Tech review: Amazon unveils Alexa elder-care services

Amazon unveils Alexa elder-care services

Amazon is rolling out Alexa Together, a subscription elder-care platform to help older adults in an emergency and let families keep tabs on their loved ones. Using an Amazon Echo device, subscribers can be connected to a 24/7 urgent response team by saying "Alexa, call for help." Alexa Together includes a remote assist service, where family members can manage a range of tasks for older relatives, including setting reminders and creating shipping lists. Optional features include an "activity feed," allowing family members to see how their loved one is interacting with the Echo device, kind of an early-warning alert there may be problems. Available next year, Alexa Together costs $19.99 per month.

Hiring software rejects viable applicants

Wondering why your perfect resume didn’t get a positive response? It may not be because of you — or even a human. Harvard Business School found that automated recruiting software excludes viable candidates because their resumes do not match certain often unimportant criteria "but who could perform at a high level." The report concluded the current automated hiring system is broken, and while applicants suspect it, "employers know it."

Software bug sends users $90M in crypto

A bug in a recent update of decentralized finance platform Compound sent users nearly $90 million worth of cryptocurrency in error, leaving its chief executive begging users to voluntarily send it back. After Compound users received the bounty, CEO Robert Leshner on Twitter threatened to reveal their identities to the Internal Revenue Service if they didn't return most of the money. He later apologized for the threat.

BLOOMBERG NEWS

UPS drones deliver COVID vaccine

UPS has started making COVID-19 vaccine deliveries by drone. The drones, equipped with special temperature-controlled packaging, are making deliveries to a medical center campus in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, opening the prospect of a quicker way to deliver medical shipments. UPS said the program "has implications that extend far beyond COVID-19" because the technology could be used for pharmaceuticals that have to be kept at cold temperatures.

ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION (TNS)