Most analysts and economists agree, robots are slowly replacing humans in many jobs. They weld and paint car bodies, sort merchandise in warehouses, explore underground pipes and inspect suspicious packages. Yet we still do not see robots as domestic help, except for robotic vacuum cleaners. Robotics experts say there is another barrier that robots need to cross in order to work alongside humans. VOA’s George Putic reports.
…

The White House on Thursday blamed Russia for the devastating “NotPetya” cyber attack last year, joining the British government in condemning

Moscow for unleashing a virus that crippled parts of Ukraine’s infrastructure and damaged computers in countries across the globe.

The attack in June of 2017 “spread worldwide, causing billions of dollars in damage across Europe, Asia and the Americas,” White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement.

“It was part of the Kremlin’s ongoing effort to destabilize Ukraine and demonstrates ever more clearly Russia’s involvement in the ongoing conflict,” Sanders added. “This was also a reckless and indiscriminate cyber attack that will be met with international consequences.”

The U.S. government is “reviewing a range of options,” a senior White House official said when asked about the consequences for Russia’s actions.

Earlier on Thursday, Russia denied an accusation by the British government that it was behind the attack, saying it was part of a “Russophobic” campaign that it said was being waged by some Western countries.

The so-called NotPetya attack in June started in Ukraine where it crippled government and business computers before spreading around Europe and the world, halting operations atports, factories and offices.

Britain’s foreign ministry said in a statement released earlier in the day that the attack originated from the Russian military.

“The decision to publicly attribute this incident underlines the fact that the UK and its allies will not tolerate malicious cyber activity,” the ministry said in a statement.

“The attack masqueraded as a criminal enterprise but its purpose was principally to disrupt,” it said.

“Primary targets were Ukrainian financial, energy and government sectors. Its indiscriminate design caused it to spread further, affecting other European and Russian business.”
…

The European Commission says social media giants Facebook and Twitter have only partially responded to its demands to bring their practices into line with EU consumer law.

The Commission asked the two companies a year ago to change their terms of service following complaints from people targeted by fraud or scams on social media websites.

The EU’s executive arm said Thursday that the firms only partly addressed “issues about their liability and about how users are informed of possible content removal or contract termination.”

It said changes proposed by Google+ appear to be in line with demands.

Europe’s consumer affairs commissioner, Vera Jourova, said “it is unacceptable that this is still not complete and it is taking so much time.” She called for those flouting consumer rules to face sanctions.

 
…

Until recently, Javier, a 60-year-old line cook, couldn’t afford a smartphone.

Now, thanks to a Silicon Valley company, Javier has a Galaxy S8, one of Samsung’s high-end smartphones. Javier said he relies on it for everything.

Once a month, he walks into a mobile phone store near San Francisco and makes a cash payment. If he didn’t, the phone would be remotely locked. No YouTube, no Skype calls, no Facebook. He has never missed a payment.

WATCH: Pay-As-You-Go Smartphone Gives the Poor Access to Better Technology

Smartphones out of many people’s reach

Around the world, people rely more and more on their smartphones for connecting to the internet, and yet for many, the device is still cost prohibitive. For the roughly 1 in 10 American consumers without financial identities — no banking history or credit scores — it is difficult to get smartphones on one of the low-cost payment plans offered by the major carriers.

Javier, who declined to give his last name because he is an undocumented immigrant, is on his third phone from PayJoy, a company founded by former Google employees. PayJoy offers a pay-as-you-go model for the smartphone market aimed particularly at customers with little or bad credit histories.

“We work with immigrants from all over the world coming to the U.S., and we work with Americans who are just outside the financial system,” said Doug Ricket, PayJoy’s chief executive, who worked in the pay-as-you-go solar industry in Africa. “They can afford $10 a week, and they can get a great smartphone. And for PayJoy, we say, ‘Welcome to the 21st century and get all the modern apps.’”

A new way to figure out a person’s credit risk

PayJoy figures out a person’s risk differently than most companies. A customer provides a Facebook profile, a phone number and some sort of official government ID. PayJoy decides the person’s risk level before offering him or her credit for a phone. Then, a customer picks a payment plan and makes a down payment. PayJoy’s research has found that a Facebook profile can be useful in establishing a person’s identity.

“We’re starting from this pool of people who have no traditional credit score and we’re saying for most of them, we can actually find something that the credit agencies are not finding,” Ricket said.

No payment means no YouTube

If a customer doesn’t pay by 5 p.m. the day payment is due, PayJoy remotely locks the phone. A customer can only make emergency calls or call PayJoy’s customer service. The customer can see that friends are texting or messaging on Facebook, but cannot open the phone to read the messages.

“Now, when we look internationally, we see more people going from a flip phone to smartphones, and people upgrading from a really basic level to one that can handle Facebook, maps and Instagram,” Ricket said.

If customers stop paying, they can return the phone without penalty. But if they do pay off the phone, they can qualify for an even better one. PayJoy makes its money by charging monthly interest — as high as 50 percent in some cases — on the retail price of the phone.

Expanding into Africa, Asia and India

The company is operating in the United States and Mexico and has plans to expand into Kenya, Tanzania, southeast Asia and India. So far, PayJoy offers only smartphones running Android, the operating system created by Google, but Ricket hopes to offer iPhones one day.

PayJoy’s vision is to be not just a smartphone firm, but a financing company, offering customers a way to use their phones as collateral to pay off televisions and other household goods.

“Once the customer gets the smartphone, they can potentially use that smartphone either by buying the smartphone with PayJoy or just collateralize an existing smartphone to finance a TV or a sofa,” Ricket said.

If PayJoy takes off, people in emerging markets may be able to upgrade their phone choices, and have a new way to finance their purchases.
…

In the U.S. and around the world, many poor people don’t have access to smartphones. But a Silicon Valley company is offering phones to customers in the U.S. and Mexico who pay in installments. If they don’t pay, the phone is turned off remotely. VOA’s Michelle Quinn reports.
…

Ride-hailing giant Uber’s full-year net loss widened to $4.5 billion in 2017 as the company endured a tumultuous year that included multiple scandals, a lawsuit alleging the theft of trade secrets and the replacement of its CEO.

The results also showed that Uber cut its fourth-quarter net loss by 25 percent from the third quarter as new CEO Dara Khosrowshahi moves to make the company profitable ahead of a planned initial public stock offering sometime next year.

The full-year loss grew from $2.8 billion in 2016, a year with results skewed by a gain from the sale of Uber’s unprofitable business in China. Uber also said its U.S. ride-hailing market share fell from 82 percent at the start of last year to 70 percent in the fourth quarter. Uber said the share has now stabilized.

Gross revenue for the year rose 85 percent over 2016, to $37 billion.

For the fourth quarter, Uber’s net loss was $1.1 billion, down from $1.46 billion it lost in the third quarter. Bookings from fares rose 14 percent to just over $11 billion for the quarter.

While the losses are significant, the results still are positive for Uber with revenue rising and losses falling in three of four quarters in 2017, said Rohit Kulkarni, managing director of SharesPost, a research group focused on privately held companies.

The numbers show that Uber under Khosrowshahi is on a path toward profitability and a sustainable economic model, Kulkarni said. “If you draw that out further, a year from now, this could be a significant IPO waiting to happen,” he said.

Uber considers adjusted earnings before taxes as a better indicator of its financial performance rather than net earnings based on Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, which include losses for accounting purposes. On an adjusted basis, excluding stock-based compensation, legal costs, taxes and depreciation, the company lost $2.2 billion for the full year. The fourth-quarter adjusted loss was $475 million, down from $606 million to in the third quarter.

San Francisco-based Uber Technologies Inc.’s results are difficult to report because only pieces are released. Khosrowshahi detailed them on a conference call with investors Tuesday, and the company made some results public by giving them to a website called The Information.

A person briefed on the results provided some numbers and confirmed the accuracy of The Information’s story to The Associated Press on Wednesday. The person didn’t want to be identified because Uber remains a private company.

Last year was a particularly bad one for Uber with its reputation tarnished by the company’s acknowledgement of rampant sexual harassment within its ranks, a yearlong cover-up of a major computer break-in, and the use of duplicitous software to thwart government regulators.

CEO Travis Kalanick was ousted in June and replaced by Khosrowshahi in August.

Earlier this month Uber ended the autonomous vehicle trade secrets lawsuit filed by Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo for a payment of Uber stock valued by Waymo at $245 million.
…

Even though the U.S. Postal Service delivers about 46 percent of the world’s total mail, competition is getting tougher every day. The post office is turning to technology to stay current. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee shows how the USPS is using virtual and augmented realities, along with email, to attract business.
…

Leaders of U.S. national security and law enforcement agencies said Tuesday the U.S. private sector has been helpful in efforts to keep the country safe.

While the leaders did not name companies, industry sectors or what specific help has been provided, they did discuss the challenges of monitoring social media.

The comments may reflect a shift in what law enforcement has seen as the technology industry’s adversarial approach when it comes to fighting crimes and addressing national security issues.

The most notable example of this tension was support by tech industry groups for Apple’s battle with law enforcement over breaking the encryption of an iPhone used by the man who killed 14 people in the 2015 terrorist attack in San Bernardino, California.

‘Forward-leaning engagement’

At a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing Tuesday, Dan Coats, director of National Intelligence, said the U.S. government has received more support from those in the private sector “who are beginning to recognize ever more the issues that are faced with the material that comes through their processes.”

Christopher Wray, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, referred to the help from the private sector as a “more forward-leaning engagement.”

“So, it’s teamwork within the intelligence community and then partnership with the private sector, which is, I think, the other big change I’ve noticed — is a lot more forward-leaning engagement with the private sector in terms of trying to share information and raise awareness on their end,” said Wray, also speaking at the hearing.

“Because at the end of the day, we can’t fully police social media, so we have to work with them so that they can police themselves a little bit better as well,” Wray added.

Gates: Be careful of arrogance

Separately, Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft, said in an interview that tech firms need to be careful of being too arrogant when working in realms outside their businesses or they’ll face the kind of government intervention his firm experienced in its antitrust dispute.

“The tech companies have to be careful that they’re not trying to think their view is more important than the government’s view, or than the government being able to function in some key areas,” said Gates in an interview with Axios.

Gates cited Apple’s iPhone battle with the government, criticizing “their view that even a clear mass-murdering criminal’s communication should never be available to the government.”

“There’s no question of ability,” he said about unlocking the iPhone. “It’s the question of willingness.”

He also cited companies’ “enthusiasm about making financial transactions anonymous and invisible.”

Microsoft’s consent decree with the U.S. Justice Department came to an end in 2011, a result of the government’s settlement with the software giant in its antitrust case.

Remarks on Trump administration

On Tuesday, Gates and his wife, Melinda, issued their foundation’s annual letter.

In terms of the Trump administration, Gates wrote that while “we disagree with this administration more than the others we’ve met with, we believe it’s still important to work together whenever possible. We keep talking to them because if the U.S. cuts back on its investments abroad, people in other countries will die, and Americans will be worse off.”

Melinda Gates wrote that the president is a role model of “American values in the world.” She continued, “I wish our president would treat people, and especially women, with more respect when he speaks and tweets.”
…

A new service that sends virtual images of the day’s mail to inboxes, before snail mail arrives in actual mailboxes, is now a reality in the United States.  

“Informed Delivery” is the latest way the United States Postal Service (USPS) is trying to stay competitive.  

“Informed Delivery is a way for you to receive an email every single day of all the digital images of all your mail,” explained David Rupert, media relations specialist at USPS.  Rupert said his digital images arrive around 9 a.m. each day.

Though the USPS delivers about 46 percent of the world’s total mail, it is battling email, text messages, online advertising, television and other delivery services for consumers’ attention and business.

“In a digital world, more and more people are having their bills delivered online, paying them on line. And that’s starting to cut into the overall letter volume, as well as the handwritten letter and the notes that we used to send. The reality is, we’re not doing that anymore. That’s not just a U.S. trend, that’s a worldwide trend,” Rupert said.

WATCH: USPS Enters Digital, Virtual, Augmented Worlds to Attract Customers

Battling that trend also means using virtual and augmented technology in advertising, often called “junk” mail.

“What you can do is to take your cellphone, and you can take a mail piece, and it will interact with that mail piece,” Rupert described.

If there is a special digital code on an ad, consumers can scan it with their mobile device and an animated, augmented reality ad will appear.  An advertiser can also send a cardboard virtual reality headset along with a code for mobile phone users to scan.  What shows up is a VR ad that can be inserted into the headset for a 360-degree experience.

Virtual and augmented reality advertising are getting mixed results from consumers.

“Not all junk mail [pieces] are junk mail. You can find some good [things] within the junk mail. It’s a good idea. We’ll see how it works out,” said consumer Victor Teah.

“For some, that might be fun. But for me, I wouldn’t have any use for it,” consumer Jocelyn Coatney said.

Informed Delivery has broader appeal.

“I think I would like that a lot, especially with checks and things coming in, and things coming in from grandkids. That would be a nice service,” said Coatney.

Rupert added: “We don’t want to be a world leader on technology, but we certainly want to make our services relevant to you — in your home and in your neighborhood.”
…

In the dense tropical rainforests of the Minkebe national park in northern Gabon, conservationists are hoping a new weapon can help them win a war against elephant poaching. VOA’s Mariama Diallo reports.
…

You’ve seen apps and toys that promise to teach your child to code. Now enter the robots.

At the CES electronics show in January, coding robots came out in force. One convention hall area was packed with everything from chip-embedded, alphabet-like coding blocks to turtle-like tanks that draw on command.

Of course, no one can really say how well these coding bots teach kids, or even whether learning to code is the essential life skill that so many in the tech industry claim. After all, by the time today’s elementary-school kids are entering the workforce, computers may well be programming themselves.

But experts like Jeff Gray, a computer science professor at the University of Alabama and an adviser to the nonprofit coding education group Code.org, say kids can derive other benefits from coding robots and similar toys. They can, for instance, learn “persistence and grit” when the toys inevitably do something unintended, he says.

So if you’re in the market for a coding robot that teaches and maybe even entertains, here’s a look at four that were on display at CES. But beware: None of them are cheap.

CUBETTO

London-based Primo Toys, the makers of this mobile wooden block, believes kids can learn coding concepts at age 3 before they can even read. And they don’t even need a screen.

The “Cubetto” block on wheels responds to where chip-embedded pieces are put on a wooden board. Different colors represent different commands – for example, to “go straight” or “turn left.”

Kids can bunch together a number of commands into what’s called a function and can also make Cubetto repeat actions in a loop.

Pros: Good for parents who want to avoid more screens

Cons: Doesn’t offer an immediate path to real coding

Price: $226

ROOT

Root Robotics’ flattish, hexagonal droid has downward-facing scanners, magnetic wheels, touch-reactive panels, lights, motion sensors, and a pen-grabbing hole in the center of its body.

Controlling it does require a screen.

The Cambridge, Massachusetts, company also claims kids don’t need to be able to read and can start playing with Root at age 4.

Root draws, moves, sees and reacts to touch and various other commands. Kids can use Root to start drawing lines and progress to creating snowflake-like mathematical patterns called fractals.

Co-founder Zee Dubrovsky says his daughter began coding with Root at age 4, and progressed up to the point where her robot drew her name on a whiteboard in school.

Pros: Sturdy frame; kids can progress from graphical block-based codes to text coding

Cons: Requires lots of clean, flat surface area, preferably whiteboards. Root has three difficulty levels, some of which wade into deeper math, so parental time commitment could be considerable. The Kickstarter-launched company has taken a while to ship items, so delivery could be delayed

Price: $199

Shipping: June 2018 (although the company has been working to fulfill Kickstarter orders since May 2017)

COZMO

This bundle of personality on wheels debuted in 2016. It now comes with an app called Code Lab, which allows kids to drag and drop blocks of code that control its movements and animations. They can even access facial and object recognition functions enabled by Cozmo’s front-facing camera.

Cozmo, recommended for kids aged 8 and up, looks like a little tractor and can pick up interactive cubes, which are included.

Part of its appeal are the twitches and tweets that make it seem like an energetic pet, according to Boris Sofman, the CEO and co-founder of Cozmo maker Anki, based in San Francisco.

Pros: Its expressive eyes and movements make it seem like a little R2-D2

Cons: Because it’s so full of personality, there might be a disconnect between programming it to do things and just letting it be itself

Price: $180

EVO

This dome-shaped, wheeled dynamo about the height of a few fingers looks for direction right out of the box – and comes equipped to follow around any finger placed before its frontal camera.

“We want kids to immediately engage with a robot,” says Nader Hamda, founder and CEO of Evo’s maker, Redondo Beach, California-based Ozobot.

The robot makes sounds, flashes lights, moves and can sense and react to its environment.

An app helps kids – aged 8 and up – program Evo to do what they want. The bot’s downward facing scanners also let it follow lines drawn on regular paper, some of which embody coding instructions. For instance, blue-black-blue gets it to speed up; green-red-green-red tells it to spin.

Pros: It’s cheaper than other coding bots

Cons: It doesn’t do quite as much as other bots

Price: $89
…

Plastic foam, plywood and some other plastic parts could make the difference between life and death.

These are the materials that make up a delivery drone created by DASH Systems. The California company also describes its lightweight aircraft as an unmanned aerial vehicle or glider.

It can be used to deliver up to 20 kilograms of food, medicine or other essential supplies to people in need in areas that traditional shipping and delivery companies cannot reach. And because it’s made of low-cost materials, it’s disposable, so there is no worry about getting it back.

“Many times, we found that during times of crisis or humanitarian need, it’s very, very difficult to get supplies into remote regions,” said Joel Ifill, chief executive officer and co-founder of DASH Systems.

“Couple that with reduced or destroyed infrastructure. Those are the areas and circumstances under which this system really shines,” said DASH Systems co-founder Joe Caravella.

The system’s aim is targeted, precision delivery. There is a built-in Global Positioning System device that provides enough accuracy to land the vehicle in the courtyard of a hospital.

“You can always fly an airplane overhead, so we help bridge that gap. Using our technology, you can throw a package out of an airplane and have it land right at the area of use,” Ifill said.

The DASH Systems delivery drone will go to places too dangerous or remote for other global shipping services such as FedEx or DHL.

“So, for instance, a delivery in South Sudan or Puerto Rico — oftentimes every traditional carrier will say no. Organizations are willing to pay the fair market value for those trips. They just do not have the solution,” said Ifill.

Ifill thought of this solution while working on smart bombs at a previous job.

“Actually, I felt bad about essentially making technology that was designed to harm and kill people. So, I wondered what else could I do with the technology of a smart bomb, something that can launch from an airplane and land within inches. And I thought, ‘Why can’t I use that same technology to deliver packages and goods?’ ”

DASH Systems says its unmanned glider is unlike other methods of delivery to remote places that have been developed thus far.

“There are a variety of parachute-type systems where you can drop things out of airplanes. We’re hoping to improve the whole operation, both with deploying it at the right time and then guiding the package to where it needs to be, to be more accurate than anything currently on the market,” said Caravella.
…

It has been called a delivery drone, an unmanned aerial vehicle or even a glider. It can be used to deliver essential supplies to areas traditional shipping and delivery companies cannot go to. Elizabeth Lee has details from Los Angeles.
…

Billionaire CEO Elon Musk is off to a big 2018. He’s chief executive of both SpaceX and Tesla. His space-travel company launched off the planet and into orbit a roadster from his electric car company. It was the latest milestone for an executive who looks to revolutionize space travel and technology. Arash Arabasadi reports.
…

Astronomers say a new instrument, now being tested on one of the telescopes in Chile’s Atacama desert, will greatly enhance their ability to search for earthlike planets. VOA’s George Putic has more.
…

Ride-sharing giant Uber and the self-driving car company Waymo have agreed to settle their legal battle over allegedly stolen trade secrets.

The surprise agreement Friday came as lawyers for the companies prepared to wrap up the first week of the case’s jury trial in San Francisco, California.

As part of the agreement, Uber will pay $245 million worth of its own shares to Waymo.

Waymo sued Uber last year, saying that one of its former engineers who later became the head of Uber’s self-driving car project took with him thousands of confidential documents.

After the lawsuit was filed, Uber fired the employee and fell behind on its plans to roll out self-driving cars in its ride-sharing service.

Waymo, a company hatched from Google, says the settlement also includes an agreement that Uber cannot use Waymo confidential information in its technology.

“We have reached an agreement with Uber that we believe will protect Waymo’s intellectual property now and into the future. We are committed to working with Uber to make sure that each company develops its own technology,” Waymo said in a statement.

Uber’s new CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, expressed regret for the company’s actions in a statement Friday.

“While we do not believe that any trade secrets made their way from Waymo to Uber, nor do we believe that Uber has used any of Waymo’s proprietary information in its self-driving technology, we are taking steps with Waymo to ensure our Lidar and software represents just our good work,” Khosrowshahi said in a statement.

Lidar is a laser-based system that helps self-driving cars to navigate their surroundings.

The trial so far included testimony from former Uber chief executive Travis Kalanick, who denied any attempt to steal trade secrets from Waymo.

Uber has faced a series of recent struggles, including public accusations of sexual harassment at the company and accusations it used software to thwart government regulators.
…

Engineers at Russia’s top nuclear research facility have been detained after they attempted to mine bitcoin on its computers, Russian news agencies reported Friday.

Several employees at the Russian Federal Nuclear Center in the city of Sarov have been detained after making “an attempt to use the work computing facilities for personal ends, including for so-called mining,” a spokeswoman for the center, Tatiana Zalesskaya, told Interfax news agency.

“Their activities were stopped in time,” she added.

“The bungling miners have been detained by the competent authorities. As far as I know, a criminal case has been opened regarding them,” she added, without saying how many were detained.

The center is overseen by Rosatom, the Russian nuclear agency, and works on developing nuclear weapons.

Such attempts “at our enterprises will be harshly put down, this activity technically has no future and is punishable as a crime,” the center’s spokeswoman said.

In 2011, the center switched on a new supercomputer with a capacity of 1 petaflop, which at the time made it the twelfth most powerful in the world, Russian television reported.

During the Cold War, Sarov was a top-secret city in the Nizhny Novgorod region, about 500 kilometers (300 miles) east of Moscow. Its Soviet-era name was Arzamas-16.

The center was the birthplace of the Soviet Union’s first nuclear weapons.

Sarov is still a closed city whose inhabitants are subject to travel restrictions.

Vladimir Putin visited the nuclear research center in 2012 while campaigning for president.
…

Twitter says it had first quarterly profit in history and returned to revenue growth in the fourth quarter.

Its stock increased in pre-market trading Thursday.

Though the results beat Wall Street’s cautious expectations, they don’t solve the company’s broader problems.

It’s been dealing with abuse, fake accounts and attempts by Russian agents to spread misinformation. The troubles have been compounded by stagnant user growth.

And with a prominent executive leaving shortly, and the CEO splitting its time with another company, Twitter’s now facing questions about just who is minding the store.

Twitter has said it’s dealing with the problems. The company has introduced a slew of new measures to weed out abusive accounts. Still, critics say the company is playing whack-a-mole with its problems, with often inadequate responses.

 
…

The International Rescue Committee has announced Project Core — a $1 million job training program for refugees in Germany.

The IRC is collaborating with computer giant Intel to to equip at least 1,000 migrants with “critical skills in information and communications technology and other in-demand sectors of the German economy.”

“It is exciting and encouraging to see that opportunities are being extended to refugees living in the country,” IRC President David Miliband said. 

He thanked Intel for its cooperation and commitment.

“The work we will do together epitomizes the power of partnerships to develop the right solutions and create meaningful impact,” Miliband said.

The IRC says more than 1.5 million refugees have arrived in Germany since 2015, seeking asylum from war, terrorism, poverty, and little hope their lives will get better if they stayed home.

The IRC says it has worked with the German government and civil organizations, sharing its expertise in educating child refugees and others in ways they can contribute to their new communities.
…

The International Rescue Committee on Wednesday announced the creation of Project Core, a $1 million job training program for refugees in Germany.

The IRC said it would collaborate with computer giant Intel to equip at least 1,000 migrants with “critical skills in information and communications technology and other in-demand sectors of the German economy.”

“It is exciting and encouraging to see that opportunities are being extended to refugees living in the country,” IRC President David Miliband said. 

He thanked Intel for its cooperation and commitment. “The work we will do together epitomizes the power of partnerships to develop the right solutions and create meaningful impact,” he said.

The IRC said more than 1.5 million refugees had arrived in Germany since 2015, seeking asylum from war, terrorism and poverty, and having little hope their lives would have improved if they stayed home.

The IRC said it has worked with the German government and civil organizations, sharing its expertise in educating refugee children and others in ways they can contribute to their new communities.
…

A social media monitoring tool used by the Boston Police Department to identify potential threats swept up the posts of people using the hashtag #MuslimLivesMatter and a lawmaker’s Facebook update about racial inequality, according to a report released Wednesday by the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts.

The ACLU says in a report based on documents obtained through a public records request that the police department’s use of Geofeedia to mine the internet appears to have had little benefit to public safety while unfairly focusing on groups such as Muslims. Boston police say the ACLU’s conclusions are misguided and that the program helped police successfully monitor events that could lead to demonstrations or crowds and threaten security.

“Our main focus in all of this is public safety, not targeting speech, not targeting people’s political affiliations,” said Lt. Det. Michael McCarthy. “And quite frankly, to have the ACLU to even make that insinuation is not only insulting, but it’s completely misinformed,” he said.

Boston police used Geofeedia for two weeks in 2014 and again for more than a year starting in January 2015, according to the documents. The department’s use of the program became public in late 2016 after it solicited bids to spend $1.4 million for another social media monitoring software.

Police later dropped those plans amid backlash from groups like the ACLU.

The now-defunct location-based program allowed officials to set up email alerts for when certain keywords were used on social media. The alerts were vetted by analysts in the department’s Boston Regional Intelligence Center and the data was discarded once it was determined it wasn’t a potential public safety issue, McCarthy said.

Geofeedia was used by police departments across the country until social media companies cut off access to its data after concerns raised by the ACLU of northern California in 2016. The software was also widely used by companies interested in what their customers were saying about them online, and news organizations for reporting.

The documents show Boston police searched for keywords they identified as “Islamic extremist terminology,” including words like “ISIS” and “caliphate” as well as Arabic words such as “ummah,” which means “community.”

In the wake of the killing of three Muslim students near the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, police also tracked the hashtag #muslimlivesmatter, according to the report. After unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, over the fatal shooting of a black man by a while police officer, police searched for the terms like “protest” and “Ferguson.”

The ACLU and the Boston-based Muslim Justice League say the tracking of common Arabic words, like “ummah,” is troubling. The ACLU said posts captured by the program that mentioned “ISIS” were either jokes or references to issues in the news.

“The Boston Police Department should never conduct surveillance targeting political speech or religious expression, but that’s exactly what their own records show they did when they used this social media monitoring software,” said Kade Crockford, co-author of the report and director of the group’s Technology for Liberty Program.

McCarthy said police didn’t target individuals, but chose keywords in response to events happening around the country or based on information from federal law enforcement. In the wake of the Chapel Hill shooting, for example, there were concerns about possible demonstrations or backlash against the Muslim community, he said.

“If we weren’t diligent in our efforts to provide safe events for those participating and attending … then we wouldn’t be doing our job as police officers,” he said.

Among those whose social media use prompted an alert was then-City Councilor Tito Jackson, for a 2014 Facebook post about homelessness and poverty that mentioned Ferguson, according to the report. City council was unaware at the time that police were using the Geofeedia program, Jackson said.

“I spoke out about their 2016 plan to spend $1.4 million on a social media surveillance system in part because I worried that the tool would be used to track people not because they did something wrong but because of their political views,” he said.

“Little did I know that that had already happened,” he said.
…

Just days after the announcement that the 4,400 year old tomb of a high-ranking priestess had been found in Egypt, comes word of an even older discovery in the country, from about 100 million years ago. Faith Lapidus tells us about the new species of dinosaur found in the western Egyptian desert.
…

A second patient has been treated in a historic gene editing study in California, and no major side effects or safety issues have emerged from the first man’s treatment nearly three months ago, doctors said Tuesday.

Gene editing is a more precise way to do gene therapy, and it aims to permanently change someone’s DNA to try to cure a disease.

In November, Brian Madeux, 44, became the first person to have gene editing inside the body for a metabolic disease called Hunter syndrome that’s caused by a bad gene. Through an IV, he received many copies of a corrective gene and a genetic tool to put it in a precise spot in his DNA.

“He’s doing well and we were approved to go ahead with the second patient, who also is doing well,” said Dr. Paul Harmatz of UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland, who treated both men for the same disease. 

At a medical conference in San Diego, Harmatz reported safety results for the first six weeks after Madeux’s treatment. Sangamo Therapeutics, the company that makes the gene editing tool called zinc finger nucleases, said more safety information and initial results on effectiveness should come by midyear. 

Problems faded

Madeux had dizziness, cold sweats and weakness four days after the treatment but they went away on their own in a day, Harmatz said. Madeux also had a severe cough and a partially collapsed lung, but these were deemed unrelated to the gene therapy because he had had similar problems previously.

It was important that there were no signs of harm to his liver.

“That’s the big worry,” because changes in the liver might mean the immune system was fighting the treatment and possibly undermining its effectiveness, Harmatz said.

The liver results were welcome news after some other recent reports caused alarm. A prominent gene therapy scientist, Dr. James Wilson of the University of Pennsylvania, published two studies reporting liver and other serious problems in monkeys and piglets that were given experimental gene therapies. Several had to be euthanized.

The animal studies tested very high intravenous doses of a therapy that used a certain virus to carry the gene into cells. Relatives of this virus are widely used in human gene therapies, but Wilson said he did not believe that the results in animals had any bearing on use of lower doses, different types of the virus, or therapies given in different ways such as a shot.

Neuromuscular disorders

The results might mean it will be harder to develop gene therapies for some neuromuscular disorders — higher doses in the animal studies were thought necessary to get the therapy into the brain and throughout muscles.

The Sangamo study that Madeux is in used much lower doses of a different type of the virus.

Wilson said it was important to the field that any safety concerns be published quickly. He helped lead a very early gene therapy experiment that killed a teen in 1999, putting some other studies on hold for years.

An editorial in the journal HumanGeneTherapy, which published one of Wilson’s animal studies, said gene therapy experiments should not stop, because that might deprive patients of potentially lifesaving treatments.

In the last year, the first gene therapies were approved in the United States to treat cancer and an inherited form of blindness.
…

What does the not-so-distant future look like when an increasing number of robots enters the workforce? What types of jobs will they do and would you be replaced by a robot? VOA’s Elizabeth Lee spoke to experts in the field of robotics at the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this year for the answer.
…