The Top 15 Sites for Copyright and Royalty-Free Images

Maybe you’re an aspiring photographer looking for inspiration. Or an up-and-coming entrepreneur trying to find stock photography to add to your website.

Whatever your profession, this list of the best stock photography websites will ensure that you’ll always have access to copyright and royalty-free images.

How Do Copyright Free Images Work?

Some websites allow you to download pictures for private use (e.g. background wallpapers) yet disallow images to be used commercially. This includes instances such as business cards, websites, or posters. The images on the following websites have protection under Creative Commons CC0:

“The person who associated a work with this deed has dedicated the work to the public domain by waiving all of his or her rights to the work worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law.”—CreativeCommons.org

The following websites either support or are fully composed of CC0 images available in the public domain. The owners of these images have allowed users to modify, edit, and use their images without copyright backlash.

Image Credit: WikiImages

Before delving into the free stock image sites, there are two common courtesies to consider when using CC0 images.

• Although you do not have to give credit to the creator, we recommend that you do to publicize the artists’ efforts.
• These websites often have a Donate page or splash screen. If you use free image hosting sites often, consider donating to their cause. If everyone using a copyright-free image site threw in the price of a coffee, it would greatly benefit the photographers and artists offering their wares for free.

Now that that’s cleared up, here are the websites you need to bookmark for quality, copyright-free images.

1. Freerange

Once you register for a free membership at Freerange, thousands of high-resolution stock photos will be at your fingertips at no cost. All of the website’s images can be used for personal or commercial projects. For photographers, Freerange also offers Google AdSense revenue sharing when you contribute.

In addition to thousands of unique images, the site also has about 20,000 CC0 photos, most of which have accurate keywords and descriptions.

2. Unsplash

Image Credit: Patrick Tomasso/Unsplash

Unsplash is a side-project started by Crew, an online marketing agency dedicated to making your design dreams a reality.

Besides providing free stock photography, Unsplash also showcases graphic design work done by users with its MadeWith section.

Although Unsplash started as a side project, it is now one of the best copyright free image sites around. Hence why it doesn’t feature on our list of lesser-known free stock image sites.

3. Pexels

Image Credit: eberhard grossgasteiger/Pexels

Pexels is a website that wants to help. Started in 2015, it has grown to be a reputable stock photo library. Its mission statement phrases their aim best:

We help millions of designers, writers, artists, programmers and other creators to get access to beautiful photos that they can use freely which empowers them to create amazing products, designs, stories, websites, apps, art and other work. We call it: “Empowering Creators”—Pexels.com

Pexels is also unique in that it doesn’t only display images located on the Pexels website. It also outsources images from other high-quality websites such as Little Visuals.

Best of all, Pexels screens its images to ensure the highest quality images available. Note that you can also download copyright-free stock videos from the site.

4. Flickr

Image Credit: Bernard Spragg/Flickr

Although Flickr is not dedicated to public domain images, it boasts an extensive library of high-quality public domain images.

Flickr is, and has been for a long time, one of the greatest image libraries on the internet. With millions of high-quality public domain images, you’re unlikely to run out of stock photography anytime soon.

There are always new features appearing over at Flickr, too. For instance, you can now order photo prints directly from Flickr.

5. Life of Pix

Image Credit: Tuur Tisseghem/Life of Pix

You can easily lose yourself for hours scouring through the beautiful copyright-free pictures available on Life of Pix.

Created by the LEEROY advertising agency in Montreal, Life of Pix is a haven for free, public domain photography. Better yet, its Life of Vids website contains even more impressive stock video footage, alla available for free.

6. StockSnap

Image Credit: Asaf R/StockSnap

StockSnap provides an excellent and extensive library of free stock imagery. With hundreds of high-quality photos added weekly, StockSnap isn’t your casual photography outlet.

Created by the good people at Snappa, every single image in StockSnap is free for you to use. You’d be hard-pressed to find a better image repository.

7. Pixabay

Image Credit: WikiImages/Pixabay

Pixabay is another image repository that integrates images from other image hosting sites. It attempts to gather the very best of free stock images for your own personal or commercial use.

Pixabay also allows easy access to “camera search,” which allows users to explore images based on the camera used to take them. This is a great resource for both beginners and professional photographers alike.

8. Wikimedia

Image Credit: Cecil Stoughton, White House Press Office (WHPO)/Wikimedia

Wikimedia provides a truly stunning image repository, spanning everything from lush landscapes to historical events.

Touting over 34 million freely usable pieces of media, including videos and sounds, Wikimedia is a necessity for graphic designers, photographers, and artists looking for free, high-quality images. Wikimedia is also part of a much larger organization dedicated to free images, education, and information.

9. Burst

Image Credit: Ryan Bruce/Burst

They say something works well when you hardly notice it at all, and that’s exactly what Burst provides. In the same vein as Unsplash, Burst not only provides a sleek interface to explore but a very wide selection of images and categories to choose from as well.

Better yet, it provides both low- and high-quality images without copyright, depending on whether you’re adding images to a website or using images for graphic design.

If you need a vast online repository of free high-quality images, bookmark Burst immediately.

10. KaboomPics

Image Credit: KaboomPics

KaboomPics is a legitimately impressive undertaking. From the UI design to the vast reservoir or stellar images, you will find yourself combing through images you don’t even need.

If it was just about royalty-free images, KaboomPics’ selection would already be top of the class. But it also features both a color picker search engine and color palettes for images as well.

That’s just scratching the surface of what KaboomPics has to offer. From photoshoots to informative blog entries, it’s one of the most impressive free stock image sites around.

11. Vintage Stock Photos

The team behind Freerange also operates another free site specializing in vintage images, called Vintage Stock Photos. The content previously required payment, but now you can find thousands of dollars’ worth of quality vintage photos available at no extra charge.

Vintage Stock Photos is another site where you can lose serious time browsing through the catalog. The range of copyright-free images spans multiple decades and provides a fantastic snapshot of life through the ages.

12. Gratisography

Are you looking for something a little more out there? Do you need a quirky free high-resolution photo? Then Gratisography is the place for you.

The site features a heap of “quirky… beautiful… arresting” copyright-free images that will enable you to put a unique spin on your next project.

13. Libreshot

Libreshot is another handy source for slightly unusual free stock photography. Every shot on the site is the work of owner Martin Vorel.

Vorel uploads his brilliant photography from around the world to Libreshot, allowing you to use them for free. He only asks that if you do use one of his photos, consider adding a link to the site.

14. Negative Space

Negative Space offers up thousands of beautiful royalty-free images for you, covering a comprehensive range of categories. Like some of the other top copyright-free image sites, you can search Negative Space using the color of the image you want, rather than a specific search term or category.

New free images are added all the time, so make sure to bookmark Negative Space for your next project.

15. Reshot

Your final option for royalty-free stock images is the excellent Reshot. If you want truly unique stock images, Reshot is one of your best options.

The development and creative team vet each copyright-free shot uploaded to the site, ensuring only the best of the best are available to you. That means the standard of photography on show at Reshot is very high—and that will be reflected in your work, too.

Look at the quality on offer in my casual search term, “eggs,” pictured above. There are some brilliant high-resolution shots there.

More Copyright-Free Media for You to Use

With so many sites dedicated to bringing you high-quality stock images for free, you may feel overwhelmed with choice.

However, we recommend focusing on the one site that most appeals, and browsing the range of copyright-free images available until you find something that appeals.

If you’re a budding YouTuber, you should check out the best sites for copyright-free music for YouTube videos.

Read the full article: The Top 15 Sites for Copyright and Royalty-Free Images

How to Use Chrome Remote Desktop to Control Your PC From Anywhere

Want to connect to a remote computer or let someone else connect to your system? Chrome Remote Desktop is a free and simple way to do this. You can use it on any computer running Chrome, as long as it’s online.

Let’s look at how to use Chrome Remote Desktop and how it works.

What Is Chrome Remote Desktop?

Chrome Remote Desktop is a free remote access tool that will seem familiar if you’ve used other remote access solutions. The service allows you to access another computer over the internet as if you were sitting right in front of it. Your keyboard and mouse inputs control the remote PC.

Potential uses for Chrome Remote Desktop include:

• Using a platform-specific app on a different computer.
• Checking in on a computer from anywhere around the world.
• Offering tech support for a friend or family member from afar.

Chrome Remote Desktop works on Windows, Mac, Linux, and Chrome OS. Despite its name, you don’t actually need Google Chrome to use the service; we tested it as functional in Firefox. However, Google recommends it for the best results, so you should use Chrome if possible.

Also, you can remotely access and control a desktop with an Android or iOS device. We’ll show you how to install Chrome Remote Desktop on each platform so you have everything you need to use it. You’ll need a Google account, so make sure that’s set up before proceeding.

How to Set Up Chrome Remote Desktop

We’ll walk through the differences in the Chrome Remote Desktop install process for each platform. However, they all have the first few steps in common: install Google Chrome if it’s not already. Then, head to the Chrome Remote Desktop web hub and sign in with your Google account.

You’ll then see the Chrome Remote Desktop homepage. At the top, there are two headers: Remote Access and Remote Support. Remote Access is for controlling your own computers from anywhere. Remote Support allows you to control someone else’s computer (or have someone control yours) by generating a one-time code.

Chrome Remote Desktop requires you to install an app to get remote support or access your computers from anywhere. We’ll assume you want to access your computer remotely; if not, you’ll find a download link for the required app in the Get Support section of the Remote Support tab instead.

Let’s look at the install process for Windows to illustrate the main process, then we’ll cover the differences in the other operating systems.

How to Set Up Chrome Remote Desktop on Windows

If you want to make your current computer accessible using Chrome Remote Desktop on other computers, go to the Remote Access tab. Then click the Download button in the Set up remote access box.

This will launch a new window to the Chrome Remote Desktop extension on the Chrome Web Store. Click Add to Chrome, then Add extension to approve the permissions. You can then close the new window.

Next, you’ll see a prompt to download a file called chromeremotedesktophost.msi. Save this somewhere convenient, then click Accept & Install in the Ready to install box to run the installer.

Once it installs, you’ll see a prompt to choose a name for your computer. Make sure this is descriptive so you don’t confuse it with other machines.

Next, you’ll need to choose a PIN for this device. You must enter this every time you connect to this computer using Chrome Remote Desktop. Enter a PIN that’s at least six characters, check the box if you want to let Google collect usage statistics, and hit Start.

You may see a UAC prompt from Windows to allow the remote connection; click Yes to approve this.

Now on the Remote Access tab, you’ll see your current computer listed as Online. This means everything is ready.

Set Up Chrome Remote Desktop on a Mac

Because most of the app works through a browser interface, installing Chrome Remote Desktop on a Mac is almost the same as the Windows process above. You’ll need to install an app and extension just like Windows.

Click the Download button in the Set up remote access section to download it. Choose a location to save the DMG file, then open it to reveal the installer file inside.

Double-click on the PKG file to open the installer, then walk through the process. You’ll need to enter your administrator password to approve the installation.

Once that’s done, back on the website, click Turn on to set up access from your other devices. Set a device name and PIN. After doing this, you’ll see a prompt to grant Accessibility permissions to Chrome Remote Desktop so it can work properly. This is a security feature of modern macOS versions.

Click the Open Accessibility Preferences button, which brings you to System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy. Here, select Accessibility from the left sidebar, then click the lock in the bottom-left and enter your password to allow changes.

In the list on the right, check the ChromeRemoteDesktopHost box. If it’s already checked, uncheck it and check it again.

Next, you’ll see another prompt to grant screen recording permissions for Chrome Remote Desktop. Click Open System Preferences in that alert to jump to the Screen Recording tab on the same Privacy settings page.

Again, check the box for ChromeRemoteDesktopHost.

System Preferences will warn that the app won’t work properly until you restart it. Click Quit Now to close Chrome Remote Desktop. Return to the Chrome Remote Desktop page in your browser and if everything is working properly, you should see your Mac’s name and Online under This device.

Now you’re all set to use Chrome Remote Desktop on your Mac. You may need to approve the Input Monitoring permission the first time you connect, which may require restarting Chrome Remote Desktop again before it works properly.

Set Up Chrome Remote Desktop on Linux

The Linux process for Chrome Remote Desktop is a lot like the above (assuming that Chrome is available for your distro). On the Chrome Remote Desktop page, click the Download button under Set up remote access and you’ll be prompted to add the Chrome Remote Desktop extension to Chrome in a new window.

Once this downloads, click the Accept & Install button and confirm the prompt that launches. You’ll then need to install additional packages to run the Chrome Remote Desktop app.

After that completes, you’re ready to generate a code so someone else can access your computer. However, you’ll also see a prompt to install Chrome Remote Desktop in the bottom-right corner of the window.

If it doesn’t appear, click the Plus icon at the far right of the address bar to show a prompt to install it.

This opens a dedicated Chrome Remote Desktop app on your computer. However, in our testing, the Linux computer didn’t appear in the Remote Access panel, meaning that you can’t connect to your Linux machine from other devices. It still allows you to remotely control other computers and receive incoming connections, though.

If this is a deal-breaker for you, see other ways to remotely from Linux from Windows.

Set Up Chrome Remote Desktop on Chrome OS

To use Chrome Remote Desktop on your Chromebook, make sure you’re signed into the same Google account that you used to set up your other machine(s). Like every other platform, go to the Chrome Remote Desktop site, click Download, and follow the steps to install the Chrome Remote Desktop extension. Then you’re all set.

Like Linux, it seems that you can’t set up a Chromebook as one of your computers in the Remote Access section. This is an unfortunate drawback, but the rest of the app still works.

How to Control Your Own Computers With Chrome Remote Desktop

Using Chrome on any computer, open the Chrome Remote Desktop page and sign into your Google account. On the Remote Access tab, click one of your computers. It must show as Online to connect, so make sure the system is reachable.

You’ll need to enter your PIN to connect to that device. Check the Remember my PIN on this device box (not available for all connections) to skip this step in the future.

In the list of devices, click the Pencil icon to the right of an item to change its name. You can also change the current device’s PIN. Use the Trash icon to remove a computer from your account.

How to Give or Get Assistance With Chrome Remote Desktop

The other half of Chrome Remote Access is the Remote Support tab, which lets you help a friend (or have someone connect to you).

If you want someone else to connect to your computer, you’ll need the Chrome Remote Desktop extension, as described above. If you don’t have it installed yet, you’ll see a prompt to install it under Get Support.

Once it’s ready, click Generate Code and you’ll see a 12-digit code. Give this to the other person (via text, email, or another method), who will need to enter it in Chrome Remote Desktop on their end.

Once they do, you’ll see a box asking for your permission to let your friend connect to your PC. Only approve this if it’s someone you expect to connect.

Conversely, if you’re the one connecting to a friend, have them follow the above steps to install the extension and generate a code. Then type the code they provide in the Give Support box at the bottom of this page, followed by Connect.

Using Chrome Remote Desktop

Once you’re connected, you can freely control the other computer using your mouse and keyboard as you’d expect. On the right side of the screen, you’ll see a small arrow that you can click to reveal more options.

Enable Full-screen if you need access to certain keyboard shortcuts. For example, if you’re using a Windows machine to control a Mac, Chrome Remote Desktop sends the Command key when you press the Windows key. However, unless you’re in full-screen, your computer will intercept commands like Win + R.

You can Enable clipboard synchronization if you’d like to copy and paste between devices. Under Input controls, you’ll find the option to send Ctrl + Alt + Del, Print Screen, and F11 to the remote computer. The option to Configure key mappings is particularly handy, as it lets you reassign keys if the defaults don’t work for you.

Use Displays to choose which screen you want to control, if the remote device has multiple.

File Transfer lets you send a file to the remote machine or grab one from it.

Finally, the Add to desktop option lets you install another Chrome Remote Desktop app (which you may have installed earlier) for a few enhancements.

If you’re the one being controlled, click the Stop Sharing button at the bottom to end the session.

Chrome Remote Desktop on Android and iOS

Want to control your computers from your smartphone or tablet? You can install Chrome Remote Desktop on Android or iOS for anywhere access.

The apps are simple: install them, sign in with your Google account, and you’ll see all your added machines under My Computers. Tap one to initiate a connection and provide the PIN to remote into it.

Unfortunately, you can’t use the mobile app to get support or connect to others using codes; only machines that you’ve added to your account will work.

Once connected, here’s how to interact in Trackpad mode:

• Drag one finger to move the mouse cursor. The display will follow the cursor as you move it.
• Tap one finger to click (you’ll click whatever is under the cursor).
• Tap with two fingers to right-click.
• Use a three-finger tap to middle-click.
• Pinch or spread with two fingers to zoom in and out.
• Swipe up or down with two fingers to scroll vertically.
• On Android, swipe down with three fingers to bring up the toolbar.
• On iOS, tap the screen with four fingers to show the menu.

Using the toolbar/menu, you can switch between Touch and Trackpad modes. Trackpad (mouse icon) is the default, while Touch behaves like other apps by letting you use a finger to scroll the screen and tapping anywhere to click there.

Also on the toolbar, you can bring up the keyboard to start typing, send a Ctrl + Alt + Delete combo, resize the desktop to fit your display, and end the session.

Download: Chrome Remote Desktop app for Android | iOS (Free)

Is Chrome Remote Desktop Safe?

Google says that “all remote desktop sessions are fully encrypted.” Combined with the fact that you need a PIN to connect to your remote devices, you can be reasonably sure that Chrome Remote Desktop sessions are safe from snooping. For best results, use strong PINs that aren’t easy to guess.

In addition, the one-time codes generated when you connect to someone’s computer expire after five minutes. This prevents old PINs from being used in the future.

Now You Know How Chrome Remote Desktop Works

You’re all set to use Chrome Remote Desktop for your own machines or connecting to others. Regardless of which platforms you set up, though, make sure you configure their settings to disable sleep mode when idle.

Chrome Remote Desktop can’t connect to a remote machine when it’s offline, sleeping, or turned off. The app doesn’t support Wake-on-LAN, so if you want to access it at any time, make sure your computer won’t go to sleep or run out of battery.

Need another option? For a cross-platform remote desktop app that doesn’t involve Google, check out our full guide to TeamViewer.

Read the full article: How to Use Chrome Remote Desktop to Control Your PC From Anywhere

Announcing the 7th Fine-Grained Visual Categorization Workshop

Posted by Christine Kaeser-Chen, Software Engineer and Serge Belongie, Visiting Faculty, Google Research

Fine-grained visual categorization refers to the problem of distinguishing between images of closely related entities, e.g., a monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) from a viceroy (Limenitis archippus). At the time of the first FGVC workshop in 2011, very few fine-grained datasets existed, and the ones that were available (e.g., the CUB dataset of 200 bird species, launched at that workshop) presented a formidable challenge to the leading classification algorithms of the time. Fast forward to 2020, and the computer vision landscape has undergone breathtaking changes. Deep learning based methods helped CUB-200-2011 accuracy rocket from 17% to 90% and fine-grained datasets have proliferated, with data arriving from a diverse array of institutions, such as art museums, apparel retailers, and cassava farms.

In order to help support even further progress in this field, we are excited to sponsor and co-organize the 7th Workshop on Fine-Grained Visual Categorization (FGVC7), which will take place as a virtual gathering on June 19, 2020, in conjunction with the IEEE conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR). We’re excited to highlight this year’s world-class lineup of fine-grained challenges, ranging from fruit tree disease prediction to fashion attributes, and we invite computer vision researchers from across the world to participate in the workshop.

The FGVC workshop at CVPR 2020 focuses on subordinate categories, including (from left to right) wildlife camera traps, plant pathology, birds, herbarium sheets, apparel, and museum artifacts.

Real-World Impact of the FGVC Challenges
In addition to pushing the frontier of fine-grained recognition on ever more challenging datasets, each FGVC workshop cycle provides opportunities for fostering new collaborations between researchers and practitioners. Some of the efforts from the FGVC workshop have made the leap into the hands of real world users.

The 2018 FGVC workshop hosted a Fungi challenge with data for 1,500 mushroom species provided by the Danish Mycological Society. When the competition concluded, the leaderboard was topped by a team from Czech Technical University and the University of West Bohemia.

The mycologists subsequently invited the Czech researchers for a visit to Copenhagen to explore further collaboration and field test a new workflow for collaborative machine learning research in biodiversity. This resulted in a jointly authored conference paper, a mushroom recognition app for Android and iOS, and an open access model published on TensorFlow Hub.

The Svampeatlas app for mushroom recognition is a result of a Danish-Czech collaboration spun out of the FGVC 2018 Fungi challenge. The underlying model is now published on TF Hub. Images used with permission of the Danish Mycological Society.

The iCassava Disease Challenge from 2019 mentioned above is another example of an FGVC team effort finding its way into the real world. In this challenge, Google researchers in Ghana collaborated with Makerere University and the National Crops Resources Research Institute (NaCRRI) to produce an annotated dataset of five cassava disease categories.

Examples of cassava leaf disease represented in the 2019 iCassava challenge.

The teams are testing a new model in the fields in Uganda with local farmers, and the model will be published on TFHub soon.

This Year’s Challenges
FGVC7 will feature six challenges, four of which represent sequels to past offerings, and two of which are brand new.

In iWildCam, the challenge is to identify different species of animals in camera trap images. Like its predecessors in 2018 and 2019, this year’s competition makes use of data from static, motion-triggered cameras used by biologists to study animals in the wild. Participants compete to build models that address diverse regions from around the globe, with a focus on generalization to held-out camera deployments within those regions, which exhibit differences in device model, image quality, local environment, lighting conditions, and species distributions, making generalization difficult.

It has been shown that species classification performance can be dramatically improved by using information beyond the image itself. In addition, since an ecosystem can be monitored in a variety of ways (e.g., camera traps, citizen scientists, remote sensing), each of which has its own strengths and limitations, it is important to facilitate the exploration of techniques for combining these complementary modalities. To this end, the competition provides a time series of remote sensing imagery for each camera trap location, as well as images from the iNaturalist competition datasets for species in the camera trap data.

Side-by-side comparison of image quality from iWildcam, captured from wildlife camera traps, (left) and iNaturalist (right), captured by conventional cameras. Images are from the 2020 iWildCam Challenge, and the iNaturalist competition datasets from 2017 and 2018.

The Herbarium Challenge, now in its second year, entails plant species identification, based on a large, long-tailed collection of herbarium specimens. Developed in collaboration with the New York Botanical Garden (NYBG), this challenge features over 1 million images representing over 32,000 plant species. Last year’s challenge was based on 46,000 specimens for 680 species. Being able to recognize species from historical herbarium collections can not only help botanists better understand changes in plant life on our planet, but also offers a unique opportunity to identify previously undescribed new species in the collection.

Representative examples of specimens from the 2020 Herbarium challenge. Images used with permission of the New York Botanical Garden.

In this year’s iMat Fashion challenge, participants compete to perform apparel instance segmentation and fine-grained attribute classification. The goal of this competition is to push the state of the art in fine-grained segmentation by joining forces between the fashion and computer vision communities. This challenge is in its third iteration, growing both in size and level of detail over past years’ offerings.

The last of the sequels is iMet, in which participants are challenged with building algorithms for fine-grained attribute classification on works of art. Developed in collaboration with the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the dataset has grown significantly since the 2019 edition, with a wide array of new cataloguing information generated by subject matter experts including multiple object classifications, artist, title, period, date, medium, culture, size, provenance, geographic location, and other related museum objects within the Met’s collection.

Semi-Supervised Aves is one of the new challenges at this year’s workshop. While avian data from iNaturalist has featured prominently in past FGVC challenges, this challenge focuses on the problem of learning from partially labeled data, a form of semi-supervised learning. The dataset is designed to expose some of the challenges encountered in realistic settings, such as the fine-grained similarity between classes, significant class imbalance, and domain mismatch between the labeled and unlabeled data.

Rounding out the set of challenges is Plant Pathology. In this challenge, the participants attempt to spot foliar diseases of apples using a reference dataset of expert-annotated diseased specimens. While this particular challenge is new to the FGVC community, it is the second such challenge to involve plant disease, the first being iCassava at last year’s FGVC.

Invitation to Participate
The results of these competitions will be presented at the FGVC7 workshop by top performing teams. We invite researchers, practitioners, and domain experts to participate in the FGVC workshop to learn more about state-of-the-art advances in fine-grained image recognition. We are excited to encourage the community's development of cutting edge algorithms for fine-grained visual categorization and foster new collaborations with global impact!

Acknowledgements
We’d like to thank our colleagues and friends on the FGVC7 organizing committee for working together to advance this important area. At Google we would like to thank Hartwig Adam, Kiat Chuan Tan, Arvi Gjoka, Kimberly Wilber, Sara Beery, Mikhail Sirotenko, Denis Brulé, Timnit Gebru, Ernest Mwebaze, Wojciech Sirko, Maggie Demkin.

COVID-19 exposure notification settings begin to go live for iOS users with new update

Apple has released iOS 13.5, which includes support for the Exposure Notification API that it co-created with Google to support public health authorities in their contact tracing efforts to combat COVID-19. The API requires third-party apps developed by public health authorities for use, and none have yet been released, but iOS device users already have access to COVID-19 Exposure Logging global settings.

As previewed in the beta release, you can access the Exposure Logging settings under the Settings app, then navigating to the ‘Privacy’ subsection. From there, you can select the ‘Health’ submenu and find the COVID-19 Exposure Logging setting, which will be off be default. It can’t be turned on at all until you actually get an authorized app to enable them, at which point you’ll receive a pop-up asking you to authorize Exposure Notifications access. Once you do, you can return here to toggle notifications off, and also manually delete your device’s exposure log should you choose to opt out.

Apple and Google both have emphasized that they want as much user control and visibility into the Exposure Notification API as possible. They’re using randomized, temporary identifiers that are not centrally stored to do the exposure notification, and are also forbidding the simultaneous use of geolocation services and the Exposure Notification API within the same app. This manual control is another step to ensure that users have full control over what info they share to participate in the system, and when.

Contact tracing is a time-tested strategy for combating the spread of infectious disease, and has traditionally worked by attempting to trace potential exposure by interviewing infected individuals and leaning as much about their movements during their infectious period as possible. Modern connected devices mean that we can potentially make this far more efficient and accurate, but Google and Apple have worked with privacy experts to try to determine a way to make this happen without exposing users to privacy risks. Matching also happens locally on a user’s device, not in any centralized database.

Apple and Google are currently working with public health authorities who are building apps based on this API, and the companies also have noted that this is a temporary measure that has been designed from the beginning to be disabled once the threat of COVID-19 has passed.

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Apple and Google launch exposure notification API, enabling public health authorities to release apps

Apple and Google today made available the first public version of their exposure notification API, which was originally debuted as a joint-contact tracing software tool. The partners later renamed it the Exposure Notification system to more accurately reflect its functionality, which is designed to notify individuals of potential exposure to others who have confirmed cases of COVID-19, while preserving privacy around identifying info and location data.

The launch today means that public health agencies can now use the API in apps released to the general public. To date, Apple and Google have only released beta versions of the API to help developed with the development process.

To be clear, this launch means that developers working on behalf of public health agencies can now issue apps that make use of it – Apple and Google themselves are not creating an exposure notification or contact tracing app. The companies say that many U.S. states and 22 countries across five continents have already asked for, and been provided access to the API to support their development efforts, and they anticipate more being added going forward. So far, Apple and Google say they have conducted over 24 briefings and tech talks for public health officials, epidemiologists, and app developers working on their behalf.

The exposure notification API works using a decentralized identifier system that uses randomly generated temporary keys created on a user’s device (but not tied to their specific identify or info). Apple and Google’s API allows public health agencies to define what constitutes potential exposure in terms of exposed time and distance, and they can tweak transmission risk and other factors according to their own standards.

Further, Apple and Google will allow apps to make use of a combination of the API and voluntarily submitted user data that they provide through individual apps to enable public health authorities to contact exposure users directly to make them aware of what steps they should take.

During the course of the API’s development, Apple and Google have made various improvements to ensure that privacy is an utmost consideration, including encrypting all Bluetooth metadata (like signal strength and specific transmitting power) since that could potentially be used to determine what type of device was used, which offers a slim possibility of associating an individual with a specific device and using that as one vector for identification.

The companies have also explicitly barred use of the API in any apps that also seek geolocation information permission from users – which means some apps being developed by public health authorities for contact tracing that use geolocation data won’t be able to access the exposure notification API. That has prompted some to reconsider their existing approach.

Apple and Google provided the following joint statement about the API and how it will support contact tracing efforts undertaken by public health officials and agencies:

One of the most effective techniques that public health officials have used during outbreaks is called contact tracing. Through this approach, public health officials contact, test, treat and advise people who may have been exposed to an affected person. One new element of contact tracing is Exposure Notifications: using privacy-preserving digital technology to tell someone they may have been exposed to the virus. Exposure Notification has the specific goal of rapid notification, which is especially important to slowing the spread of the disease with a virus that can be spread asymptomatically.

To help, Apple and Google cooperated to build Exposure Notifications technology that will enable apps created by public health agencies to work more accurately, reliably and effectively across both Android phones and iPhones. Over the last several weeks, our two companies have worked together, reaching out to public health officials scientists, privacy groups and government leaders all over the world to get their input and guidance.

Starting today, our Exposure Notifications technology is available to public health agencies on both iOS and Android. What we’ve built is not an app — rather public health agencies will incorporate the API into their own apps that people install. Our technology is designed to make these apps work better. Each user gets to decide whether or not to opt-in to Exposure Notifications; the system does not collect or use location from the device; and if a person is diagnosed with COVID-19, it is up to them whether or not to report that in the public health app. User adoption is key to success and we believe that these strong privacy protections are also the best way to encourage use of these apps.

Today, this technology is in the hands of public health agencies across the world who will take the lead and we will continue to support their efforts.

The companies previously announced plans to make Exposure Notification a system-level feature in a later update to both their respective mobile operating systems, to be released sometime later this year. That ‘Phase two’ portion of the strategy might be under revision, however, as Google and Apple said they continue to be in conversation with public health authorities about what system-level features will be useful to them in development of their COVID-19 mitigation strategies.

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Daily Crunch: Facebook unveils its Shops e-commerce platform

Facebook and Instagram are making a bigger push into e-commerce, MasterClass raises $100 million and Microsoft launches a new project management tool called Lists.

Here’s your Daily Crunch for May 20, 2020.

1. Facebook and Instagram roll out Shops, turning business profiles into storefronts

Both Facebook and Instagram already supported a degree of e-commerce — for example, Facebook has its Marketplace and will likely make a bigger push through its Libra cryptocurrency initiative, while Instagram allows users to buy products featured in posts and ads. But the company’s new tools go further, enabling businesses to create a full-fledged Facebook Shop.

Creating a Shop is free. Businesses just upload their catalog, choose the products they want to feature, then customize it with a cover image and accent colors. Visitors can then browse, save and order products.

2. MasterClass just raised $100 million for celebrity-fueled content

CEO David Rogier said that the capital will be used to create new classes for students and up production to one class a week. The company is also experimenting with an audio-only mode, short form and augmented reality.

3. Microsoft launches Lists, a new Airtable-like app for Microsoft 365

The way Microsoft describes it, Lists is a tool to “track issues, assets, routines, contacts, inventory and more using customizable views and smart rules and alerts to keep everyone in sync.” It features deep integrations into Teams, SharePoint and other Microsoft products and will launch this summer on the web, with mobile apps slated for later this year.

4. Why micromobility may emerge from the pandemic stronger than before

Despite the struggles of individual operators, micromobility (things like scooters, bikes and e-bikes) as a technology will come out of this stronger than before, industry analyst Horace Dediu tells TechCrunch. After all, with ongoing concerns about the disease and social distancing, consumers may look to alternative modes of transportation. (Extra Crunch membership required.)

5. Former Stitch Fix COO Julie Bornstein just took the wraps off her app-only e-commerce startup, The Yes

The Yes is a women’s shopping platform that Bornstein and her co-founder Amit Aggarwal have been quietly building for 18 months, and that they say will create tailor-made experiences for each user.

6. Spotify signs ‘The Joe Rogan Experience’ to an exclusive multi-year deal

Rogan is arguably the biggest and most influential voice in the podcast medium, with a podcast that has dominated Apple’s charts and 8.41 million subscribers on YouTube. The program has often featured right-wing voices, including members of the so-called Intellectual Dark Web, Proud Boy founder Gavin McInnes and de-platformed conspiracy trafficker Alex Jones.

7. Extra Crunch Live: Join Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg for a live Q&A May 26 at 2pm ET/11am PT

Our boss’s boss’s boss’s boss (I’m probably forgetting a few management layers here) is coming on Extra Crunch Live next week to discuss 5G, as well as how founders can manage a company at scale.

The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 9am Pacific, you can subscribe here.

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Google Cloud earns defense contract win for Anthos multi-cloud management tool

Google dropped out of the Pentagon’s JEDI cloud contract battle fairly early in the game, citing it was in conflict with its “AI principals.” However, today the company announced a new 7 figure contract with DoD’s Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), a big win for the cloud unit and CEO Thomas Kurian.

While the company would not get specific about the number, the new contract involves using Anthos, the tool the company announced last year to secure DIU’s multi-cloud environment. In spite of the JEDI contract involving a single vendor, the DoD has always used solutions from all three major cloud vendors — Amazon, Microsoft and Google — and this solution will provide a way to monitor security across all three environments, according to the company.

“Multi-cloud is the future. The majority of commercial businesses run multi-cloud environments securely and seamlessly, and this is now coming to the federal government as well,” Mike Daniels, VP of Global Public Sector at Google Cloud told TechCrunch.

The idea is to manage security across three environments with help from cloud security vendor Netskope, which is also part of the deal.”The multi-cloud solution will be built on Anthos, allowing DIU to run web services and applications across Google Cloud, Amazon Web Services,  and Microsoft Azure — while being centrally managed from the Google Cloud Console,” the company wrote in a statement.

Daniels says that while this is a deal with DIU, he could see it expanding to other parts of DoD. “This is a contract with the DIU, but our expectation is that the DoD will look at the project as a model for how to implement their own security posture.”

Google Cloud Platform remains way back in the cloud infrastructure pack in third place with around 8% market share. For context, AWS has around 33% market share and Microsoft has around 18%.

While JEDI, a $10 billion, winner-take-all prize remains mired in controversy and an on-going battle between The Pentagon, Amazon and Microsoft, this deal shows that the defense department is looking at advanced technology like Anthos to help it manage a multi-cloud world regardless of what happens with JEDI.

In spite of pandemic (or maybe because of it), cloud infrastructure revenue soars

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The quirky sex lives of ocean creatures | Marah J. Hardt

The quirky sex lives of ocean creatures | Marah J. Hardt

The ocean plays host to a peculiar party of wild, marine sex life that's perhaps quirkier (and kinkier) than you can fathom. But is human behavior interrupting these raunchy reproductive acts? Take a deep dive with marine biologist Marah J. Hardt to discover what exactly goes down under the sea -- and why your own wellness depends on the healthy sex lives of fish.

Click the above link to download the TED talk.

Emerging from stealth, Octant is bringing the tools of synthetic biology to large scale drug discovery

Octant, a company backed by Andreessen Horowitz just now unveiling itself publicly to the world, is using the tools of synthetic biology to buck the latest trends in drug discovery.

As the pharmaceuticals industry turns its attention to precision medicine — the search for ever more tailored treatments for specific diseases using genetic engineering — Octant is using the same technologies to engage in drug discovery and diagnostics on a mass scale.

The company’s technology genetically engineers DNA to act as an identifier for the most common drug receptors inside the human genome. Basically, it’s creating QR codes that can flag and identify how different protein receptors in cells respond to chemicals. These are the biological sensors which help control everything from immune responses to the senses of sight and smell, the firing of neurons; even the release of hormones and communications between cells in the body are regulated.

“Our discovery platform was designed to map and measure the interconnected relationships between chemicals, multiple drug receptor pathways and diseases, enabling us to engineer multi-targeted drugs in a more rational way, across a wide spectrum of targets,” said Sri Kosuri, Octant’s co-founder and chief executive officer, in a statement.

Octant’s work is based on a technology first developed at the University of California Los Angeles by Kosuri and a team of researchers, which slashed the cost of making genetic sequences to $2 per gene from $50 to $100 per gene.

“Our method gives any lab that wants the power to build its own DNA sequences,” Kosuri said in a 2018 statement. “This is the first time that, without a million dollars, an average lab can make 10,000 genes from scratch.”

Joining Kosuri in launching Octant is Ramsey Homsany, a longtime friend of Kosuri’s, and a former executive at Google and Dropbox. Homsany happened to have a background in molecular biology from school, and when Kosuri would talk about the implications of the technology he developed, the two men knew they needed to for a company.

“We use these new tools to know which bar code is going with which construct or genetic variant or pathway that we’re working with [and] all of that fits into a single well,” said Kosuri. “What you can do on top of that is small molecule screening… we can do that with thousands of different wells at a time. So we can build these maps between chemicals and targets and pathways that are essential to drug development.”

Before coming to UCLA, Kosuri had a long history with companies developing products based on synthetic biology on both the coasts. Through some initial work that he’d done in the early days of the biofuel boom in 2007, Kosuri was connected with Flagship Ventures, and the imminent Harvard-based synthetic biologist George Church. He also served as a scientific advisor to Gen9, a company acquired by the multi-billion dollar synthetic biology powerhouse, Ginkgo Bioworks.

“Some of the most valuable drugs in history work on complex sets of drug targets, which is why Octant’s focus on polypharmacology is so compelling,” said Jason Kelly, the co-founder and CEO of Gingko Bioworks, and a member of the Octant board, in a statement. “Octant is engineering a lot of luck and cost out of the drug discovery equation with its novel platform and unique big data biology insights, which will drive the company’s internal development programs as well as potential partnerships.”

The new technology arrives at a unique moment in the industry where pharmaceutical companies are moving to target treatments for diseases that are tied to specific mutations, rather than look at treatments for more common disease problems, said Homsany.

“People are dropping common disease problems,” he said. “The biggest players are dropping these cases and it seems like that just didn’t make sense to us. So we thought about how would a company take these new technologies and apply them in a way that could solve some of this.”

One reason for the industry’s turn away from the big diseases that affect large swaths of the population is that new therapies are emerging to treat these conditions which don’t rely on drugs. While they wouldn’t get into specifics, Octant co-founders are pursuing treatments for what Kosuri said were conditions “in the metabolic space” and in the “neuropsychiatric space”.

Helping them pursue those targets, since Octant is very much a drug development company, is $20 million in financing from investors led by Andreessen Horowitz.

“Drug discovery remains a process of trial and error. Using its deep expertise in synthetic biology, the Octant team has engineered human cells that provide real-time, precise and complete readouts of the complex interactions and effects that drug molecules have within living cells,” said Jorge Conde, general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, and member of the Octant board of directors. “By querying biology at this unprecedented scale, Octant has the potential to systematically create exhaustive maps of drug targets and corresponding, novel treatments for our most intractable diseases.”

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