did it&#033; Samsung will finally recycle millions of Galaxy Note 7s.” Samsung declined to comment on whether the protest influenced its decision.

Refurbished Note7s could change significantly, even in name: a Samsung spokesperson said, “the name, technical specification and price range will be announced when the device is available.”

Samsung said it&039;s working with local regulators to determine the required condition of phones before reselling them. Beyond saying it won&039;t sell the phones in the US, it did not specify where the company plans to resell them. For phones it recycles, Samsung is hoping to harvest semiconductors, cameras, copper, nickel, gold, and silver.

People on Twitter had mixed reactions to the announcement:

Some were skeptical and made jokes:

Or angry:

But some were…excited?

Samsung plans to announce another flagship phone, the Galaxy S8, on March 29.

Quelle: <a href="Samsung Reverses Plans To Throw Away 4.3 Million Explosive Galaxy Note7s“>BuzzFeed

Uber’s Self-Driving Cars Are Back On The Road After A Crash In Arizona

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Uber’s Self-Driving Cars Are Back On The Road After A Crash In Arizona

Fresco News / Mark Beach

Uber’s self-driving vehicles are running again in San Francisco, after a brief hiatus. The company had halted testing its autonomous vehicles in three states after a crash in Arizona caused one of its cars to flip onto its side.

Uber’s self-driving cars are still off the roads in Pittsburgh and Arizona, but the company said it expects them to return soon.

On Friday, a car in Tempe, Arizona failed to yield for a self-driving Uber and hit it, causing the Uber car to roll to its side, according to ABC 15 News. Uber said it was investigating the crash and had stopped running its self-driving cars in Arizona, Pittsburgh, and San Francisco.

Uber sent its self-driving vehicles to Arizona in December after state regulators shut down testing in San Francisco because the company did not obtain a permit from the California Department of Motor Vehicles. (Those cars returned in January.) According to internal metrics obtained by BuzzFeed News, Uber’s self-driving test vehicles in Arizona require intervention from a human driver about once per mile. How far a self-driving car can travel without needing help from a human driver is considered a metric of progress toward achieving a fully autonomous vehicle.

The disruption to testing comes at a time when Uber’s autonomous vehicle program is navigating tension. In December, when the company briefly tested in San Francisco, one of its vehicles was caught running a red light. Uber said that the traffic violation resulted from human error, but the New York Times reported in February that “the self-driving car was, in fact, driving itself when it barreled through the red light.”

youtube.com

The ride-hail giant is also facing a lawsuit from Alphabet’s Waymo over allegations that its self-driving program’s leader, Anthony Levandowski, stole key technology before leaving to join Uber.

Outside of its self-driving car program, Uber is also grappling with systemic sexism allegations, high executive turnover, and scrutiny of its chief executive Travis Kalanick, who admitted he needs “leadership help” after a video surfaced of him yelling at an Uber driver. Despite the unrelenting PR crises, the company claims its business is doing just fine.

Quelle: <a href="Uber’s Self-Driving Cars Are Back On The Road After A Crash In Arizona“>BuzzFeed

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You Can Now Use Siri To Control Apple Watch Apps

Nicole Nguyen / BuzzFeed News

Apple is finally opening up its intelligent personal assistant on the Apple Watch to developers. Tucked away in the latest software update for Apple Watch, watchOS 3.2, are new third-party capabilities for Siri, which brings even more functionality to Apple’s smallest screen. The update is available now.

Google Now on Android phones, Cortana on the Windows Phone, and Alexa on Amazon Echo allowed third-party services long before Siri. Apple’s “intelligent personal assistant” did not support app integrations until last September, with the release of iOS 10 for iPhone, iPad, and iPod – but Siri on watchOS remained limited to opening apps or performing tasks for the smartwatch’s built-in apps, like Clock, Workout, Phone, and Messages.

Before the update, you could say “Siri, send a message to Bae,” but you couldn’t say “Siri, send a WhatsApp message to Bae,” in which case Siri would simply offer to launch WhatsApp on your iPhone for you. With the new update, third party app developers will be able to integrate Siri on the watch, but only for fitness, payments, ride-hailing, and messaging.

Since launching third-party “extensions” in iOS 8, Apple’s mobile platforms have been increasingly open to developers. But Siri remains significantly more restricted than its Android, Microsoft, and Amazon counterparts, despite its headstart.

Siri launched in October 2011 and was followed by Google Now in July 2012, and, finally, Alexa and Cortana in 2014. Google’s artificial intelligence software, renamed to “Google Assistant,” can be found on iPhones in the cross-platform Allo app, in the company’s new smart speaker Google Home, in Android Wear smartwatches, and, now, just about any device running the latest version of the Android software. Amazon’s Alexa, on the other hand, was found in nearly every gadget under the Las Vegas sun at this year’s CES. It’s clear that Apple’s Siri needs to work with more services in more places if it hopes to keep up with its competition in the space.

Apple

Here are some developers updating their apps to support Siri once watchOS 3.2 is available:

Lyft is Uber’s main ride-hailing rival in the US. You can say, “Hey Siri, order me a Lyft,” in their app update, coming soon.

Ace Tennis is a new app that helps improve players&#039; serves. Before training, you&039;ll be able to say, “Hey Siri, start serving with Ace Tennis,” or “Measure my serves with Ace Tennis.”

Fitso is a mobile coach that offers workouts and meal plans based on your fitness goals. You will soon be able to pause and resume Fitso workouts with Siri.

MySwim Pro provides analytics, tracking, and workouts, and you can now ask Siri to start recording a swim without having to fiddle with the screen.

RunGo creates running routes and offers GPS voice navigation. You’ll be able to ask Siri to “pause RunGo” or “start running with RunGo.”

Seven includes a variety of seven-minute workouts. Say, “Hey Siri, start today’s weight loss workout with Seven” to start exercising.

Slopes tracks and records speed, vertical, distance, and lift versus trail time while you ski or snowboard. Siri can now stop, pause, and resume recording while you’re on the mountain.

Streaks Workout helps you establish habits and stay on track. No you can begin and resume workouts you want to record in the app.

Zones helps visualize your exercise intensity, so you know whether or not you’re pushing yourself. Siri lets you start and stop a Zones workout, hands-free.

Zova is an app that provides full-body workouts and coaches you through runs. You can control the workout with Siri.

Quelle: <a href="You Can Now Use Siri To Control Apple Watch Apps“>BuzzFeed