Is It OK If Your Phone Saves You From COVID?

We've known for a while now that our phones are eavesdropping on us. There have been numerous times when I was talking to my friends about a movie, a TV show, or even an actor, and I opened up my phone to advertisements for that very content. [Outsider Club logo] Is It OK If Your Phone Saves You From COVID? [Jason Simpkins Photo] By [Jason Simpkins]( Written Dec 11, 2020 We've known for a while now that our phones are eavesdropping on us. There have been numerous times when I was talking to my friends about a movie, a TV show, or even an actor, and I opened up my phone to advertisements for that very content. Or I'll have a question about some obscure fact: Who was it that starred in the 1977 version of The Island of Dr. Moreau? So I take out my phone to Google it and the auto-complete feature gets conspicuously ahead of me. Burt Lancaster and Michael York. Amazon's Alexa famously does this as well. In fact, according to an article at Komando.com, Amazon has "a global team of analysts that listen to and transcribe audio samples from Alexa owners" — even when Alexa isn't activated. They listen to as many as 1,000 audio clips per shift, "scanning harvested clips for 'keywords' that Alexa is already familiar with, such as a brand name or musical artist." Then they "transcribe and annotate the clips to improve Alexa’s overall recognition." Such a job gets frighteningly personal, though, as Alexa can sometimes record its surroundings without being prompted. It's caught mundane things like boring conversations and people singing in the shower. But more distressingly, these engineers have also heard screams for help and even sexual assaults. Still, many, many Americans have determined that they're willing to exchange a little bit of their privacy for convenience. And the same is true of our phones, which have been opened up to our voices as well as our faces (using facial recognition technology). That access, though, [has found new purpose in the time of COVID](. [Medical Authorities Are Getting Behind This Instant COVID-Detecting Technology]( It’s not a vaccine. And yet incredibly enough, the world’s most powerful health agencies are backing this COVID-fighting device. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) announced that schools can reopen... ONLY if they use this technology. Dr. Fauci says it merits “serious consideration.” Even the FDA is on board, lifting regulatory restrictions on this technology’s use. So what is it? And which $0.50 tech stock owns all the patents? [Click here to find out.]( Federal and local governments around the world have deployed apps that use a phone's tracking software to analyze population movement and even perform contact tracing. They notify people who have been in close proximity to infected individuals so that they can be tested. And now a research team at MIT says its advanced artificial intelligence technology can identify asymptomatic COVID carriers by hearing their cough as it's recorded by their cellphone. The researchers trained the model on tens of thousands of samples of coughs, submitted to them voluntarily. When they fed the model new cough recordings, it accurately identified 98.5% of coughs from people who were confirmed to have COVID-19, including 100% of coughs from people who said they had no symptoms but tested positive for the virus anyway. The team is working on incorporating the model into a user-friendly app, which, if FDA-approved and adopted on a large scale, could potentially be a free, convenient, noninvasive prescreening tool to identify people who are infected. Again, it's simply a matter of reconciling privacy with technology. And it's a judgment we're going to have to make more and more frequently going forward. [China Used COVID-19 to Steal the Cellphone Market]( As outrageous as it may seem... This isn’t a conspiracy theory or some far-fetched tale. It’s actually pretty simple: While Apple and Samsung halted production, this state-supported Chinese company forced employees to work around the clock and make a record-breaking number of phones. The result? It produced more than 55 million phones in just a few months and is now officially the largest cellphone company in the world. If you’ve ever worried that something like this would happen... well, here it is. But the damage is done. And now we’re faced with an even bigger problem: how to keep these phones out of America. You see, they’re not legal in the U.S. because they contain advanced spyware that tracks your location and sends it to Beijing. Obama banned them. Trump banned them. And Biden says he’ll support the ban as well. And yet... thousands of these phones continue to flood across the border every day. Most of them are from Mexico, where China sells them at rock-bottom prices to entice tech-hungry customers on a budget. Trump just issued an executive order to stem the tide. And the Pentagon is throwing its entire weight into a solution. Look, this is an enormous story — a lot of details are in play. But you could sum it up like this: China is trying to invade our networks, the Pentagon is putting up billions to stop it, and the American 5G companies that’ll secure our airwaves will make a killing in the process. [Click here if you’re ready for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to stick it to China’s communist government... AND make more gains than you ever thought possible on these three Pentagon-approved 5G stocks.]( For example, I previously reported on [another COVID-busting technology](: facial recognition. It uses AI, thermal imaging, temperature screening, and facial recognition technology to identify potentially sick people. It's even capable of reaching out to bystanders who may have come into contact with disease carriers. Better still, it can count the number of individuals entering and exiting a store, ensuring businesses comply with new laws governing capacity. And it can measure the distance between individuals to monitor social distancing protocols. That's why it's already being implemented across the country. Businesses like Amazon and Walmart are using it to scan their employees upon arrival. The facial recognition aspect ensures that every person coming and going is cleared to be there. And the infrared and surface temperature components flag anyone with a fever. It's also being installed at airports to not only slow the spread of COVID, but also identify terrorists and potential security threats and reduce contact between individuals and surfaces. The Biggest Upgrade to the Power Grid in 100 Years The U.S. power grid is in desperate need of an upgrade. It’s easy to understand why... Power outages cost the U.S. economy $150 billion each year... Faulty cables cause wildfires... And hostile cyberattacks aimed at the grid threaten the lives of millions of Americans. One little-known company is at the center of this upgrade with a crucial component it manufactures in upstate New York. Investors who get in now could turn $500 into $20,945 before 2021 ends. This upgrade has already been kicked off by Executive Order 13920, so there’s not much time to act. The $8 stock is expected to skyrocket once this hits the news. [Click here to find out what this is all about.]( Those benefits are clearly groundbreaking. Yet there's still some hesitancy — or even stigma — about the widespread use of facial recognition technology. And that's fair. We shouldn't race ahead with these technologies, giving them carte blanche to take over our planet without considering the potential consequences down the road. Nevertheless, they are being deployed. And in many cases, they've been effective. Even lifesaving. So as an investor, it's worth considering the upside profit potential. And if that's something that interests you, [you should check out my complete report here](. Fight on, [Jason Simpkins Signature] Jason Simpkins [follow basic]([@OCSimpkins on Twitter]( Jason Simpkins is Assistant Managing Editor of the Outsider Club and Investment Director of The Wealth Warrior, a financial advisory focused on security companies and defense contractors. For more on Jason, check out his editor's [page](. *Follow Outsider Club on [Facebook]( and [Twitter](. Browse Our Archives [Supertramp]( [Profiting From 2021's New Normal]( [Big Plans for a Big Future]( [5G Sucks – That’s Good For Us]( [You Thought 2020 Was Bad? 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