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A popular anti-vaccination Instagram account took a press release out of context. The company, Merck, told us the viral post is false.

WASHINGTON As of January 26, 23.5 million Americans have received at least one dose of the COVID-91 vaccine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Almost 3.5 million have received a second dose. But with more widespread vaccinations come more misinformation.

Two anti-vaccination Instagram accounts with almost 100 thousand followers combined, and a tendency to spread misinformation about COVID-19, posted this week that "Vaccine manufacturer Merck scraps covid vaccine, saying studies show it's more effective to get the virus and recover than get the vaccine."

The posts each have thousands of likes, so the Verify team talked to experts about why this is untrue and misleading.

Is natural COVID-19 infection and recovery more effective than getting the COVID-19 vaccine?

No. Pharmaceutical company Merck scrapped their vaccine in early trials because it was not as effective as other vaccines. Some Instagram post takes their information out of context.

As of January 27th, the only COVID-19 vaccines approved for administration in the U.S. are Pfizer and Moderna.

Meanwhile, several other pharmaceutical companies are in the midst of clinical studies for their own vaccines. Until January 25th, Merck was one of those companies.

That's when they released a press release announcing they were ending the development of their two SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 vaccine candidates. The release says "This decision follows Mercks review of findings from Phase 1 clinical studies for the vaccines...the immune responses were inferior to those seen following natural infection and those reported for other SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 vaccines."

A popular Instagram account took this out of context and appears to convey that this press release shows that natural infection and recovery is more effective than a vaccine. A spokesperson for Merck told us this is outright false.

Merck's early vaccine trials showed low effectiveness compared to natural infection and other vaccines. They never said that it is better to get COVID-19 and recover than get any vaccine.

In a statement to Verify, Merck praises the other vaccines on the market, saying "We are encouraged by the recent progress of other authorized and late-stage COVID-19 vaccine candidates that have set a high bar for efficacy and safety. This is good news for our industry and for society."

According to the CDC, scientists are still studying whether a COVID-19 infection provides any future immunity.

So far, a few people have been re-infected, but they say it is rare. They say in their vaccine FAQ, "Experts do not yet know how long someone is protected from getting sick again after recovering from COVID-19. The immunity someone gains from having an infection, called natural immunity, varies from person to person."

We can Verify that Merck did end their vaccine trials, but they say the claim that "it's more effective to get the virus and recover than get the vaccine" is outright false.

See the article here:
VERIFY: No, this company didn't say getting COVID-19 is safer than getting the vaccine - WUSA9.com

The Serbian authorities have come up with a plan to destroy the free media with the help of Telekom Serbia mobile phone services provider.

N1 has had access to a plan under which the government-controlled Telekom Serbia will join forces with Czech tycoon Petr Kellners Telenor to reduce the SBB cable services providers market share to less than 30 percent. The Telekom believes that this would prevent the financing of media outlets such as N1 TV, Nova S and Sport Klub. The authorities are swearing by European values but are trying everything to prevent the existence of free media by destroying a private company this time.

The plan to destroy the free media in Serbia was presented to the Telekom management after months of work to draft it, N1 has learned. The state-owned telecommunications company is planning to give Telenor the complete infrastructure of its cable network and the complete content of its cable TV.

They are making no secret of the fact that the state-owned company is planning to increase its income, increase its client numbers with the goal of finally destroying SBB which is the main reason for the contract with Telekom, N1 learned.

That practically means that, based on European norms, Telekom Serbia is illegally associating with a private company to destroy another private company. Telekom is not hiding the fact that it wants to destroy SBB and reduce its market share to less than 30 percent and prevent it from investing in program content.

The destruction of SBB would allow Telekom to become the only provider capable of setting up new channels and earning income from both Telenor and its clients and plan to hae complete control over Telenor clients.

Telekom keeps saying that SBB has already filed a complaint with the European Commission saying that the government is pushing its company forward by creating a telecommunications and media monopoly.

The agreement between Telekom and Telenor has to be approved by the Commission to protect competition. According to what N1 has learned, the documents have been handed to the Commission but have not been published on its web site as per the procedure. If the Commission just declares itself not competent to rule on the case, the cooperation between Petr Kellners private company and the state-owned Telekom could go ahead unobstructed.

(N1, 25.01.2021)

https://rs.n1info.com/biznis/pakleni-plan-telekom-i-telenor-se-udruzuju-da-bi-unistili-slobodne-medije/

This post is also available in: Italiano

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Telekom Serbia and Telenor to join forces to control the media? - Serbina Monitor in English

People and businesses are relying on the internet to get things done more than ever before, an opportunity but also an infrastructure headache for service providers that need to scale quickly and reliably to meet that demand.

Today, a startup that has built a clever, software-based way for them to expand their networks without buying costly equipment is announcing a major round of funding on the back of its business booming.

DriveNets which provides software-based routing solutions to service providers that run them as virtualized services over white box generic architecture has closed $208 million in funding, a Series B that values the company at over $1 billion post-money.

The plan will be to use the funding to continue building out the business internationally and to tailor it to more use cases beyond carriers, including the wave of bigger companies that stream large amounts of media and have some control over their networks as a result.

Future deals are still under NDA, CEO Ido Susan said, but he described the opportunity as a clear one: If you want to serve bandwidth with low latency, if you want to offer strong 5G capability or cloud gaming, you need to be close to your end customer.

The Series B is beingD1 Capital Partners. Previous backers Bessemer Venture Partners and Pitango (which co-led DriveNets previous, $110 million round when it emerged from stealth) also made a significant investment, and Atreides Management also participated. This latest round was made at more than double DriveNets valuation in 2019.

D1 has been an especially prolific investor in the last year, going big on businesses that are seeing a lot of attention as a result of pandemic conditions. They include e-commerce giants Warby Parker and Instacart, fintech TransferWise, gaming engine Unity, online car sales platform Cazoo, and transportation startup Bolt.

DriveNets big round is based both on bigger trends in the market, as well as its own strong record.

Before this round, DriveNets had already counted AT&T among its customers, a major vote of confidence for the company and its virtual network approach, but it seems that recent circumstances and the spike in internet activity have brought more providers to consider its approach.

The internet was growing 30%-40% annually even before Covid-19, said Susan. But even five years ago, incumbent carriers were coming to us saying, said no one can build virtual networks. Now, its not a question of whether it works or not, but when you will adopt it.

Recent momentum for the companys sales, he said, is very good. Everyone is working and studying from home so you need more capacity and bandwidth in the network, he added.

DriveNets core product is a more flexible and cost-effective replacement for the traditional network router that relies on virtualized architecture. Traditionally, routers have been sold as vertically-integrated hardware solutions, bringing together both software and hardware into one branded big box, with companies like Cisco and Juniper Networks dominating the space.

In their place, as Susan and co-founder Hillel Kobrinsky envisioned it, DriveNets provides a solution that is based around generic white boxes. It currently works with three providers for these boxes, Susan said.

These work in conjunction with a system it has developed called Network Cloud, which in turn runs a networking stack called the DriveNets Operating System. Service providers control their systems of white boxes and other servers through a virtualized service run over Docker containers, using open APIs to automate and configure various network services.

This allows for more flexibility in capacity among the white box servers, but they can also be easily added and removed as needed. Essentially, its a system that disaggregates the software from the hardware, to make expanding the hardware much easier, and controlling the software significantly more flexible to boot.

(Ironically, my conversation with Susan took place over Zoom with him in his home office, which also doubles as a DIY workshop. So with a full array of hardware equipment surrounding Susan, we talked about how software would come to dominate the world.)

Its a disruptive concept that potentially steps on a lot of toes, but Adam Fisher, a partner with Bessemer, said that hes confident its one that will continue to gain traction.

We are extremely enthusiastic about the company, he said. Aside from Ido and Hillel as entrepreneurs, we really connected with their vision. Network routing is moving to software and cloud architecture. Were talking not just about the small parts here but thehearts and lungs of the system.DriveNets is starting with the hardest parts. Once one customer becomes multiple customers, you just realise its the future.

Read more from the original source:
DriveNets nabs $208M at a $1B+ valuation for its cloud-based alternative to network routers - TechCrunch

Tesla

The Tesla Model S was updated with a totally new interior on Wednesday, and the most radical change is that new yoke-style steering "wheel," which looks straight out of Knight Rider. But what might be even more radical is something that I can't see: It seems like there's no PRNDL shifter.

Up until now, the Model S has shifted into gear via a column-mounted stalk swiped from the Mercedes-Benz parts bin. (TheModel 3,Model XandModel Y use the same stalk.) But Tesla has eliminated all stalks from behind the new Model S' wheel, moving controls for the turn signals, horn and wipers onto the yoke. So how exactly do you shift?

There's no PRNDL here.

In all of the released images, the center console and dashboard are smooth and devoid of any sort of controls, save for the 17-inch touchscreen and the hazard warning light button that sits under the wireless charging pad below the screen. There's nothing on the door panels or the headliner, either.

The shifting controls could be found in that center screen, but there's no visible evidence of that. The lower left corner of the screen shows controls for the climate control and the heated windshield, while the lower right corner displays media info. In the top left there's an icon showing a top-down view of the car, so maybe the PRNDL is found there? But it seems like it would be extremely dangerous to keep such an essential function in a submenu of a digital display that could break.

No PRNDL here either.

Now there's a chance that these CGI images are all at an angle that obscures the PRNDL shifter, or maybe they were rendered or edited to remove its location. The only mention from Tesla on the topic is this blurb under an image of the steering wheel on its website: "The ultimate focus on driving: no stalks, no shifting. Model S is the best car to drive, and the best car to be driven in." That seems like an obvious reference to Tesla's Full Self-Driving system, which does nothing of the sort.

No matter how advanced you think Tesla's Full Self-Driving tech is, the driver still needs to be able to put it the car in drive, reverse, neutral or park. In fact there's even a law on the books that mandated the order of the letters PRND, as our friends at GearPatrol explain, and while I'm not sure if there is an actual law that requires a car have a shifter, it seems like there's got to be.

If this were any other car company, I could just call the public relations team for an explanation, butTesla dissolved its PR department a few months ago. Guess I'll just have to tweet at Elon Musk.

Climb in the driver's seat for the latest car news and reviews, delivered to your inbox twice weekly.

See the original post here:
Where the hell is the new Tesla Model S' PRNDL? - CNET

Still from E-Trade's teaser for its Super Bowl spot

E-Trade

E-Trade will run a Super Bowl ad next month following a hot year for retail investor activity.

The online broker, which was acquired by Morgan Stanley last year, has been known for its humorous Super Bowl spots throughout the years. The brand used a deep-talking baby pitchman for its TV commercials for years before "retiring" the baby in 2014. It last advertised during the Super Bowl in 2018.

The teaser for the new spot, created with ad agency Interpublic Group of Cos.' MullenLowe, doesn't include a baby. But the short video does feature a young boy exercising as "You're The Best," a song known from "The Karate Kid" movie, plays. The words "Kick your finances into shape" appear on the screen across the teaser. Though many brands opt to release their spots on social media ahead of the game, E-Trade's won't be shown publicly until game day.

It comes after E-Trade rode the huge year for retail investor engagement and saw high levels of new-to-market investors. Morgan Stanley said in its fourth-quarter earnings announcement last week that E-Trade had a "remarkable year in 2020, setting new records across all material metrics," and that the "unique backdrop" dramatically accelerated digital adoption and increased levels of engagement. E-Trade had seen record trading in the second quarter amid a broader retail trading boom.

Alice Milligan, E-Trade's managing director of marketing and digital, said the company relied on customer research and dialogue to figure out how to approach an ad in a year like this. She said E-Trade determined people had gone through numerous stages of emotion over the past year and were looking for some optimism and humor.

"One resounding thing we heard from investors and from customers and prospects is that they really want to feel in control of their lives and their finances, and many of us have felt quite a bit out of control for a long time," Milligan said. "It's time for people to start to feel a little bit better and start to feel in control. We're hoping the ad resonates in that way."

The Super Bowl will have an atypical advertiser lineup this year, with mainstays like Coke, Pepsi and Budweiser declining to buy traditional ad time in the game. Meanwhile, a slew of new advertisers from Fiverr to Mercari are stepping in after a stay-at-home year that propelled their businesses.

For E-Trade, the value of a Super Bowl ad is still strong.

"From a brand perspective, I think the Super Bowl represents a huge opportunity to get the word out about a company's brand to consumers that are most relevant for that brand," Milligan said. For E-Trade, many of those consumers are investors who feel like they could be doing better financially.

E-Trade's chief marketing officer, Andrea Zaretsky, added that the majority of the emerging investors, traders and consumers the company wants to reach will be watching. But the game spot itself is just one piece of the strategy. The brand plans to do a "full surround sound approach" before the game, during the game on game day, and after the game, including a targeted digital strategy.

The Covid pandemic changed the production of the shoot, which is typically a major undertaking with lots of hands. Zaretsky said the crew onsite filming the ad was a lot leaner, with a "very, very tight group." But the company opted to set up a video feed of the shoot for the first time.

"Everyone felt like they were there," she said. "More people felt like they were able [to be there] for the journey. I think the result was, in some ways, better."

Nominations are open for the 2021 CNBC Disruptor 50, a list of private start-ups using breakthrough technology to become the next generation of great public companies. Submit by Friday, Feb. 12, at 3 pm EST.

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E-Trade will return to the Super Bowl after hot year for retail investing - CNBC