Archives for September 2021

RIVERHEAD, N.Y. (AP) — An employee cost a New York county at least $6,000 in electricity bills by allegedly secretly installing dozens of machines at his workplace in a cryptocurrency scheme, authorities said Wednesday, announcing charges against him.

Suffolk County District Attorney Timothy Sini said Christopher Naples, who worked in the county clerk’s office as a supervisor of information technology operations, is charged with counts including public corruption, grand larceny, and computer trespass.

An email seeking comment was sent to Naples’ attorney. He appeared in court on Wednesday and was released on his own recognizance.

Sini said Naples, 42, who has worked for the county since 2000, had put 46 devices throughout the county center in Riverhead, New York, in locations like an unused electrical wall panel or underneath floorboards. At least some of the devices had been in place since February.

Naples, of Mattituck, New York, is accused of using the devices to mine Bitcoin and other types of cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrency units are created by computers solving complex math equations, and the process can result in heavy electricity usage and high cooling costs.

“Mining cryptocurrency requires an enormous amount of resources, and miners have to navigate how to cover all of those electricity and cooling costs,” Sini said in a statement announcing the arrest. Naples “found a way to do it; unfortunately, it was on the backs of taxpayers.”

Naples faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted of the top count against him.

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PHOENIX (AP) — Lawyers defending the founders of the classified site Backpage.com against allegations they knowingly ran ads for prostitution told jurors Wednesday that the adult service ads published by their clients were controversial but ultimately protected by the First Amendment.

Attorneys for Michael Lacey and James Larkin said in opening statements at their trial that the site ran legally allowable ads for escort services, but didn’t publish ads for sex. They say the site beefed up its staff and methods for spotting illegal ads, helped authorities in investigating sexual trafficking cases and earned compliments from law enforcement for their assistance.

“Backpage was doing everything they could to help the police,” said Paul Cambria, one of the attorneys representing Lacey.

Last week, a prosecutor told jurors that the majority of the site’s revenue came from prostitution ads but the founders and operators of Backpage tried to conceal it. The prosecutor said the site hired content moderators whose job was not to remove prostitution ads but to edit them so they weren’t so blatant. The prosecutor also said the website developed a partnership with a website where customers wrote reviews of prostitutes, which drove significant traffic to Backpage.

On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Susan Brnovich denied a request for a mistrial made by defense lawyers, who argued a prosecutor’s repeated references to sex trafficking during opening statements were inflammatory.

While prosecutors say the site published many ads that depicted children who were victims of sex trafficking, no one in the federal case in Arizona is charged with sex trafficking or child sex trafficking.

In all, six former Backpage operators have pleaded not guilty to charges of facilitating prostitution. Of the six, Lacey, Larkin and two others have pleaded not guilty to money laundering charges.

The site’s marketing director has already pleaded guilty to conspiring to facilitate prostitution and acknowledged he participated in a scheme to give free ads to prostitutes to win over their business. Additionally, the CEO of the company when the government shut the site down, Carl Ferrer, pleaded guilty to a separate federal conspiracy case in Arizona and to state money laundering charges in California.

Lacey and Larkin founded the Phoenix New Times, held ownership interests in other weeklies such as The Village Voice and ultimately sold their newspapers in 2013. But they held onto Backpage, which authorities say generated $500 million in prostitution-related revenue from its inception in 2004 until April 2018 when it was shut down by the government.

The site’s operators are accused of giving free ads to prostitutes and cultivating arrangements with others who worked in the sex trade to get them to post ads with the company.

Thomas Bienert, an attorney defending Larkin, read aloud to jurors compliments that law enforcement agencies gave to Backpage for their cooperation in sex trafficking investigations.

Bienert also said the operators of Backpage had reason to think they were operating legally, saying judges who presided in now-dismissed lawsuits over Backpage ads found that its adult services ads were protected by the First Amendment.

Some people might not like the material published on Backpage but the ads were still legal, Bienert said. “Controversial doesn’t equal illegal,” Bienert said.

The trial is expected to last two to three months.

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In pre-COVID times, business events __ from small academic conferences to giant trade shows like CES __ routinely attracted more than 1 billion participants each year. The pandemic brought those global gatherings to a sudden halt, emptying convention centers and shuttering hotels.

More than a year later, in-person meetings are on the rebound. In late August, 30,000 masked attendees gathered in Las Vegas for ASD Market Week, a retail trade show. In Chicago, the Black Women’s Expo recently held the largest event in its history, with 432 vendors and thousands of masked attendees.

“People are cautious, but they’re glad to be able to get out and network with other people,” said Dr. Barbara Hall, whose company, JBlendz Communications, was among the exhibitors at the expo.

Still, it could be several years __ if ever __ before conferences attract the crowds they did before the pandemic. Many countries and businesses are still restricting travel, pinching attendance at big events like the Canton Trade Fair in China, which required 26,000 vendors to pitch their wares virtually in April.

Health concerns also remain. The industry is keen to avoid another black eye like the Biogen leadership conference, a February 2020 event in Boston that was eventually linked to 300,000 COVID cases.

The New York Auto Show, which regularly attracts more than 1 million people, was canceled two weeks before its August start date because of concerns about the delta variant. A construction machinery trade show in Beijing, which normally attracts 150,000 visitors, has been delayed for two months until November.

Experts say one of the big lessons of 2020 is that much of what happens at conferences and trade shows can happen virtually, lessening the need for big in-person events.

Jaiprit Virdi, an assistant professor at the University of Delaware, said moving events online made them more accessible to the disabled and those who can’t afford to travel. Virdi, who is deaf, said she’s relieved that in-person conferences are requiring masks for safety. But masks create serious barriers for her, since she relies on lip-reading.

“We don’t need to go back to the way things were pre-COVID, but rather embrace the lessons from the past year-and-a-half to improve how we conduct these spaces for everyone,” Virdi said in an email.

Paddy Cosgrave, the CEO of the Web Summit, a tech conference aimed at startups, said last year’s virtual-only event was less expensive __ people paid just $100 to attend, versus $700 previously __ and drew in more participants from developing countries. But attendees also felt something was lacking.

“In-person meetings provide a quality of interaction that no amount of technology as of yet can replicate,” Cosgrave said.

This year, the Web Summit expects 40,000 attendees when it convenes in Lisbon, Portugal, in November. Vaccines or a negative COVID-19 test will be required to attend, but masks are optional.

The Render-Atlanta software engineering conference, scheduled for mid-September, is also requiring vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test to enter. To make attendees feel even safer, the conference cut a deal with a sponsor to provide daily testing for its 400 attendees. Masks ___ which can be personalized at a decorating station __ will be required. Attendees can also wear black-and-white bracelets showing their level of comfort with social interaction. Dots mean they’re okay with it, stripes mean “stay away.”

Justin Samuels, Render-Atlanta’ chief experience officer, said it’s worth the extra hoops to gather in person. Render-Atlanta is the only Black-owned software engineering conference, with an emphasis on culture that doesn’t translate to a Zoom screen, Samuels said.

“The actual art of human interaction has to happen in person,” Samuels said.

A lot is riding on the revival of in-person meetings. Prior to the pandemic, conferences and trade shows generated more than $1 trillion in direct spending and attracted 1.5 billion attendees annually around the world, according to the Events Industry Council, a trade group.

The group hasn’t yet calculated the impact of the virus globally. But the Center for Exhibition Industry Research, which studies the economic impact of U.S. business-to-business trade shows, said those events alone were expected to generate $105 billion in direct and indirect spending in 2020. Instead, that plunged to $24 billion. CEIR doesn’t expect a return to growth for the industry until 2023.

Chicago’s McCormick Place, the largest convention center in the U.S., laid off 90% of its 2,800 workers last year after 234 events were canceled, said Larita Clark, the CEO of the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority. One of the complex’s two hotels, the Marriott Marquis Chicago, was temporarily closed; the other, the Hyatt Regency Chicago, saw occupancy drop as low as 10%.

The economic losses extend far beyond exhibition complexes. Fern, a 112-year-old Cincinnati company, builds exhibits and other infrastructure for 1,400 events in a normal year. But for most of last year and the beginning of this year, its revenue dropped well over 90%, said Aaron Bludworth, Fern’s president and CEO.

“This was much more brutal than anything I have experienced in my career,” Bludworth said.

Bludworth doesn’t expect his business to fully recover until 2023. But he has been surprised by the demand he’s seeing for fall, when his company will be mounting several hundred shows. He’s had some requests for help with virtual presentations, he said, but demand for in-person events is stronger.

“Maybe you can do education virtually, but when a buyer and seller connect and go out and have dinner, that cannot happen virtually,” he said. “Our community realizes we’ve got to get together and sell products and make this commerce happen.”

Steve Hill, CEO and president of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, said 2022 is shaping up to be a good year for the industry. But he acknowledges a lot will depend on the situation around COVID-19 and whether international travel restrictions are lifted. Foreigners can account for 20% to 30% of attendees at he city’s major events, he said.

Hill thinks virtual convention elements are here to stay. They give shows another revenue stream and help them develop followers, he said. But Hill thinks enough people will continue to visit in person that hybrid events won’t hurt hotels and restaurants in convention cities.

“The shows will get back to 100% attendance. People need the in-person aspect of a show,” he said.

But Sherrif Karamat, the president and CEO of the Professional Convention Management Association, is not so sure, particularly as more convention attendees question the environmental impact of travel. Karamat is excited about the prospect of virtual conferencing bringing the world closer.

“Learning should not be limited to any one channel. Business networking should not be limited to any one channel,” he said.

Karamat says the pandemic is already reshaping the convention industry. Organizers are thinking more deeply about why their conferences matter and the outcomes they want to achieve, he said, which will lead to more meaningful gatherings.

“I’m very bullish,” he said. “I feel we’re going to take this much more seriously.”

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AP Writers Kelvin Chan in London, David Koenig in Dallas, Joe McDonald in Beijing and Teresa Crawford in Chicago contributed.

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MADRID (AP) — The Spanish league is joining the blockchain world by launching officially licensed digital cards of players to be sold and traded online.

The league on Thursday announced a deal with fantasy soccer platform Sorare to launch the cards based on non-fungible tokens, known as NFTs.

Fans, collectors and fantasy players will be able to trade and play with the digital cards of all of the league’s players, generating a new revenue stream for the clubs and giving buyers the opportunity to make money with the digital assets.

The cards’ value are determined by the market’s supply and demand, and ultimately by the players’ performances and actions.

Sorare, a marketplace for digital cards from more than 180 soccer clubs and with more than 500,000 registered users, lists the Cristiano Ronaldo card as its most expensive one at 245,072 euros ($289,000). Next is the one for Antoine Griezmann, who is now back with Atlético Madrid, valued at 95,498 euros ($112,900).

The Spanish league is the first of the top five soccer leagues to sign a major NFT partnership, according to Sorare, which has Griezmann as an investor and Gerard Piqué as an strategic adviser.

“We are always looking for innovative ways to offer our fans new and exciting experiences and to broaden the appeal of our competition,” Spanish league president Javier Tebas said, adding that the partnership “enables us to reach new audiences globally and gives existing fans additional ways they can get involved with the players and the clubs they love.”

The Spanish league, which recently lost Neymar, Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, has been trying to cut into the global dominance of the Premier League.

The NFTs have been increasingly used in the arts and collecting world as they effectively provide certificates of authenticity to digital items thanks to the blockchain technology, which generates “blocks” of information or transactions that are secure and transparent.

The transactions are stored on a network of computers around the world without the need of a centralized party or authority to control the data. The information can’t be altered, and the blocks are “chained” together using cryptography to form a protected and public digital ledger.

Several top clubs worldwide have joined the blockchain technology, including Barcelona, Atlético Madrid, Paris Saint-Germain, Juventus, Roma, Liverpool and Bayern Munich.

Barcelona last year launched virtual “fan tokens” to raise money and increase fan engagement, generating 1.2 million euros ($1.4 million) in less than two hours after they were put on sale. The cryptocurrency-based fan tokens give fans exclusive voting rights in club-specific polls and can give them a chance to win rewards that could include watching games as VIP guests or meeting with players.

Portuguese club Benfica two years ago was a pioneer in allowing the use of cryptocurrencies for the purchase of tickets and merchandising. Some clubs also resorted to blockchain to track the authenticity of some of their official products.

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More AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

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Tales Azzoni on Twitter: http://twitter.com/tazzoni

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REDMOND, Washington (AP) — Microsoft told employees Thursday that it has indefinitely delayed their return to U.S. offices until it’s safer to do so.

“Given the uncertainty of COVID-19, we’ve decided against attempting to forecast a new date for a full reopening of our U.S. work sites,” Jared Spataro, a corporate vice president, wrote in a blog post.

Microsoft had already postponed its planned return to the workplace from September to no earlier than Oct. 4, but now says the re-opening won’t be next month.

Microsoft employs about 181,000 full-time workers, of whom 103,000 are in the U.S.

Microsoft will wait for public health guidance on when it is safe to return, Spataro said. It will then give workers a 30-day transition period to prepare.

Last month Microsoft said it will require proof of vaccination for all employees, vendors and visitors to its U.S. offices starting this fall.

The tech giant has made a big push since the pandemic emerged to tailor its suite of workplace software products to homebound workers and timed its delayed re-opening announcement with a number of new product features.

A hybrid approach permitting employees to toggle between remote and in-office work has been widely embraced in the technology industry, particularly among the largest companies with the biggest payrolls.

Many tech companies had plans for bringing back most of their workers around Labor Day weekend, but Apple, Google, Facebook, Amazon and a growing list of others have already decided to wait until next year.

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