A California startup called OFFWORLD has ambitious plans that are out of this world. They are working on developing autonomous robots that would be able to mine the Moon and Mars. Alexey Gorbachev has the story narrated by Anna Rice.
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India plans to make a fresh attempt to land an unmanned mission on the moon in 2020 after a failed bid last year, the head of the country’s space program said Wednesday.Work is going “smoothly” on the Chandrayaan-3 mission to put a rover probe on the moon’s surface, Indian Space Research Organization chairman K. Sivan told a press conference.”We are targeting the launch for this year but it may spillover to next year,” Sivan said. Indian sources said authorities had set November as a provisional target for launch.India seeking to become only the fourth nation after Russia, the United States and China to put a mission on the moon’s surface and boost its credentials as a low-cost space power.The country’s Chandrayaan-2 module crash-landed on the moon’s surface in September.Sivan said the new propulsion module, lander and surface rover would cost about $35 million, with a significantly higher outlay for the launch itself.He added that India had chosen four candidate astronauts to take part in the country’s first manned mission into orbit, pledged to take place by mid-2022.The four are to start training in Russia later this month. Up to three astronauts are to take part in the mission, which will be one of the landmark projects scheduled for the 75th anniversary of India’s independence from British rule.
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A pro-independence group in Spain’s Catalonia region is using a smartphone app to outwit authorities, as it steps up demonstrations following the jailing of several of the movement’s leaders.
 
The group Democratic Tsunami released the app to coordinate demonstrations across the region.The latest target was the world-famous El Clasico soccer match between Barcelona and Real Madrid on Dec. 18. There were violent clashes outside the stadium, and protesters disrupted the game by throwing balls bearing pro-independence slogans onto the field.Democratic Tsunami has no apparent leader and those behind it are anonymous. In recent weeks, the group has mobilized thousands of demonstrators in minutes, catching authorities by surprise.WATCH: Henry Ridgwell’s video report
The Future of Protest? Catalans Outwit Spanish Authorities With Phone App video player.
Embed” />Copy Link“It is decentralized in the sense that you can’t identify who is sending the notifications for the protests,” said professor Enric Lujan, a political scientist at the University of Barcelona.“They developed it that way. The app has that architecture in order to avoid the authorities from knowing who is behind Tsunami Democratic, which is the main obsession, for example, of the Spanish Interior Ministry.”
 
Lujan said the Democratic Tsunami app takes special steps to remain anonymous.
 
“You cannot download it from the usual channels such as the Google Play Store or the iPhone App store. You have to look for a link and then download the app directly,” he said.
 
Even after the app has been downloaded, it still needs to be activated by another approved user, explained software engineer Silvia Puglisi of the Polytechnic University of Catalonia.
 
“You just go to a protest, and you exchange a QR code. The QR code is a cryptographic key, and once the keys are exchanged, you are part of the system.”
 
Democratic Tsunami has grown rapidly in the space of a few months, staging protests that have paralyzed Barcelona’s airport and the main highway to the French border. Spain’s National Court has ordered the Democratic Tsunami website to be shut down, citing possible terrorism offenses. Madrid jailed nine Catalan independence leaders in October on charges of sedition.
 
The political party Pirates of Catalonia has taken the fight to the European Union’s Court of Justice, claiming the terrorism investigation is an abuse of basic human rights.
 
Experts say that if the coding is made available, the app could be used by other protest movements, like pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong.
 
“The idea is to just exchange a key. You don’t exchange any other information, and it’s totally decentralized. There is no central service, and you just communicate with your friends on a peer-to-peer basis,” Puglisi said.
 
There are concerns that with no oversight from a regulated app store, the Democratic Tsunami app could break strict European rules on storing and sharing data, such as the tracking of its users’ movements.
 
Supporters say it’s a vital tool in the face of what they claim is an attempt to stifle basic freedoms.
 
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What would it be like to attend a concert with thousands of other people without leaving your home? Matt Dibble dons a VR headset to find out
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Ride-share company Uber and on-demand meal delivery service Postmates sued Monday to block a broad new California law aimed at giving wage and benefit protections to people who work as independent contractors.The lawsuit filed in U.S. court in Los Angeles argues that the law set to take effect Wednesday violates federal and state constitutional guarantees of equal protection and due process.Uber said it will try to link the lawsuit to another legal challenge filed in mid-December by associations representing freelance writers and photographers.The California Trucking Association filed the first challenge to the law in November on behalf of independent truckers.The law creates the nation’s strictest test by which workers must be considered employees and it could set a precedent for other states.The latest challenge includes two independent workers who wrote about their concerns with the new law.”This has thrown my life and the lives of more than a hundred(equals)thousand drivers into uncertainty,” ride-share driver Lydia Olson’s wrote in a Facebook post cited by Uber.Postmates driver Miguel Perez called on-demand work “a blessing” in a letter distributed by Uber. He said he used to drive a truck for 14 hours at a time, often overnight.”Sometimes, when I was behind the wheel, with an endless shift stretching out ahead of me like the open road, I daydreamed about a different kind of job — a job where I could choose when, where and how much I worked and still make enough money to feed my family,” he wrote.The lawsuit contends that the law exempts some industries but includes ride-share and delivery companies without a rational basis for distinguishing between them. It alleges that the law also infringes on workers’ rights to choose how they make a living and could void their existing contracts.Democratic Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez of San Diego countered that she wrote the law to extend employee rights to more than a million California workers who lack benefits, including a minimum wage, mileage reimbursements, paid sick leave, medical coverage and disability pay for on-the-job injuries.She noted that Uber had previously sought an exemption when lawmakers were crafting the law, then said it would defend its existing labor model from legal challenges. It joined Lyft and DoorDash in a vow to each spend $30 million to overturn the law at the ballot box in 2020 if they don’t win concessions from lawmakers next year.”The one clear thing we know about Uber is they will do anything to try to exempt themselves from state regulations that make us all safer and their driver employees self-sufficient,” Gonzalez said in a statement. “In the meantime, Uber chief executives will continue to become billionaires while too many of their drivers are forced to sleep in their cars.’’The new law was a response to a legal ruling last year by the California Supreme Court regarding workers at the delivery company Dynamex.
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China’s Huawei Technologies said Tuesday that its sales rose a lower-than-projected 18% in 2019 and predicted tough times ahead as the U.S. moves to restrict its business.The flash sales estimate came in an annual New Year’s message to employees. Chairman Eric Xu warned that mediocre managers would face demotion as the telecom giant and leader in 5G mobile technology focuses on survival.”It’s going to be a difficult year for us,” he wrote, calling on the company’s more than 190,000 employees “to work hard and go the extra mile to bring their capabilities to a new level.”No one is predicting Huawei’s demise. The unlisted company, a major maker of both mobile transmission equipment and handsets, estimated 2019 sales would rise to more than 850 billion yuan ($120 billion).”These figures are lower than our initial projections, yet business remains solid and we stand strong in the face of adversity,” Xu said in the letter, which was released to the AP and other media.Huawei, based in the tech hub of Shenzhen in southern China, typically releases its official and audited annual financial results in March.The U.S. government says Huawei technology poses a security risk and has urged other countries not to buy its 5G mobile network equipment. It has also put Huawei on its entity list, blocking U.S. technology sales to the company. Huawei denies the allegation.Calling difficulty the prelude to greater success, Xu said America’s “strategic and long-term” campaign against Huawei is an opportunity to build up some muscle and build capabilities to navigate future challenges.”Despite concerted efforts by the U.S. government to keep us down, we’ve made it out the other side and continue to create value for our customers,” he wrote.The five-page letter exhorts employees to hone their skills and rid themselves of complacency. Saying that survival is the company’s top priority, Xu warns that mediocre managers “who have lost their enterprising spirit” will be removed faster than before.
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Brazil’s Ministry of Justice said on Monday it has fined U.S. tech giant Facebook Inc 6.6 million reais ($1.6 million) for improperly sharing user data.The ministry’s department of consumer protection said it had found that data from 443,000 Facebook users was made improperly available to developers of an app called ‘thisisyourdigitallife.’ The data was being shared for “questionable” purposes, the ministry said in a statement.Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The ministry said the world’s largest social network failed to provide users with adequate information regarding default privacy settings, particularly related to data of “friends” and “friends of friends.”The ministry said it launched the investigation following media reports of the misuse of data by political consultancy firm Cambridge Analytica in 2018.Facebook has 10 days to appeal the decision. The fine should be paid within 30 days. 
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Spotify Technology SA said on Friday it would pause selling political advertisements on its music streaming platform in early 2020.The world’s most popular paid music streaming service, with nearly 141 million users tuning into its ad-supported platform in October, said the pause would extend to Spotify original and exclusive podcasts as well.The move, which was first reported by Ad Age, comes as campaigns for the U.S. presidential election in November 2020 heat up.Online platforms including Facebook Inc and Alphabet Inc’s Google are under growing pressure to police misinformation on their platforms and stop carrying political ads that contain false or misleading claims.Twitter Inc banned political ads in October and, last month, Google said it would stop giving advertisers the ability to target election ads using data such as public voter records and general political affiliations.”At this point in time, we do not yet have the necessary level of robustness in our processes, systems and tools to responsibly validate and review this content,” a Spotify spokeswoman said in a statement to Reuters.”We will reassess this decision as we continue to evolve our capabilities.”Advertisers ‘on the hunt’Spotify, which was only accepting political advertising in the United States, did not answer a Reuters question on how much revenue the company generates from political ads.”Spotify wasn’t a widely used online advertising platform for campaigns before,” said Eric Wilson, a Republican digital strategist. “But as other online platforms restricted their political ad inventory, advertisers were on the hunt for new options.”The new policy will cover political groups such as candidates for office, elected and appointed officials, political parties, political action committees (PACs) and SuperPACS, as well as content that advocates for or against those entities. Spotify will also not sell ads that advocate for legislative and judicial outcomes.The move only applies to Spotify’s ad sales, not advertisements embedded in third-party content, though those will still be subject to Spotify’s broader content policies.
 
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A recent trade fair in Tokyo showcased the robots of 2019.  Engineers created some that play games and others that could save lives.  As VOA’s Arash Arabasadi reports, these robots exist to make the world a little better.
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A Moroccan YouTuber was sentenced Thursday to four years in prison for “insulting the king” in a video broadcast on social networks, his lawyer said.In a separate case, a Moroccan journalist and activist was charged and detained over a tweet that had criticized a court decision, his defense council told AFP.The cases come after the Moroccan Human Rights Association had deplored in July an “escalation of violations of human rights and public and individual freedoms” in Morocco.The YouTuber Mohamed Sekkaki, known as “Moul Kaskita”, was sentenced by a court in the western city of Settat to four years in prison, his lawyer Mohamed Ziane told AFP.Sekkaki, whose videos usually exceed 100,000 views, was arrested in early December after posting a video in which he insulted Moroccans as “donkeys” and criticized King Mohammed VI, whose is considered “inviolable” under the constitution.Ziani said his client would appeal the verdict.The conviction of the YouTuber came less than a month after a Moroccan rapper was sentenced to a year in prison for “insulting a public official”.Also on Thursday, journalist Omar Radi, 33, was detained in Casablanca and now faces trial, his lawyer Said Benhammani told AFP.He is being prosecuted for a tweet published nine months ago criticizing the judge in charge of the case against the leaders of the Hirak protest movement, he said.Morocco’s criminal code punishes “insulting magistrates” with imprisonment of between one month and one year.The group Reporters Without Borders in its latest annual press freedom index ranked Morocco 135th out of 180 countries.
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The era of Silicon Valley operating largely free from government regulation may be coming to an end.In 2019, lawmakers grilled tech executives at multiple hearings in Washington and federal regulators slapped record fines on tech firms. They promise action in the coming year on a host of issues: competition, online privacy, encryption and bias.U.S. tech companies such as Apple, Facebook, Google and Amazon are girding themselves for more federal scrutiny.“As the internet companies matured without a lot of regulation, some issues have emerged where attention is needed,” said Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a Democrat representing Silicon Valley since 1994 and who has introduced a national online privacy bill.“I think it’s fair enough to examine what kind of rules should be set in certain elements of the tech economy,” she said.FILE – Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., is pictured during a committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, July 24, 2019. Lofgren was the chief sponsor of a bill approved Oct. 23 to better protect the country’s elections from foreign interference.For years, Washington was enamored with the technology industry and its iconic companies that fueled economic growth. They created new tools for campaigning and reaching voters, and enjoyed an aura of cool.Online privacy and user dataNow, there are threats of fines over things such as violating users’ privacy or stifling competition.In 2019, the Federal Trade Commission issued a record $5 billion fine against Facebook for “deceiving users about their ability to control the privacy of their personal information.” It also issued a $170 million fine against Google for violating children’s privacy on YouTube, which Google owns.New laws, such as the one Lofgren proposes, could give American users more control over their online data and limit companies’ ability to collect user data. Those moves could limit companies’ ability to sell advertising, which funds the free internet.FILE – Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg arrives to testify before a Senate Judiciary and Commerce Committees joint hearing regarding the company’s use and protection of user data, on Capitol Hill in Washington, April 10, 2018.Antitrust and competitionBoth Democrats and Republicans criticize “Big Tech,” as it is now called. And in the coming year, the pressure will likely increase.“Whenever the word ‘Big’ is placed before your industry, it’s not a good thing,” said Carl Guardino, president and chief executive of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, which represents many of the region’s tech firms. “It’s now ‘Big Tech,’ and you know it’s not used as a term of endearment.”Foreign users of American tech products could also see changes if Washington follows through on threats to break up large companies like Facebook. Presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren is reportedly drafting a bill to toughen the country’s rules about antitrust and competition.The Federal Trade Commission is reportedly looking into stopping Facebook’s further integration of Whatsapp and Instagram, in case it would one day see a need to break up the social network giant.Washington seems to have woken up to the dangers of technology companies that have become the gatekeepers of communications and commerce, said Sally Hubbard, the director of enforcement strategy at the Open Markets Institute, a research group that focuses on antitrust issues.“The traction has definitely really intensified over the last year,” she said. “There’s also just a growing awareness that these companies are causing a wide range of harms, whether it’s harms to our democracy, harms to innovation, harms to entrepreneurship. They are playing the game and controlling it, too.”A Huawei employee on Huawei’s campus in Shenzhen in southern China’s Guandong Province, Dec. 5, 2019. The Chinese tech giant is asking a U.S. federal court to throw out a rule that bars rural phone carriers from using government money to purchase its equipment.China and 5G infrastructureMeanwhile, there is growing concern over China’s expanding role in advanced global communications and whether the authoritarian country can be entrusted with user data. The U.S. government has warned other countries not to work with the Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei, which sells equipment that is building the new 5G networks around the world.Much is at stake. With more than a majority of the Earth’s 7 billion people online, Washington’s rules for the U.S. technology industry and its global competitors could determine the future of communication.
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It’s been a rocky year for the relationship between Washington and Silicon Valley, and next year could be worse. Lawmakers and regulators in the nation’s capital are scrutinizing technology firms over a host of issues — competition, online privacy, encryption, bias — and they are promising action. Michelle Quinn reports on how the frustrations could lead to new regulations that could have a global impact on how people communicate online.
 
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One California-based rocket company is 3D-printing engines that can be quickly made in high volumes. Rocket Lab says these high-performing rockets are reliable and are regularly used to launch satellites to low-Earth orbit each month. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee has the details from Huntington Beach, California 
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Boeing Co’s Starliner astronaut spacecraft landed in the New Mexico desert on Sunday, the company said, after faulty software forced officials to cut short an unmanned mission aimed at taking it to the International Space Station.The landing at 7:58 a.m. ET (1258 GMT) in the White Sands desert capped a turbulent 48 hours for Boeing’s botched milestone test of an astronaut capsule that is designed to help NASA regain its human spaceflight capabilities.
“We hit the bull’s-eye,” a Boeing spokesman said on a livestream of the landing.
The landing will yield the mission’s most valuable test data after failing to meet its core objective of docking to the space station.
After Starliner’s touchdown, teams of engineers in trucks raced to inspect the vehicle, whose six airbags cushioned its impact on the desert surface as planned, a live video feed showed.
The spacecraft was in an apparently stable condition after landing, according to images posted by officials from the U.S. space agency NASA.
The CST-100 Starliner’s debut launch to orbit was a milestone test for Boeing. The company is vying with SpaceX, the privately held rocket company of billionaire high-tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, to revive NASA’s human spaceflight capabilities.  SpaceX carried out a successful unmanned flight of its Crew Dragon capsule to the space station in March.
The Starliner capsule was successfully launched from Florida on Friday, but an automated timer error prevented it from attaining the right orbit to meet and dock with the space station. That failure came as Boeing sought an engineering and public relations victory in a year that has seen corporate crisis over
the grounding of its 737 MAX jetliner following two fatal crashes of the aircraft. The company’s shares dropped 1.6% on Friday.Parachute challenge
Ahead of Sunday’s landing, Starliner’s three main parachutes deployed just over one mile (1,600 metres) from the Earth’s surface after enduring intense heat from the violent reentry through the atmosphere, plummeting at 25 times the speed of sound.
The parachute deployment, one of the most challenging procedures under the program to develop a commercial manned space capsule, earned Boeing a fresh win after a previous mishap where one parachute failed to deploy during a November test of Starliner’s abort thrusters.
That test tossed the capsule miles into the sky to demonstrate its ability to land a crew safely back on the ground in the event of a launch failure.
For the current mission, Boeing and NASA officials said they still do not understand why software caused the craft to miss the orbit required.
Sunday’s landing marked the first time a U.S. orbital space capsule designed for humans landed on land.
All past U.S. capsules, including SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, splashed down in the ocean. Russia’s Soyuz capsules and China’s past crew capsules made land landings.
  
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Facebook Inc has taken down a well-financed campaign that used dozens of artificially generated faces to spread pro-Trump and anti-Chinese government messages, the company and outside researchers said on Friday.Researchers from New York-based Graphika and the Digitial Forensics Research Lab, an arm of the Washington-based Atlantic Council, said it was the first time they had seen the large-scale use of computer-generated faces to spread disinformation on social media.Tell-tale signsThe researchers said in a report that while tell-tale signs such as misshapen ears and distorted backgrounds had helped them identify the fakes, “this technology is rapidly evolving toward generating more believable pictures.”Facebook said 610 Facebook accounts, 89 Pages, 156 Groups and 72 Instagram accounts were involved in the network.The social media giant said those behind the operation had spent upward of $9 million on advertising to promote their content, which touched on hot-button issues such as “impeachment, conservative ideology, political candidates, elections, trade, family values and freedom of religion.”Activity traced to Vietnam The amount is almost 100 times what Facebook said Russia’s infamous troll farm spent in the run-up to and shortly after the 2016 U.S. presidential election.Facebook said its investigation linked the activity to U.S.-based Epoch Media Group and individuals in Vietnam working on its behalf, though the accounts more openly associated with The BL, for the Beauty of Life.In a statement, Epoch said it had “no connection with the website BL.””The BL was founded by a former employee, and employs some of our former employees,” publisher Stephen Gregory said in a post to the Epoch Times website. He called on Facebook to withdraw its allegation and lift a pre-existing ban on Epoch Media’s advertising.Facebook respondsFacebook fired back, saying that BL executives “were active admins on Epoch Media Group Pages as recently as this morning when their accounts were deactivated and the BL was removed.”The BL, whose website lists its headquarters as a single-family home in Middletown, New York, did not immediately return emails seeking comment. Its listed phone number rang unanswered.The Epoch Times was set up as a print publication by followers of the Falun Gong spiritual movement, banned in China, before moving heavily online. Its output has tended to steer toward support for Trump and attacks on his opponents.The content removed by Facebook had the same tilt. Groups identified by the outside researchers bore names such as “America Needs President Trump,” “TRUMP MAGA 2020,” or “WE STAND WITH TRUMP & PENCE!””Alongside pro-Trump material, these assets posted large quantities of material attacking his critics and rivals, often presenting users with a partisan statement and urging them to respond if they agreed,” the researchers wrote in their report.’Moral standards and values’The BL’s now-removed Facebook page said it would “focus on content that represents fundamental moral standards and values, to enlighten all who prefer to be inspired,” according to the researchers.While the page said it rejected misinformation, Facebook said, “The BL-focused network repeatedly violated a number of our policies, including our policies against coordinated inauthentic behavior, spam and misrepresentation.”The takedown followed investigative stories by NBC on the Epoch Times’ heavy use  of Facebook and by the fact-checking website Snopes.com  on The BL.
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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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