Moscow-based Kaspersky Lab plans to open a data center in Switzerland to address Western government concerns that Russia exploits its anti-virus software to spy on customers, according to internal documents seen by Reuters.

Kaspersky is setting up the center in response to actions in the United States, Britain and Lithuania last year to stop using the company’s products, according to the documents, which were confirmed by a person with direct knowledge of the matter.

The action is the latest effort by Kaspersky, a global leader in anti-virus software, to parry accusations by the U.S. government and others that the company spies on customers at the behest of Russian intelligence. The U.S. last year ordered civilian government agencies to remove the Kaspersky software from their networks.

Kaspersky has strongly rejected the accusations and filed a lawsuit against the U.S. ban.

The U.S. allegations were the “trigger” for setting up the Swiss data center, said the person familiar with Kapersky’s Switzerland plans, but not the only factor.

“The world is changing,” they said, speaking on condition of anonymity when discussing internal company business. “There is more balkanisation and protectionism.”

The person declined to provide further details on the new project, but added: “This is not just a PR stunt. We are really changing our R&D infrastructure.”

A Kaspersky spokeswoman declined to comment on the documents reviewed by Reuters.

In a statement, Kaspersky Lab said: “To further deliver on the promises of our Global Transparency Initiative, we are finalizing plans for the opening of the company’s first transparency center this year, which will be located in Europe.”

“We understand that during a time of geopolitical tension, mirrored by an increasingly complex cyber-threat landscape, people may have questions and we want to address them.”

Kaspersky Lab launched a campaign in October to dispel concerns about possible collusion with the Russian government by promising to let independent experts scrutinize its software for security vulnerabilities and “back doors” that governments could exploit to spy on its customers.

The company also said at the time that it would open “transparency centers” in Asia, Europe and the United States but did not provide details. The new Swiss facility is dubbed the Swiss Transparency Centre, according to the documents.

Data review

Work in Switzerland is due to begin “within weeks” and be completed by early 2020, said the person with knowledge of the matter.

The plans have been approved by Kaspersky Lab CEO and founder Eugene Kaspersky, who owns a majority of the privately held company, and will be announced publicly in the coming months, according to the source.

“Eugene is upset. He would rather spend the money elsewhere. But he knows this is necessary,” the person said.

It is possible the move could be derailed by the Russian security services, who might resist moving the data center outside of their jurisdiction, people familiar with Kaspersky and its relations with the government said.

Western security officials said Russia’s FSB Federal Security Service, successor to the Soviet-era KGB, exerts influence over Kaspersky management decisions, though the company has repeatedly denied those allegations.

The Swiss center will collect and analyze files identified as suspicious on the computers of tens of millions of Kaspersky customers in the United States and European Union, according to the documents reviewed by Reuters. Data from other customers will continue to be sent to a Moscow data center for review and analysis.

Files would only be transmitted from Switzerland to Moscow in cases when anomalies are detected that require manual review, the person said, adding that about 99.6 percent of such samples do not currently undergo this process.

A third party will review the center’s operations to make sure that all requests for such files are properly signed, stored and available for review by outsiders including foreign governments, the person said.

Moving operations to Switzerland will address concerns about laws that enable Russian security services to monitor data transmissions inside Russia and force companies to assist law enforcement agencies, according to the documents describing the plan.

The company will also move the department which builds its anti-virus software using code written in Moscow to Switzerland, the documents showed.

Kaspersky has received “solid support” from the Swiss government, said the source, who did not identify specific officials who have endorsed the plan.
…

You may have seen this on TV: Someone whose heart has gone into a wildly abnormal rhythm, or whose heart has stopped, is shocked when a medic uses defibrillator paddles to restart the heart.

The electric shock is so powerful that the body convulses and the patient screams. You can see it on YouTube if you search for “defibrillator shock.” The video makes clear what patients go through, including those who have defibrillators implanted in their hearts.

Aydin Babakhani, an engineering professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, likens implantable defibrillators to dial up telephones, which have long since been replaced by smartphones. 

“Pacemakers use a very old technology. They still use wires. They still use batteries. And they are bulky and large,” he said.

New ways for the heart

Babakhani places tiny sensors on very small chips for industrial and medical use. Before his move to UCLA, he worked at Rice University, where he began collaborating with Dr. Mehdi Razavi, a cardiologist at the Texas Heart Institute.

The men were investigating new ways to pace and defibrillate the heart. The collaboration was easy because Rice is across the street from the heart institute.

As a cardiac electrophysiologist, Razavi wants to be able to shock the heart back into a normal rhythm without shocking the patient. Razavi says the idea of placing a number of small chips in the heart could achieve that goal.

“The limitation up to now with using pacing is that we simply do not have enough pacing sites to distribute this energy across the heart muscle,” he said.

Babakhani developed small chips to pace the heart and help it stay in a normal rhythm. They are smaller than a dime, less than 18 millimeters long. This pacing system has no battery and no leads, the wires that connect the battery to the heart in traditional pacemakers.

Traumatic, painful event

Even when there’s no pain, defibrillation has a huge impact.

When John O’Leary’s implanted defibrillator sent shocks to his heart to get it back into a normal rhythm, it stopped him cold. 

“I thought I walked into a lamp post,” he said. “There was no pain whatsoever. I really felt that I walked into something hard.”

Razavi says another problem with the pacemaker/defibrillators now in use is that once patients are defibrillated, many of them feel traumatized. It can take more than one shock to get the heart back into a normal rhythm.

Anne Bunting said she screamed in pain through repeated defibrillations.

“It saved my life that day, but it was also a fearsome thing to go through because it was so painful,” she said.

Preclinical trials promising

In preclinical trials, the chips worked well. “We did a test with six simultaneous chips all over the heart and they were all pacing together,” Babakhani said.

Babakhani and Razavi are now working on a delivery system that will not require surgery. The goal is to thread the chips into the heart on a catheter, much like doctors implant stents by placing them on a catheter and threading it through a vein in the groin.

The chips would be powered by microwaves. A slim generator would be placed under the skin, and the chips could be placed in multiple locations in the heart. This would eliminate the need to replace the pacemaker’s battery, and it eliminates the weakest part of a traditional pacemaker, which is the lead.

Razavi likens the generator that will power the chips to a symphony and its conductor.

“You have 30 chips in the heart, so you have 30 members of the symphony. This power generator, under the skin is the conductor, and it orchestrates simultaneously, in unison, it commands all those chips, and those chips follow its command,” he said.

What’s more, the shock would be distributed throughout the heart. 

“By doing that you do not feel a shock. You do not feel anything,” Razavi said.

The men estimate that it will take them five more years to bring the technology for pacemakers to a level on par with that of smartphones.
…

You may have seen this on TV: Someone whose heart has gone into a wildly abnormal rhythm, or whose heart has stopped, is shocked when a medic uses defibrillator paddles to restart the heart.

The electric shock is so powerful that the body convulses and the patient screams. You can see it on YouTube if you search for “defibrillator shock.” The video makes clear what patients go through, including those who have defibrillators implanted in their hearts.

Aydin Babakhani, an engineering professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, likens implantable defibrillators to dial up telephones, which have long since been replaced by smartphones. 

“Pacemakers use a very old technology. They still use wires. They still use batteries. And they are bulky and large,” he said.

New ways for the heart

Babakhani places tiny sensors on very small chips for industrial and medical use. Before his move to UCLA, he worked at Rice University, where he began collaborating with Dr. Mehdi Razavi, a cardiologist at the Texas Heart Institute.

The men were investigating new ways to pace and defibrillate the heart. The collaboration was easy because Rice is across the street from the heart institute.

As a cardiac electrophysiologist, Razavi wants to be able to shock the heart back into a normal rhythm without shocking the patient. Razavi says the idea of placing a number of small chips in the heart could achieve that goal.

“The limitation up to now with using pacing is that we simply do not have enough pacing sites to distribute this energy across the heart muscle,” he said.

Babakhani developed small chips to pace the heart and help it stay in a normal rhythm. They are smaller than a dime, less than 18 millimeters long. This pacing system has no battery and no leads, the wires that connect the battery to the heart in traditional pacemakers.

Traumatic, painful event

Even when there’s no pain, defibrillation has a huge impact.

When John O’Leary’s implanted defibrillator sent shocks to his heart to get it back into a normal rhythm, it stopped him cold. 

“I thought I walked into a lamp post,” he said. “There was no pain whatsoever. I really felt that I walked into something hard.”

Razavi says another problem with the pacemaker/defibrillators now in use is that once patients are defibrillated, many of them feel traumatized. It can take more than one shock to get the heart back into a normal rhythm.

Anne Bunting said she screamed in pain through repeated defibrillations.

“It saved my life that day, but it was also a fearsome thing to go through because it was so painful,” she said.

Preclinical trials promising

In preclinical trials, the chips worked well. “We did a test with six simultaneous chips all over the heart and they were all pacing together,” Babakhani said.

Babakhani and Razavi are now working on a delivery system that will not require surgery. The goal is to thread the chips into the heart on a catheter, much like doctors implant stents by placing them on a catheter and threading it through a vein in the groin.

The chips would be powered by microwaves. A slim generator would be placed under the skin, and the chips could be placed in multiple locations in the heart. This would eliminate the need to replace the pacemaker’s battery, and it eliminates the weakest part of a traditional pacemaker, which is the lead.

Razavi likens the generator that will power the chips to a symphony and its conductor.

“You have 30 chips in the heart, so you have 30 members of the symphony. This power generator, under the skin is the conductor, and it orchestrates simultaneously, in unison, it commands all those chips, and those chips follow its command,” he said.

What’s more, the shock would be distributed throughout the heart. 

“By doing that you do not feel a shock. You do not feel anything,” Razavi said.

The men estimate that it will take them five more years to bring the technology for pacemakers to a level on par with that of smartphones.
…

When you are watching a television show and see someone get their heart shocked back into a rhythm, you will see their entire body rise up in the air. That’s what happens when a defibrillator is used, because the shock is that powerful. As VOA’s Carol Pearson reports, scientists are now working on better, more effective, and less-shocking ways to get a heart to start beating once again.
…

Social media giant Facebook faced new investigations Tuesday in both Britain and the United States about the vast troves of information compiled by the company about their users and how that data has been deployed to influence elections by Cambridge Analytica, a British voter profiling business.

British information commissioner Elizabeth Denham said she is seeking a warrant to search Cambridge Analytica’s London headquarters to see whether Facebook did enough to protect users’ personal information about themselves and their friends.  Weekend reports said Cambridge Analytica had improperly used information about more than 50 million Facebook users, including $6 million in work to influence Americans to vote for real estate mogul Donald Trump in his successful 2016 run for the U.S. presidency.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg News reported the U.S. Federal Trade Commission is investigating whether Facebook violated terms of a consent decree it had agreed to with the agency and allowed Cambridge Analytica to use the personal data based on information Facebook users post online about themselves.  Facebook has suspended Cambridge Analytica from its vast social network.

Several U.S. lawmakers have called on Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg to testify in Congress about his firm’s use of its users’ information.

“We want to know how this happened,” Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar said.  “What’s the extent of the damage?  Fifty million of these Facebook profiles were basically stolen, hijacked, including information of people’s residence.  And then how did it happen?  Why did it happen?  And how are they going to fix this?”

White House spokesman Raj Shah told Fox News that Trump “believes that Americans’ privacy should be protected.  You know, if Congress wants to look into the matter or other agencies want to look into the matter, we welcome that.”

Denham told BBC Radio, “We are looking at whether or not Facebook secured and safeguarded personal information on the platform and whether when they found out about the loss of the data they acted robustly and whether or not people were informed.”

Investors have reacted negatively to Facebook’s role in the data breach, with its stock price dropping by nearly 10 percent in the last few days, and the company losing billions of dollars in valuation.

British television station Channel 4 News broadcast surreptitious footage Monday showing an undercover interview one of its reporters conducted with Cambridge Analytica chief executive Alexander Nix in which he claimed to have used “a web of shadowy front companies” to influence elections.

According to the broadcast, with the reporter posing as someone who wanted to influence an election in Sri Lanka, Nix suggested using an attractive woman to seduce a candidate the client was looking to defeat, or sending someone posing as a wealthy developer to pass on a bribe to a politician.

After the telecast, the company said Nix’s answers came in a discussion with “ludicrous hypothetical scenarios.”

In a statement, Nix said, “I am aware how this looks, but it is simply not the case.  I must emphatically state that Cambridge Analytica does not condone or engage in entrapment, bribes or so-called ‘honeytraps,’ and nor does it use untrue material for any purpose.”

The company has disputed reports about its use of vast data troves from Facebook.

Facebook says its data was initially collected by a British academic, Aleksandr Kogan, who created an app on Facebook that was downloaded by 270,000 people, which provided not only their personal data, but also that of their friends they had exchanged information with.  Facebook claims Kogan then violated the company’s terms by passing the information on to Cambridge Analytica.

Britain’s Cambridge University, where Kogan teaches, on Tuesday asked Facebook for all information it has about Kogan’s relationship with Cambridge Analytica.

Kogan has told colleagues at the university he would answer questions from U.S. and British lawmakers, along with the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, about his data collection from Facebook users, but so far no one has asked to interview him.
…

The Facebook backlash is intensifying.

Congressional leaders, regulators in the United States and Europe and state officials are putting pressure on Facebook to answer questions about fresh allegations over how the social networking giant was manipulated in the run-up to the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

The Senate Commerce Committee has sent questions to the company about how a data consulting firm, Cambridge Analytica, allegedly used 50 million Facebook users’ data to aid political campaigns.  British and U.S. lawmakers called for Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to testify.  The company is reportedly holding an employee meeting Tuesday to answer questions.

Among the tough questions the company faces is why it did not inform the affected users about the issue.  On Monday, the firm’s stock dropped nearly seven percent, losing $36 billion in value, Facebook’s biggest one day decline in nearly four years.  In early trading Tuesday, Facebook shares were down about three percent.

The probe over Cambridge Analytica is just the latest flashpoint around Facebook’s role in the 2016 election and comes as the company faces questions about how it should be regulated and monitored going forward.

With its more than two billion monthly users and billions of dollars in profit, Facebook has become a powerful conduit of news, opinion and propaganda, much of it targeted at individuals based on their own data.  The social media site and investigators have found that Russia-backed operatives had used Facebook to spread disinformation and propaganda.

In recent months, the company, along with YouTube and Twitter, has changed some of its practices to reduce the power of automated accounts and propaganda.  Facebook has said it would hire 10,000 security employees.

A professor and the data-mining company

Facebook’s most recent troubles began in 2013 when an app called “Thisisyourdigitallife” developed by Aleksandr Kogan, a Cambridge University professor, offered users a personality survey.  The users were invited to download the app, which then gathered user information about their profiles and that of some of their friends.

The professor shared data with Cambridge Analytica, the data-mining firm that worked with U.S. President Donald Trump’s campaign, according to The New York Times and The Observer.

While the gathering of the data was legitimate at the time, Facebook says the professor did not abide by the company’s rules when he passed the data to a third party – Cambridge Analytica – thus violating Facebook’s terms and conditions.  Facebook discovered the violation in 2015 and required Cambridge Analytica to delete the data, but didn’t tell affected users.

Cambridge Analytica has denied that it kept the data.  One Facebook executive in charge of security is reportedly leaving the firm as a result the matter.

Facebook suspends accounts

Last week, as the story broke, Facebook suspended the accounts of Cambridge Analytica and other parties, including the professor. 

Facebook says its policies around outside parties and data collection have since changed.  Now all apps requesting detailed user information go through the company’s App Review process.  The company has hired a digital forensics firm to conduct an audit of Cambridge Analytica to see if the data was deleted.

“If this data still exists, it would be a grave violation of Facebook’s policies and an unacceptable violation of trust and the commitments these groups made,” Facebook said

What to do about Facebook

In recent months, privacy advocates, regulators and lawmakers have discussed new ways of regulating Facebook.  At the moment, lawmakers are calling for answers.

“They’ve got responsibility to make sure that that information is used in an appropriate way, so we want to find out how it was gotten, how it was used, and we want Facebook obviously to be transparent about that,” said U.S. Senator John Thune, a Republican representing South Dakota.  

“I have serious concerns about the role @Facebook played in facilitating and permitting the covert collection and misuse of consumer information by Cambridge Analytica,” tweeted U.S. Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat.

 
…

A fatal pedestrian crash involving a self-driving Uber SUV in a Phoenix suburb could have far-reaching consequences for the new technology as automakers and other companies race to be the first with cars that operate on their own.

The crash Sunday night in Tempe was the first death involving a full autonomous test vehicle. The Volvo was in self-driving mode with a human backup driver at the wheel when it struck 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg as she was walking a bicycle outside the lines of a crosswalk in Tempe, police said.

Uber immediately suspended all road-testing of such autos in the Phoenix area, Pittsburgh, San Francisco and Toronto. The ride-sharing company has been testing self-driving vehicles for months as it competes with other technology companies and automakers like Ford and General Motors.

Though many in the industries had been dreading a fatal crash they knew it was inevitable.

Tempe police Sgt. Ronald Elcock said local authorities haven’t determined fault but urged people to use crosswalks. He told reporters at a news conference Monday the Uber vehicle was traveling around 40 mph when it hit Helzberg immediately as she stepped on to the street.

Neither she nor the backup driver showed signs of impairment, he said.

“The pedestrian was outside of the crosswalk, so it was midblock,” Elcock said. “And as soon as she walked into the lane of traffic, she was struck by the vehicle.”

The National Transportation Safety Board, which makes recommendations for preventing crashes, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which can enact regulations, sent investigators.

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi expressed condolences on his Twitter account and said the company is cooperating with investigators.

The public’s image of the vehicles will be defined by stories like the crash in Tempe, said Bryant Walker Smith, a University of South Carolina law professor who studies self-driving vehicles. It may turn out that there was nothing either the vehicle or its human backup could have done to avoid the crash, he said.

Either way, the fatality could hurt the technology’s image and lead to a push for more regulations at the state and federal levels, Smith said.

Autonomous vehicles with laser, radar and camera sensors and sophisticated computers have been billed as the way to reduce the more than 40,000 traffic deaths a year in the U.S. alone. Ninety-four percent of crashes are caused by human error, the government says.

Self-driving vehicles don’t drive drunk, don’t get sleepy and aren’t easily distracted. But they do have faults.

“We should be concerned about automated driving,” Smith said. “We should be terrified about human driving.”

In 2016, the latest year available, more than 6,000 U.S. pedestrians were killed by vehicles.

The federal government has voluntary guidelines for companies that want to test autonomous vehicles, leaving much of the regulation up to states.

Many states, including Michigan and Arizona, have taken a largely hands-off approach, hoping to gain jobs from the new technology, while California and others have taken a harder line.

California is among states that require manufacturers to report any incidents during the testing phase. As of early March, the state’s motor vehicle agency had received 59 such reports.

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey used light regulations to entice Uber to the state after the company had a shaky rollout of test cars in San Francisco. Arizona has no reporting requirements. Hundreds of vehicles with automated driving systems have been on Arizona’s roads.

Ducey’s office expressed sympathy for Herzberg’s family and said safety is the top priority.

The crash in Arizona isn’t the first involving an Uber autonomous test vehicle. In March 2017, an Uber SUV flipped onto its side, also in Tempe. No serious injuries were reported, and the driver of the other car was cited for a violation.

Herzberg’s death is the first involving an autonomous test vehicle but not the first in a car with some self-driving features. The driver of a Tesla Model S was killed in 2016 when his car, operating on its Autopilot system, crashed into a tractor-trailer in Florida.

The NTSB said that driver inattention was to blame but that design limitations with the system played a major role in the crash.

The U.S. Transportation Department is considering further voluntary guidelines that it says would help foster innovation. Proposals also are pending in Congress, including one that would stop states from regulating autonomous vehicles, Smith said.

Peter Kurdock, director of regulatory affairs for Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety in Washington, said the group sent a letter Monday to Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao saying it is concerned about a lack of action and oversight by the department as autonomous vehicles are developed. That letter was planned before the crash.

Kurdock said the deadly accident should serve as a “startling reminder” to members of Congress that they need to “think through all the issues to put together the best bill they can to hopefully prevent more of these tragedies from occurring.”
…

A self-driving car has hit and killed a woman in the southwestern United States in what is believed to be the first fatal pedestrian crash involving the new technology.

Police said Monday a self-driving sport utility vehicle owned by the ride sharing company Uber struck 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg, who was walking outside of a crosswalk in the Phoenix suburb of Tempe. She later died in a hospital from her injuries.

Uber said it had suspended its autonomous vehicle program across the United States and Canada following the accident.

Police say the vehicle was in autonomous mode, but had an operator behind the wheel, when the accident took place.

Testing of self-driving cars by various companies has been going on for months in the Phoenix area, as well as Pittsburgh, San Francisco and Toronto as automakers and technology companies compete to be the first to introduce the new technology.

The vehicle involved in the crash was a Volvo XC90, which Uber had been using to test its autonomous technology. However, Volvo said it did not make the self-driving technology.

The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and National Transportation Safety Board said they are sending a team to gather information about the crash.

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi expressed condolences on Twitter and said the company is working with local law enforcement on the investigation.

The fatal crash will most likely raise questions about regulations for self-driving cars. Arizona has offered little regulations for the new technology, which has led to many technology companies flocking to the state to test their autonomous vehicles.

Proponents of the new technology argue that self-driving cars will prove to be safer than human drivers, because the cars will not get distracted and will obey all traffic laws.

Critics have expressed concern about the technology’s safety, including the ability of the autonomous technology to deal with unpredictable events.

Consumer Watch, the nonprofit consumer advocacy group, called Monday for a nationwide moratorium on testing self-driving cars on public roads while investigators figure out what went wrong in the latest accident.

“Arizona has been the Wild West of robot car testing, with virtually no regulations in place,” the group said in a statement.

Democratic Sen. Edward Markey of Massachusetts, who is a member of the Senate transportation committee, said there must be more oversight of the technology. He said he is working on a “comprehensive” autonomous vehicle legislative package.

“This tragic accident underscores why we need to be exceptionally cautious when testing and deploying autonomous vehicle technologies on public roads,” he said.

Concerns over the safety of autonomous vehicles increased in July 2016 after a fatality involving a partially autonomous Tesla automobile. In that accident, the driver put the car in “autopilot” mode, and the car failed to detect a tractor-trailer that was crossing the road. The driver of the Tesla died in the crash. Safety regulators later determined Tesla was not at fault.

However, critics have expressed concerns about the safety of the technology, including the ability of the autonomous technology to deal with unpredictable events.
…

German band Joasihno strikes a chord in a unique way as it takes its show on the road.

Currently touring in Canada, the two-man band works in concert with a “robotic” element that can play several instruments at the same time.

“Actually we call it psychedelic robot orchestra,” said Cico Beck, one of the creators of the band. “It’s a combination of acoustic instruments but also very trashy robot instruments,” he added.

Once hooked up to wires and set up, instruments that include a xylophone, drum and cymbal play on their own. Another contraption, a horizontal, self-revolving wooden stick, stands atop a microphone stand. The stick contains long strings tied on each end with a wooden ping pong-sized-ball attached. As the stick rotates, the balls hit a block on the floor, creating a hollow knocking sound. 

Beck said a computer is at the heart of the self-playing instruments.

“Most of this stuff is controlled by the computer. The computer can translate voltage signals, so the robots are controlled by the voltage, that is controlled by the computer,” Beck said. 

Playing in an experimental band with a robot orchestra is not the same as playing in a traditional one, said Nico Siereg, the other Joasihno member.

WATCH: Robotic orchestra

​”It’s a little bit different because you also have in mind that there are machines playing with you, so there’s no reaction from them.” 

Siereg said in some ways, once the robots are programmed, he is free to focus on what he is playing and even improvise. The musician said he can envision future scenarios in which technology plays a greater role in creating different types of music; but, he voiced hope that “real music won’t die.”

Even if the robots are not taking over the music world, Beck said it is undeniable that in the 21st century, music and technology are intertwined.

“Technology is like a very important tool that even, very often, it’s also a very important part of inspiration,” he added.

Joasihno performed several shows at the now-concluded music festival and tech conference known as South by Southwest, held in Austin, Texas. The experimental band is hoping its high-tech use of instrumentals will be music to one’s ears.
…

German band Joasihno strikes a chord in a unique way as it takes its show on the road.

Currently touring in Canada, the two-man band works in concert with a “robotic” element that can play several instruments at the same time.

“Actually we call it psychedelic robot orchestra,” said Cico Beck, one of the creators of the band. “It’s a combination of acoustic instruments but also very trashy robot instruments,” he added.

Once hooked up to wires and set up, instruments that include a xylophone, drum and cymbal play on their own. Another contraption, a horizontal, self-revolving wooden stick, stands atop a microphone stand. The stick contains long strings tied on each end with a wooden ping pong-sized-ball attached. As the stick rotates, the balls hit a block on the floor, creating a hollow knocking sound. 

Beck said a computer is at the heart of the self-playing instruments.

“Most of this stuff is controlled by the computer. The computer can translate voltage signals, so the robots are controlled by the voltage, that is controlled by the computer,” Beck said. 

Playing in an experimental band with a robot orchestra is not the same as playing in a traditional one, said Nico Siereg, the other Joasihno member.

WATCH: Robotic orchestra

​”It’s a little bit different because you also have in mind that there are machines playing with you, so there’s no reaction from them.” 

Siereg said in some ways, once the robots are programmed, he is free to focus on what he is playing and even improvise. The musician said he can envision future scenarios in which technology plays a greater role in creating different types of music; but, he voiced hope that “real music won’t die.”

Even if the robots are not taking over the music world, Beck said it is undeniable that in the 21st century, music and technology are intertwined.

“Technology is like a very important tool that even, very often, it’s also a very important part of inspiration,” he added.

Joasihno performed several shows at the now-concluded music festival and tech conference known as South by Southwest, held in Austin, Texas. The experimental band is hoping its high-tech use of instrumentals will be music to one’s ears.
…

German band Joasihno strikes a chord in a unique way as it takes its show on the road.

Currently touring in Canada, the two-man band works in concert with a “robotic” element that can play several instruments at the same time.

“Actually we call it psychedelic robot orchestra,” said Cico Beck, one of the creators of the band. “It’s a combination of acoustic instruments but also very trashy robot instruments,” he added.

Once hooked up to wires and set up, instruments that include a xylophone, drum and cymbal play on their own. Another contraption, a horizontal, self-revolving wooden stick, stands atop a microphone stand. The stick contains long strings tied on each end with a wooden ping pong-sized-ball attached. As the stick rotates, the balls hit a block on the floor, creating a hollow knocking sound. 

Beck said a computer is at the heart of the self-playing instruments.

“Most of this stuff is controlled by the computer. The computer can translate voltage signals, so the robots are controlled by the voltage, that is controlled by the computer,” Beck said. 

Playing in an experimental band with a robot orchestra is not the same as playing in a traditional one, said Nico Siereg, the other Joasihno member.

WATCH: Robotic orchestra

​”It’s a little bit different because you also have in mind that there are machines playing with you, so there’s no reaction from them.” 

Siereg said in some ways, once the robots are programmed, he is free to focus on what he is playing and even improvise. The musician said he can envision future scenarios in which technology plays a greater role in creating different types of music; but, he voiced hope that “real music won’t die.”

Even if the robots are not taking over the music world, Beck said it is undeniable that in the 21st century, music and technology are intertwined.

“Technology is like a very important tool that even, very often, it’s also a very important part of inspiration,” he added.

Joasihno performed several shows at the now-concluded music festival and tech conference known as South by Southwest, held in Austin, Texas. The experimental band is hoping its high-tech use of instrumentals will be music to one’s ears.
…

The annual music festival and tech conference, South by Southwest (SXSW) in Austin, Texas just ended. The event brings together tech startups and musicians from around the globe to network and showcase their work. The types of music played at the festival are as diverse as the musicians there. One band from Germany called Joasihno performed at the festival. The group  includes two guys and robots as band members. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee has the details.
…

The annual music festival and tech conference, South by Southwest (SXSW) in Austin, Texas just ended. The event brings together tech startups and musicians from around the globe to network and showcase their work. The types of music played at the festival are as diverse as the musicians there. One band from Germany called Joasihno performed at the festival. The group  includes two guys and robots as band members. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee has the details.
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Lawmakers on both sides of the Atlantic criticized Facebook and its chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, after reports surfaced that another company, Cambridge Analytica, improperly harvested information from 50 million Facebook users.

A British lawmaker accused Facebook on Sunday of misleading officials by downplaying the risk of users’ data being shared without their consent.

Conservative legislator Damian Collins, who heads the British Parliament’s media committee, said he would ask Zuckerberg or another Facebook executive to appear before his panel, which is investigating disinformation and “fake news.”

Collins said Facebook has “consistently understated” the risk of data leaks and gave misleading answers to the committee.

“Someone has to take responsibility for this,” he said. “It’s time for Mark Zuckerberg to stop hiding behind his Facebook page.”

Collins also accused the head of the U.K.-based data firm Cambridge Analytica, Alexander Nix, of lying. Nix told the committee last month that his firm had not received data from a researcher accused of obtaining millions of Facebook users’ personal information.

In Washington, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat from Minnesota, said on Twitter that Zuckerberg “needs to testify before Senate Judiciary.”

“This is a major breach that must be investigated,” Klobuchar, a member of the Judiciary Committee, said. “It’s clear these platforms can’t police themselves.”

Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, echoed Klobuchar’s complaint.

“This is more evidence that the online political advertising market is essentially the Wild West,” he said. “It’s clear that, left unregulated, this market will continue to be prone to deception and lacking in transparency.”

Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey said on Twitter that “Massachusetts residents deserve answers” and announced that her office will investigate.

The officials reacted to reports in The New York Times and The Guardian of London that Cambridge Analytica, which is best known for working on President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, had improperly obtained Facebook user data and retained it after claiming it had deleted the information.

Former Cambridge Analytica employee Chris Wylie said that the company obtained information from 50 million Facebook users, using it to build psychological profiles so voters could be targeted with ads and stories.

Wylie told Britain’s Channel 4 news that the company was able to amass a huge database very quickly from an app developed by an academic that vacuumed up data from Facebook users who agreed to fill out a survey, as well as their friends and contacts – a process of which most were unaware.

“Imagine I go and ask you: I say, ‘Hey, if I give you a dollar, two dollars, could you fill up this survey for me, just do it on this app’, and you say, ‘Fine,'” he said. “I don’t just capture what your responses are, I capture all of the information about you from Facebook. But also this app then crawls through your social network and captures all of that data also.”

Wylie said that allowed the company to get roughly “50 million plus” Facebook records in several months and he criticized Facebook for facilitating the process.

“Why Facebook didn’t make more inquiries when they started seeing that, you know, tens of millions of records were being pulled this way, I don’t know,” he said.

Lawmaker Collins said he would summon Nix to reappear before the Parliament committee.

“It seems clear that he has deliberately misled the committee and Parliament by giving false statements,” Collins said.
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Lawmakers on both sides of the Atlantic criticized Facebook and its chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, after reports surfaced that another company, Cambridge Analytica, improperly harvested information from 50 million Facebook users.

A British lawmaker accused Facebook on Sunday of misleading officials by downplaying the risk of users’ data being shared without their consent.

Conservative legislator Damian Collins, who heads the British Parliament’s media committee, said he would ask Zuckerberg or another Facebook executive to appear before his panel, which is investigating disinformation and “fake news.”

Collins said Facebook has “consistently understated” the risk of data leaks and gave misleading answers to the committee.

“Someone has to take responsibility for this,” he said. “It’s time for Mark Zuckerberg to stop hiding behind his Facebook page.”

Collins also accused the head of the U.K.-based data firm Cambridge Analytica, Alexander Nix, of lying. Nix told the committee last month that his firm had not received data from a researcher accused of obtaining millions of Facebook users’ personal information.

In Washington, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat from Minnesota, said on Twitter that Zuckerberg “needs to testify before Senate Judiciary.”

“This is a major breach that must be investigated,” Klobuchar, a member of the Judiciary Committee, said. “It’s clear these platforms can’t police themselves.”

Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, echoed Klobuchar’s complaint.

“This is more evidence that the online political advertising market is essentially the Wild West,” he said. “It’s clear that, left unregulated, this market will continue to be prone to deception and lacking in transparency.”

Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey said on Twitter that “Massachusetts residents deserve answers” and announced that her office will investigate.

The officials reacted to reports in The New York Times and The Guardian of London that Cambridge Analytica, which is best known for working on President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, had improperly obtained Facebook user data and retained it after claiming it had deleted the information.

Former Cambridge Analytica employee Chris Wylie said that the company obtained information from 50 million Facebook users, using it to build psychological profiles so voters could be targeted with ads and stories.

Wylie told Britain’s Channel 4 news that the company was able to amass a huge database very quickly from an app developed by an academic that vacuumed up data from Facebook users who agreed to fill out a survey, as well as their friends and contacts – a process of which most were unaware.

“Imagine I go and ask you: I say, ‘Hey, if I give you a dollar, two dollars, could you fill up this survey for me, just do it on this app’, and you say, ‘Fine,'” he said. “I don’t just capture what your responses are, I capture all of the information about you from Facebook. But also this app then crawls through your social network and captures all of that data also.”

Wylie said that allowed the company to get roughly “50 million plus” Facebook records in several months and he criticized Facebook for facilitating the process.

“Why Facebook didn’t make more inquiries when they started seeing that, you know, tens of millions of records were being pulled this way, I don’t know,” he said.

Lawmaker Collins said he would summon Nix to reappear before the Parliament committee.

“It seems clear that he has deliberately misled the committee and Parliament by giving false statements,” Collins said.
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At this week’s three-day Energy Innovation Summit, organized annually by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency, or ARPA-e for short, experts, entrepreneurs, investors and government officials shared ideas, research results and experiences about challenges facing the generation, transformation, distribution and storage of all forms of energy. VOA’s George Putic gives an overview.
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Facebook Inc. on Friday said it was suspending political data analytics firm Cambridge Analytica, which worked for President Donald Trump’s 2016 election campaign, after finding data privacy policies had been violated.

Facebook said in a statement that it suspended Cambridge Analytica and its parent group Strategic Communication Laboratories (SCL) after receiving reports that they did not delete information about Facebook users that had been inappropriately shared.

Cambridge Analytica was not immediately available for comment. Facebook did not mention the Trump campaign or any political campaigns in its statement, attributed to company Deputy General Counsel Paul Grewal.

“We will take legal action if necessary to hold them responsible and accountable for any unlawful behavior,” Facebook said, adding that it was continuing to investigate the claims.

Cruz, Trump campaigns

Cambridge Analytica worked for the failed presidential campaign of U.S. Senator Ted Cruz and then for the presidential campaign of Donald Trump. On its website, it says it “provided the Donald J. Trump for President campaign with the expertise and insights that helped win the White House.”

Brad Parscale, who ran Trump’s digital ad operation in 2016 and is his 2020 campaign manager, declined to comment Friday.

In past interviews with Reuters, Parscale has said that Cambridge Analytica played a minor role as a contractor in the 2016 Trump campaign, and that the campaign used voter data from a Republican-affiliated organization rather than Cambridge Analytica.

Facebook’s Grewal said the company was taking the unusual step of announcing the suspension “given the public prominence” of Cambridge Analytica and its parent organization.

No ads, administering pages

The suspension means Cambridge Analytica and SCL cannot buy ads on the world’s largest social media network or administer pages belonging to clients, Andrew Bosworth, a Facebook vice president, said in a Twitter post.

Trump’s campaign hired Cambridge Analytica in June 2016 and paid it more than $6.2 million, according to Federal Election Commission records.

Cambridge Analytica says it uses “behavioral microtargeting,” or combining analysis of people’s personalities with demographics, to predict and influence mass behavior. It says it has data on 220 million Americans, two-thirds of the U.S. population.

It has worked on other campaigns in the United States and other countries, and it is funded by Robert Mercer, a prominent supporter of politically conservative groups. Facebook in its statement described a rocky relationship with Cambridge Analytica and two individuals going back to 2015.

Professor’s app

That year, Facebook said, it learned that University of Cambridge professor Aleksandr Kogan lied to the company and violated its policies by sharing data that he acquired with a so-called “research app” that used Facebook’s login system.

Kogan was not immediately available for comment.

The app was downloaded by about 270,000 people. Facebook said that Kogan gained access to profile and other information “in a legitimate way” but “he did not subsequently abide by our rules” when he passed the data to SCL/Cambridge Analytica and Christopher Wylie of Eunoia Technologies.

Eunoia did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Facebook said it cut ties to Kogan’s app when it learned of the violation in 2015, and asked for certification from Kogan and all parties he had given data to that the information had been destroyed.

Although all certified that they had destroyed the data, Facebook said that it received reports in the past several days that “not all data was deleted,” prompting the suspension announced Friday.
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Fingerprints can unlock doors, phones and more, but are consumers ready to pay with them? 

Visa, the financial services giant, thinks so. 

The company, which backs credit, debit and prepaid cards, has started pilot tests of cards that have a built-in fingerprint reader. Users place their finger on the sensor area and either insert the card’s chip into a reader or hold it above a payment terminal.

By using their fingerprint, customers can skip having to enter a PIN or signing off on a purchase.

A user’s fingerprint is compared against a previously registered pattern, which is stored as a cryptogram on the card. A red or green light on the card indicates whether the fingerprints match.  

“The card is trained to use your biometric thumbprint and since your thumbprint is unique, it can only be activated by the individual that’s trained the card,” said Matt Smith, vice president of platform strategy at Visa. For those who share their card with others, transactions would revert to PIN number, or pen and signature for processing.

The cards will be issued by Utah-based Mountain America Credit Union and the Bank of Cyprus.

WATCH: Company Tests Cards with Built-in Fingerprint Reader

​Biological traits

Visa is not the first digital payments company to explore the growing field of biometrics, which relies on people’s unique biological traits, like the iris pattern of their eyes, to ensure that they are who they say they are. 

Last year, Mastercard began testing a fingerprint-enabled card at Pick n Pay stores in South Africa. 

Visa surveyed 1,000 Americans on their perceptions of biometrics and found that 86 percent were “interested” in biometrics as a form of authentication or a way to make payments.

Users of mobile wallets Apple Pay and Google Pay, both compatible with Visa and Mastercard, already can take advantage of paying with their fingerprints.

Not having to provide a signature or PIN number may be convenient, but is it secure? 

To answer that question, Anil Jain, a professor and biometrics researcher at Michigan State University, has created with his students fake or spoof fingerprints that have been successful in unlocking systems that rely on biometric credentials. 

Even so, Jain says the process isn’t easy. It first involves obtaining fingerprints to work with, either with a person’s consent or the ability to lift and replicate physical fingerprints left on everyday surfaces. 

Jain believes it’s harder to steal biometric data from a mobile phone or credit card chip (like Visa’s), as opposed to biometric data stored in a central database, such as a government server containing fingerprint records.

Focusing on the end security system, Jain and his students have devised both hardware and software solutions that can better detect the difference between a real, human fingerprint vs. a fake fingerprint. 

Tested materials

In one study,  they tested fake fingerprints made of everything from PlayDoh to Ecoflex, a silicone rubber often used to create makeup special effects for television and film.

“We have shown that we can do a fairly good job in detecting spoofs versus real fingerprints. And I think in most of the cases, it’s the issue of how to raise the bar for the hacker, so that it is becoming more and more difficult for the hacker to attack the system,”Jain said. 

“No security system is foolproof. The idea is to make it as difficult (as possible) for an imposter to use it,” he added. 

Jain said additional biometrics can be implemented for major purchases. A $100,000 purchase at Tiffany’s, for example, could warrant a facial recognition scan in addition to a fingerprint scan.

In the end, biometrics are here to stay, especially as hardware and software costs come down and consumer adoption increases he said. 

Jain offered a bit of common sense for the era of biometrics: “Don’t post your fingerprints,” he said, chuckling.
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Fingerprints can unlock doors, phones and more, but are consumers ready to pay with them? 

Visa, the financial services giant, thinks so. 

The company, which backs credit, debit and prepaid cards, has started pilot tests of cards that have a built-in fingerprint reader. Users place their finger on the sensor area and either insert the card’s chip into a reader or hold it above a payment terminal.

By using their fingerprint, customers can skip having to enter a PIN or signing off on a purchase.

A user’s fingerprint is compared against a previously registered pattern, which is stored as a cryptogram on the card. A red or green light on the card indicates whether the fingerprints match.  

“The card is trained to use your biometric thumbprint and since your thumbprint is unique, it can only be activated by the individual that’s trained the card,” said Matt Smith, vice president of platform strategy at Visa. For those who share their card with others, transactions would revert to PIN number, or pen and signature for processing.

The cards will be issued by Utah-based Mountain America Credit Union and the Bank of Cyprus.

WATCH: Company Tests Cards with Built-in Fingerprint Reader

​Biological traits

Visa is not the first digital payments company to explore the growing field of biometrics, which relies on people’s unique biological traits, like the iris pattern of their eyes, to ensure that they are who they say they are. 

Last year, Mastercard began testing a fingerprint-enabled card at Pick n Pay stores in South Africa. 

Visa surveyed 1,000 Americans on their perceptions of biometrics and found that 86 percent were “interested” in biometrics as a form of authentication or a way to make payments.

Users of mobile wallets Apple Pay and Google Pay, both compatible with Visa and Mastercard, already can take advantage of paying with their fingerprints.

Not having to provide a signature or PIN number may be convenient, but is it secure? 

To answer that question, Anil Jain, a professor and biometrics researcher at Michigan State University, has created with his students fake or spoof fingerprints that have been successful in unlocking systems that rely on biometric credentials. 

Even so, Jain says the process isn’t easy. It first involves obtaining fingerprints to work with, either with a person’s consent or the ability to lift and replicate physical fingerprints left on everyday surfaces. 

Jain believes it’s harder to steal biometric data from a mobile phone or credit card chip (like Visa’s), as opposed to biometric data stored in a central database, such as a government server containing fingerprint records.

Focusing on the end security system, Jain and his students have devised both hardware and software solutions that can better detect the difference between a real, human fingerprint vs. a fake fingerprint. 

Tested materials

In one study,  they tested fake fingerprints made of everything from PlayDoh to Ecoflex, a silicone rubber often used to create makeup special effects for television and film.

“We have shown that we can do a fairly good job in detecting spoofs versus real fingerprints. And I think in most of the cases, it’s the issue of how to raise the bar for the hacker, so that it is becoming more and more difficult for the hacker to attack the system,”Jain said. 

“No security system is foolproof. The idea is to make it as difficult (as possible) for an imposter to use it,” he added. 

Jain said additional biometrics can be implemented for major purchases. A $100,000 purchase at Tiffany’s, for example, could warrant a facial recognition scan in addition to a fingerprint scan.

In the end, biometrics are here to stay, especially as hardware and software costs come down and consumer adoption increases he said. 

Jain offered a bit of common sense for the era of biometrics: “Don’t post your fingerprints,” he said, chuckling.
…

Fingerprints can unlock doors, phones and more, but are consumers ready to pay with them? Visa thinks so. More companies are exploring biometrics, the analysis of unique biological traits to verify identity, but how secure is the technology? Tina Trinh reports from New York
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Fingerprints can unlock doors, phones and more, but are consumers ready to pay with them? Visa thinks so. More companies are exploring biometrics, the analysis of unique biological traits to verify identity, but how secure is the technology? Tina Trinh reports from New York
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A one-page job application filled out by Steve Jobs more than four decades ago that reflected the Apple founder’s technology aspirations sold for $174,000 at a U.S. auction, more than three times its presale estimate.

An Internet entrepreneur from England was the winning bidder, Boston-based auction house RR Auction said on Friday, but the buyer wished to remain anonymous.

The application dated 1973, complete with spelling and punctuation errors, had been expected to fetch about $50,000.

The sale price reached on Thursday was $174,757, the auction house said.

The form lists his name as “Steven jobs” and address as “reed college,” the Portland, Oregon, college he attended briefly. Next to “Phone:” he wrote “none.”

Under a section titled “Special Abilities,” Jobs wrote “tech or design engineer. digital.—f rom Bay near Hewitt-Packard,” a reference to pioneering California technology company Hewlett-Packard and the San Francisco Bay area.

The document does not state what position or company the application was intended for. Jobs and friend Steve Wozniak founded Apple about three years later.

RR Auction said the high price reflected the continuing influence of Jobs, who died of cancer in 2011 at the age of 56.

“There are many collectors who have earned disposable income over the last few decades using Apple technology, and we expect similarly strong results on related material in the future,”

Bobby Livingston, executive vice president at RR Auction, said in a statement.

Other highlights from the online auction included an Apple Mac OS X technical manual signed by Jobs in 2001 that sold for $41,806 and a rare signed newspaper clipping from 2008 featuring an image of Jobs speaking at the Apple Developers Conference that sold for $26,950.
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A one-page job application filled out by Steve Jobs more than four decades ago that reflected the Apple founder’s technology aspirations sold for $174,000 at a U.S. auction, more than three times its presale estimate.

An Internet entrepreneur from England was the winning bidder, Boston-based auction house RR Auction said on Friday, but the buyer wished to remain anonymous.

The application dated 1973, complete with spelling and punctuation errors, had been expected to fetch about $50,000.

The sale price reached on Thursday was $174,757, the auction house said.

The form lists his name as “Steven jobs” and address as “reed college,” the Portland, Oregon, college he attended briefly. Next to “Phone:” he wrote “none.”

Under a section titled “Special Abilities,” Jobs wrote “tech or design engineer. digital.—f rom Bay near Hewitt-Packard,” a reference to pioneering California technology company Hewlett-Packard and the San Francisco Bay area.

The document does not state what position or company the application was intended for. Jobs and friend Steve Wozniak founded Apple about three years later.

RR Auction said the high price reflected the continuing influence of Jobs, who died of cancer in 2011 at the age of 56.

“There are many collectors who have earned disposable income over the last few decades using Apple technology, and we expect similarly strong results on related material in the future,”

Bobby Livingston, executive vice president at RR Auction, said in a statement.

Other highlights from the online auction included an Apple Mac OS X technical manual signed by Jobs in 2001 that sold for $41,806 and a rare signed newspaper clipping from 2008 featuring an image of Jobs speaking at the Apple Developers Conference that sold for $26,950.
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South by Southwest is a pop-up marketplace of ideas. Held in Austin, Texas, it combines music and film festivals with a tech conference. Its nine days of events draw people from around the world, including Africa, as Tigist Geme of VOA’s Horn of Africa Service reports.
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