The Daily Valet. - 12/10/19, Tuesday
✔️ They're Watching You (and Me)
Tuesday, December 10th Edition
I gotta get my hands on this new Apple TV remote.
Cory Ohlendorf , Editor ⋯ @coryohlendorf
Today’s Big Story
We’re On Camera
Over one billion cameras will be installed globally by 2021
Whether we like it not, surveillance cameras are a part of modern society. And their presence will only increase. There will soon be about 85 million surveillance cameras in operation in the United States, about one for every four people, according to an industry analysis.
The report, by IHS Markit, comes as experts warn about the potential risks of such surveillance technology, including potential access to data by the Chinese government.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the global security-camera industry has been energized by breakthroughs in image quality and artificial intelligence. These allow for better and faster facial recognition and video analytics, which governments are using to do everything from managing traffic to predicting crimes.
But American cities are currently split on how to deal with facial recognition. Cities like Detroit, Washington, DC and Orlando are testing it for policing and security, while others like San Francisco have officially banned it. IHS Markit says only 3% of security cameras installed in the US are for the purposes of city-wide surveillance.
Personally, I'm not one to get too freaked out by the notion of cameras capturing nearly every move of my day. Mostly because I don't think I'm doing anything that will standout and should something bad go down, capturing it "on tape" could come in handy. Now if how much time I waste on social media was suddenly made public? That would be an invasion of privacy that I'd have to protest.
↦ The Downside: The ACLU says that "the impulse to blanket our public spaces and streets with video surveillance is a bad idea."
Russia Is Banned from International Sports
Including this summer’s Olympics in Tokyo
The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) slapped a four-year ban on Russia from international sports competition Monday. This means that the country can't officially compete in this summer's Olympics in Tokyo, reports the Associated Press.
The ruling will result in the Russian flag, name and anthem not appearing at the Tokyo Games or the upcoming World Cup. The country could also lose the ability to host world championships in Olympic sports.
It's the latest turn of events in a long-running saga of investigations into widespread, state-sponsored doping and a Kremlin-led coverup. The sanctions are the harshest punishment yet.
But athletes from Russia may compete globally, just not under the Russian flag or with their anthem being played if they win. Columnist Sally Jenkins of the Washington Post writes "it's the perfect solution for WADA, whose only concern is optics."
↦ The Backstory: Just how deep and widespread was the cheating? The Oscar-winning film Icarus plunges into the scandal involving a Russian scientist that became Putin's most-wanted whistleblower.
FBI Committed “Serious Failures”
The Justice Dept. offers a scathing critique of the FBI’s handling of the Russia probe, but says it was justified
The Justice Department's long-awaited report on the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign's contact with Russia before the 2016 election was released Monday.
The exhaustive analysis by the Justice Department’s independent inspector general, Michael Horowitz, found that the intelligence agency made significant mistakes and "serious performance failures." But the report also concluded that officials had sufficient reason to open the investigation—disproving conservatives’ accusations that FBI officials were driven by political bias to illegally spy on Trump advisers.
Attorney General William Barr disputed some of his own department's conclusions though, saying that the report showed the FBI “launched an intrusive investigation of a presidential campaign on the thinnest of suspicions." Yet Horowitz reiterated that the standard for opening an FBI investigation was (and should be) rather low.
But FBI Director Christopher Wray said on Monday that he's ordered more than 40 changes to address the report’s findings—including changes to the FBI’s confidential human-source program.
↦ Go Deeper: CNN has four key takeaways from the inspector general's report.
Drunk Driving Is a Bigger Problem Than You Might Think
The number of alcohol-related fatalities has stayed about the same for the past decade
Nearly 30% of all vehicular-crash deaths in the US last year were alcohol-related, according to the Wall Street Journal. In 2018, 10,511 people died in crashes involving at least one driver with a blood-alcohol concentration above the legal limit. What's more, alcohol-related fatality levels have largely stagnated for the past decade.
A new report from the Governors Highway Safety Association focuses on high-risk impaired drivers who are likely to repeatedly drive under the influence of alcohol, drugs or a combination. Just as worrisome, the progress once made by such groups as Mothers Against Drunk Driving seems to have bottomed out.
At the same time, distracted driving, primarily by using one’s cell phone to text while driving, has become an increasingly dangerous problem with roughly 3,000 people dying annually based on federal estimates, reports Jalopnik. And sadly, that's likely an undercount as distracted driving fatalities are not tracked as officially or closely.
↦ Speed Record: Drving an average speed of 103 miles per hour, three men just drove from New York to Los Angeles in 27 hours and 25 minutes.
Other Things We’re Talking About Today
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A Swiss Company Remade the Apple TV Remote
Shockingly, it got Apple’s permission and support
Swiss broadband provider Salt uses the Apple TV as a cable box of sorts for its home fiber broadband customers, similar to deals Apple has struck with other cable companies around the world.
But there were a lot of complaints from customers about the Apple TV remote's minimalist design. I get it. Look, I love my Apple TV, I really do ... but I've struggled with the small touchpad along with the single menu button.
According to The Verge, Salt developed a simpler, more traditional remote in collaboration with Apple, which means there's no setup needed. In addition to having an assortment of physical buttons, the Salt remote is bigger and slightly chunkier, which should make it more difficult to lose in between couch cushions.
What's more, the thing only costs $20. So far, it's not available outside of Switzerland, but I'm starting my letter-writing campaign to Apple later today. Join me, won't you?
Sales We’re Eyeing
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Today’s Deals
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Morning Motto
Be brave. Give it a try.
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