“A game-changer for weather forecasts.” That’s what the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA are calling the just-launched GOES-S satellite. It is the second in a pair of the most advanced weather satellites ever built. Faith Lapidus reports.
…

Instagram users fed up with the service becoming more and more like Facebook are flocking to a hot new app called Vero.

Vero lets you share photos and video just like Instagram, plus it lets you talk about music, movies or books you like or hate. Though Vero has been around since 2015, its popularity surged in recent days, thanks in part to sudden, word-of-mouth interest from the cosplay community — comic book fans who like to dress up as characters. That interest then spread to other online groups.

There’s also a growing frustration with Instagram, with a flood of ads, dearth of privacy options and a recent end to the chronological ordering of posts. Instagram users have been posting screenshots of Vero, asking their friends to join.

But don’t ring Instagram’s death knells just yet. Hot new apps pop up and fizzle by the dozen, so the odds are stacked against Vero. Remember Ello? Peach? Thought so.

“Young people are super fickle and nothing has caught on in the way that Snapchat or Instagram has,” said Debra Aho Williamson, an eMarketer analyst who specializes in social media.

From 2015 until this past week, Vero was little known, with fewer than 200,000 users, according to CEO Ayman Hariri. Then cosplay members started posting photos of elaborate costumes and makeup. Photographers, tattoo artists and others followed. As of Thursday, Vero was approaching 3 million users, Hariri said.

A fee, eventually

Vero has gotten so popular in recent days that some users have reported widespread outages and error messages. Vero says it’s working to keep up in response “a large wave of new users.”

Vero works on Apple or Android mobile devices and is free, at least for now. The company eventually wants to charge a subscription fee.

There are no ads, and the service promises “no data mining. Ever.” That means it won’t try to sell you stuff based on your interests and habits, as revealed through your posts. Of course, Facebook started out without ads and “data mining,” and it’s now one of the top internet advertising companies. Facebook bought Instagram in 2012 and started showing ads there the following year.

Instagram’s privacy settings are all or nothing: You either make everything available to everyone on Instagram, or make everything visible only to approved friends. Vero lets you set the privacy level of individual posts. If you don’t want something available to all users, you can choose just close friends, friends or acquaintances.

Another big difference: Vero shows friends’ posts in chronological order rather than tailored to your perceived tastes, as determined by software. Instagram got rid of chronological presentations in 2016, a change that hasn’t gone well with many users.

Founder was already wealthy

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg became a billionaire after starting the service. Vero’s founder was already one.

Hariri is the son of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri and helped run the family’s now-defunct construction company in Saudi Arabia. He got a computer science degree from Georgetown and returned to Saudi Arabia after his father was assassinated in 2005. His half brother, Saad, is Lebanon’s current prime minister.

Hariri’s ties with the family business, Saudi Oger, have come into question. The company has been accused in recent years of failing to pay workers and stranding them with little food and access to medical care. Vero says Hariri hasn’t had any operational or financial involvement with the business since late 2013.

Hariri said he started the service not to replace Instagram but to give people “a more authentic social network.” Because Vero doesn’t sell ads, he said, it isn’t simply trying to get people to stay on longer. More important, he said, is “how you feel when you use [it] and how you feel it’s useful.”

Newcomers like Ello and Peach can quickly become popular as people fed up with bigger services itch for something new. But reality can set in when people realize that their friends are not on the new services or that these services aren’t all they promised to be.

Williamson, the eMarketer analyst, said it’s difficult for a new service to become something people use for more than a few weeks.

A rare exception is Snapchat, which was founded in 2010, the same year as Instagram. Unlike Instagram, it has remained an independent company and is still a popular service among younger people. But even Snapchat is having trouble growing more broadly.

EMarketer recently published a report that predicted 2 million people under 25 leaving Facebook for other apps this year. But that means going to Snapchat and the Facebook-owned Instagram, not necessarily emerging services like Vero.
…

An Egyptian teenager has turned cables and sheets of aluminum and metal into a robotic exoskeleton that he says can one day help the disabled walk. Faith Lapidus reports.
…

Forget self-driving cars! Imagine a future filled with flying cars. The latest design comes from the Netherlands, where a company plans to officially unveil the newest combination of a gyrocopter and a sports car. VOA’s George Putic has more.
…

Facebook Inc on Thursday put an end to a test of splitting its signature News Feed into two, an idea that roiled how people consumed news in six countries where the test occurred and added to concern about Facebook’s power.

The test created two streaming series of posts. One was focused on photos and other updates from friends and family, and a second was called an “explore feed.” It was dedicated to material from Facebook pages that the user had liked, such as media outlets or sports teams.

The social media network decided to end the test and maintain one feed because people told the company in surveys they did not like the change, Adam Mosseri, head of the News Feed at Facebook, said in a statement.

“In surveys, people told us they were less satisfied with the posts they were seeing, and having two separate feeds didn’t actually help them connect more with friends and family,” Mosseri said.

The test began in October and took place in Bolivia, Cambodia, Guatemala, Serbia, Slovakia and Sri Lanka, and it quickly affected website traffic for smaller media outlets.

Mosseri said the company had also “received feedback that we made it harder for people in the test countries to access important information, and that we didn’t communicate the test clearly.”

He said Facebook would, in response, revise how it tests product changes although he did not say how.

Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg has unveiled other changes to the Facebook News Feed in the past two months to fight sensationalism and prioritize posts from friends and family.

The world’s largest social network and its competitors are under pressure from users and government authorities to make their services less addictive and to stem the spread of false news stories and hoaxes.

Reporting by David Ingram.
…

Facebook Inc on Thursday put an end to a test of splitting its signature News Feed into two, an idea that roiled how people consumed news in six countries where the test occurred and added to concern about Facebook’s power.

The test created two streaming series of posts. One was focused on photos and other updates from friends and family, and a second was called an “explore feed.” It was dedicated to material from Facebook pages that the user had liked, such as media outlets or sports teams.

The social media network decided to end the test and maintain one feed because people told the company in surveys they did not like the change, Adam Mosseri, head of the News Feed at Facebook, said in a statement.

“In surveys, people told us they were less satisfied with the posts they were seeing, and having two separate feeds didn’t actually help them connect more with friends and family,” Mosseri said.

The test began in October and took place in Bolivia, Cambodia, Guatemala, Serbia, Slovakia and Sri Lanka, and it quickly affected website traffic for smaller media outlets.

Mosseri said the company had also “received feedback that we made it harder for people in the test countries to access important information, and that we didn’t communicate the test clearly.”

He said Facebook would, in response, revise how it tests product changes although he did not say how.

Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg has unveiled other changes to the Facebook News Feed in the past two months to fight sensationalism and prioritize posts from friends and family.

The world’s largest social network and its competitors are under pressure from users and government authorities to make their services less addictive and to stem the spread of false news stories and hoaxes.

Reporting by David Ingram.
…

Equifax said Thursday that an additional 2.4 million Americans were impacted by last year’s data breach, however these newly disclosed consumers had significantly less personal information stolen.

The company says the additional consumers only had their names and a partial driver’s license number stolen by the attackers, unlike the original 145.5 million Americans who had their Social Security numbers impacted. Attackers were unable to get the state where the license was issued, the date of issuance or its expiration date.

In total, roughly 147.9 million Americans have been impacted by Equifax’s data breach. It remains the largest data breach of personal information in history.

The company says they were able to find the additional 2.4 million Americans by cross referencing names with partial driver’s license numbers using both internal and external data sources. These Americans were not found in the original breach because Equifax had focused its investigation on those with Social Security numbers impacted. Individuals with stolen Social Security numbers are generally more at risk for identity theft because of how prolific Social Security numbers are used in identity verification.

Equifax Inc. says it will reach out to all newly impacted consumers and will provide the same credit monitoring and identity theft protection services they have been offering to the original victims.
…

The battle to identify and remove extremist video online just got a new weapon. Video-sharing sites can now use artificial intelligence to scan thousands of videos as they are uploaded. Faith Lapidus reports.
…

Facebook wants to make it easier for people to find low-skilled jobs online.

After testing the new software in U.S. and Canada since last year, Facebook added job postings Wednesday in another 40 countries across Europe and elsewhere.

The software works with both Apple and PC operating systems.

Users can find openings using the Jobs dashboard on Facebook’s web sidebar or its mobile app’s More section. The search can be filtered according to area and type of industry, as well as between full-time and part-time jobs.

Users can automatically fill out applications with information from their Facebook profile, submit the applications and schedule interviews.

Businesses can post job openings using the Jobs tab on their page, and include advertisements.

Separately, Facebook announced the introduction of a face recognition software that helps users quickly find photos they’re in, but haven’t been tagged in. The new software will help users protect themselves against unauthorized use of their photos, as well as allow visually impaired users learn who is in their photos and videos.
…

Several high-tech companies are teaming up on a plan to put a mobile phone network on the moon next year.

Vodaphone Germany, Nokia, and Audi are working on a mobile network and robotic vehicles that are part of a private expedition to the moon, timed to coincide with the 50th anniversary year of the first manned lunar landing.

The project with PTScientists in Germany would use a 4G network to send high-definition information from rovers back to a lunar lander, which would then be able to communicate it back to Earth. 

Project scientists say the system uses less energy than having rovers speak directly to Earth, leaving more power for scientific activities. 

They plan to launch the vehicles from Cape Canaveral next year on a Space X Falcon 9 rocket. 
…

The world’s biggest mobile phone trade fair, the Mobile World Congress, or MWC, opened earlier this week in Barcelona, Spain. Except for Apple, which traditionally stays away, all other big and small phone manufacturers and developers are displaying their wares as they continue to battle a market valued at $478 billion in 2017. VOA’s George Putic has more.
…

The world’s biggest mobile phone trade fair, the Mobile World Congress, or MWC, opened earlier this week in Barcelona, Spain. Except for Apple, which traditionally stays away, all other big and small phone manufacturers and developers are displaying their wares as they continue to battle a market valued at $478 billion in 2017. VOA’s George Putic has more.
…

Ford Motor Co. is making Miami-Dade County its new test bed for self-driving vehicles.

The automaker and its partners — Domino’s Pizza, ride-hailing company Lyft and delivery company Postmates — are starting pilot programs to see how consumers react to autonomous and semi-autonomous vehicles. Self-driving startup and Ford partner Argo AI already has a fleet of cars in the area making the highly detailed maps that are necessary for self-driving. Ford also will establish its first-ever autonomous vehicle terminal in Miami, where it will learn how to service and deploy its test fleet.

More services will likely be introduced as the partnership goes on, including Chariot, an app-based shuttle service owned by Ford. It’s all part of Ford’s effort to find viable business models for fully autonomous vehicles and get them on the road by 2021.

“This is, I think, the future of any automotive company or mobility company. If a majority of the world’s population is going to be living in cities, we need to understand how to move those people around,” said John Kwant, Ford’s vice president of city solutions, who inked the deal with Miami-Dade.

Ford isn’t the first automaker to run test fleets of autonomous vehicles. General Motors Co. will start testing autonomous vehicles in New York City this year, while Nissan Motor Co. is launching an autonomous taxi service in Yokohama, Japan, next week. Technology companies like Waymo — a division of Google — are also testing self-driving vehicles on public roads in Phoenix, San Francisco and Singapore, among other cities.

But the partnership with a specific metropolitan is less common. Both sides envision a deep relationship where Ford can help Miami-Dade solve specific issues, like how to most efficiently move people from its suburbs to its downtown monorail, and Miami-Dade can offer solutions like dedicated lanes for automated vehicles or infrastructure projects like advanced traffic lights that can send signals to connected cars. 

“We want to be on the forefront of this because we want to give our people choices,” said Carlos Gimenez, the mayor of Miami-Dade County, which is home to 34 cities and 2.7 million people. 

Traffic congestion a concern

Sherif Marakby, Ford’s vice president of autonomous vehicles and electrification, says the company also intends to work closely with local businesses. The company wants to learn, for example, how a florist might use an autonomous delivery vehicle.

“Autonomous vehicle technology is interesting, but it’s a whole lot more interesting with a viable business model,” he said.

The city of Miami is the fifth-most congested in the U.S., according to a recent traffic study by the consulting firm Inrix. After more than a century of selling people vehicles, Kwant says Ford now wants to figure out ways to move people more efficiently in order to cut down on that time in traffic.

Making money

Sam Abuelsamid, a senior research analyst with the consulting firm Navigant Research, says Ford and others must figure out how to make money on self-driving cars.

“If this does take off, if people do adopt automated vehicles and use them for ride-hailing, that’s going to result in a decline in retail vehicle sales,” Abuelsamid said. “They need to figure out, if we’re going to have a decline in the number of vehicles we sell to consumers, how do we keep our business stable?”

Kwant says the testing will also help Ford determine what its future self-driving vehicles need to look like and how they must perform.

“If you don’t have steering wheels, how do you begin to use that package space? How do you begin to look different in terms of carrying more people?” he said.

Ford won’t say how many vehicles it will have on the road in Miami-Dade, but says it will be Ford’s largest test bed for autonomous vehicles by the end of this year. 

Backup safety drivers

All of the vehicles will have backup safety drivers. Domino’s experimental vehicles aren’t even technically autonomous; they’re equipped to be, but for now they have actual drivers. The windows are blacked out so customers can experience how to get pizza from the car without dealing with a person.  

Miami will give Ford new challenges. Previously, it tested Domino’s cars in suburban Michigan, where parking wasn’t an issue. But in busy Miami Beach, the cars will have to figure out where they can go to allow apartment-dwellers to safely retrieve their pizzas. An autonomous delivery vehicle from Postmates might have to switch between Spanish and English commands when it picks up a meal and delivers it to a customer. Self-driving Lyft vehicles will be tasked with mapping out the best places to wait for customers without causing more traffic headaches.

Kwant says Ford will announce more city partnerships as this year progresses. But Miami-Dade was a natural, since it has good weather, lots of different urban and suburban terrain and support from Gimenez and other government leaders.

Cheaper and safer

Gimenez, who began talking to Ford in 2017 at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, says he’s not worried about consumer acceptance of self-driving cars. He thinks his community will embrace them as companies prove that shared autonomous vehicles can be cheaper and safer than regular ones.

Gimenez says self-driving vehicles also can potentially improve traffic flow without significant new investments in roadways. They can travel more closely together, for example, because they’re always watching the car in front of them and can brake automatically.

“That’s why I’m really high on this technology,” he said.

 
…

Ford Motor Co. is making Miami-Dade County its new test bed for self-driving vehicles.

The automaker and its partners — Domino’s Pizza, ride-hailing company Lyft and delivery company Postmates — are starting pilot programs to see how consumers react to autonomous and semi-autonomous vehicles. Self-driving startup and Ford partner Argo AI already has a fleet of cars in the area making the highly detailed maps that are necessary for self-driving. Ford also will establish its first-ever autonomous vehicle terminal in Miami, where it will learn how to service and deploy its test fleet.

More services will likely be introduced as the partnership goes on, including Chariot, an app-based shuttle service owned by Ford. It’s all part of Ford’s effort to find viable business models for fully autonomous vehicles and get them on the road by 2021.

“This is, I think, the future of any automotive company or mobility company. If a majority of the world’s population is going to be living in cities, we need to understand how to move those people around,” said John Kwant, Ford’s vice president of city solutions, who inked the deal with Miami-Dade.

Ford isn’t the first automaker to run test fleets of autonomous vehicles. General Motors Co. will start testing autonomous vehicles in New York City this year, while Nissan Motor Co. is launching an autonomous taxi service in Yokohama, Japan, next week. Technology companies like Waymo — a division of Google — are also testing self-driving vehicles on public roads in Phoenix, San Francisco and Singapore, among other cities.

But the partnership with a specific metropolitan is less common. Both sides envision a deep relationship where Ford can help Miami-Dade solve specific issues, like how to most efficiently move people from its suburbs to its downtown monorail, and Miami-Dade can offer solutions like dedicated lanes for automated vehicles or infrastructure projects like advanced traffic lights that can send signals to connected cars. 

“We want to be on the forefront of this because we want to give our people choices,” said Carlos Gimenez, the mayor of Miami-Dade County, which is home to 34 cities and 2.7 million people. 

Traffic congestion a concern

Sherif Marakby, Ford’s vice president of autonomous vehicles and electrification, says the company also intends to work closely with local businesses. The company wants to learn, for example, how a florist might use an autonomous delivery vehicle.

“Autonomous vehicle technology is interesting, but it’s a whole lot more interesting with a viable business model,” he said.

The city of Miami is the fifth-most congested in the U.S., according to a recent traffic study by the consulting firm Inrix. After more than a century of selling people vehicles, Kwant says Ford now wants to figure out ways to move people more efficiently in order to cut down on that time in traffic.

Making money

Sam Abuelsamid, a senior research analyst with the consulting firm Navigant Research, says Ford and others must figure out how to make money on self-driving cars.

“If this does take off, if people do adopt automated vehicles and use them for ride-hailing, that’s going to result in a decline in retail vehicle sales,” Abuelsamid said. “They need to figure out, if we’re going to have a decline in the number of vehicles we sell to consumers, how do we keep our business stable?”

Kwant says the testing will also help Ford determine what its future self-driving vehicles need to look like and how they must perform.

“If you don’t have steering wheels, how do you begin to use that package space? How do you begin to look different in terms of carrying more people?” he said.

Ford won’t say how many vehicles it will have on the road in Miami-Dade, but says it will be Ford’s largest test bed for autonomous vehicles by the end of this year. 

Backup safety drivers

All of the vehicles will have backup safety drivers. Domino’s experimental vehicles aren’t even technically autonomous; they’re equipped to be, but for now they have actual drivers. The windows are blacked out so customers can experience how to get pizza from the car without dealing with a person.  

Miami will give Ford new challenges. Previously, it tested Domino’s cars in suburban Michigan, where parking wasn’t an issue. But in busy Miami Beach, the cars will have to figure out where they can go to allow apartment-dwellers to safely retrieve their pizzas. An autonomous delivery vehicle from Postmates might have to switch between Spanish and English commands when it picks up a meal and delivers it to a customer. Self-driving Lyft vehicles will be tasked with mapping out the best places to wait for customers without causing more traffic headaches.

Kwant says Ford will announce more city partnerships as this year progresses. But Miami-Dade was a natural, since it has good weather, lots of different urban and suburban terrain and support from Gimenez and other government leaders.

Cheaper and safer

Gimenez, who began talking to Ford in 2017 at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, says he’s not worried about consumer acceptance of self-driving cars. He thinks his community will embrace them as companies prove that shared autonomous vehicles can be cheaper and safer than regular ones.

Gimenez says self-driving vehicles also can potentially improve traffic flow without significant new investments in roadways. They can travel more closely together, for example, because they’re always watching the car in front of them and can brake automatically.

“That’s why I’m really high on this technology,” he said.

 
…

Authorities in China have launched an intense crackdown on online commentary in the wake of a proposal by the country’s communist party leaders to amend the constitution and scrap a two-term limit on the president’s time in office.

A wide range of phrases in Chinese have been banned such as “constitutional amendments,” “constitution rules,” “emigration” and “emperor.” Even the phrase “I disagree” has been blocked from China’s SinaWeibo social media site.

Many were caught off guard by the announcement and the response online has been persistent, despite efforts to silence the debate.

The announcement comes a little more than a week ahead of meetings for China’s rubber-stamp legislature, the National People’s Congress. During the gathering, which wraps up around mid-March, the proposal is widely expected to become China’s new reality.

And while party backed media have said the amendments have the public’s broad support, clearly there is much more to the debate than the communist party is letting on.

On social media, some phrases and comments were taken down shortly after they were posted. However, phrases in Chinese such as “lifelong tenure,” “emigration” and “disagree” are blocked immediately when a user attempts to post the phrase.

Of those posts that managed to make it past authorities’ dragnet, some called the decision to allow Xi Jinping to stay in office indefinitely a “step backward,” others argued that China is becoming more like North Korea.

In one comment, a user said: “5,000 years of civilization and in one night, a step backwards 5,000 years.”

For some critics, the proposal to allow Xi to stay in office indefinitely and scrap what has become a predictable system of two five-year terms, marks a worrisome return to the days of Mao Zedong. Some argue the move is a sign that Xi may want to become emperor for life.

On the streets in Beijing, those we spoke with, who were willing to talk — despite the sensitivity of the issue — voiced similar concerns.

“It was a very sudden and bold move that has raised many questions and concerns and there are some who cannot understand,” why the change is needed, said one man surnamed Ding, who works in the finance sector.

Ding said China’s communist party leaders need to answer the public’s questions and concerns and clarify whether the move is meant to give Xi lifelong tenure or just to allow him to stay in office a little longer.

“The public will undoubtedly draw comparisons and have thoughts about what is happening now and China under the leadership of Mao Zedong,” Ding said.

One said emigration was something he was now considering. Others said they were taking a wait and see approach, and that they were willing to see how Xi used his extra time in office to promote more difficult reforms.

One woman surnamed Gan, an unemployed petitioner, said more time in office could be a good thing.

“If a leader is constantly being changed every two to three years, can they really do a good job and be responsible? If a leader can really focus on his work more can get done,” Gan said.

But now, given that the proposal is unlikely to be stopped, that is something that will only become clearer over time.

The New York-based rights advocacy group Freedom House warns that the end of term limits is a sign that stepped up control and repression under Xi is likely to worsen.

And the implications are both regional and global.

In a statement, Freedom House President Michael Abramowitz said, “the decision sends a chilling message to democratic voices in Hong Kong and to Taiwan, both of which have come under intense pressure from Beijing.

He said it also “signals that Beijing’s drive to create a new world order in which democratic institutions and norms play little or no role will be accelerated.”

Party controlled media in China have rejected suggestions that the proposed amendments mean Xi is aiming to become China’s next emperor or its leader for life.

Willy Lam, a veteran China watcher based in Hong Kong said that it looks like Xi will at least stay on for a third term until 2028, and perhaps one more until 2033 if health permits. At that point, Xi would be 80 years old.

Yang Kai-huang, head of Ming Chuan University’s Cross-Strait Research Center in Taiwan said that Xi does not strike him as someone who wants to repeat the mistakes of Mao, nor is he someone who wants to honor the two-term limit former leader Deng Xiaoping established.

“Judging from Xi’s past traits, the abolishment [of term limits] may have paved an easy path for Xi to seek his third term, but I don’t think Xi wants to be an emperor for life,” Yang said.

Xi is impatient and eager to get things done and put his own thoughts of governance into practice, Yang adds. And that’s why the announcement of the constitutional amendment package was so sudden.

Allen Ai contributed to this report.

 
…

The U.S. Justice Department and Microsoft will face off against each other Tuesday when the Supreme Court hears arguments on whether tech companies’ desire to protect user data is at odds with the government’s interest in pursuing criminals who use the internet.

The case, known as United States v. Microsoft Corp., has global implications and could potentially trigger an international backlash, subjecting Americans’ data to seizure by foreign governments, legal and digital rights experts warn.

“The case is important for privacy, it’s important for security, it’s important for the future of the internet,” said Jennifer Daskal, a professor at American University Washington College of Law.

At issue is whether a U.S.-based email provider can be forced, under the 1986 Stored Communications Act, to turn over communications stored outside the United States.

Email records

Federal prosecutors believed it could when they went to Microsoft in 2013 with a court warrant, demanding that the tech giant turn over the email records of a suspect in a drug-trafficking investigation. But there was a problem.

Although Microsoft kept the account’s metadata such as address books on servers in the U.S., the contents of the user’s emails were stored at a data hub in Ireland — one of over 100 such data centers the company operates in more than 40 countries.

U.S.-based internet providers had long cooperated with government requests for foreign-stored data.

But in 1993, Microsoft, under fire along with other tech companies for their role in a secret government surveillance program exposed by NSA contractor Edward Snowden, drew a line.

The company handed over the metadata to prosecutors but refused to disclose the actual emails, arguing that the data was beyond the warrant’s reach because it was stored overseas. That set off a legal battle that eventually led the Supreme Court to take up the case last year.

The case has galvanized international attention.

The governments of Ireland and the United Kingdom have both filed briefs in the case as have the European Commission and the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the right to privacy (SRP).

The central dispute is whether a warrant issued under the Stored Communications Act can be applied outside the United States.The government says it has long relied on the law to obtain electronic communications regardless of their location and that it needs the authority to secure such data for criminal investigations.

Microsoft argues that the Stored Communications Act does not have extraterritorial application. It says that the laws of the country where the data is stored — in this case, Ireland — not the laws of the United States, govern its disclosure.

Digital rights advocates and some transnational legal experts have weighed in on the side of Microsoft, arguing that a decision in favor of the government could encourage foreign governments to seize Americans’ private communications. 

“You can bet many other governments in the world will come knocking on the doors of providers in the United States,” said Gregory Nojeim, senior counsel at the Center for Democracy and Technology, a Washington-based organization that has filed a brief in support of Microsoft.

European governments are already pushing back.

Belgium recently ordered U.S. providers to destroy data that the providers store in the United States, Nojeim said.

Austen Parrish, dean of the Maurer School of Law at Indiana University, noted that past attempts by the U.S. government “to extraterritorially seize documents or information from foreign countries (have) led to protests (and) blocking statutes.”

“It upsets a lot of countries because they view it not only as a violation of international law but as a violation of their own sovereignty,” Parrish said. On both counts, there is an assumption that the laws passed by Congress are designed for Americans and that they don’t violate international law, he added.

“In this case, the best result is to read the 1986 Stored Communications Act as only applying to communications within the United States,” Parrish said.

Ways to obtain data

Proponents of Microsoft acknowledge the U.S. government’s interest in foreign-stored data and point to other ways U.S. law enforcement agencies can obtain the data.One is the so-called Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty, an international agreement that allows for the exchange of evidence in criminal investigations.

Another is a bilateral cross-border data sharing agreement. The U.S. and U.K. recently negotiated such an agreement, and Congress is working to clear the way for its approval.

Regardless of how the court rules, the issue could become moot if Congress passes a recently proposed bill called the CLOUD Act. The bill would enable the U.S. government to obtain user data from email providers regardless of its location while allowing providers to decline a request if it violated the host country’s laws.

Daskal, the professor at American University, said the bill “strikes the right balance.”

But critics say it can be used by foreign governments to gather data from U.S. providers for intelligence purposes.

Both the Justice Department and Microsoft have endorsed the proposed legislation.

Short of congressional action, the court should try to strike a balance between the U.S. government’s need for data in criminal investigations and foreign governments’ need to protect the privacy of citizens, Daskal said.

“My hope is that if the court rules in favor of the government, that it does so in a way that reminds the lower courts of the importance of issuing warrants in a way that also respects conflicting rules in foreign governments as well,” she said.
…

The U.S. Justice Department and Microsoft will face off against each other Tuesday when the Supreme Court hears arguments on whether tech companies’ desire to protect user data is at odds with the government’s interest in pursuing criminals who use the internet.

The case, known as United States v. Microsoft Corp., has global implications and could potentially trigger an international backlash, subjecting Americans’ data to seizure by foreign governments, legal and digital rights experts warn.

“The case is important for privacy, it’s important for security, it’s important for the future of the internet,” said Jennifer Daskal, a professor at American University Washington College of Law.

At issue is whether a U.S.-based email provider can be forced, under the 1986 Stored Communications Act, to turn over communications stored outside the United States.

Email records

Federal prosecutors believed it could when they went to Microsoft in 2013 with a court warrant, demanding that the tech giant turn over the email records of a suspect in a drug-trafficking investigation. But there was a problem.

Although Microsoft kept the account’s metadata such as address books on servers in the U.S., the contents of the user’s emails were stored at a data hub in Ireland — one of over 100 such data centers the company operates in more than 40 countries.

U.S.-based internet providers had long cooperated with government requests for foreign-stored data.

But in 1993, Microsoft, under fire along with other tech companies for their role in a secret government surveillance program exposed by NSA contractor Edward Snowden, drew a line.

The company handed over the metadata to prosecutors but refused to disclose the actual emails, arguing that the data was beyond the warrant’s reach because it was stored overseas. That set off a legal battle that eventually led the Supreme Court to take up the case last year.

The case has galvanized international attention.

The governments of Ireland and the United Kingdom have both filed briefs in the case as have the European Commission and the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the right to privacy (SRP).

The central dispute is whether a warrant issued under the Stored Communications Act can be applied outside the United States.The government says it has long relied on the law to obtain electronic communications regardless of their location and that it needs the authority to secure such data for criminal investigations.

Microsoft argues that the Stored Communications Act does not have extraterritorial application. It says that the laws of the country where the data is stored — in this case, Ireland — not the laws of the United States, govern its disclosure.

Digital rights advocates and some transnational legal experts have weighed in on the side of Microsoft, arguing that a decision in favor of the government could encourage foreign governments to seize Americans’ private communications. 

“You can bet many other governments in the world will come knocking on the doors of providers in the United States,” said Gregory Nojeim, senior counsel at the Center for Democracy and Technology, a Washington-based organization that has filed a brief in support of Microsoft.

European governments are already pushing back.

Belgium recently ordered U.S. providers to destroy data that the providers store in the United States, Nojeim said.

Austen Parrish, dean of the Maurer School of Law at Indiana University, noted that past attempts by the U.S. government “to extraterritorially seize documents or information from foreign countries (have) led to protests (and) blocking statutes.”

“It upsets a lot of countries because they view it not only as a violation of international law but as a violation of their own sovereignty,” Parrish said. On both counts, there is an assumption that the laws passed by Congress are designed for Americans and that they don’t violate international law, he added.

“In this case, the best result is to read the 1986 Stored Communications Act as only applying to communications within the United States,” Parrish said.

Ways to obtain data

Proponents of Microsoft acknowledge the U.S. government’s interest in foreign-stored data and point to other ways U.S. law enforcement agencies can obtain the data.One is the so-called Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty, an international agreement that allows for the exchange of evidence in criminal investigations.

Another is a bilateral cross-border data sharing agreement. The U.S. and U.K. recently negotiated such an agreement, and Congress is working to clear the way for its approval.

Regardless of how the court rules, the issue could become moot if Congress passes a recently proposed bill called the CLOUD Act. The bill would enable the U.S. government to obtain user data from email providers regardless of its location while allowing providers to decline a request if it violated the host country’s laws.

Daskal, the professor at American University, said the bill “strikes the right balance.”

But critics say it can be used by foreign governments to gather data from U.S. providers for intelligence purposes.

Both the Justice Department and Microsoft have endorsed the proposed legislation.

Short of congressional action, the court should try to strike a balance between the U.S. government’s need for data in criminal investigations and foreign governments’ need to protect the privacy of citizens, Daskal said.

“My hope is that if the court rules in favor of the government, that it does so in a way that reminds the lower courts of the importance of issuing warrants in a way that also respects conflicting rules in foreign governments as well,” she said.
…

After researching digital currencies for work last year, personal finance writer J.R.

Duren hopped on his own crypto-rollercoaster.

Duren bought $5 worth of litecoin in November, and eventually purchased $400 more, mostly with his credit card. In just a few months, he experienced a rally, a crash and a recovery, with the adrenaline highs and lows that come along.

“At first, I was freaking out,” Duren said about watching his portfolio plunge 40 percent at one point. “The precipitous drop came as a shock.”

The 39-year-old Floridian is part of the new class of crypto-investors who do not necessarily think bitcoin will replace the U.S. dollar, or that blockchain will revolutionize modern finance or that dentists should have their own currency.

Dubbed by longtime crypto-investors as “the noobs” — online lingo for “newbies” — they are ordinary investors hopping onto the latest trend, often with little understanding of how cryptocurrencies work or why they exist.

“There has been a big shift in the type of investors we have seen in crypto over the past year,” said Angela Walch, a fellow at the UCL Centre for Blockchain Technologies. “It’s shifted from a small group of techies to average Joes. I overhear conversations about cryptocurrencies everywhere, in coffee shops and airports.”

Walch and other experts cited parallels to the late-1990s, when retail investors jumped into stocks like Pets.com, a short-lived online seller of pet supplies, only to watch their wealth evaporate when the dot-com bubble burst.

Bitcoin is the best-known virtual currency but there are now more than 1,500 to choose from, according to market data website CoinMarketCap, ranging from popular coins like ether and ripple to obscure coins like dentacoin, the one intended for dentists.

Exactly how many “noobs” bought into the craze last year is unclear because each transaction is pseudonymous, meaning it is linked to a unique digital address, and few exchanges collect or share detailed information about their users.

A variety of consumer-friendly websites have made investing much easier, and online forums are now filled with posts from ordinary retail investors who were rarely spotted on the cryptocurrency pages of social news hub Reddit before.

Reuters interviewed eight people who recently made their first foray into digital currency investing. Many were motivated by a fear of missing out on profits during what seemed like a never-ending rally last year.

One bitcoin was worth almost $20,000 in December, up around 1,900 percent from the start of 2017. As of Friday afternoon it was worth about $10,000 after having fallen as much as 70 percent from its peak. Other coins made even bigger gains and experienced equally dizzying drops over that time frame.

“There was that two-month period last year where all the virtual currencies kept going and up and I had a couple of friends that had invested and they had made five-figure returns,” said Michael Brown, a research analyst in New Jersey, who said he bought around $1,000 worth of ether in December.

“I got swept by the media frenzy,” he said. “You never hear stories of people losing money.”

In the weeks after Brown invested, his holdings soared as much as 75 percent and tumbled as much as 59 percent.

Buy and ‘Hodl’

Investors who got into bitcoin before its 2013 crash like to refer to themselves as “OGs,” short for “original gangsters.”

They tend to shrug off the recent downturn, arguing that cryptocurrencies will be worth much more in the future.

“As crashes go, this is one of the biggest,” said Xavier Levenfiche, who first invested in cryptocurrencies in 2011.

“But, in the grand scheme of things, it’s a hiccup on the road to greatness.”

Spooked by the sudden fall but not willing to book a loss, many investors are embracing a mantra known as “HODL.” The term stems from a misspelled post on an online forum during the cryptocurrency crash in 2013, when a user wrote he was “hodling” his bitcoin, instead of “holding.”

Mike Gnitecki, for instance, bought one bitcoin at around $18,000 in December and was sitting on a 43 percent decline as of Friday, waiting for a recovery.

“I view it as having been a fun side investment similar to a gamble,” said Gnitecki, a paramedic from Texas. “Clearly I lost some money on this particular gamble.”

Duren, the personal finance writer, is also holding onto his litecoin for now, though he regrets having spent $33 on credit card and exchange fees for a $405 investment.

Some retail investors who went big into cryptocurrencies for the first time during the rally last year remain positive.

Didi Taihuttu announced in October that he and his family had sold everything they owned — including their business, home, cars and toys — to move to a “digital nomad” camp in Thailand.

In an interview, Taihuttu said he has no regrets. The crypto-day-trader’s portfolio is in the black, and he predicts one bitcoin will be worth between $30,000 and $50,000 by year-end.

His backup plan is to write a book and perhaps make a movie about his family’s experience.

“We are not it in it to become bitcoin millionaires,” Taihuttu said.
…

Only days after the spectacular liftoff of what is currently the heaviest space rocket, the privately built Falcon Heavy, NASA announced the next launch will carry a specially built atomic clock. The new device, much smaller and sturdier than earth-bound atomic clocks, will help future astronauts navigate in deep space. VOA’s George Putic reports.
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Amazon’s assault on the retail industry has brought misery to traditional retailers without a strong web presence.

Less well noticed is the patchwork of European companies that are turning the e-commerce revolution to their advantage, supplying online giants with everything from forklift trucks and storage space to cardboard boxes and automated warehouses.

Mainly bricks-and-mortar retailers such as Debenhams, H&M, and Marks & Spencer have faced a torrid few years as stretched consumers increasingly look online for bargains.

Online retail sales are growing at double-digit percentage rates in every western European country, according to consultancy the Centre for Retail Research.

In Britain, a fifth of transactions are now conducted online, a five-fold increase over the last decade.

The world’s dominant online retailer Amazon, whose shares have soared 73 percent in the last year, is outside the remit of most European investors because it is U.S. listed, so they have had to look for other ways of buying into the trend.

One is investing in companies that have benefited from the rise of e-commerce.

On February 16, warehouse owner Segro’s shares hit a decade-high after it said space-hungry clients, many in online retail and logistics, continued to buy up storage.

“There is a bull market in impatience,” said Gary Paulin, head of global equities at broker Northern Trust. “Consumers want things sooner, faster, now.”

He advises clients to buy shares in Kion, a German forklift truck-maker that is automating warehouses for online retailers, speeding up deliveries in the process.

He also flagged a turnaround at online supermarket Ocado. The company has long been targeted by short-sellers betting its share price will fall, but recently it has signed tie-ups with food retailers Casino and Sobeys, and its shares have more-than-doubled since November.

Martin Todd, a fund manager at Hermes Investment Management, owns shares in Kion as well as DS Smith, a cardboard-box maker which supplies Amazon as well as a number of other online retailers.

DS Smith is developing technology to custom-make boxes for Amazon that will help reduce large gaps in packages that increase freight costs.

“You might think it is a pretty unsexy business … [but] it is getting more high tech in what is traditionally a very low tech industry,” Todd said.

The company recently entered Britain’s blue-chip FTSE 100 index for the first time.

Buying some stocks exposed to online retail does not come cheap. Ocado shares are currently trading at more than 800 times forecast earnings, according to Eikon data.

John Bennett, head of European equities at Janus Henderson Investors, said while traditional retailers were “absolutely dying,” stocks such as Kion were too expensive for him to own.

“It became a very popular name, and I tend to shy away [from widely-owned companies],” he said. “I am far too curmudgeonly on the multiples you pay.”

Reporting by Alasdair Pal.
…

More than 40,000 middle-school-aged engineering students from around the world recently competed to design the city of the future. The competition started in the fall of 2017 and culminated in a grand-prize ceremony this week in Washington. Arash Arabasadi has more.
…

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday updated guidance to public companies on how and when they should disclose cybersecurity risks and breaches, including potential weaknesses that have not yet been targeted by hackers.

The guidance also said company executives must not trade in a firm’s securities while possessing nonpublic information on cybersecurity attacks. The SEC encouraged companies to consider adopting specific policies restricting executive trading in shares while a hack is being investigated and before it is disclosed.

The SEC, in unanimously approving the additional guidance, said it would promote “clearer and more robust disclosure” by companies facing cybersecurity issues, according to SEC Chairman Jay Clayton, a Republican.

Democrats on the commission reluctantly supported the guidance, describing it as a paltry step taken in the wake of a raft of high-profile hacks at major companies that exposed millions of Americans’ personal information. They called for much more rigorous rule-making to police disclosure around cybersecurity issues, or requiring certain cybersecurity policies at public companies.

Commissioner Robert Jackson said the new document “essentially reiterates years-old staff-level views on this issue,” and pointed to analysis from the White House Council of Economic Advisers that finds companies frequently under-report cybersecurity events to investors.

The SEC first issued guidance in 2011 on cybersecurity disclosures.

“It may provide investors a false sense of comfort that we, at the Commission, have done something more than we have,” Commissioner Kara Stein, another Democrat, said in a statement. Significant breaches have included those at Equifax Inc. consumer credit reporting agency, and at the SEC itself.

The agency announced in September its corporate filing system, known as EDGAR, was breached by hackers in 2016 and may have been used for insider trading. The matter is under review.

The new guidance will mean that corporations disclose more information about cyberattacks and risks and take steps to ensure no insider trading can occur around those events, said several attorneys who advise businesses on the subject.

“This essentially creates a mandatory new disclosure category — cybersecurity risks and incidents,” said Spencer Feldman, an attorney with Olshan Frome Wolosky LLP.

Craig A. Newman, a partner with Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP, said the SEC guidance “makes clear that it doesn’t want a repeat of the Equifax situation.”
…

The latest variation of an Uber ride will require a short walk.

In eight U.S. cities, the ride-hailing company is rolling out a service called “Express Pool,” which links riders in the same area who want to travel to similar destinations. Once linked, riders would need to walk a couple of blocks to be picked up at a common location. They also would be dropped off at a site that would be a short walk from their final destinations.

Depending on time of day and metro area, Express Pool could cost up to 75 percent less than a regular Uber ride and up to half the cost of Uber’s current shared-ride service called Pool, said Ethan Stock, the company’s product director for shared rides.

Pool, which will remain in use, doesn’t require any walking. Instead it takes an often circuitous route to pick up riders at their location and drops them at their destination. But that can take longer than Express, which travels a more direct route.

Uber has been testing the service since November in San Francisco and Boston and has found enough ridership to support running it 24 hours per day. Within the next two days, the around-the-clock service will start running in Los Angeles; Philadelphia; Washington, D.C.; Miami, San Diego and Denver. More cities will follow, Uber said.

The new service could spell competition for mass transit, but just how much depends on how well it works and how good the mass transit is, said Mark Hallenbeck, director of the Washington State Transportation Center at the University of Washington. If buses or subways are overcrowded and Uber can provide service for a similar price, that will help with mobility.

“If, however, you are cannibalizing transit that’s not over-subscribed, then that becomes a bad thing,” Hallenbeck said.

Also, if the ride-sharing service pulls people off mass transit and creates more automobile traffic, that will add to congestion, he said.

The service could complement Uber X, the company’s door-to-door taxi service — or draw passengers away from it.

Stock said the system should work well with public transit, providing first-mile and last-mile service for transit riders and by providing service to low passenger volume areas where it’s not cost effective for public transit to serve. He also says it will reduce congestion by cutting the number of personal vehicle trips.

Express already has ride-sharing competitors such as Via, which operates in New York, Chicago and Washington, D.C.

Express Pool will have normal-sized cars, at least initially, and optimally will carry a maximum of three passengers so riders aren’t crammed into the vehicles. It could be expanded to six-passenger vehicles, Stock said.

It will take one to two minutes for Uber’s computers to match a rider to a driver and other riders and select a pick-up point, Stock said.

The lower cost of the service should help Uber grow, Stock said. “More riders can afford to take more trips for more reasons,” he said. Already Uber Pool accounts for 20 percent of Uber trips in the cities where it’s available.
…

The latest variation of an Uber ride will require a short walk.

In eight U.S. cities, the ride-hailing company is rolling out a service called “Express Pool,” which links riders in the same area who want to travel to similar destinations. Once linked, riders would need to walk a couple of blocks to be picked up at a common location. They also would be dropped off at a site that would be a short walk from their final destinations.

Depending on time of day and metro area, Express Pool could cost up to 75 percent less than a regular Uber ride and up to half the cost of Uber’s current shared-ride service called Pool, said Ethan Stock, the company’s product director for shared rides.

Pool, which will remain in use, doesn’t require any walking. Instead it takes an often circuitous route to pick up riders at their location and drops them at their destination. But that can take longer than Express, which travels a more direct route.

Uber has been testing the service since November in San Francisco and Boston and has found enough ridership to support running it 24 hours per day. Within the next two days, the around-the-clock service will start running in Los Angeles; Philadelphia; Washington, D.C.; Miami, San Diego and Denver. More cities will follow, Uber said.

The new service could spell competition for mass transit, but just how much depends on how well it works and how good the mass transit is, said Mark Hallenbeck, director of the Washington State Transportation Center at the University of Washington. If buses or subways are overcrowded and Uber can provide service for a similar price, that will help with mobility.

“If, however, you are cannibalizing transit that’s not over-subscribed, then that becomes a bad thing,” Hallenbeck said.

Also, if the ride-sharing service pulls people off mass transit and creates more automobile traffic, that will add to congestion, he said.

The service could complement Uber X, the company’s door-to-door taxi service — or draw passengers away from it.

Stock said the system should work well with public transit, providing first-mile and last-mile service for transit riders and by providing service to low passenger volume areas where it’s not cost effective for public transit to serve. He also says it will reduce congestion by cutting the number of personal vehicle trips.

Express already has ride-sharing competitors such as Via, which operates in New York, Chicago and Washington, D.C.

Express Pool will have normal-sized cars, at least initially, and optimally will carry a maximum of three passengers so riders aren’t crammed into the vehicles. It could be expanded to six-passenger vehicles, Stock said.

It will take one to two minutes for Uber’s computers to match a rider to a driver and other riders and select a pick-up point, Stock said.

The lower cost of the service should help Uber grow, Stock said. “More riders can afford to take more trips for more reasons,” he said. Already Uber Pool accounts for 20 percent of Uber trips in the cities where it’s available.
…