The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is holding talks with General Motors Co. on the automaker’s petition to deploy a limited number of self-driving vehicles on American roads without 
steering wheels or other human controls, the head of the agency 
said Friday. Acting NHTSA Administrator James Owens said his agency aims to decide soon on GM’s January 2018 petition as well as on a request by Nuro, a driverless delivery startup backed by Softbank Corp., to deploy a limited number of low-speed, highly automated delivery vehicles without human occupants. The agency’s review comes at a time of heightened concerns 
about the safety of automated piloting systems in vehicles and 
aircraft, a potential revolution in ground and air transportation. “I expect we’re going to be able to move forward with these 
petitions soon — as soon as we can,” Owens told Reuters, adding 
action “definitely” would come next year. “This will be a big deal because this will be the first such action that will be taken,” Owens said. GM, the No. 1 U.S. automaker, confirmed it has been in talks with NHTSA about the petition. Nuro also confirmed it is in talks with NHTSA. Still work to doGM Chief Executive Mary Barra and U.S. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao last week met and discussed the petition, officials said, but significant work remains at the technical level. Owens said NHTSA officials are “crawling through these petitions because we want to make sure” the driverless vehicles are at least as safe as other cars on the roads. “There’s a lot of back and forth between us and the companies,” Owens said during a Reuters interview that also included Chao and other Transportation Department officials. “We’re sharing with them thoughts and ideas and concerns. They come back to us with additional information.” Chao said it is important that NHTSA take its time in reviewing the GM petition. Chao suggested that some auto industry officials and analysts were too optimistic about the timing for deployment of fully autonomous vehicles. “I think the complexity was far greater than what a lot of very optimistic advocates were thinking,” Chao said.  FILE – In this Aug. 16, 2018, photo a self-driving Nuro vehicle parks outside a Fry’s supermarket, which is owned by Kroger, as part of a pilot program for grocery deliveries in Scottsdale, Ariz.In GM’s petition, NHTSA is for the first time looking at a vehicle in which all driving decisions are made by a computer rather than a human driver. Nuro, which partnered with Kroger Co. last year to deliver groceries, seeks approval not to include a windshield in the vehicle. The petitions — formal applications for action by the agency — seek exemptions from U.S. vehicle safety rules largely written decades ago that assumed human drivers would be in control of a vehicle. The petitions are for up to 2,500 vehicles per manufacturer. GM initially said it hoped to win approval to deploy the vehicles by the end of this year. But in July its self-driving unit, Cruise, said it was delaying commercial deployment of cars as more testing of the vehicles was required. A new target date wasn’t specified. Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo unit this year began offering some rides with no human driver in its limited autonomous ride-hailing service in Arizona, but with steering wheels and employees watching remote feeds of the vehicles’ cameras. “We’re in communication with them about how they are ensuring the safe operation of the vehicle,” Owens said. “We will continue having a back-and-forth with them.” 
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Twitter says it has removed nearly 6,000 accounts it has deemed tied to a state-backed information operation in Saudi Arabia.Twitter says the accounts violated its “platform manipulation policies” and targeted discussions related to Saudi Arabia and advancing its geopolitical interests.The 5,929 accounts removed are part of a larger group of 88,000 accounts engaged in “spammy behavior” across a wide range of topics. But Twitter isn’t disclosing all of them because some might be compromised accounts.Twitter began archiving Tweets and media it deems to be associated with known state-backed information operations in 2018. It shut 200,000 Chinese accounts that targeted Hong Kong protests in August.Social media companies have been trying to tackle misinformation on their services, especially ahead of next year’s U.S. presidential elections. The efforts followed revelations that Russians bankrolled thousands of fake political ads during the 2016 elections. Twitter’s announcement Friday underscores the fact that misinformation concerns aren’t limited to the U.S. and Russia.The Saudi Arabian Embassy in the U.S. did not immediately return a request for comment.
 
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The Senate approved a bill Thursday to crack down on robocalls, sending to President Donald Trump a measure meant to combat a persistent and costly problem for Americans.The bill, which Trump is expected to sign, would stiffen enforcement and require that phone companies offer free consumer tools to identify and block scam calls. It also calls for tougher fines when individuals intentionally violate the law.It echoes and builds on preventive measures that the Federal Communications Commission and state attorneys general have pushed for. It potentially speeds up steps the telecom industry is already taking to protect Americans from the billions of scam calls made each month.Maureen Mahoney, policy analyst for Consumer Reports, said the measure was an important step, though “robocalls are not going to disappear overnight.”Robocalls have flooded Americans’ phones because technology makes it cheap and easy to call people. Enforcement is difficult, with many scammers overseas. Even with additional enforcement powers provided in the bill, that’s not likely to change, Mahoney said, which is why it’s important to give consumers free tools that can stop calls.The Senate passed the bill unanimously, on a voice vote, following House approval earlier this month.The bill, called the Traced Act, requires phone companies to offer free call-blocking apps and verify that the number calling you is real. That’s an issue because fraudsters fake numbers to look as though they’re coming from the IRS or others to trick you.The bill also gives the FCC more time to fine robocallers and lets the agency fine offenders without warning them first. The bill also pushes the agency to work with the Justice Department to go after criminals. Over the long term, that could act as a deterrent.However, the final bill leaves out some protections that were in a previous version of a House bill, Mahoney notes. That version would have broadened the definition of what a robocall is and made it harder for companies like banks and cruise-ship vacation sellers to reach consumers.The FCC has already told phone companies that they can block unwanted calls without getting customers’ permission first, which could help increase the use of phone-blocking apps. That order did not require the tools be made free, while the bill does. The agency has said it expected the deployment of a new phone-number system to begin this year. Many major phone companies have begun rolling it out, but to work well all carriers must adopt it.The phone industry trade group, USTelecom, applauded the bill’s passage, saying it “will supercharge” the fight against robocallers.But experts expect that as phone companies put more tools in place to combat robocalls, scammers will adapt and try different techniques to reach victims.
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A study by a U.S. agency has found that facial recognition technology often performs unevenly based on a person’s race, gender or age.But the nuanced report published Thursday is unlikely to allay the concerns of critics who worry about bias in face-scanning applications that are increasingly being adopted by law enforcement, airports and a variety of businesses.The National Institute of Standards and Technology has been studying facial recognition for nearly two decades, but this is the first time it has investigated demographic differences in how face-scanning algorithms are able to identify people.The study was prompted in part by growing concern among lawmakers and privacy advocates that biased results in commercial face recognition software could entrench racial discrimination in the criminal justice system and elsewhere.The report cautions against “incomplete” previous research alleging biased facial recognition that has alarmed the public, but also confirms similar trends showing higher error rates for women, the youngest and oldest people, and for certain racial groups depending on which image database or software is being used.“There is a wide range of performance and there’s certainly work to be done,” said Craig Watson, manager of NIST’s research group that studies biometric technology. “The main message is don’t try to generalize the results across all the technology. Know your use case, the algorithm that’s being used.”NIST, which is a part of the Commerce Department, tested the algorithms of 99 mostly commercial software providers that voluntarily submitted their technology for review. It ran those algorithms on millions of FBI mugshots, visa application photos and other government-held portrait images such as those taken at border crossings.Microsoft was among the major tech companies that participated in the research, along with dozens of lesser-known video surveillance providers and numerous China-based companies such as SenseTime, Hikvision and Tencent. Amazon, which markets face-scanning software to U.S. police agencies, did not participate.Watson said that’s because Amazon’s cloud-based software doesn’t work with NIST’s testing procedures, though the agency is in talks with the company about how to test its algorithms in the future.The agency’s report credits two widely-cited studies of facial recognition bias by Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers for serving as a “cautionary tale” about uneven results across race and gender boundaries, though it also suggests they sowed public confusion in the way they sought to measure performance.Joy Buolamwini, who led those studies and has urged a halt to the technology’s proliferation, said in an email Thursday that NIST’s study is “a sobering reminder that facial recognition technology has consequential technical limitations.”“While some biometric researchers and vendors have attempted to claim algorithmic bias is not an issue or has been overcome, this study provides a comprehensive rebuttal,” she wrote.She was echoed by the American Civil Liberties Union, which in a statement Thursday said that government agencies like the FBI and U.S. Customs and Border Protection should take heed of the report and halt their deployment of face-scanning software.“Even government scientists are now confirming that this surveillance technology is flawed and biased,” said ACLU policy analyst Jay Stanley.
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The boards of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and PSA Peugeot on Wednesday signed a binding merger deal creating the world’s fourth-largest auto company with the scale to confront the challenges of stricter emissions regulations and the transition to new driving technologies.The companies said in a joint statement the new group will be led by PSA’s cost-cutting CEO Carlo Tavares, with Fiat Chrysler’s chairman John Elkann as chairman of the merged company. Fiat Chrysler CEO Mike Manley will stay on, but it was not announced in what capacity.No name for the new company has been decided, executives said in a conference call, but both Tavares and Manley insisted that it was not a “touchy subject.”The deal, which was unveiled in October, was announced as a 50-50 merger, but PSA has one extra seat at the board and Tavares at the helm, giving the French carmaker the upper hand in daily management.The executives said they expect the deal to take 12-15 months to close. It will give birth to a group with revenues of nearly 170 billion euros and producing 8.7 million cars a year – just behind Toyota, Volkswagen and the Renault-Nissan alliance.The merger is expected to create 3.7 billion euros in annual savings, which will be invested in “the new era of sustainable mobility” and to meet strict new emissions regulations, particularly in Europe.”‘The merged entity will maneuver with speed and efficiency in an automotive industry undergoing rapid and fundamental changes,” the carmakers said in the joint statement.New technologies includes electrified engines, autonomous driving and connectivity, part of what Tavares described as `’the transition to a world of clean, safe and sustainable mobility.’’No plants will be closed under the deal, the companies said. Savings will be achieved by sharing investments in vehicle platforms, engines and new technology, while leveraging scale on purchasing.But the executives also said there would be cuts. Decisions on where those will come will be made after the deal closes.FILE – In this Jan. 2, 2014 file photo, a Fiat logo pictured on a car in Milan, Italy. Italian-American carmaker Fiat Chrysler Automobiles on Oct. 30, 2019, confirmed that it is in talks with French rival PSA Peugeot.”There is room for sharing (a) significant amount of existing platforms and avoiding excess investments for the future,” Tavares said.Both the Peugeot and Fiat brands are strong on small-car technology, with significant overlap in Europe. Manley said that the convergence of platforms would be “an early target” that will likely take two years to achieve.The company will be legally based in the Netherlands, and traded in Paris, Milan and New York.The executives played down the significance of the new entity’s name and headquarters location, but both are symbolic choices that go a long way to signaling who is in the driver’s seat, where engineering and management brains will be based, and the relative importance of each entity in the new company.The French and Italian governments as well as unions will be on the look-out for the responses, given the national significance of the auto industries to both economies. The French government helped bail out PSA Peugeot in 2014 and owns a 12-percent stake in the French company through the state investment bank.While the merger of Fiat and Chrysler has been a success, with the Italian-American automaker thriving on the strength of the U.S. market and the executive prowess of longtime CEO Sergio Marchionne, the history of car mergers is littered with failed tie-ups. Most famous among those is the Daimler-Chrysler merger, which foundered on cultural differences between the German and U.S. entities.Manley said the new name “‘is an exercise we’re embarking on now. We have two very historic companies coming together. … I don’t think it will be a touchy subject, just an interesting process.'”The new company will start with a strong base in Europe, where PSA is the second-largest carmaker, and while Fiat makes most of its profits in North America and has a strong presence in Latin America. It will be looking to strengthen its position in China, where both PSA and FCA lag.”That is part of the opportunities,” Tavares said. “‘We are not happy with our performance there. We think we should be doing better in China.'”Tavares said the deal has the support of its Chinese partner and investor Dongfeng, which ‘”understood what needed to be done.'”As part of the deal, Dongfeng’s stake in the new company will be diluted from 6.2% to 4.5%, through the sale of 30.7 million shares.FCA will pay its shareholders a 5.5 billion-euro ($6.1 billion) premium, raising questions about whether the new company will be saddled with too much debt. Analysts estimate that Peugeot is paying a hefty 32% premium to take control of Fiat Chrysler.Fiat Chrysler has long been looking for an industrial partner to shoulder investment costs as the industry faces a transition to electrified power trains and autonomous driving. A previous deal with French rival Renault last spring fell apart over French government concerns about the role of Renault’s Japanese partner, Nissan.Tavares said both the French government and unions backed the new deal from the beginning.
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According to a United Nations study, the world produces enough food waste to feed as many as 2 billion people each year. A tech startup has a goal to get that food to those who need it. Matt Dibble reports.
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European space officials on Tuesday postponed the launch of a three-year mission to study planets in other solar systems shortly before it was due to blast off.The European Space Agency announced that the launch from Kourou, French Guiana, of the Characterising ExOPlanets Satellite (CHEOPS) mission would be delayed by at least a day. It had been scheduled for 0854 GMT (3:54 a.m. EST).ESA Director of Science Guenther Hasinger tweeted that “a software error in the Fregat upper stage” of the Soyuz rocket was responsible for the postponement.”With this complex mission, we will not take any risks,” he added, advising people to “keep fingers crossed for [a launch] tomorrow” at the same time.Europe’s Arianespace, which has been operating Russian Soyuz rockets from Kourou since 2011, said during the countdown that “the Soyuz launcher’s automated sequence was interrupted at 1 hour 25 minutes before liftoff.” The launcher was put into a safe standby mode, it added.”The new target launch date will be announced as soon as possible,” the agency said in a statement.The mission will focus on 100 of the more than 4,000 extrasolar planets — ones beyond our own solar system — discovered so far, partly to determine if there’s a possibility of an Earth-like planet capable of sustaining life, Swiss astronomer and Nobel Physics Prize winner Didier Queloz, who heads the CHEOPS science team, told The Associated Press.”We are one planetary system among many,” he said. “It’s all about our place in the universe and trying to understand it.”A space telescope will analyze the exoplanets’ densities and radii and determine whether they have atmospheres, Queloz said.”We know nothing, except that they are there,” he said.Once in place, the telescope will focus on bright stars to determine the size of exoplanets as they pass in front of their host star. 
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The use of robots in the U.S. workplace more than doubled from 2009 to 2017, the bulk of them in manufacturing. But the extent of manufacturing job losses in the Midwest was masked by the economic boom of the past 10 years.“A growing economy independent of technology, independent of robotics, has been able to absorb, at least at the national level … people who may have gotten displaced,” said William M. Rodgers III, professor of public policy and chief economist at the Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University.  Rodgers co-authored a report on how robots are affecting workers and their wages.  While robots haven’t had a nationwide impact on the employment rate, some states in the Midwest have twice as many robots as all other regions and  are suffering as a result of the rise of robotization.In this Sept. 27, 2018, file photo robots weld the cab of a 2018 Ford truck at the Ford Rouge assembly plant in Dearborn, Michigan.Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin have the highest concentration of robots, primarily in manufacturing. These industrial robots tend to perform repetitive tasks, such as assembly and packaging, or sealing, welding and painting, at a very fast rate.  The workers most affected by the machine takeover are young, less-educated people, with black men and women experiencing the greatest job losses. Those who find new jobs in different industries often have to settle for lower pay.“If the displacement is large enough, if they get pushed into retail or they get pushed into hospitality and leisure, the supply of them in that industry or that sector increases,” Rodgers said. “And if demand for workers is not growing fast enough, you begin to see a decline in wages.”The regions with the most robots overall include: 1. Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana, California  2. Chicago-Naperville-Joliet, Illinois3. Houston-Baytown-Sugar Land, Texas4. Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale, Arizona 5. Detroit-Warren-Dearborn, Michigan 6. Milwaukee-Waukesha-West Allis, Wisconsin 7. Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, Pennsylvania/New Jersey/Delaware/Maryland 8. San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, California 9. Indianapolis, Indiana 10. Cleveland-Elyria, OhioThe good news is that these displaced workers could ultimately end up in higher-paid positions, if the right safety nets are put into place. “Approaches that can help cushion the blow for people who do get displaced by technology,” Rodgers says, “and then also to have education and training programs that allow individuals who do lose their jobs to be able to transition to other occupations.”orIn this May 25, 2017, file photo, an assembly line laborer works alongside a collaborative robot at the Stihl Inc. production plant in Virginia Beach, Virginia.Rodgers says now is the time to prepare for the rise of the robots.“What better time to be able to help people who are getting bullied, so to speak, by technology or getting bullied, so to speak, by globalization?” Rodgers says. “Times of prosperity is the best time… to invest in all Americans.”
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As the 2020 U.S. elections draw closer, ensuring their transparency and protecting them from foreign manipulation has become paramount for American election officials and lawmakers.  The aim is to prevent a repeat of Russia’s well-documented cyber meddling in the 2016 vote.  Oleksandr Yanevskyy has this report narrated by Anna Rice. 
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Amazon accused U.S. President Donald Trump of using “improper pressure” and bias that harmed its chances of winning a lucrative $10 billion contract from the U.S. Department of Defense.Amazon said in a lawsuit unsealed Monday in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims that it lost the cloud computing contract, which was awarded to rival Microsoft, due to Trump’s “personal vendetta against Mr. (Jeff) Bezos, Amazon, and The Washington Post.”Bezos owns Amazon and the Post. Trump has frequently attacked Bezos and Amazon for its low tax payments. and has accused the Post of spreading “fake news.”Amazon said in its lawsuit that Trump launched “repeated public and behind-the-scenes attacks to steer” the Pentagon cloud contract away from Amazon. It said Trump’s interference made it impossible for the Department of Defense to choose a winner “reasonably, consistently, and in a fair and equal manner.”The suit is calling for the Pentagon to revisit its decision.”The question is whether the president of the United States should be allowed to use the budget of DoD to pursue his own personal and political ends,” the Amazon complaint states.Pentagon spokeswoman Elissa Smith said in a statement Monday that the selection of Microsoft was made without external influence “by an expert team of career public servants and military officers.”The White House did not immediately comment on the lawsuit.The high-stakes cloud computing project, formally called the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI, is part of a Pentagon effort to store and process large amounts of classified data.Amazon and Microsoft were the finalists for the project after Oracle and IBM were eliminated from contention. 
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Amazon says President Donald Trump’s “improper pressure” and behind-the-scenes attacks harmed its chances of winning a $10 billion Pentagon contract.The Pentagon awarded the cloud computing contract to Microsoft in October. Amazon argues in a lawsuit unsealed Monday the decision should be revisited because of “substantial and pervasive errors” and Trump’s interference. 
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Uber, as part of a long-anticipated safety report, revealed that more than 3,000 sexual assaults were reported during its U.S. rides in 2018.That figure includes 235 rapes across the company’s 1.3 billion rides last year. The ride-hailing company noted that drivers and riders were both attacked and that some assaults occurred between riders.The Thursday report, which the company hailed as the first of its kind, provides a rare look into the traffic deaths, homicides and reported sexual assaults that took place during billions of rides arranged in the U.S. using Uber’s service. It is part of the company’s effort to be more transparent after years of criticism over its safety record.In 2017, the company counted 2,936 reported sexual assaults, including 229 rapes, during 1 billion U.S. trips. Uber bases its numbers on reports from riders and drivers, meaning the actual numbers could be much higher. Sexual assaults commonly go unreported.“I suspect many people will be surprised at how rare these incidents are; others will understandably think they’re still too common,” Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi tweeted about the report. “Some people will appreciate how much we’ve done on safety; others will say we have more work to do. They will all be right.”Uber, Lyft criticizedUber’s share price dropped more than 1% in after-hours trading.Uber and competitor Lyft have faced harsh criticism for not doing enough to protect the safety of their riders and drivers. Dozens of women are suing Lyft, claiming the company should have done more to protect them from driver assaults.London refused to renew Uber’s license to operate in the city in November in light of a number of company safety issues, including concerns about impostor drivers. Uber said it will appeal the decision.The companies have both formed partnerships with sexual assault prevention networks and other safety groups, and have touted their background check policies for drivers. But many say they haven’t gone far enough to protect passengers and drivers, who are contract workers for the companies.“Keeping this information in the dark doesn’t make anyone safer,” Uber said in a statement announcing the report. It plans to release its safety report every two years going forward.Lyft yet to release reportLyft said last year it would also release a safety report. A company spokeswoman confirmed Thursday that it “remained committed” to releasing a report, but did not say when it would be released.Mike Bomberger, a lawyer representing more than 100 victims of sexual assault in lawsuits against Uber and Lyft, applauded Uber for releasing the numbers.“One of the problems with both of these companies is that they have hidden and have tried to conceal the number of sexual assaults that occur in their vehicles,” he said.The report stated that Uber rides were involved in 97 reported crashes in 2017 and 2018, resulting in 107 deaths. The company said the figure represents about half of the national rate for fatal crashes.The company also said Uber rides were involved in nine homicides during 2018, and 10 during 2017. Uber noted that the vast majority — 99.9% — of its rides had no reported safety issues.
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What’s wrong with being a plucky hero running from demon monkeys or a glamorous model in dress up games? Players too often get sucked into worlds full of violence and unhealthy body images, according to Jay Shapiro, co-founder of Kenya-based Usiku Games.The Canadian entrepreneur hopes to shake up the games market in Kenya — and Africa — by offering not only the “adrenaline rush” of competing to win, but also subtle messaging on relatable themes like conservation, climate change and culture.“When was the last time you saw an African hero in a video game?” Shapiro asked ahead of the Dec. 14 official opening of Usiku Games offices and the Nairobi Game Development Center, a high-tech co-working space also created by Shapiro.“We looked at how can we make games that are unlike what’s out there at the moment. That are made in Africa, for Africa, with African heroes in African environments … so that when somebody plays it, they see themselves reflected in the game.””Turkana,” a video game by Usiku Games, allows players to direct water from Kawalasee River to a farm.10 games so farUsiku Games has so far developed 10 brain-teasing and trivia games for Africa’s mobile phone users aimed at fostering a #GamingForGood culture, with scenarios where the player has to save lions from poachers or solve traffic congestion.The game “Turkana” — named after Kenya’s arid northwestern county — allows players to direct water from the Kawalasee River to a farm while in “Jam Noma” they get to drive a local matatu minibus and navigate congestion to complete the journey.The company, which has 16 staff, also employs youths from Nairobi’s Kibera, a sprawling informal settlement housing more than 200,000 people, to provide the voices and produce the rap music for the games in English, Swahili and local slang, Sheng.”Jam Noma,” a video game from Usiku Games allows players to drive a local matatu minibus and navigate congestion.Positive messagesOther games the company is developing including “Seedballs” a reforestation game where the player has to drop seeds at targets on the ground, and “BeYOUtiful,” which is a dress up game for girls with African characters.“These dress up games for preteen girls are very popular, but everyone in them has a white woman in her 20s with ‘Barbiesque’ curves that are impossible to attain,” said Shapiro.“If I’m a little Kenyan girl playing this game, the game is subliminally telling me that the standard for beauty is this blonde, white, skinny woman. We think that’s wrong.”The games are currently free but Usiku Games plans to charge users about 10 shillings ($0.10) to play a game in future, with the winner earning coins, some of which can be converted to cash in a mobile savings account to pay school or medical fees.“It’s great Usiku Games is focusing on socially responsible bite-sized games,” said Gautam Shah, founder of Internet of Elephants, which makes conservation games, adding that most popular games focus on subject matter that is far from Africa.“I think their success will rely on how relatable these games are to local users.”
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An intelligent robot equipped with emotion-sensing voice detectors was headed to the International Space Station after launching from Florida on Thursday, becoming the latest artificial intelligence-powered astronaut workmate in orbit.The Crew Interactive Mobile Companion 2, or CIMON 2, is a spherical droid with microphones, cameras and a slew of software to enable emotion recognition.The droid was among 5,700 pounds (2,585 kg) of supplies and experiments aboard SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, whose midday launch had been delayed from Wednesday because of high winds.WATCH: ‘Mighty Mice’ Possible Key to Maintaining Muscle Mass
‘Mighty Mice’ Possible Key to Maintaining Muscle Mass video player.
Embed” />Copy LinkCreate a companion“The overall goal is to really create a true companion. The relationship between an astronaut and CIMON is really important,” Matthias Biniok, the lead architect for CIMON 2, told Reuters. “It’s trying to understand if the astronaut is sad, is he angry, joyful and so on.”Based on algorithms built by information technology giant IBM Corp and data from CIMON 1, a nearly identical prototype that launched in 2018, CIMON 2 will be more sociable with crew members. It will test technologies that could prove crucial for future crewed missions in deep space, where long-term isolation and communication lags to Earth pose risks to astronauts’ mental health.While designed to help astronauts conduct scientific experiments, the English-speaking robot is also being trained to help mitigate groupthink — a behavioral phenomenon in which isolated groups of humans can be driven to make irrational decisions.“Group-thinking is really dangerous,” Biniok said. In times of conflict or disagreement among astronauts, one of CIMON’s most important purposes would be to serve as “an objective outsider that you can talk to if you’re alone, or could actually help let the group collaborate again,” he said.Inspired by Professor Simon, HALEngineers have said CIMON’s concept was inspired by a 1940s science fiction comic series set in space, where a sentient, brain-shaped robot named Professor Simon mentors an astronaut named Captain Future. CIMON 2 also parallels HAL, the sentient computer in Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” film.SpaceX is the first private company to fly to the space station, a $100 billion project of 15 nations. Along with CIMON 2, the cargo aboard its 19th resupply mission to the orbital research lab included 40 live mice that will show scientists how muscles change in the microgravity of space.
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Add facial cuts, bruises and fractures to the risks from cellphones and carelessly using them.
                   
That’s according to a study published Thursday that found a spike in U.S. emergency room treatment for these mostly minor injuries.
                   
The research was led by a facial plastic surgeon whose patients include a woman who broke her nose when she dropped her phone on her face. Dr. Boris Paskhover of Rutgers New Jersey Medical School said his experience treating patients with cellphone injuries prompted him to look into the problem.
                   
Paskhover and others analyzed 20 years of emergency room data and found an increase in cellphone injuries starting after 2006, around the time when the first smartphones were introduced.
                   
Some injuries were caused by phones themselves, including people getting hit by a thrown phone. But Paskhover said many were caused by distracted use including texting while walking, tripping and landing face-down on the sidewalk.
                   
Most patients in the study weren’t hospitalized, but the researchers said the problem should be taken seriously.
                   
The study involved cases in a U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission database that collects emergency room visit information from about 100 hospitals. The researchers tallied 2,500 patients with cellphone-related head and neck injuries from 1998 through 2017.
                   
The study was published in the journal JAMA Otolaryngology.
                   
Nationwide, they estimated there were about 76,000 people injured during that time. Annual cases totaled fewer than 2,000 until 2006, but increased steeply after that. About 40% of those injured were ages 13 to 29, and many were hurt while walking, texting or driving.
                   
Cellphone use also has been linked with repetitive strain injuries in the hands and neck, and injuries to other parts of the body caused by distracted use.
                   
“I love my smartphone,” Paskhover said, but he added that it’s easy to get too absorbed and avoiding injury requires common sense.
                 “
“People wouldn’t walk around reading a magazine,” he said. “Be careful.”
 
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Apple Inc on Thursday said it has bought the first-ever commercial batch of carbon-free aluminum from a joint venture between two of the world’s biggest aluminum suppliers.The metal is being made by Elysis, a Montreal-based joint venture of Alcoa Corp and Rio Tinto announced last year with $144 million in funding from the two companies, Apple and the governments of Canada and Quebec.The aluminum will be shipped this month from an Alcoa research facility in Pittsburgh and used in Apple products, although the technology company did not say which ones.Aluminum is carbon-intensive to produce. The smelting process involves passing electrical current through a large block of carbon called an anode, which burns off during the process and releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.The carbon-free move is a response to consumer, activist and investor demand that miners and manufacturers show they are working to lessen their impact on climate change.“For more than 130 years, aluminum – a material common to so many products consumers use daily – has been produced the same way. That’s about to change,” Lisa Jackson, Apple’s vice president of environment, policy and social initiatives, said in a statement.Apple uses aluminum housings for many of its electronics, including iPhones, Apple Watches and Mac computers. Apple last year introduced Mac models that use recycled aluminum.The Alcoa-Rio joint venture wants to commercialize a technology by 2024 that uses a ceramic anode to make aluminum and emits only oxygen, eliminating direct greenhouse gas emissions from the smelting process.Alcoa has already produced test metal with the process and joined with Rio Tinto to bring it up to commercial scale. Elysis plans to license the technology and says that existing smelting facilities can be retrofitted to use it.The first batch was made in Pittsburgh, but Elysis also plans to manufacture it at a $50 million CAD research facility being built in Saguenay, Quebec, and that is expected to come online in the second half of 2020.Apple and Elysis would not disclose the size or cost of the first purchase. They described it as a “commercial batch,” and Elysis said the process is expected to have lower operating costs than traditional aluminum smelting.
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U.S. and British law enforcement officials announced criminal charges against a notorious Russian hacker on Wednesday, accusing him of a decade-long cybercrime spree that resulted in tens of millions of dollars in losses to victims around the world.Maksim Yakubets, 32, who used the online moniker “aqua,” was charged in connection with two separate international computer hacking and bank fraud schemes from May 2009 to the present.  In the first conspiracy, Yakubets faces charges in London for involvement in a long running conspiracy to employ widespread computer intrusions using the “Zeus” malware and stealing millions of dollars from banks in the United States and elsewhere.In the seecond scheme, Yakubets along with a second Russian national, Igor Turashev, 37, was charged in the Western district of Pennsylvania with distributing the “Bugat” malware to steal banking credentials and other personal information from infected computers.Both men remain at large.The U.S. State Department announced a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Yakubets.“These two cases demonstrate our commitment to unmasking the perpetrators behind the world’s most egregious cyberattacks,” said assistant attorney general Brian A. Benczkowski. 
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Chinese telecom giant Huawei has filed a lawsuit in a U.S. federal court to throw out a Trump administration rule that bans phone carriers in rural areas from using money from an $8.5 billion government fund to purchase Huawei’s equipment.The lawsuit says the Federal Communications Commission acted improperly when it imposed the ban last month on Huawei and its domestic rival ZTE, citing national security concerns.At a news conference at the company’s headquarters in Shenzhen Thursday, Song Liuping, Huawei’s chief legal counsel, said the FCC made its decision without any evidence that Huawei posed a national security threat.This is the second lawsuit filed by Huawei to combat U.S. government claims that it presents a threat to U.S. national security. The company first filed suit in March challenging the legality of a law passed by the U.S. Congress last year that bars government agencies and contractors from doing business with the tech giant.Huawei is also involved in a separate legal fight involving Meng Wanzhou, its chief financial officer and the daughter of founder Ren Zhengfei. Meng was arrested in Canada last December on a U.S. warrant seeking her extradition to face charges of violating U.S. sanctions on Iran.The United States and others worry that technology companies located in countries with governments like China’s could be subject to state influence, making the networks insecure. President Donald Trump signed an executive order in May that bars American companies from using telecommunications equipment that is made by companies that pose a national security risk.But the administration has since granted a series of limited reprieves so Huawei can continue to provide equipment to carriers that provide wireless networks in rural areas.
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Malaysia may have an idea that will help startups, which typically do not have much funding or experience, as well as more established firms, which are often afraid of disruption from new competitors.Companies in the Southeast Asian nation are pairing up, with newer and older companies coming together to benefit from each other’s strengths and to help each other get past their weaknesses. The model could become an interesting trend across the region, as Malaysia is the most developed economy in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations after Singapore, and it has given birth to a range of companies that have expanded their operations to other countries, from startups such as ride-hailing app Grab to large companies like AirAsia.A Grab pick-up and drop-off station is seen at the entrance of Kuala Lumpur City Centre in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Oct. 3, 2019.Multinational consulting firm PwC’s Malaysian operation, for instance, has paired with startups such as Supahands, which uses machine learning to help clients analyze big data, online commerce firm Dropee, and affiliate marketing firm Involve Asia.Two-way mentorships“They have demonstrated commitment and tenacity in learning and exchanging knowledge with the PwC partners they were paired with,” Sridharan Nair, PwC Malaysia managing partner, said of the startups. “The insights they brought to our partners in the program were invaluable to PwC, as it deepens our understanding of the investments they have made in digitizing their organizations and their approach in disrupting the business.”The startups were able to use PwC partners’ expertise on subjects such as financing and initial public offerings. At the same time, it is useful for large companies to see how smaller ones are experimenting. With a heavy focus on compliance, companies such as PwC have to go through more approvals and bureaucracy, which may not make them as nimble as a startup.Supporters see such two-way mentorships as a way for the emerging market to develop.“With many Malaysian startups now growing into global market players, we feel it’s necessary for there to be more similar programs that can impart world-class business acumen to our base of upcoming entrepreneurs,” according to Norhizam Abdul Kadir, vice president of growth ecosystem development at the Malaysia Digital Economy Corp., a government agency whose mission is to promote the digital economy.Boost to economyThe partnerships are one idea to stir up an economy that could use a boost. Malaysia’s third-quarter consumption and exports did not grow as much as optimists had hoped, and the nation is waiting for the United States and China to resolve their trade war, which hurts demand for Malaysia’s products.At the same time, Malaysia has lowered poverty and is working toward official status as a high-income country. Its role as the host of next year’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit may give it more influence over trends in Southeast Asia.“In recent research from the World Economic Forum, Malaysia ranks third in the world for companies embracing disruptive ideas and fourth overall for its entrepreneurial culture,” said Nic Chambers, regional director of Michael Page Malaysia, a human resource consulting firm. “The local business community enjoys the benefits of government initiatives such as the Industrial Revolution 4.0, which promotes automation and attracts new investment into the country.”
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Imagine if your car can sense your emotions and play happy music when you are sad. That’s what a team of researchers at Texas A&M University is working on — to look at brain waves that correlate to different human emotions and ultimately teach that to an autonomous vehicle. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee has the details from College Station, Texas.
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Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin are stepping down from their roles within the parent company, Alphabet.Sundar Pichai, who has been leading Google as CEO for more than four years, will stay in his role and also become CEO of Alphabet.Page was Alphabet’s CEO, while Brin was its president. Both have been noticeably absent from Google events in the past year. Both stopped making appearances at the weekly question-and-answer sessions with employees, and Page didn’t attend this summer’s Alphabet shareholder’s meeting even though he was still in the CEO role.Alphabet has been positioning Pichai as the de facto leader for quite some time making him the top executive voice at company shareholders meetings, on earnings call and as a spokesperson at Congressional hearings.Page and Brin announced the news in a Google blog post Tuesday, saying the company has “evolved and matured” in the two decades since its founding.”Today, in 2019, if the company was a person, it would be a young adult of 21 and it would be time to leave the roost,” they said.Page and Brin started the search giant in 1998 in Silicon Valley.Both founders promised they plan to stay actively involved as board members and shareholders, and lauded Pichai for his leadership of the company.The pair still hold more than 50% voting shares of Alphabet. According to an Alphabet SEC filing in April, Page holds 42.9% of the company’s Class B shares and 26.1% of its voting power. Brin holds 41.3% of the Class B shares and 25.2% of the voting power.
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Imagine if your car can sense your emotions and play happy music when you are sad. That’s what a team of researchers at Texas A&M University is working on — to look at brain waves that correlate to different human emotions and ultimately teach that to an autonomous vehicle. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee has the details from College Station, Texas.
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The U.N.’s trade and development agency estimates that Europe, led by the Netherlands, leads the world in readiness for online shopping.UNCTAD’s annual business-to-consumer e-commerce index ranked the United States again in the teens, at 13th — largely because of its relatively low share of people using the internet compared to other developed countries.Russia ranked 40th and China 56th, while Hong Kong came in at No. 15.The agency said Tuesday over 80% of internet users in six European countries shop online, versus under 10% in some poorer countries.The rankings are based on use of the internet as well as access to secure internet servers, reliable postal services, and financial institution or mobile-money-service providers.
UNCTAD called the report provisional, cautioning that some data dates to 2017.
 
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Four workers fired from Google last week are planning to file a federal labor complaint against the company, claiming it unfairly retaliated against them for organizing workers around social causes.The former employees said Tuesday they are preparing to file unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board this week. All four were fired Nov. 25 for what Google said were violations of its data security policy.Company officials wrote in a memo — without confirming the employees’ names — that the four were “searching for, accessing, and distributing business information outside the scope of their jobs.”But the four workers — Laurence Berland, Sophie Waldman, Rebecca Rivers and Paul Duke — say they believe they did not violate company policies and claim that Google is using the alleged violations as an excuse to terminate them for labor activity.“This is an expression of Google’s management power,” Duke said. “They are scared of worker power.”Google disputes that they fired the employees for organizing activity.“No one has been dismissed for raising concerns or debating the company’s activities,” the company said in a statement.Google employees are known for being some of the most outspoken across the tech industry. Thousands of employees walked out of work last year to protest the company’s handling of sexual misconduct claims, in what became known as the Google Walkout. Since then, employees have petitioned for better benefits for contract workers, successfully argued for the end of mandatory arbitration and have opposed Google’s involvement in some government projects.The company has also been known for an open, collaborative work culture since its early days, one that employee activists say is now getting closed off.CEO Sundar Pichai’s weekly question-and-answer sessions with employees became monthly meetings. Google also updated its community guidelines to tell employees to avoid “disrupting the workday” to debate politics or other topics. Some workers complain both moves were meant to discourage open speech and crack down on employee pushback.Waldman and Duke helped create a petition earlier this year that called for Google to refrain from bidding on a cloud computing contract with U.S. Customs and Border Patrol. Nearly 1,500 employees signed the petition, which said CBP had “engaged in human rights abuses” at the southern border and that Google should not work with the agency.Rivers and Berland also helped spread the petition, and Berland has been involved in organizing other campaigns at the company, including those involving LGBTQ rights.All four say they were questioned by Google officials in the past few months for sharing or accessing internal documents. Two say they were placed on administrative leave last month.The company said it found one worker set up notifications to be alerted about other employees’ calendar changes, which made those employees feel unsafe. It said screenshots of their calendars with their names were shared externally.“We have always taken information security very seriously, and will not tolerate efforts to intimidate Googlers or undermine their work, nor actions that lead to the leak of sensitive business or customer information,” read the memo sent by Chris Rackow, Royal Hansen and Heather Adkins from the company’s security and investigations team.The employees said any documents they viewed and shared were already accessible by Google workers, and they only shared them internally. They said others later shared them outside the company.The four fired workers said they received no severance payments. They are working with lawyers and have not yet determined the details of the NLRB complaint, but said it will address retaliation concerns and will likely take issue broadly with Google’s recent policy changes and alleged crackdowns against employee organizing.Google reached a separate settlement with the NLRB in September over employees’ ability to speak out about workplace issues. Google agreed to post notices to remind employees of their rights, including the ability to talk to each other about workplace conditions and push for changes such as raises.The situation of the four workers has led to additional protest. A few hundred people attended a rally at Google’s San Francisco office in November to call for Rivers’ and Berland’s reinstatement.
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